The Red Hand

Chapter 120 –  The Demon’s True Nature.

"Ugh..." Kenji awoke after being absorbed into Akagi's shadow. His head pounded, and he felt like he'd just been struck by a truck.

"Nice of you to join us, old man." Akagi chuckled.

Kenji looked towards her voice. She was sitting on a raised tatami mat that was brought into the underground arena, and her face showed just how much she was enjoying things.

"What's going-" He went to speak but stopped as he noticed the other members of his clan were bound next to him. His son, daughter, nieces, nephews, brother, sister and other family members were all restrained. They were alive but beaten, bloody, and bruised from the battle outside. Surrounding him was a menagerie of Akagi's followers, all sitting or standing around them, watching silently.

"Don't worry about the rest of your people. They'll perk up in a little bit. So fear not, they are not dead." Akagi smiled.

{And with what I've got in-store, they're going to wish they were. But, that luxury will not be afforded to any of them.}

"You truly are a monster, aren't you?" Kenji was disgusted.

"Yes, I am." Akagi nodded as Yumi handed her a pipe. "As I said, I am what you and this family made me, old man." Akagi lit the kiseru and took a hit.

"What you are is not my family's fault! You were born a monster, and that's all you'll ever be!" Kenji exclaimed. “Do not try to push responsibility for your actions onto us! We were created to destroy the darkness and exterminate vial creatures like you. So don't try to act like you're anything other than a homicidal maniac!”

"I'd say I've gone well beyond my nature, Kenji." She let out a puff. "The irony is by treating me as a monster and an unwanted child. You eventually created the very thing you feared. I believe that's akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy." Akagi laughed.

"My only mistake was not ordering you killed as an infant. I allowed my emotions to cloud my judgment, and now I'm reaping the seeds of my folly!" Kenji replied. "Your mother was right! We should have killed you before you caused problems, even if it would have caused other issues!"

"You take no responsibility? None whatsoever?" Akagi sighed. "It may be true that I was always meant to be the Demon Lord, but that does not mean you and the family are blameless in how things turned out. If not for the intervention of Kana and the events of FWO. I would have been consumed by the darkness in my soul. Had the family treated me with care, while I still would have eventually become the Demon Lord, the chance of me going rouge would have been far smaller than it otherwise was." Akagi was annoyed with his lack of awareness.

{These fools are so self-righteous that they can't understand that their own strive for perfection and sense of duty has placed the world in quite the precarious position.} Akagi sighed. {They truly are all fools. I used to think that it was just Shima who was stupid, but now I see that it's genetic. Its a surprise that Kana turned out as well as she did.}

"P-perhaps you are right." Miyabi sat up.

"Miyabi!" Kenji exclaimed. "Don't tell me you agree with this monster!"

"She's not wrong to say that our treatment of her pushed her closer to the darkness she was born with." Miyabi's head was pounding, but she managed to speak. “Perhaps rather than push her away, we should have aided her in dealing with the darkness.”

"You know this family has no use for weaklings or the talentless. Even if she wasn't born as a Demon, she was still a useless girl!" Kenji said. "We have a sacred duty to protect this world from beings like her. There's nothing wrong with weeding out those who cannot perform that duty like we did with Nana and Shima."

"I don't disagree with our family duty or how we ensure the next generation is competent enough to protect people. Shima's treatment was a rightful use of her to aid the family where she was otherwise a drain." Miyabi glanced at Akagi. "But she is right, father. We are responsible for making her what she is, or at the very least, we bear some fault for pushing her closer to the abyss." Miyabi continued. "Our family is supposed to protect this world from the darkness. Yet, in our foolishness, we helped unleash a creature we cannot hope to defeat upon the world. We've failed."

{And now, the entire world must pay for our failure.} (Miyabi)

"At least one of you has more than two brain cells." Akagi laughed. "Indeed, now that I'm free, this world belongs to me, and all its inhabitants are at my mercy. If I so chose, every man, woman, and child would die." Akagi smirked.

{Well, killing them would be boring. I think I'd much rather more creative uses for humanity.} (Akagi)

"Ugh..." (Onmyojis waking up)

"Oh?" Akagi's lips curved into a grin. "It seems the rest are waking up. Good, with them awake, the game show can begin."

{Game show? What kind of horrible things is she planning to do to us?} (Miyabi)

"Good morning, everyone. Did you all enjoy playing with my friends?" Akagi smiled as the ten members of the Tomogawa family glared at her. "Tough crowd. Anyway, my name is Akagi Dumetor, the Demon Lord, the Lord of Pandemonium, the Supreme Commander of the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, and the Lord of all Yokai. The particularly observant of you might remember me as your one-time cousin or niece." Akagi laughed. "Now, you might all be wondering what's going on. What I plan on doing with you-" Akagi was cut off as one of the young men yelled out.

"Go fuck yourself, monster!" (Young Onmyoji man.)

Akagi shifted her jaw and thought for a moment before extending her arm and lazily pointing at him.

“[Consumption]”

The young Onmyoji burned in black fire as he was consumed.

"Anyone else want to interrupt me?" Akagi waited for a moment, and no one said anything. "Good. Now as I was saying. I had planned on ignoring the Tomogawa family and its activities, but you all decided to go out of your way and pick a fight with me. You even went so far as to make an attempt on the life of someone important to me."

Akagi continued. "As you can see, that was a poor life decision, and now you're completely at my mercy. So now I have to figure out what to do with the nine of you." She emphasized nine. "And that leaves me in a conundrum. You see. I have so many horrible things to choose from that I just can't decide." Akagi threw up her hands and did an exaggerated shrug.

"Just kill us already, monster." Kenji said.

"Oh, you will be dying, but it's the how that really matters." Akagi tapped her chin as she mulled things over. "The floor is open to ideas. Anyone can put something out there." She looked around at her followers. “Please speak your minds, and give me some fun ideas!”

"Pull them apart with horses!" (Follower 1)

"Public hanging!" (Follower 2)

"Consume their souls!" (Chloe)

"Make them fight to the death!" (Follower 3)

"Feed them to pigs!" (Marshal)

"Petrification!" (Mimi)

"Oh! I like that one!" Akagi got excited at Mimi's idea. "The garden is always in need of more statues." She thought for a second. "Only issue is Kana might not like that, so maybe not."

{I'll shelve that idea for later though.} (Akagi)

"Dropped from Orbit! (Follower 4)

"Crushed at the bottom of the ocean!" (Follower 5)

"Boil em alive!" (Sakura)

"Could remake that whole bronze bull thing I read about once." Akagi nodded. "I'm liking that. It's painful, slow, and amusing."

{That's going to be happening, definitely.} (Akagi)

"I believe there was something in the one book I read that spoke of using bamboo to kill someone by having it grow through a person," Yumi said with a smile.

"Oh yeah, that's the shit the Japanese did to American POWs during the Second World War," Akagi recalled that bit of history. "Though while I'm not sure if it's true they actually did it, it does work."

“Make their insides their outsides!” (Follower 6)

“Launch them into space!” (Follower 7)

“Twist them until they snap!” (Follower 8)

“Let them be slowly eaten alive by bugs!” (Follower 9)

“Give them to Imp!” (Follower 10)

“Burned alive!” (Follower 11)

“Break every bone one by one!” (Follower 12)

“Defenestration!” (Follower 13)

“Death by pillows!” (Follower 14)

“Tickle them to death!” (Follower 15)

“Peel them apart layer by layer, its what we did to certain criminals back home!” (Kira)

“Ohhh that would be so nice!” Akagi was happy that her people

Akagi thought for a moment. "Why not do all of them!" She declared her intention to try a number of different ideas, much to her follower's glee.

"Alright, now that I've got some ideas, we'll start by making the parents watch their children die. Once they perish, the next oldest generation will be killed and then the next till we're finished." She snapped her fingers, and the younger members were grabbed by her followers. “Will my lovely assistants please show our lucky contestants what's behind door number 1!” Akagi had now fully gotten into the swing of things and her eyes glowed with madness and delight.

{I think we'll first start with bathing a few in boiling oil, then we can move to more fun methods of torture.} (Akagi)

"Wait, Wait, No!" (Screaming Onmyojis)

{She's really going to do something like this?!?} (Miyabi)

"Please, let our children go!" Miyabi screamed. "They have nothing to do with how you were treated. It's our fault we caused this! So please, let us take responsibility for what we've done!"

"If I do that, they'll just grow up wanting revenge. Best to put an end to that seed before it sprouts." Akagi laughed demonically. Though not necessarily all their children were here since not all were Onmyoji. But Akagi had little interest in harming those not involved with the family business. “Besides, you tried to kill Naomi. A girl who has nothing to do with anything, so who the fuck are you to ask for your children to be spared?!?”

"Please! I beg of you!" Miyabi wiggled in her restraints. "My children shouldn't die for my mistakes!"

{That's gotta be like the what? Twentieth time I've heard that line? I think I should start keeping a mental list of all the cliché lines I've heard over the years, might be fun to see how often certain ones come up.} (Akagi)

"You should have thought about that before you fucked with me." Akagi snapped her fingers again, and her shadow wrapped around the adult's mouths. This was to both shut them up and prevent them from biting off their own tongue.

"Yumi, do me a favor and grab a list of items from back home, please." Akagi handed the priestess a small notepad with some things written down.

"As you wish, my Lord." Yumi summoned her staff and teleported back to the estate to bring the items.

"Now then, let's get things started," Akagi ordered the adults to be held down and forced to watch as their children were burned alive, boiled, torn apart, and much much worse. Screams echoed throughout the arena as one by one the Onmyoji were tortured and mutilated. It was a gruesome display. One that would shock the consciousness of any sane person. If Kana knew what Akagi was doing right now, even she would probably beg her sister to stop. Not all of the younger Onmyoji were direct children of either Miyabi or Juichiro, but that didn't matter to Akagi. She enjoyed watching the show from her seat, and her followers cheered as each Onmyoji died in agony. Most of these people were directly or indirectly responsible for the hell Akagi was forced to endure since she was a child, and her twisted mind had burned that hatred into her soul. Their deaths and torment were catharsis for the Demon, and As far as Akagi was concerned, they were getting their just deserts.

{Ahhhh this is bliss. I now understand why my kind enjoy the screams, the agony, the slaughter. It's truly delightful to watch such a wretched group of people squirm. It's intoxicating!} (Akagi)

“Mpfh! Mpfh!” Miyabi tried to wiggle and scream as the young Onmyoji burned, but she was powerless to do anything.

“Haaaa. I admit that I enjoy my human friends and the mundane things that come along with them, but this... this is just another level of satisfying! Muhahahhahahahah.” Akagi's laugh echoed throughout the arena as the show continued.

{Part of me wishes that Kana and the girls were hear to watch this display. What would their reactions be to such unmitigated evil? Would I finally see Mika afraid? Would Kana's views on me change? Oh how fun it would be to force her watch her precious Onee-chan perform such acts to her family.} Akagi's mouth curved into a terrible smile as she imagined the girls' reactions. {But I shall refrain from such things. Their friendship is far more valuable to me whatever temporary entertainment I'd get from their reactions, and I'd rather not lose them. Oh well, I'll simply have to enjoy myself with Yumi at my side. Seeing how she reacts should be entertaining enough.} As she sat and enjoyed herself, Akagi allowed her human disguise to fade away until she was little more than a shadow in the shape of a human, with her eyes and teeth on full display to everyone.

This was the real Akagi. When she said she was a Demon that loved tormenting and killing people, she wasn't lying. What Akagi was doing was beyond cruel, filled with malice and evil to its core, but she didn't care. In fact, she was having a great time. The Demon Lord demanded torture and misery, and her followers were all too happy to provide. Here is a glimpse into what Akagi could have been like 24/7 had her inner darkness overtaken her. Thankfully for the world, she contains herself to these isolated events and only punishes deserving individuals. On top of that, this situation was also a bit unique since it involved revenge on a group of people she'd come to hate. While the Demon did enjoy such cruelty, it is likely that such an extreme display wouldn't become common, at least not unless the target was deserving of such an intense hatred.

Yumi was very glad Kana and the girls would be unaware of tonight's specifics. She knew that a display like this would be far too intense for them to handle and might be enough to send the three of them running in fear. Though, funny enough, she was enjoying the display. Whether this was simply out of loyalty to Akagi, or because of her own mental issues combined with the bond was impossible to say, but it didn't matter.

{I can feel the joy swelling in my Lord's heart. She's truly enjoying this display of cruelty, and strangely, so am I. I don't exactly think this is normal, and I know in the past I would've been horrified at such a sight, but for some reason, watching these people... these awful people who caused Akagi so much pain be tormented in such a manner is... satisfying.} (Yumi)

Once all the younger Onmyoji were dead, and the adults were well and truly broken from the horror. Akagi ordered them to be tortured next, followed by any other adult member. Akagi found them far less amusing since their screams were less intense. Kenji was given very special treatment as Akagi allowed Chloe to peel him a part layer by layer with her threads.

Juichiro was given the same form of torment that he'd inflicted on Akagi on one occasion. Though rather than just having one finger broken, Marshal took pleasure in snapping every bone in his body in as many ways as possible before he perished. When Akagi was a small child, he'd broken one of her fingers because she tried to take a cookie from his house, and she decided to repay his actions, with interest.

Miyabi was the final member to die, and Akagi had a bone to pick with her. She'd always encouraged Shima's treatment of Akagi and was the mastermind behind some of the worst things she'd experienced over the years. The Demon never forgot the time she spent trapped outside during winter because of her aunt, and she would never forgive the multiple attempts on her life.

So, with all that in mind, Akagi decided to have a bit of fun with Miyabi. At first, she was subject to extreme cold for several dozen minutes, pushing her to the brink of frostbite before she was healed. After that Miyabi was tied to a massive wooden stake in the middle of the room, doused with napalm and set ablaze. Mimi continually applied healing magic so she wouldn't immediately expire, and Miyabi spent nearly forty minutes burning alive before Akagi permitted her to die. Naturally, Akagi also consumed their souls afterward. As she said before, volunteer snacks wouldn't be turned away.