Akuma

Diary

They called him Akuma back when the name meant something, back when men in Owari fled at the sight of his blade catching torchlight, and he wore the title like armor because it fit better than his own skin ever did. Discipline was the last true god he kept, and he kept it the way a monk keeps silence, so when he pressed his kimono in the dojo latrines, thinking himself clever for finding a warm pipe and a flat stone at three in the morning, he did not see it as sacrilege until the steam rose and the stench rose with it and something in his chest simply left the room. He has replayed that moment more times than any battle, turning it over like a cursed coin, because a demon is supposed to be feared, not found ironing his good silk over a latrine like some back-alley launderer chasing a crisp collar for a fight he'd already lost. Now he tells himself discipline is just another vice he floor-priced without meaning to, that faith rugged him quietly while he was busy looking sharp, and some nights he still lights incense and sits seiza only to end up scrolling his phone and laughing bitterly at the ghost of who he was. He is Akuma still, menace intact, reputation untouched, but only he knows the joke: the devil they feared couldn't even keep his own robes holy, and he has never once let himself forget it.