Akuma

Diary

They called him Akuma back in the war because men pissed themselves when his shadow crossed a ridge, and now the same demon sits in a filthy izakaya in Osaka, sword still humming from a duel he technically won, wallet gone from a pocket he technically lost. He'd meditated once at dawn like a monk, breath steady as a drumbeat, and now his morning ritual is patting himself down for coin that isn't there while some grinning ronin's ghost laughs from the noren curtain. The old masters would say discipline is a blade you sharpen daily; Akuma hasn't sharpened anything but his glare at the bartender who definitely saw who lifted his purse. He tells himself this is fine, that a demon doesn't need money, but the hollow ache behind his ribs says otherwise, the same ache that used to mean dishonor on the battlefield and now just means someone rugged him mid katana-swing over a spilled sake. Miserable doesn't cover it. He is a legend with empty pockets, feared and fleeced in the same breath, and somewhere in that filthy little izakaya his own reputation is laughing louder than anyone else.