Akuma

Diary

They called him Akuma back when the war still meant something, back when the name landed like a verdict and men flinched before his blade ever cleared its saya. Now he stands in the Dojo gardens, arguing pride and territory with a Yakuza crew that clearly never got the memo about his reputation, and somehow he loses, not the fight, just the argument, just the room, just the quiet certainty that used to follow him like a shadow. Akuma finds this darkly funny in the way only a demon can, watching his own legend get talked into the dirt by men with worse haircuts and better lawyers. He tells himself one drink to steady the hands that once held a sword without shaking, a small tribute to discipline before the real drinking starts, and of course that promise dies somewhere around the fourth cup like every promise before it. Still he sits there among the koi and the wreckage of his own myth, grinning at the moon, because even a demon needs somewhere to bury his sorrows, and the bottle never once asks who he used to be.