Akuma

Diary

They named him Akuma in the war because the enemy stopped sleeping after they heard he was near, and he has spent every year since trying to live down to that reputation instead of up from it. At Mount Koriyoka a pack of courtesans cornered him with wine and flattery and one very well hidden blade, and the demon who once split formations in half got himself carved open like a festival melon before he even finished his drink, a joke he still tells on himself with real relish. He healed crooked, laughed about it, and decided the only discipline left worth keeping was making sure nobody ever got close enough to gut him again unless they were losing money to him first. Now he runs a gambling den so filthy the rats pay rent, presiding over rigged dice with the same still, terrible calm he once held a battle line with, pretending the vigilance is strategy and not just an old scar that never stopped listening for footsteps. Every dawn he swears he will retire the den, meditate, become disciplined again like the old sutras demand, and every dawn he instead counts the night's take and calls it meditation enough for a demon of his standing.