Page 35 of The Oni's Heart

But in that moment, I realized I’d become exactly what I hated.

I hadn’t just fought them.

I had become something else.

I had become an Oni.

The rage that had consumed me, the anger I had tried to bury for years, had twisted me into this. Into a monster.

An Oni.

The legend of the Oni had always been just that—a story. A cautionary tale whispered to children, a myth, a creature of nightmares. A demon born from rage and violence, its only purpose is to destroy, to slaughter, to feed on the misery of those unlucky enough to cross its path. The Oni was said to be a once-human warrior who, overwhelmed by their own fury, gave in to their darkest desires and became a beast. No longer bound by the rules of man, the Oni's blood ran hot with an unquenchable thirst for destruction.

The eyes were the first sign—eyes that glowed with an unnatural, fiery light, their pupils like a beast’s, narrow and predatory. The skin would change, darken, and take on an inhuman texture of a hardened shell of a demon. But it wasn’tjust the outward transformation. The Oni’s true power lay in its rage—the primal, unstoppable force that coursed through their veins, making them nearly invincible, tearing through anything and anyone in their path without thought or remorse.

I had always believed the Oni were just a myth, an exaggeration. A tale meant to scare children into behaving. But now, as I looked down at my own blood-soaked hands, my trembling fingers, the unnatural glow in my eyes, I realized the truth. The curse wasn’t just a story. It was real.

And I had crossed that line.

My body still trembled from the violence, the bloodlust, the primal urge to continue, to destroy. The feeling was intoxicating, a rush I had never experienced before. The adrenaline was still pumping through me, my heart hammering against my chest, but it wasn’t just from the fight. It was something deeper, something more dangerous. Something that fed on the chaos I had unleashed. I could feel it inside of me, crawling under my skin like fire, threatening to burn me from the inside out.

I had embraced it, let it consume me, and now there was no turning back.

I wanted to scream in frustration, to tear my own skin off to rid myself of the curse that had claimed me. But all I could do was stand there, breath shallow, hands covered in blood.

The Oni was no longer a legend.It was me.

And in that moment, I had become a thing of terror, a monster that would never again be allowed to walk in the light. I would never again be able to claim the peace I had fought so hard to protect.

I was no longer Tatsuya.

I was something else. Something far darker. An Oni.

And I was trapped in the very thing I had feared most.

20

No Time like the Present

MOMOI

Icouldn’t breathe.

The sight of him—Tatsuya—transformed into something out of a nightmare… It shook me to my core. His eyes, glowing with an unnatural intensity, his skin darkened, veins visible beneath the surface in some twisted reflection of a demon. His whole body was pulsing with raw power, and the air around him seemed to vibrate with an energy that wasn’t human.

But even then, despite the horrific transformation, I knew it was him. I saw everything with my own eyes. He was still there.

I could feel it in my bones.

The pull, the connection. Something inside of me still recognized him. The man I had cursed, the man who had somehow found his way into my thoughts in ways I didn’t want. But now, seeing him like this—seeing him become something I could barely understand—my instincts screamed at me to run. To get away before whatever was inside of him completely overtook him.

But then I saw the fear in his eyes. It was fleeting, a brief crack in the monster he had become, but it was there. And that made my heart stop.

He was struggling. And he didn’t deserve to be trapped this way.

I wasn’t sure why I cared. I wasn’t sure if I was even in my right mind anymore. But the thought of leaving him out here to be hunted—by the authorities, or worse, the Yakuza—was too much. I couldn’t do that.

I just couldn’t.

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