Drunken Oni

Shuten Douji is terrifyingly powerful. And I’m not really overstating anything by making that statement or emphasis. He’s one of the Three Great Evils of Japanese myth for a reason and sometimes considered the chiefest of the three. And that’s also considering that a few of his origin tales are cautionary stories about not doing mean and nasty things so often lest you become a monster.

But regardless of HOW Shuten Douji became an Oni, he amassed great power as one very quickly. He learned all manner of magic and was undeniably savage even when he and his followers were little more than roadside bandits harassing travelers. After settling on Mt Oe? Shuten and his band would regularly terrorize whatever city they wanted, even the capital of Kyoto. Parading through the streets in drunken revelry doing, well, whatever they wanted.

He’s not someone you can just challenge to a fight and have even the slightest chance of winning against. Keep in mind that it was not the martial prowess of Raikou and his retainers that brought down Shuten Douji but blessed wine that rendered him helpless.

“Hou? Well now you’re just making want to try it, you know, hahaha.”

“Well I guess it could be said on a personal level, we have similar dispositions.” He was interested to see if this version of Shuten Douji would be as interesting as the man he knew…but from what he’d read about him, it seemed at the very least, he knew how to have a good time.

“Similar, yes. Although no false words come from the mouths of Oni.” Belial’s reputation for better or worse proceeded him rather well. Shuten was aware of how the beast spoke in half-truths at best most of the time but so far he was reasonably confident Belial was being truthful. The Demon King had, since his return, done much to ensure he would not be bamboozled by false words or performances ever again.

“Share a drink with you huh? I’ve read your sake is the most potent the world has ever known.”

“Like an Oni, hm? We don’t have so many non-mortal races and creatures, you do here, like you Oni  or youkai. It’s only the Skydwellers, The Astrals, and then Primal beasts like myself and Lucfer. Of  the three of them, if Oni were similar to any, it would be us primals…at least from what I’ve been reading.”

“Hah! Anything you’ve read about my sake cannot do it proper justice. You should taste it for yourself. I’m fairly certain a creature like you can survive.”

His words were quite interesting to the Demon King. He was entirely unfamiliar with the realm Belial came from but one without Oni could not be that much fun to exist in. It sounded like the kind of place where humans and other mortals ran free unchecked and largely unchallenged. How dreadfully droll.

@yopparainobaka​ said:

“You don’t seem so bad.” (here have this for Belial)

oh now this quite interesting!. So not only  was the primal of Carnage’s counterpart here, but his creator’s too? And he really did look exactly the same as that Astral who soo terribly fascinated him.

“Oh no no, Shuten Douji. Quite to the contrary I am very, very bad. But that’s more your speed anyway, isn’t it?”

“Oh I know that, silly boy. I meant it as you’re someone I could have a drink with. For someone who’s not an Oni, you certainly sow fear and discord like one if what I’ve heard about you is true.”

Panic, fear, uncertainty. Filling humans with such feelings had always been something Shuten enjoyed even before his rise to the apex of King of Demons. To shapeshift and deceive was almost as fun as parading through the streets in full view with his brethren, reveling and taking all they desired.

“Ibaraki is this some kind of new and very boring disguise?”

“What do you want?”

The Avenger had just finished taking a healthy drink from the sake gourd at his side when he caught sight of Romani. He did not think over much of the doctor and often forgot he existed at all. What was one more human in a place full of them? Were he allowed he’d make several meals out of some of them.