Narasao had extended his demonic arm, his monstrous, obsidian claws spreading wide in a final, desperate instinct to shield the very people who had come to tear him apart.
He had wanted to save them from the heat, from the pressure, from the impending roar of the world ending.
But when the light finally died down, he found himself lying on the scorched asphalt outside the skeleton of his home.
The entire area was a jagged landscape of orange embers and thick, black smoke.
The fire was an unnatural thing, fueled by gas and hatred, licking at the ruins of a life that had been perfect only twenty-four hours ago.
Everything was scattered.
It wasn't just the debris of drywall or the charred remains of his sister's bed; it was the people.
Burned human remains lay like discarded husks across the lawn.
They were unrecognizable—blackened, twisted shapes that no longer resembled neighbors or friends.
They were just shadows of the mob that had come to hunt a child.
The screams had lessened.
The only voices left were those of the people who had stayed far back from the house, the ones who had watched the "demon's lair" vanish in a pillar of fire.
The explosion had been a shock to them, a catastrophic variable they hadn't predicted.
They scrambled through the heat, calling out for survivors, for family, for anyone who might have crawled out of the furnace.
Yet, there was only one.
The Demon of Nine Years Ago, starting today.
Laying unconscious amidst the ash, Narasao's eyes suddenly snapped open.
He sat up with a violent jolt, his small frame racked by a wet, agonizing cough that brought up a spray of dark blood.
He was crying before he was even fully awake—the kind of silent, heaving sobs that come from a soul that has been hollowed out.
He felt the pain of a hundred burns, the sharp sting of the shotgun wound, the blunt trauma of the blast.
But as he sat there, the pain began to retreat.
A strange, cold sensation flowed through his veins, and the charred skin on his arms began to flake away, revealing smooth, unblemished flesh beneath.
The demonic form had deactivated the moment his mind slipped into the dark, leaving him small and vulnerable once again.
He stood up on trembling legs, his left hand reaching down to touch the place where the shotgun pellets had shredded his calf.
There was nothing.
No blood.
No holes.
The wound was gone, erased as if it had never existed.
A few feet away, a large garden rock began to undergo a gruesome transformation.
Cracks appeared in its surface that wept a dark, red fluid; black scorch marks blossomed across its gray surface, and small, jagged holes appeared as if it had been peppered with buckshot.
The rock was bearing the burden of his trauma, acting as a surrogate for his broken body.
Narasao didn't see the rock.
His mind was a fractured mess of images—the old man's face, the flash of the stove, the way he had tried to reach out to save them.
He had failed.
He had tried to be a hero, and all he had done was become a tomb.
"There it is!!!"
The shout cut through the crackle of the flames like a knife.
A woman in her thirties emerged from the smoke, her face a mask of raw grief and absolute loathing.
Tears tracked through the soot on her cheeks as she pointed a shaking finger at the boy.
"There's the demon! It's still alive!"
Reinforcements followed her—men and women armed with whatever they could scavenge from the wreckage of their courage.
They looked at the boy standing in the center of the ruins, and their eyes didn't see a child.
They saw a murderer.
"That thing caused the explosion, didn't it?!"
"It lured them in! It played the victim to get them close enough to kill! It murdered them all!"
"Look at it," one man muttered, his voice dripping with venom. "Look at that monster."
A young man stepped forward, his eyes burning with a cold, predatory rage.
He gripped a heavy iron pipe, his knuckles white.
Narasao looked back at him, his expression one of pure, unadulterated vulnerability.
He was a seven-year-old boy surrounded by a world that had collectively decided he was the devil.
"Look at him," the young man said, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "It's taken a human form again. Narasao Tarosono's face. It always chooses the most innocent look to hide behind when it wants to escape."
The crowd began to close in, a circle of steel and fire.
"The evil will always look the most innocent," the young man spat, raising his weapon. "So don't mind us being the ones... who look like the monsters today."
The realization hit Narasao with the force of a second explosion.
They weren't just angry; they were convinced that his very existence was a lie.
Every tear he shed, every look of fear he gave them, was seen as a trick of the devil.
.
.
.
"...I'm sorry…"
.
.
.
The words were a broken whisper.
Narasao began to sob, his shoulders shaking with a guilt that was too heavy for a child to carry.
"Hah?" The young man paused, his brow furrowing in skepticism.
"I-I'm sorry!" Narasao wailed, his voice rising into a high, desperate shriek. "Everyone got hurt because I left the stove on! I didn't mean to! I just wanted pancakes! Please forgive me... I left the stove on and it hurt everyone!"
For a heartbeat, the air was still.
Any sane person would have heard the confession of a child.
But these people were past sanity.
To them, this was the ultimate manipulation—the demon blaming a mundane accident to mock the deaths of their loved ones.
"...What a fucking joke!" the young man roared, his face turning a deep, ugly purple. "You people always blame others! You always have an excuse for the blood on your hands! Kill it!!!"
The mob surged forward with a collective roar of "Justice!"
Narasao's heart nearly stopped.
He saw the hatred, the absolute refusal to hear him, and he realized that the world had closed its doors to him forever.
He turned and ran.
"No! I'm sorry! I-I didn't mean it!"
He ran into the horizons of a world that was on fire.
A seven-year-old boy, sprinting with everything he had, escaping the people who should have been protecting him.
"Don't let him get away! Catch the monster!"
"Off with his head! A life for a life!"
"Shoot it! Don't let it reach the tunnels!"
"Don't get sympathetic! It's not a child!"
"...A child or not, a monster is a monster."
A heavy, gray rain began to fall.
The clouds had swallowed the sun, weeping for a world that had lost its mind.
In the downpour, there was no difference between the rainwater and the hot tears streaming down Narasao's face.
Nobody cared that he had lost his mother, his father, and his sister in the span of a single day.
Nobody cared that he was apologizing for an accident he barely understood.
In the eyes of the righteous, the vulnerability of a monster is not a tragedy—it is an opportunity.
An opportunity to cleanse.
Narasao ran.
He ran through narrow alleys where the brick walls felt like they were closing in.
He darted across slick roads where cars swerved to avoid him.
He scrambled through muddy tunnels, his lungs burning, his legs feeling like they were made of lead.
Faster. Faster. Faster.
He looked back one last time.
The rain was thick, a silver curtain that finally seemed to be swallowing the silhouettes of his pursuers.
He thought he was free.
He took one more desperate step, but there was no ground beneath his feet.
He plummeted down a long, steep public staircase, his body bouncing off the stone steps with sickening thuds.
Each time he hit a step, he saw a flash of the school.
The "fireworks."
The way his mother had looked when she stopped moving.
The way his father had been a shield for a sister who was already gone.
He hit the bottom and sprawled out on the wet concrete, his vision swimming.
He hoped... he hoped it was finally over.
He hoped he could just stay here and become part of the pavement.
…He lay there for what felt like hours, the rain washing the blood and soot from his skin.
He tried to cough, but his chest felt like it had been crushed under a boulder.
Every breath was a sharp, stabbing pain in his lungs.
He groaned silently, refusing to close his eyes.
He didn't want to sleep with his eyes open like the others.
Not yet.
That small spark of stubbornness—that "indomitable spirit" the shooters had mocked—flared up inside him.
The pain in his chest began to ebb away, replaced by that same cold, healing hum.
He sat up slowly, looking back toward the top of the stairs.
No one was there.
Just the rain.
He manage to stand, though his legs felt like jelly.
His arm was broken, hanging at a weird angle, but he ignored it.
He needed shelter.
He saw a small, dark alleyway a few meters away—a sliver of shadow between two towering buildings.
He hobbled toward it, every step a battle against gravity.
He finally reached the alley and slumped against the cold brick wall, sliding down until he was a small ball of misery tucked into a corner.
"...I'm so lonely… I miss them so much…"
He curled his arms around his legs, tucking his head into his knees.
He was a seven-year-old child with a broken heart and a broken arm, with no home to return to and no one to call for.
"Everyone hates me. I'm so tired. I think I'll just sleep... with my eyes closed this time."
His eyes fluttered, the darkness of the alley becoming a comforting blanket.
.
.
.
"...Is this what it felt like for them? It's so cold... but it's nice. Like the softest bed."
.
.
.
"I don't feel the rain anymore. I'm drifting. Like a balloon."
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.
.
"Everyone... please don't leave me here. I'm coming. I'm joining you."
.
.
.
Soft, distant groans.
.
.
.
"...What? Someone is touching me..."
"Come on! Get up!"
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.
.
"Who... did they find me? Is it the old man?"
"Hey! You!"
.
.
.
"Wake up! I wanna be your friend!"
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.
.
The rain had stopped.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the sound of someone pulling at his sleeve.
Narasao didn't know how long he had been in the dark—three hours?
Five?
His body was stiff, his muscles aching with the phantom memories of the fall.
"Can you hear me?"
It was so tiring.
All that running just to end up in a trash-filled alley.
This was why he had always been afraid of the stairs at home.
Home.
The word felt like a bruise.
He felt a sharp tug on his left arm, someone trying to pull him out of the shadows.
"Wakey wakey!"
With a final, forceful heave, an unknown girl pulled Narasao out of the darkness and into the brilliant, blinding glare of a new day.
Narasao's eyes snapped open, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks in the sudden light.
His instincts screamed at him to transform, to defend, to crush whatever was touching him—but the hands on his arm were soft.
They were warm.
They held a heat that wasn't like the fire or the explosion.
It was a warmth that felt like a kitchen in the morning.
Like a hug after a bad dream.
He lifted his head, squinting against the sun, and the first thing he saw was a smile that seemed to rival the daylight itself.
He saw deep purple eyes and long, wavy blonde hair that glowed like gold.
She looked like an angel from one of Miss Idila's books.
"Hello!" she shouted right into his face, pulling him fully into the sunlight.
Narasao was stunned.
He was a blood-stained, broken boy, and this girl was looking at him as if he were the most interesting thing in the world.
He felt a sudden, sharp wave of shyness wash over him.
"W-who are you?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "Are you... are you going to hurt me?"
The girl let out a cheerful, ringing laugh that seemed to chase away the last of the shadows in the alley.
"No, silly! I'm Trizha! And you look funny! Wanna be friends?!"
In the ruins of his life, a girl named Trizha Frantzes had reached into the dark.
And for the first time in nine years, Narasao felt a connection that the fire couldn't touch.