#oniverse

Feeling a warm tear cut a track down your cheek as you close your eyes, you sniff once and let it fall, helpless to wipe it away. Night has fallen and so has quiet over the forest floor. Clamping your eyes shut, you try to force yourself to rest until you hear the crunch of footsteps approaching.

“That old lady was toughe-,” you hear the enthusiastic tone of the voice die down as the person it belongs to approaches you. Peeling your eyes open, you spot bright red oni horns and flinch. Tears fall hot down your face and you are unable to stop them. 

This is the end that awaits you.

“Wait, why are you here?”

The oni is tall and broad, not nearly as fearsome as you’d been taught to expect, but intimidating just based on sheer size alone. Your eyes dance over the markings on his chest and face and you gag and sniffle as bile rises in your throat. His brows are knit in concern, amber eyes blazing as he peeks around the back of the pole you are tied to.

“Just kill me already!”

Your shout makes the large oni hop away from you, his mouth downturned in a frown.

“Kill you?”

A frustrated groan leaves you as you begin to wiggle against your restraints for the first time. Maybe you aren’t as resigned to your fate as you thought.

“Isn’t that what you’re here for?” You spit, words full of venom. “Taking me as your sacrifice so you’ll leave my village alone?”

The man looks a bit stricken by your words, brows furrowing deeper as he approaches you and you thrash against your restraints with strength you didn’t realize you were capable of.

“I’m not that kind of oni,” his words don’t offer much comfort as you continue to cry and panic while restrained. “Here, let me…uh…get you down.”

Whatever confidence the oni contains is being withheld for now, you notice, as he gingerly reaches for his belt and pops off a utility knife. Gasping, you look toward the sky as he cuts the rope around your feet first. “Man, whoever tied this did a good job.”

“It was my father,” you snip back and you see the concerned man turn his face toward you once more. He’s handsome, you think. If this were a different circumstance maybe you’d be less afraid of his kind eyes.

“Your father did this to you?”

A bitter chuckle, mimicking the one you gave your mother, leaves you again. “Yes. To keep the village safe.”

The man shakes his head and peeks behind the pole, running the sharp blade of his knife against your restraints just enough to begin cutting them. He watches as the rope frays just enough to let you wiggle your wrists but not enough to send you tumbling to the ground.

“Promise you won’t hit me if I have to help you down?”

You nod and sniffle and the man severs the last of the fibers keeping your hands restrained. Flinching again as he reaches up and grabs you, the urge to kick and thrash becomes strong as you’re hauled over his almost unbelievably large shoulder but you promised. You’ve never broken a promise and don’t intend to start now.

“‘Kay, gonna place you on solid ground!”

Stumbling as your feet touch solid ground, you look up at the twinkling stars overhead. Without thinking, you open your mouth before the stranger can break the silence between the two of you.

“Are you going to eat me now?”

He laughs, thunderously, head tipping toward the sky. You laugh along awkwardly, watching as he grasps his midsection and nearly doubles over. There’s no way to tell what has tickled him so deeply but it must have been something you said. Bunching your hands in the threadbare shirt you wear, you wait for him to wipe a tear from his eye and catch his breath.

“Arataki Itto isn’t eating anyone tonight but,” he says with a proud look on his face, finger pointing toward the sky. “I can escort you home.”

Your face falls and you laugh as hysterically as he just was, wiping your own tears off of your face as you cry and fall to your knees. Burying your face in your hands, you listen as the man awkwardly shuffles from one foot to another.

“Arataki Itto, they tried to kill me. Why would I want to go back?”

Your hands muffle your words but you feel the air shift as Itto kneels in front of you, hand clapping your shoulder. 

“I guess you’ll just have to come back to Inazuma City with me then.”

The finality in his voice shakes you. He had another choice - to leave and let you skulk back to the village of people who wanted to come back to your bones in the morning, but this is the one he’s committing to. You’re touched but you can’t show it after the events of the day, emotionally exhausted.

“I have a bunch of friends who will love you!”

Itto squeezes your shoulder and you open your eyes to his bright grin, those amber eyes gleaming with mischief and despite the circumstances, you offer a subdued smile in return. 

He's walking home from school, steps hasty, when he hears voices from the playground and pauses to look.

A group of kids crowd another who's on the floor, threatening. One of them holds a stick.

"Why's your face so pimply?" One of the kids taunt.

Just bullies. Kei turns away.

"Yeah, and you're so scrawny," another sneers. There's a thump. "You're crying now?"

"Crybaby!"

*Just bullies.*

Kei freezes. He turns slowly. Just bullies, and picking on a kid because what? Because he's pimply? Because he's scrawny?

It dawns on him. Finally, he understands what he's wondered about years ago.

His body *sears*. He's an oni, living under disguise. An *oni*. To be hunted down and killed, to be shunned.

But you don't even need that.

Kei steps closer. The kid being bullied notices him and looks up, tears streaked down his cheeks and welling in his eyes.

There are freckles dotting the kid's face. Just freckles. Plain and harmless. That's all you need to be *different*. All you need to be picked on.

He wonder what they'd do if they see him. Sees his wings, his fangs, his tail. *Kei* is the one who's different, when he's in his house and can stretch out his wings. But these *humans* - they are so desperate to belong that they turn on each other. They are so desperate that they see differences where they don't exist.

*The world is broken.*

He remembers his mother's stories, at least the gist of it. The hunting. The killing. The blood spilled across the land like oil.

Of course they were hunted. What chance would oni stand, if *freckles* are reason enough to be picked on?

There is really only one thing he can say. And he says it, loading as much scorn he can into each syllable, falling crisp from his mouth.