The dying plea from afar drew Haruki like a suicidal moth leaping into a flame. With no regard for his own safety, he was charging straight in the direction of the voice. Uncertain himself as to why he felt such an urgency to get to this stranger calling for help. Was it the inherent human desire to help the needy, or something more than that? Unfortunately, much like the rest of his memories, Haruki couldn't remember.
'If that dream has any semblance to the truth, then I might be repeating the same mistake.'
The nightmare of a dream gave him a slim idea about what could've led to his execution. Despite that knowledge, he continued to blindly follow the path to the stranger's voice.
"Then why not stop?" Asmodia asked with a curious hum.
"Get out of my head," He grunted, jerking his hand to the side as if to move her away.
"Mhnmm…I wish I could feel that, but roaming around in Atlas is not a luxury I can afford at the mo-" Abruptly breaking her own words, Asmodia let out a mischievous giggle, "We're here, I can't wait for you to take over him."
Her choice of words piqued Haruki's curiosity, but before pushing for an answer, he decided to help this person. After passing through the last pair of bushes, he came to an atypical opening in the forest. Haloed under the sunlight, a tall tree stood in the middle. Canopied under its shade was a wounded young boy, panting restlessly.
"What happened to him?" Haruki charged in his direction.
As he made his way over to him, the phantom grip tightened around his neck once again. That change in force let him know of Asmodia's disapproval, and yet he kept moving. Kneeling down by his wounded body, Haruki held up the boy's head to try and keep him awake.
"Can you hear me?" Gently sliding his eyelids upwards, Haruki noticed slight moment in his bloodshot eyes. "He's alive."
A trail of blood seeping through his silver hair had dyed his clothes in a crimson mess. He may have been alive, but the open wounds gushing out blood weren't far from changing that any moment.
"Don't worry yourself over a dead child, you must simply take over his body so we can use his influence," Ignoring Asmodia's words, Haruki ruffled through his clothes trying to get a better look at the wounds. However, as he tried to take his shirt off, it got stuck on a broken piece of an arrow protruding from his stomach.
"Agh! Stop!" The boy cried, grabbing Haruki's hand, "Please, don't kill me." His teary eyes looked straight into Haruki's eyes.
"I…I'm trying to help, don't worry," Drawing his hand away from him, Haruki tried to let him know that he wasn't a threat.
And yet his demonic appearance only fueled the boy's anxiety. Taking a terrified look at Haruki, the boy's whole body jerked away. With his heart gripped with crippling fear, he powered through the pain and started crawling away from the demon in front of him.
"G-go away! I-I need to get to…my fath-ahhh!" Flipping right over the wound, the boy screamed in agony.
"Wait! T-this isn't wh-"
"Shut up!" Commanded Asmodia.
Haruki's lips shut themselves closed as he tried to voice his thoughts, but Asmodia's command on his body was more absolute than his own. Glancing back at the boy, Haruki noticed a crimson-glinted arrow tip protruding from his back.
'Curse you demon!'
Rushing towards him, Haruki's hands instinctively reached out to remove the bloody thing. But in the nick of time, he realized what a foolish mistake that would've been.
'He'll bleed to death if I take out this damned arrow, who the hell did this to him anyway?!'
Enraged by the lack of options, Haruki's teeth dug deep into his lips, and with his fists clenched up in frustration he cursed his own incompetence.
'What the hell should I do?'
As the boy continued to draw his dying breaths, Haruki shut his eyes closed in hopes of finding an answer.
"He's fated to die warrior, there's nothing to be done about it," Asmodia's whispers shattered his chain of thought, leaving behind a bitter frown over his forehead, "Possess him, and soon you'll have everything that you've lost. Your memories, your revenge, and if you keep following my command, then maybe one day this whole kingdom will be yours."
"Unless you have a way to save him, you better keep your trap shut!" He growled.
There was no way he would simply let the boy die. Even if he had lost all his memories, he still possessed a conscience branded with purity. Following his rebuttal, a dreadful silence took over his surroundings. Struck with deafening stillness the world itself seemed threatened. Horrified by the sudden change, Haruki's eyes wandered restlessly for an answer, and that's when his eyes locked onto a stagnant leaf floating in mid-air.
'Time manipulation?! No way…is this an illusion as well?'
While trying to reason with his current reality, a crimson portal sprang up beside him. Having passed through one such portal himself, he knew exactly what was happening. Breaking the stillness, a hand elegantly crawled out of it.
"You've rebelled enough," Her voice echoed throughout the motionless forest. "And like any rebellious child, you must be punished."
Finally walking out of the portal completely, Asmodia revealed herself in front of Haruki. Unlike in her domain, she appeared as a mere blob of violet mist that barely resembled her real body.
"I wanted to give you a bit more freedom, but since you desire to be restrained by those pesky morals, I'll have to punish you for going against my orders," Moving right behind him, Asmodia grabs Haruki by the shoulders. "You've disappointed me enough, so prove your worth or be forever bound to his body."
As those words trailed into Haruki's ears, he felt as if he had been thrown into an inferno. His lips quivered to scream, but constrained by Asmodia's presence the only thing he could move was his nervous and jittery eyes.
"Wh-What AGH!" He finally uttered as the leaves began to fall again.
In a matter of seconds, the forest chirped up with life and the colors of the world rejuvenated their beauty. However, for Haruki, the only thing the flow of time brought back was the immense pain of burning alive.
"STOPP! AGHHH!" With the fiery pain seeping through his head, he clenched up his teeth to drown his own suffering. "I'LL KILL YOU, YOU MONSTER!"
Hurdled up on the ground, his whole body recoiled inwards. His skin felt charred with molten lava, and so did the rest of his body.
"St-stay a-way…" The boy whimpered, still trying to crawl away from him.
The insufferable pain made him forget all about the boy. So much so, that his eyes contorted in anger when he heard his voice again. Glaring at him, he remembered what he was trying to do before Asmodia had butted in.
"N-NO! Wa-wait!" He requested, his hand reaching outwards.
Grabbing onto the boy's ankles he was freed from the fiery sensation of burning. As if hurled back into the abyss, his vision turned an unsettling dark.
"There you go, was it so hard to possess him? Now, go on and make good use of him," She tried holding it back, but a gleeful giggle slipped in regardless. "And remember, you must prove your worth to earn my favour from this point forward."
Haruki felt a light tap on his forehead before his consciousness flew into yet another body. Like passing through a dark tunnel and coming out to a bright scene, he felt blinded for a moment before realizing what great peril he'd be swept into.
'Another new body? I wonder what happened to the boy.'
Taking a brief look around, Haruki found himself in the same place as before. The only anomaly was that his demonic body was now fused with the wounded boy. Although the pain from the wounds was severe, it was nothing compared to what he had been through.
"I need to find a way to patch myself up," Applying pressure to the wound, he started straggling in the direction the boy had tried crawling.
'I'm sorry for whatever happened to you, I'll at least try to fix your body.'