Today is the day, my first day at a school in 10 years, surprisingly I feel nervous, a social dread that I didn't have to deal with in my past world crawls into my mind, as if to calm me, Raj runs up to me, pouncing on my body, licking my cheeks. Scratching my companion behind his ears, I gently put him back on the ground, placing a Knight's monster piece next to him, "If you want to become more human use it, if you want to stay the same, do not. Know I will love you regardless of your choice."
Last night I had decided to offer Raj a chance to become more human-like, there is one Mutagen I have full control over and that is the super soldier like Mutagen I gained from killing and devouring other Monster Hunters. You, may feel disgusted by it but survival is survival, I did what I needed to do to survive, if not I would have been killed by the first monster I met.
Am I proud of the cannibilism? No, would I do it again to survive? In a heartbeat, my will to survive has always driven me to the extremes needed to make it happen. The main reason I rejected becoming my mother's heir was the ritual I would have been required to undergo. The ritual requires you to summon an Oni and convince it to inhabit your body, drastically increasing your potential and turning you into a Human-Demon half-breed, doesn't sound too bad right?
Well, it is really a game of chance, you may summon a benevolent Oni that will willingly share your body with you, sharing and building your strength together, sounds awesome right? I thought so too until I snuck into the forbidden areas of my Mother's shrine, in a dingy room, I found her sacrificing a young girl to her oni for a small increase in strength.
I was disgusted by this behaviour but I rationalised that she may have needed that increase to protect our family, that wasn't the case, it was a side effect of her pact with the Oni, once every three years she would need to sacrifice a child under the age of 6 in a blood ritual. The strength gained was limited but it increased the bonded power of the two, making them more synchronised, again at the age of nine, I ran into the room, trying to stop her from completing the ritual.
I made a mistake, it wasn't my mother in control at that point but her Oni, the Oni threw me against the wall, breaking three bones in my young back. That single moment of my spine snapping defined me as a person, that single instance of dreading death, the look on the pure bliss on my mother's demonic face as she closed in on me, ritual dagger in hand. The fear of not seeing my family again, the fear of not meeting my friends again, the fear of my brother becoming a monster like this seized my young mind, paralysing me to the core.
As the dagger came down towards my face, all of those fears disappeared, replaced by nothing, my mind emptied itself, as the dagger slowly entered my forehead, a soft metallic voice echoed in my mind.
*Do you wish to live?*
'Yes.'
*At what cost?*
'None. if I am to become a plaything, let me die.'
I do not know where those words came from, it felt as if someone else answered for me on that fateful night.
*Well said, you shall live.*
I then passed out, waking up in my bed with a still-functioning spine, I'm still not aware of how proxy fixed me but I'm glad she did.
*Sob*
*Sob*
A small girl sat alone in the snow, surrounded by the dead bodies of all that she once held dear.
'EAT THEM'
A cold, demonic voice demanded from within her mind.
"I don't want to, I will not eat them.
'WE WILL NOT DIE HERE GIRL, EAT THEM.'
The voice snarled back,
'Eat them or you will join them in the depths of my hell.'
The girl burst into tears as she slowly approached the dogs that had kept her alive, abandoned by her family, the dogs took her in, making her a member of their pack. Treated her like she was family, the only thing the girl had craved.
*Bleugh*
The girl threw up as she took a bite out of the recently killed dog, Sam she had named it, the leader of the pack and her pseudo father. Every bite she took, she would wretch back up, covering herself and the nearby bodies in her puke, she forced herself to continue, not wanting their deaths to be in vain.
'You will need to learn to devour everything, for when the Apex returns he will come for us too, his hatred of the Oni is deep and as the future queen of the Oni, you will be high on his list.'
The girl ignored the rambling demon voice in her head as she struggled to continue eating, trying to avoid the puke that cover her family turned food, with every bite she took, the violent reaction started to fade, her emotions slowly rotting away.
The next five years of her life would define her going forwards, from an abandoned child to a queen, she would rise, then fall, only to rise higher than she had ever been before...