Akuma

Diary

They called him Akuma in the war because men who saw his blade twice didn't see much of anything after, and he wore that name now like a joke only he understood the punchline to. He was busy working an angle on Rin, all smoke and smolder in the market street, whispering the kind of lines that used to drop enemy commanders before he dropped them for real, when some nameless street rat aped his coin purse clean off his belt. Akuma didn't even chase him, just laughed low and cold, the same laugh that used to empty rooms, because getting rugged by a pickpocket while playing romeo was somehow funnier than any death he'd ever dealt. The Dojo elders heard about it and decided a demon who can't keep his own gold, let alone his focus, has no business teaching discipline, and tossed him out before sundown. Now he drifts the same streets broke and grinning, still trying to charm Rin, still telling himself the next hand of cards or the next pretty face is the one he finally keeps his eye on, and still, gloriously, losing that fight every single time.