The two who were "deeply in love" like this spent night after night together, and in the blink of an eye, the two wandering children had unknowingly spent another whole year side by side.
At noon in the primeval forest, sunlight poured down like a waterfall, piercing through the dense canopy and scattering across the ground, forming patches of golden light.
The air in the forest seemed to have been gently warmed by the sun, carrying the fragrance of grass and trees, the damp scent of soil, and also, a strong smell of blood.
More than a dozen wolf corpses were scattered throughout the jungle. Wooden spears, as if fired from siege crossbows, had pierced straight through their bodies.
After using gravity magic combined with spears to clear out a large number of wild wolves whose movements had been hindered by Aura's mental control from the treetops, Ash was still, at Aura's request, suppressing the final wolf with gravity.
That lone surviving wolf, its movements restricted, had an especially vicious look in its eyes. Its fur shimmered with a silvery sheen under the sunlight. It was clearly afraid of these two monsters, yet even while immobilized, it continued to emit low growls from its throat.
But before it could threaten them for long, Aura, whose exclusive magic had already more or less taken shape, conjured a delicate little balance scale in her hand.
"Now let me see. You and me! Who's really the strongest!", Aura said with great momentum as she aimed the scale at the wolf. But as soon as she finished speaking, she looked at the boy beside her and added, "Ash! If the scale tips toward me, kill that wolf immediately!"
The moment her words fell, before Ash even had time to respond, the scale quickly tilted toward the wolf. The wolf on the ground, which had been wailing, gradually stopped struggling and obediently lay prone without moving.
"This is..."
Before Ash could finish speaking, Aura crouched down beside the wolf and said without lifting her head, "Let it go, Ash. It's my pet now."
"I see. So you succeeded in researching mental control magic? What does that scale do?"
"That's a good question," Aura suddenly stood up and pointed the scale at him, revealing a bewitching smile, "Ash, why don't you try it yourself? That's more convenient than any explanation, right?"
"No. You just want to use me as an experiment, don't you?", Ash instinctively took several steps back, staring warily at the girl and the wolf.
"Aren't you always saying you're the older brother? Since that's the case, you'd definitely be willing to use your own body to properly experience the essence of my life's work, right? It's fine. I'll take good care of you. No... it should be your turn to take care of me! Time to cook for me!"
Thinking of how, in the past, he had repeatedly broken their agreed rules and always ended up making her take care of his feelings, and now faced with this rare opportunity, Aura grew more and more excited as she spoke, filled with the feeling of a serf turning the tables. However...
"What you said makes sense, but I refuse."
Watching the pink-haired girl step closer and closer, Ash instead broke into a smile and struck first, suddenly raising his hand and pressing down.
An abnormal gravity instantly crushed Aura's entire body, twisting her expression. Even the scale in her hand drooped downward, and she nearly dropped to her knees.
But she forced the corners of her mouth upward. The injured wolf beside her seemed to receive an invisible signal and lunged straight at him, aiming to knock him to the ground.
But at that very moment, he suddenly lifted his gaze.
BOOM!
A shockwave suddenly spread out from his side.
Dead leaves scattered everywhere. The lunging wolf was blown backward at less than half a meter away. Even the pink-haired girl three meters away was flipped over by the shockwave and fell to the ground, staring up at him in disbelief.
"W-What? This shouldn't be possible! Isn't your magic only usable on a single target?"
"You think I'd be stupid enough to completely expose everything about myself to my dearest little sister... you?"
Breathing slightly fast, Ash grabbed her horn and lifted her whole body up, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against hers. With a mocking smile that carried a grin, he said, "So tell me, how should I punish your betrayal, Aura?"
"W-What are you talking about, Ash... aren't we a loving family?"
"Yeah, we're a loving family," Ash nodded lightly, then his face turned cold, "Which is exactly why I can't forgive you so easily, right?"
"I just felt like you're usually a bit too much to me, so I wanted a little revenge. This is just a cute little sister's cute willfulness, you know?"
"Such adorable willfulness."
He shrugged indifferently, showing no further displeasure. As usual, he casually tugged on Aura's horn and dragged her toward the cave where they lived, not even turning his head as he told her to have the wolf bring the others back.
Already used to this treatment, Aura was surprisingly obedient, though she couldn't help complaining, "At least change the gravity a bit. At this rate, my pants will be worn through before we get back, you know?"
"Don't worry. I'll figure out a way to get you a new pair. But on the way back to the cave, I'll also give your butt a warm greeting."
"So you just want to see me walking around naked in front of you, right? You're really twisted, Ash, and you still call yourself an older brother."
"It's fine. I've more or less realized that demons only give birth to one child at a time. I'm just a foster brother," Ash dragged Aura along expressionlessly, completely unmoved by this strange statement.
Aura tilted her head in confusion, tapping her chin with her slender, pale fingers, "Judging by common sense, isn't that kind of a weird way to put it?"
"Judging by demon common sense, what's weird about it?"
"No, judging by demon common sense, shouldn't you have killed me outright?"
"So you should properly praise my magnanimity."
Chatting casually with Aura as they headed back to the cave, Ash found himself unconsciously glancing a few more times at the wolf that was dragging its companions back toward the den with its teeth.
He had long grown used to Aura's so-called "cute" willfulness, but that wolf's behavior, sometimes docile and sometimes baring its teeth at him, made Ash feel something was off.
But just as he instinctively looked toward Aura and before he could ask anything, the wolf suddenly lunged from behind, knocking him to the ground and biting down on his neck.
Blood splashed instantly, twisting Ash's expression in a split second.
"Hey! What are you doing? Stop it right now!", Aura cried out sharply in shock.
Her original intention had only been to reverse her relationship with Ash, to make him take care of her. She had never once wanted to kill him.
However, the wolf seemed like a beast that had slipped its reins, completely ignoring her commands and tearing fiercely at Ash's neck.
At the extremely tense moment, another wave of repulsive force suddenly churned the air.
The wolf, its mouth smeared with flesh and blood, was sent flying more than two meters without any resistance. At the same time, Ash yanked Aura, who had nearly been swept away by the aftershock, pulling her in front of himself with her head facing upward.
Immediately after, there was a wet "puchi" sound as the two sharp horns Aura was dragged by pierced straight into the wolf's belly. Blood and entrails burst out at once, spilling across the pink-haired girl's face and soaking her entire body.
———
Aura's twin horns pierced through the wolf's soft abdomen, causing it to let out pitiful whimpers in pain while kicking and struggling, sending blood splattering everywhere.
But it wasn't long before the out-of-control wolf died completely.
Aura, forced to lower her head with a wolf corpse on top of her and unable to lift it, remained dazed for quite a while. Then she looked at him with a depressed expression and let out a long sigh.
"Isn't that... kind of rude? What do you take me for?"
"I should be the one asking what you were doing," Ash snapped back irritably, also feeling the blood flowing down his neck and over his body, "Were you that eager to become a real orphan? If I were an ordinary human, I'd already be dead."
"You might not believe it, but this time it really wasn't me."
"I could tell. And from the start, I could feel your control was unstable."
"Yeah, it really needs improvement. So could I ask you to let me control you for a bit?", Aura said seriously, showing him a level of sincerity she'd never displayed before, "Don't worry, I won't really control you! And once my magic is perfected, I'll definitely repay you properly!"
"Aura..."
"Onii-chan!"
The two stared into each other's eyes, giving off a faint sense of a benevolent brother and a dutiful sister. The corners of Aura's mouth were just about to curl upward uncontrollably when—
"Go dream about it," Ash casually slapped his palm against her face and gave her a light push.
The girl, with a wolf corpse on her head, immediately lost her balance and fell backward.
'Tch! So it really won't work? Just Ash, yet his guard is still pretty strong,' Aura clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction, lying flat on her back and staring at the canopy above as she sank into thought, unclear whether she was thinking about improving her magic or figuring out how to trick Ash.
Ash also understood the drawbacks of having no teacher, especially among demons. Not only was his self-taught magic progress slow, but flaws appearing were perfectly normal.
For now, he didn't care much about that. He crouched beside Aura and looked down expressionlessly at the girl who showed not a hint of remorse.
"Aura, don't you think there's something you need to say to me?"
"Ah! I almost forgot. Ash, hurry up and get this corpse off my head. I feel like my neck's about to snap."
"Not that."
"A little bleeding from the neck won't kill you. Why care so much? For us, even without blood we won't die. We'll just get weak, that's all," Aura covered her mouth and giggled.
To Ash, it was a completely punchable expression. The corner of his eye twitched as he nearly couldn't hold back from carrying out righteous fratricide.
Aura noticed he was on the verge of exploding and immediately shrugged and spread her hands, "Alright, alright, don't be so angry. I know I was in the wrong. I'll do better next time. Tonight I'll also try to make something tastier for you, okay?"
"That's all the sincerity in your apology? Doesn't your attitude feel a bit off?"
"Think about it, Ash. Once my magic is perfected, we won't have to hunt for ourselves anymore. You can just wait at home for others to cook for us."
"When you put it that way, it does sound pretty good."
"Then can you help me get this thing off now? My horns seem to be stuck in the bones. I can't get it off by myself."
Rolling around on the ground and trying to pull the wolf off her head, Aura found her horns stuck in the ribs. Forced to sit up while supporting the corpse with both hands, she looked up at him with an awkward yet polite smile.
Looking at the blood-covered person in front of him, he pondered for a moment, then walked toward another wolf corpse nearby.
"No. Just go back like this. It'll save me some effort."
"Hey, hey! That's way too weird, isn't it?"
"I'm kidding. But right now," As he spoke, he conjured a fireball in his palm, picked up a tree branch from the ground, heated it until it was red-hot, and handed it to Aura, "Help me stop the bleeding first."
"Oh, oh! This I'm good at! Leave it to me!"
Aura, who had been quite dejected just moments ago, instantly sprang up with the wolf corpse still on her head. She took the stick and pressed it against his neck.
With a sizzling sound of searing flesh, the air filled with the smell of burnt meat.
Cold sweat poured down Ash's face as he clenched his teeth and frowned.
Aura, on the other hand, let out an excited cry, "This is great! Ash! Are you shaking? I'm so excited my fingers are trembling too!"
"You're excited, aren't you?", Her strange excitement made him curse without holding back, "I told you to hurry up and research healing magic, and you still won't! All you do is mess with mental research every day! Now every time we get hurt we have to torment each other like this! Are you an M and an S at the same time?"
"How could that be? I don't like pain. I just like the way you tremble! This is really great! I don't want to research healing magic anymore! Isn't this better?"
"Aren't you the same when you get hurt?"
"No way! Absolutely not! That kind of magic is too much trouble. You don't even want to research it yourself. Making me do it is just so you can bully me for life, right? I'm not that stupid! And isn't this great?"
"....."
The completely undisguised excitement behind him made the corner of his mouth twitch. He firmly decided that once they got back, he'd beat her butt.
At this point, he had basically given up on making Aura learn healing magic. He couldn't figure it out himself, and Aura had no interest at all. Even when he was injured and being cauterized with a stick, she still refused to easily change her research direction.
Fortunately, their constitutions meant they didn't have to worry about viruses or bacteria.
The only thing to be careful about now was the smell of blood attracting monsters or ferocious beasts. Even though they were demons, they couldn't communicate with monsters and could still be attacked by them, just as demons themselves would kill their own kind.
Right now, he was in unbearable pain, while Aura was so excited that even her breathing grew heavier. It made him sigh inwardly at how terrible demon nature really was.
At the same time, he absolutely refused to believe this was the result of his teaching. After all, he himself was still a child as blank as a sheet of paper... probably.
———
Facing the current situation where they could only use crude methods to treat injuries, Ash felt completely helpless. All he could do was be thankful for the demon race's strong constitution and grit his teeth through it for now.
Thankfully, he'd been enduring things like this since he was little, so he could more or less get used to it.
"Even so, getting used to this kind of thing is still pretty annoying."
Sitting by the river and washing the blood off his body, Ash accepted reality but still felt gloomy about the situation.
In front of him, with her back turned, Aura was soaking in the water and washing off the bloodstains. She freely swayed her pink hair and sighed contentedly.
"I say~ Ash, could you not say things like 'annoying' behind someone's back? My figure should actually be pretty good, right?"
"Stop talking nonsense. Your figure... yeah, it's hard for me to evaluate."
Ash, who had been staring at the blood in the water, subconsciously looked up at the not-too-distant girl putting on a wet, tempting show.
Even though she was only fourteen and quite small, she already had slight curves, making him somewhat curious about how she'd develop in the future.
That said, as someone who'd watched her grow up since childhood, all Ash felt toward the girl twisting her hips in the water was the urge to kick her straight into the riverbed and make her drink some water.
Still, since he was always bullying and ordering her around, maybe he should occasionally treat her a bit better? With that thought, he quietly averted his gaze, no longer looking at the infuriating creature.
"What's this," Unfortunately, Aura noticed his action. She pressed her index finger to her lips, tilted her head, and thought for a moment before a bright smile spread across her face.
"Ahh~ I get it! This is being shy, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm shy."
'They say demons are emotionally indifferent and selfish. This one is definitely selfish, but why are her emotions so obvious? Is this the result of upbringing? In other words, my fault? Because the influence I gave isn't what a normal demon would give?', Ash rubbed his forehead with one hand, trying hard to think about something else so he wouldn't discipline this girl who got carried away at the slightest lapse, even taking credit for everything herself. But still...
"I really can't figure out how I ended up raising something this annoying..."
"Ash, you sometimes give me really harsh evaluations. Do you actually hate me?"
"How could I? You're my most beloved little sister."