The land was never kind.
In the decaying ruins of early Cheri—before the towers, before the pride, before hope ever dared to breathe—the world had collapsed on itself. No glass spires of ambition glinted in that era, no gleaming city of freedom soared. Instead, Cheri was old Edo reborn in rot: narrow alleys suffocated by smoke, wooden eaves sagging under the weight of sorrow, and the rich draped in silk woven from betrayal. Meanwhile the poor ate their pride dressed as garbage.
This was the era before the gleaming city of promise rose—before Yamakiro Yamada's legacy, before light ever touched the bones buried beneath the streets.
And in that world of broken dreams lived one called Gomi Kirā. His name meant "garbage". Trash. A mockery stamped on his pride by a world that spat on the weak and crucified the forgotten.
His parents? Heroes once. Warriors who protected the voiceless, rebelled against the nobles who fattened themselves on the poor. But in a twist of fate drenched in cynicism, they were framed for crimes they did not commit—conspired against by those they'd defended—and slaughtered in the night.
He was eight then, maybe nine. He remembers only the smell of iron, the screams of betrayal, his mother's eyes screaming his name even as the blade found her throat. His father falling like a monument to failure. And then silence.
He was left behind.
An orphan tossed aside like yesterday's filth.
At the age of five (or so he would later count) he was taken in by "noble" adopters—not out of love, not out of hope. Wolves in noble robes. They offered shelter only to chain him in servitude. He scrubbed floors until his knuckles cracked, starved until his ribs shone under the lamplight, beaten when he dared to hesitate. Every day, the same refrain: "You should be thankful. Lucky to breathe our air. Lucky to serve."
"Trash Kid."
That's all he ever heard. On the streets. In the shadowy classrooms. Even the other slaves mocked him. Maybe his pain mirrored what they refused to face. Maybe he reminded them of what they couldn't forget.
Gomi Kirā grew quiet.
Not soft. Quiet like a loaded gun. Quiet like a buried blade.
Years passed. Fifteen now. Still scraping meat from bones that weren't his. Still dreaming of thunder, if it ever decided to pity Cheri and end it. But some storms never come. Fate didn't bring a storm that night. It brought a knife.
It was a night like any other. The smog of sorrow lay thick and wet. Gomi walked home from another day of punishment—his muscles still humming from the lash, his stomach whispering weakness. The lanterns flickered, casting trembling shadows across the cracked pavement. He passed the heaps of waste where the rich dumped what they deemed worthless. Ashes and rotten cloth, broken statues, half-dead animals. He stepped past them like he stepped past his own worth: unseen.
And then, he saw it.
A spark. A single gleam in the fog—a firefly of something impossible. Instinct—sharp, sudden—drew his feet towards it. As he neared, the glow resolved into … blood.
His adoptive parents sprawled on the floor of the alley behind their manor. The air reeked of decay, of betrayal and finality. Their once fine robes torn, silk stained with red and dust. Their faces frozen in the shock of death. Pierced. Decorated like dolls of judgment. And before them stood a cloaked figure, drenched in memory and malice.
"They weren't yours," the figure said in a slow, venom-rich drawl. "They were mine. And they betrayed me for you. For a piece of filth."
The knife came—quick, precise. A flash of steel.
Gomi didn't scream. Didn't run.
He just stared. His body too shocked to obey. The figure lunged forward—and Gomi's arm found itself in the arc of the blade. A red bloom spread across his side. He gasped, pain ripping through his fullness—but he did not move. The figure smiled. He thought he had won.
Gomi fell. Silent.
"Trash belongs in the pit," the figure spat.
And so became the verdict. He was thrown into the Skies of Misfortune—the pit of the discarded, the burial of souls deemed unworthy. A place where people and things both were thrown away. Where the dead screamed and the living were broken.
But Gomi did not die.
He awoke. His body should have shattered but instead it throbbed with something new. A desert of purple smoke coiled around his limbs like the whispers of the dead. The wind hissed like mourning regrets. This was no pit of mere corpses. It was Hell.
He rose—trembling. And something grotesque grew from his skull. A horn. Small, crooked—but alive. His flesh burned with the scar of rebirth. His soul roared in recognition.
Then the voices came. Hundreds. Thousands. Crying. Laughing. Begging. Screaming.
"You shouldn't have survived," they whispered. "But you did. Because you are chosen."
"Gomi Kirā—You are the Oni King of Yagumi. The Guardian of the Wretched. The Scar of the Forgotten."
His eyes widened. The mist bled into his lungs; the dead stuck to him like a mantle.
"You will avenge us," the spectres chanted. "You will be our wrath."
And then he screamed—not in pain, but in truth, as all his bad memories came bubbleling up from the force of this strange purple mist and began to scream until his lungs tore through his throat entirely. Ss he thought about how fate took even a family that was willing to take him in. Despite him being nothing but garbage to this world and while thinking about his parents who died right infront of his very eyes at such a young age:
"This scar will never heal… AND I WILL NEVER FORGIVE THIS WORLD! I WILL BURN IT ALL TO ASH, AND DANCE IN THE RUINS LIKE A DEVIL OF GARBAGE! YOU MADE ME TRASH? THEN I WILL BE TRASH THAT TEARS SKYS IN HALF!"
He marched forward—a storm in his shadow. Oni-horns curling like curses from the other side. The mist parted. And someone watched. Hidden. A child. A human-oni. The story of Gomi Kirā—the one they mocked, enslaved, shattered—had only just begun.
Because filth… will rise.
The mist never ended. It clung to Gomi's skin, whispering old names, forgotten sins. Each step deeper into the void felt like a descent into a land where no light had ever existed. The desert stretched endlessly, soaked in violet sorrow. The licking wind smelled of regret and rust. But Gomi marched. He had no bones left to break; he simply walked.
He wasn't alone.
Behind him—that he sensed—was another. A child. Small, ragged, eyes alive with something unspent. The child wore a single earring: a violet-purple cross resembling a sword, two broken circles clinging to its sides, three lines etched above like scripture abandoned. It swung with each step—a silent signal of hope in a hopeless land. The kid had watched Gomi since his awakening in the pit. Every now and then ducking behind a jagged stone, or hiding in a drifting fog. Hours passed. Gomi either ignored him or sensed him. Eventually, Gomi turned.
"You gonna follow me forever, kid?" he growled.
The kid jumped, panicking—but didn't run. He peered out from behind a rock, trembling, then stepped out slowly. Nervous. Quiet.
"I thought you were… like me."
Gomi scoffed. "No one's like me kid."
Silence fell heavy. And yet the kid walked beside him anyway.
They didn't speak for long. The mist did the talking. When they did speak it was arguing. The child asked too many questions. Gomi grunted. Rolled his eyes. Threatened to leave him behind more than once. And yet—they walked together. No smiles. No laughter. But together. One scarred oni with fire in his soul. One strange child with a sacred earring, searching for meaning in a land that seemed to rejected both.
The mist didn't seem so endless anymore.
Days blurred into haze. The violet mist of the pit wrapped around them. The ground beneath them hardened slowly—the endless walking forging limb and mind into something else. There was no sun. No moon. Only walking. Wandering. Searching for meaning in a place where meaning was thrown away like people.
Until they saw it. A soft light. Faint. Warm. Alive.
Not the haunting purple glow of the pit—but a golden hue. Like a lantern in a grave's belly.
Gomi stopped. His horn sealed under his hood, but his silhouette rigid. The child beside him, wide-eyed, saw it too.
Hope. That dangerous lie.
They followed the light for hours until it crystallised into a beam tearing through fog. A tunnel, cracked and ancient, peeled open beneath their feet—revealing a long stone slope, moss-draped, leading down.
At the bottom, past shattered statues, rusted iron gates, they entered a city.
Yasugiri. The City of Evening Mist. It sprawled beneath the earth like a hidden kingdom—wooden bridges arched over slow streams, paper lanterns glowed amber in the dusk of caverns, cherry-blossom trees carved from reclaimed stone bowed over stone-paved alleys, and houses built from the bones of the forgotten and soul of the cast-away.
The people lived. They laughed. They traded. They cried.
They were descendants of the discarded: generations of the abandoned, the falsely accused, the broken. Their ancestors thrown into the pit like rotten fruit had clawed their way into survival. Yasugiri was their rebellion. A city of filth turned sacred.
And yet the wounds had never left.
As Gomi and the child stepped into the street, heads turned. Some filled with awe. Others with disdain. He read it in their eyes: recognition of his horns, his scarred flesh, his haunted aura. Some whispered. Some spat. Some looked away. But not all were cruel.
A figure approached: a youth dressed in robes of black and violet, his eyes sharp but not cruel. A circlet of carved wood sat upon his brow—simple yet regal.
"Welcome to Yasugiri," he said quietly. "I am Sairei, the fifteen-year-old King of this land. My father died three winters ago. I took the throne in the cold."
Gomi said nothing.
But the child beside him bowed. The king smiled.
"You are not the first to fall into this world and survive," Sairei continued. "But you are different. You walked through the cursed mist of Yagumi and lived. That makes you… important. Even if you do not want to be."
Gomi scoffed. "I'm not your prophecy."
"Maybe not," Sairei acknowledged. "But perhaps you're part of its ending."
The days that followed were strange. Yasugiri was no paradise, but it was alive. Gomi and the child explored winding bridges, steam-lit tunnels, alleys of silk-traders and storytellers. Samurai without masters sparred in courtyards. Street performers juggled fire beside shrines devoted to gods forgotten by surface world. Everywhere, history grew like moss in ruin.
The child—still unnamed in this new land—was enamoured. He noticed the small wonders. He smiled for the first time. He spoke. He joked.
Gomi remained distant, always scanning the edges of the city, staring into the mist beyond the walls.
At night he lay in the guest-quarters of the palace of reclaimed stone—his horn pressed against cold wood, his scar burning in memory. He watched the cavern ceiling shimmering with artificial starlight as the city slept. He wondered how many other cities slept beneath the earth. And why—despite the warmth of living—he still felt so cold. Even in a city built from brokenness and triumph, Gomi Kirā knew: he didn't belong. Not yet.
Deep beneath the city, in crypts untouched by daylight, in the shafts of chill and echoing sorrow, something ancient stirred.
Beneath the eastern cliffs of Yasugiri, sealed in chains of soul-stone and buried beneath centuries of prayer, something awakened. Not a beast. Not mere monster. A human—a sorcerer cast away by the ancestors of the city above. Branded evil. Feared. Misunderstood. His name lost in time, erased from records—but his power remained.
Once he had tried to change Yasugiri—to purge its shame and raise it proud—but in desperation unleashed a force beyond control, and so they sealed him away. And now he rose.
Vengeance like poison coursed through his veins. Rage like wildfire lit his eyes.
Within hours, screams echoed through Yasugiri's peaceful streets. Fire climbed wooden buildings. Children cried. Blood dyed cobblestones. One by one. Ten by ten. Then hundreds. Thousands. He walked like a god of destruction.
And Gomi Kirā watched it all. Silent. Rigid.
He clenched his fists. The child beside him trembled—not in fear but in anger.
Gomi turned. "You need to evacuate. Get to safety."
"I'm not leaving," the child snapped, cheeks puffed. "I stay."
"…Stubborn idiot," Gomi muttered. But he didn't argue.
He faced the burning city.
The first clash between Gomi and the sorcerer was a massacre. The sorcerer wielded storms of cursed wind, torrents of burning memory, unleashed horrors of flesh and shadow. Gomi was thrown, crushed, sliced by blades of spirit and flesh, blood streaming down his chin. His horn cracked. Again and again. He fell. And yet, clawed back up each time. Because something inside refused to die.
As the sorcerer prepared the final, crushing blow, something snapped inside Gomi.
The mist turned violet-black. A storm howled from the void inside him. His eyes glowed. The dead screamed his name.
Gomi Kirā—the Oni King—awakened.
Not fully. Not completely. But enough.
With new strength, raw and unrefined but burning with ancestral vengeance, he answered the sorcerer's fury with primal spirit. He didn't chant spells. He didn't hesitate. His fists became hammers of loss. His roar summoned echoes of the forgotten dead. He smashed the earth beneath him, ripped shadow from the void, unleashed the hunger of the cast-away.
And then—he struck. A final blow. Too heavy, too true. The sorcerer collapsed.
Before he died, the sorcerer's vision entered Gomi's mind: a child smiling, holding a flower in one hand, a spell-book in the other. Laughed in a field that no longer existed. His name once beloved, now feared.
The sorcerer wept. Then vanished into dust.
The city mourned. Fires died. The blood washed away. And for the first time… Gomi Kirā and the child beside him were praised.
King Sairei bowed. "You saved us. You both saved us."
But praise was fleeting. The people cheered—and then whispered. Some feared Gomi's horns. Others stared too long at the scars across his skin.
The prophecy still weighed in the air. The Oni King would rise to destroy humanity. But this Oni King had protected. Yet Gomi said nothing. He knew the looks. He walked on—praised and yet abandoned the same. The crown of the dead resting silently on his brow.
Beside him the child looked up.
"…My name's Hosogiri Shirudo," he said quietly, cheeks puffed in mock pride. "And I'm staying with you forever, dummy."
Gomi blinked.
"…Tch. Fine. Just don't slow me down."
The two walked forward. Brothers in arms.
What they didn't know was that twenty years from now, Hosogiri Shirudo would become the legendary Sword-Shield Hero, founder of the Suraisu Church, a beacon of hope for the surface world.
But today he was just a lonely half-oni kid. Mocked. Forgotten. Cast into the pit. And chosen.
Chosen to walk beside the scarred king of filth.
Two broken souls. One rising legacy.
And the story… was only just beginning.
The smoke cleared. The screams faded into memory. And for a fragile, brief moment—peace.
King Sairei, grateful, opened the gates of his palace to Gomi Kirā and Hosogiri Shirudo. It wasn't a palace of gold or pride. The royals of Yasugiri knew better than to mimic the greed of the surface world. Their halls were carved from stone. Their chandeliers from reclaimed glass and silver. Ornaments only gold-touched, not gold-forged. Every luxury earned, never stolen. No slaves. No suffering beneath splendour.
Yet it was still grand.
Polished floors mirrored lamplight. Hallways echoed with the soft sigh of underground streams. Paintings lined the walls—scenes of ancestors who clawed the city from ruin.
Gomi hated it. Not the place. The quiet. The ease. He had no idea how to exist in calm.
Hosogiri? He didn't know how to sit still.
"HEY ! HOSOGIRI—GET BACK HERE!!"
The chase began.
It started with the child "accidentally" knocking over a ceremonial vase in the grand hallway. Then poking at the preserved Oni Crown in the royal exhibit. Then darting into the statue room—claiming he heard voices from the relics.
"Stop touching things!" Gomi hissed, trying not to alert the guards.
Hosogiri giggled, sprinting through velvet halls with gross shoes.
"You said this was our reward! So I'm enjoying it!" he shouted back.
"By ruining it!?" Gomi barked.
From the royal dining hall to quiet libraries, through lush gardens and hidden corridors—the Oni King chased the Oni Child like a ghost chasing his dream. Servants peeked. Some sighed. Others smiled quietly.
Hosogiri slipped into a laundry chute, tumbled into a mountain of folded robes. "You little demon!" Gomi yelled muffled. Hosogiri laughed so hard he choked on air.
For hours it went on. A game. A war. A wild chaos in the most sacred place in the city.
But between scolding whispers, between restrained shouting, quiet footfalls and the muffled crash of history's relics—something real flickered. They were happy. Or at least… close. A life Gomi never thought he'd have. A brother he never thought he needed.
By sunset they lay on the palace balcony roof, staring at the cavern ceiling shimmering like a star-field. Hosogiri tossed a fruit into the air and caught it with his mouth.
"You ever think this will end?" he asked quietly. "Yeah," Gomi muttered.
Hosogiri turned. "You think it'll end bad?"
Gomi stayed silent. Then: "…If it does, I'll make sure you survive it."
Hosogiri puffed his cheeks. "Tch. I'm stronger than you think, big dummy."
And under a roof not built from gold—but truth—the Oni King and his child shadow shadow. The city below unaware that this was just the eye of the storm of their adventure.
It had to happen eventually.
After days in the palace of stone and warmth, after Hosogiri finally stopped sliding down ceilings and stealing fruit from the royal kitchen, the time came to leave. The mist outside the gates called. The unknown beckoned again.
Gomi didn't believe in farewells.
He stood at the edge of the grand walkway as the heavy wooden gates of Yasugiri creaked open and early-morning steam curled across the bridge.
Hosogiri adjusted his messy hair and yawned. "You sure we should just leave like this?" he asked.
"Quiet," Gomi muttered. "We're not making a scene."
But the city already knew.
As Gomi and Hosogiri reached the final stretch of the outer bridge, footsteps echoed behind them. Then dozens. Then hundreds. Guards lined the rails. Families gathered: children, elders, merchants, storytellers. The people Gomi fought to defend. The people he thought would always fear him. But they didn't come with weapons. They came with tears. They came with thanks.
One guard bowed. "For our citizens… our city… and for what we cannot repay. You have our eternal gratitude, Gomi Kirā."
Gomi froze. Hosogiri blinked. More people bowed. Some smiled. Some looked away, overwhelmed. One child held up a carved wooden doll with a single horn—just like Gomi's.
Gomi's fists clenched. His mouth twitched. Then… he blushed.
It wasn't bright. Not obvious. But there it was. A flush of warmth on his scar-marked face.
He didn't speak. He couldn't. But he raised his hand slowly…and waved.
Just once.
Then he turned. Hosogiri grinned beside him as they crossed the final gate and stepped back into the mists of the pit beyond. The gate closed with a heavy thud behind them.
The journey continued. And though the Oni King said nothing… in that moment, something inside him healed—if only by the width of a razor-edge.
TO BE CONTINUED…