The moonlight traced the curve of his blade. His reflection glimmered faintly against the steel.
"…You speak of devotion," Kiome said quietly. His tone wasn't scolding or angry; it was steady, like someone stating an immutable truth. "Of love. Of purpose. You call it art. You call it faith."
He lowered his sword slightly, not in mercy, but in sorrow. "But what you call love… is just consumption wearing a mask."
Meki blinked, almost amused by his composure. "Consumption? You make it sound ugly."
"It is ugly," Kiome replied, his voice gaining weight, emotion bleeding through the calm surface. "Because love isn't supposed to erase the other person to make yourself feel whole. It's not supposed to devour until there's nothing left to share. You don't worship Gluttony," his eyes sharpened, "you fear emptiness. And you fill it with whatever you can reach."
Meki's smile faltered, just slightly.
Kiome took a step forward, the wood beneath his feet groaning. "You think you're faithful to your sin. That your Master gave you meaning. But meaning taken from pain isn't devotion—it's dependency."
His voice softened, almost wistful. "You said you were chosen. But being chosen doesn't make something right. It just makes you responsible for what you do with it."
The wind shifted. Dust and ash floated past them like dying stars.
"Gluttony," Kiome murmured, "is the desire to consume endlessly. But desire without restraint—without heart—is just hunger. You call it your everything." His gaze hardened, a deep ache hiding behind that clarity. "Then I'll show you what everything means to me. To protect what still breathes, what still feels, even when it's broken. Because that's what I believe in. That's what it means to live without losing yourself to the emptiness."
Meki stared at him for a long moment, the smirk gone, her expression unreadable. Her voice, when it came, was soft, almost whispering. "…You talk like you've known emptiness."
"I have," Kiome said simply. His eyes never wavered. "The difference is—I didn't feed on it."
The air thickened, tension curling through every breath.
For a fleeting moment, the orange glow in Meki's eyes flickered, like a candle touched by a hesitant wind. Confusion? Reflection? Or the brief recognition of something she had long forgotten—what it meant to be seen rather than consumed.
But then, the smile returned—colder, sharper. "Then you'll die for that belief," she said sweetly, voice dripping with affection twisted by malice.
Kiome lifted his sword again, the black of his kimono fluttering in the night breeze. His voice was quiet, but unwavering.
"If that's the price for standing by what's right… then so be it."
The air between them hummed like a drawn string.
Meki stood at the roof's edge, her orange hair flickering in the moonlight like a living flame, while Kiome's blade glimmered cold and blue, the two colors warring in the stillness.
After a moment, Kiome spoke, his tone quieter, yet edged with suspicion.
"…Why are you here, Meki? This village—there's nothing here for someone like you. No soldiers. No nobles. No mana worth devouring. So why come this far north?"
For the first time, she didn't answer immediately. Her smile faltered again—not in hesitation, but in thought. Then, with a playful hum, she placed a hand to her chest, tilting her head.
"Why?" Her voice lilted like a song, soft and eerie. "No particular reason, my Gluttony was calling to satisfy her hunger. And this was the nearest town, heheheh!"
Kiome's grip on his sword tightened. "How repulsive."
Meki's gaze drifted past him toward the distant hill beyond the rooftops, where lanterns still flickered from Aoi's evacuation efforts. "I wonder," she mused, her tone dripping with amusement, "how your 'swordsman corps' will react when they realize they're playing on a board my Master once drew."
Kiome's chest tightened. "What are you talking about?"
She smiled wider, fangs barely visible now. "Oh, come now… haven't you ever wondered why your corps trains with that old prayer before every mission? 'To the light that shields the weak, we offer our blades.
To the one that grants us courage, we entrust our hearts.
Grant us silence in fear, and clarity in storm.' Such beautiful words, aren't they? Even if you don't know who they were written for."
His eyes widened. He knew that phrase. They all did. Every swordsman recited it before drawing steel—a ritual thought to honor their founder. But to hear it from her lips…
"Impossible," he muttered. "That prayer… it's centuries old. You're saying it was written for—"
"—For Him," Meki finished, voice dripping with satisfaction. "Long before you or I existed, your founder made a pact. To feed his strength. To feed his purpose. And even now, his descendants still whisper that devotion every time they unsheathe a blade."
Her eyes softened with cruel delight. "You've been honoring Gluttony all this time, Kiome. You just never realized who was listening."
The night wind howled through the alleyway below, scattering the last whispers of humanity clinging to the rooftops.
Kiome felt something cold creep into his bones—not fear, but realization. If what she's saying is true… then the Swordsman Corps… our foundation itself…
Meki leaned forward slightly, eyes shimmering with madness and affection alike. "Tell me, little swordsman. What do you think your master would say if he learned who his founder once called Lord?"
Her laughter rang out, soft and haunting, spilling into the starless night like a hymn of sacrilege.
Kiome's blade trembled, though his voice did not. "Then I'll find out the truth myself," he said firmly, his words cutting through her mirth like a quiet blade. "Even if it means burning everything I was taught."
The kitsune mask tilted slightly, half-shadowed by moonlight, revealing the glint of resolve beneath.
"Because truth, no matter how cursed, deserves to be seen."
Meki's smile thinned into something hungry. "Then come find it, little swordsman. But I warn you—truth tastes far more bitter than flesh."
Meki crouched low, the faint hum of lightning snapping between her fingers like impatient snakes. Her blonde hair floated slightly from the static, her crimson eyes burning with childlike excitement.
Kiome's sword was already drawn. The way he held it—steady, centered, like a barrier carved from calm water—made her pause for a heartbeat. Then she laughed.
"Sword Art of Water, huh?"
The rooftop exploded.
From her Chinese like shan, A thunderbolt screamed, striking where Kiome had stood a breath ago. The entire roof split apart with a deafening crack, tiles flying into the night like broken stars.
But through the chaos, Kiome moved—flowing, silent. His blade sliced through the air in a smooth arc, diverting the shockwave and dissipating the static with impossible grace.
His breathing was even. His eyes calm. Every step flowed like water running down stone.
He deflected another burst of lightning that shattered against the roof behind him.
Meki giggled, twisting her wrist and hurling another bolt.
Her voice rang with manic devotion.
Each strike, each surge of electricity, carried her emotion—pure obsession forged into thunder.
Kiome redirected the last bolt with a sharp parry, his sword tracing an elegant spiral of water vapor that absorbed the heat of her magic.
Then, silence.
Meki smiled faintly, her expression softening into something almost nostalgic.
"You know, that stance of yours reminds me of him," she murmured.
Kiome's eyes narrowed. "…Him?"
Her grin widened again, fangs glinting under the moonlight. "My master. You'd like him, I think. He also believed in protecting people. Until he learned protection means nothing when the hunger of the world keeps devouring."
Before he could ask more, Meki leapt backward—off the rooftop.
"Wait—!"
Kiome followed without hesitation.
The wind howled past his ears as he landed in the street below, the echo of thunder fading into something… quieter.
Something wet.
The wooden house nearby creaked open. Faint light flickered through the shattered window.
When Kiome stepped through the doorway, his boots splashed into something thick and red.
Inside—
Meki crouched over the lifeless body of a villager. Her hands were pressed against the corpse's chest, golden lightning crawling up her arms, veins pulsing with stolen mana.
Her lips were stained scarlet. Her smile was radiant.
Kiome froze, his sword lowering slightly—not out of hesitation, but the sheer weight of what he saw.
Meki looked up at him, eyes glowing like twin suns of madness.
Her voice was syrup-sweet, echoing with devotion.
"To live is to consume, Kiome. That's the truth my master showed me."
Lightning sparked behind her, illuminating the corpse beneath her hands.
"Protection? Mercy? Those are illusions created by people afraid to want. You talk about protecting others, but tell me—what do you protect them from? The world itself? Their own hunger?"
She stood, her shadow stretching long across the walls.
"I embrace it. I eat because I must. Because the sin of Gluttony—my beloved, my god—filled the emptiness this world gave me. Every soul I consume, every spark of mana I steal, is a hymn of devotion."
She spread her arms, lightning rippling through her body.
"My master gave me everything. The hunger, the eternity, the purpose. You protect to hide your fear of losing. I devour so I'll never lose again."
Her gaze softened, almost lovingly.
"So tell me, little swordsman which of us is more human?"
Kiome said nothing.
The light from her electricity danced across his face, revealing a quiet storm in his eyes.
His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword. Channeling mana into his blade he activated his Manaflux.
"Sword Art of Water, Reflecting Current."
The air bent. Lightning that tore toward him split in two, guided off course by a curtain of liquid energy so fine it shimmered like a mirage.
Meki's eyes widened, amused. "Parrying lightning now? Oh, that's lovely."
She thrust her hand out — the sky answered. Thunder descended again, a spear of white-gold fire that pierced the floor between them, splintering it into burning fragments.
Kiome's body blurred — not through speed, but stillness. His blade rose and fell in perfect rhythm, every motion calculated. Water vapor condensed around him, cooling the air, snuffing out the burning timber at his feet.
Then — the temperature dropped.
Frost began to bloom over the soaked wooden floorboards, crawling upward from his boots like roots of frozen glass. Meki blinked. Her smile faltered for the first time.
"…Ice magic?"
The room filled with a crystalline hum. Steam and frost tangled together, forming a low fog that glowed faintly under the flickering bolts.
Kiome's breath left in pale plumes. "Water can soothe," he murmured, voice steady, "but it can also stop all motion. Even hunger."
He channeled his magic again but this time for a normal spell.
"O breath of frozen silence,
still the pulse of the restless tide.
Let motion yield to peace,
and noise drown beneath your glass, Still Lake."
The fog solidified. Meki's thunder dispersed into refracting prisms, her own lightning snared inside walls of ice. For a heartbeat — she was surrounded, mirrored infinitely, caught in a cold cathedral of her own making.
Her reflection stared back from every frozen surface. Dozens of her, laughing, frowning, twitching — a choir of hunger trapped in silence.
Meki exhaled slowly. Her pulse quickened. Her skin prickled.
Then, beneath her hysteria, a whisper tugged at her mind — a different sense, something instinctual.
Not Kiome. Not the building. Not the fight.
Something else—moving beyond the battlefield—
a pulse in the distance.
A wave of mana brushed against her senses.
Not the kind that fades. Not the kind that depletes.
As if it was alive?
What… is that? Meki thought.
It pulsed again — once, twice — like the beat of a heart.
Every thrum made her mouth water.
It's not him… a spirit?… Her grin widened, trembling at the edges. An existence overflowing with mana—
Her pulse quickened. Hunger scraped at her ribs from the inside. Her Authority shuddered in longing.
So close… so sweet…
Lightning began to crackle around her Shans again, golden arcs crawling up her neck. The air around her distorted, the wood beneath her feet glowing red-hot from sheer energy discharge.
Kiome saw the shift.
He adjusted his grip, stance low, blade to the side — water coiling around him like a serpent ready to strike.
"Meki," he said evenly, though his voice carried a warning edge. "Your eyes aren't on me anymore."
She blinked — slow, dreamy, almost drunk on the unseen presence.
Then that twisted, childlike smile returned.
"I can't help it…" she whispered, her tone lilting with madness. "Something out there is calling to me. Something endless. Something delicious."
Her thunder flared brighter — arcs of gold reaching toward the sky.
Kiome's gaze hardened. The pressure the demon gave off was something Kiome had never felt before.
It was so unbearable that it made his entire body tremble, this is the real presence of a Demon of Sin…
A manic whose soul will never be satisfied, well consuming everything in its path.
He raised his sword, droplets freezing midair as the temperature plummeted.
"By silver wave and frozen gleam,
Reflect the strike, undo the scheme.
Let rushing current meet its end,
And mirrored ice its foe defend, Mirror Tide."
A wall of reflective ice erupted before him, scattering her lightning across mirrored surfaces.
Meki vanished again, appearing at another angle — her laughter ringing through the storm of sparks and ice.
The world trembled. Ice and lightning collided, shattering the house beneath them entirely.
And above the falling rooftops — beyond the chaos and the roaring storm — that moving source of mana drifted closer, slow and deliberate, as if it had chosen to watch.
Kiome moved to meet her. His form, usually serene and measured, now trembled beneath the weight of her onslaught. His blade — the once-calm mirror of water — became a desperate shield against a storm without pattern or pause.
The first swing shattered his guard.
The second drove him back.
The third ripped the air open and sent him skidding across the frost-slick floor, boots carving jagged lines into the half-frozen planks.
His stance wavered, but his body remembered the rhythm.
He drew a deep breath and raised his sword again.
"—"
"By silver wave and frozen…." Kiome couldn't finish the first sentence of the incantation before Meki appeared just inches away.
"—Mirror Tide." He skipped the incantation and went straight into the activation of the spell for a desperate attempt of producing it.
The air hardened into glassy shields, shimmering layers of refracted moonlight.
Meki broke through them as though they were nothing.
Her blades spun — one high, one low — arcs of gold that left trails of lightning behind them. Every movement was a dance of hunger, a rhythm that obeyed no mortal tempo. She leapt, twisted, crashed, and in every motion her golden eyes burned brighter — alive, ecstatic, starving.
Kiome countered, step after step, parry after parry. His world narrowed to a rhythm of survival: block, pivot, redirect, breathe.
The rooftop beneath them splintered, beams collapsing into the rooms below.
They fell together, enveloped by light and ice.
The world below was a blur of chaos — frozen mist, crackling sparks, half-melted walls that steamed under her lightning. His sword gleamed once more — silver reflecting gold — and for a heartbeat the two lights met.
Then, it ended.
Her twin blades crossed before his chest. A flash of thunder split the night.
The sound that followed was not of triumph — but of collapse.
Kiome's body slammed against the wall, the impact carving cracks through the plaster. Dust fell like snow over his shoulder. His sword hung limply from his fingers, blade fractured, edge dull and trembling.
Meki stood amid the wreckage, lightning still crawling down her arms, her breath slow, calm — almost reverent. The twin shan dao dripped with faint arcs of gold, smoke curling from their edges like incense from an altar.
The frost that had once filled the room melted away, replaced by the hum of her devouring presence.
Kiome's reflection — faint, flickering — shimmered on the wet floor before him.
The lake had stilled.
And the swordsman lay broken beneath its silence.
Part 2
"Argh…" Kiome let out a breath as blood flowed out of his mouth.
His blurry, unfocused vision tried to locate the Demon Of Gluttony.
"You're nothing special." He heard.
That voice disturbingly cheerful, the lack of remorse filled his chest with rages.
He kept his cool, Kiome had Micah to thank for that, he taught him how to keep a cool mind.
Kiome's self-control was outstanding, but since Micah's passing he felt his self-control slipping more quickly.
"Hmmm?" Meki tilted her head in thought. "Nah, you're not worth devouring. Your mana capacity isn't more than the average person."
"Normally I always devour my opponents mana but…" Meki contemplated her decision for a second. After deciding what to do she said. "Nah, anyways, I have an other pray I need to be chasing, consider yourself lucky or something."
"You'll be surviving today, bye, bye."
Meki stretched her body while saying her goodbyes, arms stretched high above her head. Standing on her toes and letting out a yawn.
A satisfied, "Ah" left her lips before it changed into an.
"Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!"
"—"
Meki Fortuna, The Demon of Gluttony was sent flying like an ragdoll into a nearby house.
A familiar voice cracked through the air, "SONIC BOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!!"
Again for some miracle Luna Davida was the one to play the hero.
"You see that, you overeating manic! If you didn't focus on eating so much you may have noticed me!" Luna proudly declared. "I will be the hero of the day once agaaaaaaaaa..."
In a flash Meki erupted out of the rubble and a punch sent Luna flying.
"GAAAHHHHHH—?!?!"
Luna's proud form was instantly reduced to a flailing silhouette tumbling through the air like a ragdoll who'd just lost its audition for gravity.
A blur of brown hair darted forward beneath her.
Tatsuya, who thought he could play the hero for once, yelled out.
"I got you—!!"
Famous last words.
Tatsuya steadied his stance ready to stop Luna's momentum and bring her to a halt safely.
"—"
"Argh!!!"
Luna collided with him midair, and the pair spun together like a human pinwheel of pain and poor decision-making. The momentum was merciless.
"WAAHHHHH—?!"
Luna screamed back, limbs flailing like a windmill caught in a hurricane.
"I WAS TRYING TO HELP YOU!!"
"RIGHT, I CAN SEE THAT!!"
BOOOOM!!!
Both slammed into the half-destroyed wall of a nearby house, the impact leaving a Tatsuya-and-Luna-shaped crater.
A cracked beam dangled loosely above them like it was debating whether or not to finish the job.
"Owww…" Tatsuya groaned, half-buried in rubble. "Remind me to never try saving you again."
Luna's head popped out of the dust pile beside him, hair now resembling a bird's nest mid-evacuation. Her cheek twitched, and she puffed her chest like she was still trying to salvage her dignity.
"I–I totally planned that," she declared. "It was a strategic retreat."
Tatsuya blinked. "Strategic… into a wall?"
"Yes!" she snapped, finger raised triumphantly. "Walls are… solid! Safer than open air!"
A loose brick fell and hit her square on the head with a soft bonk.
Meanwhile, from across the wreckage, Meki emerged again—hair wild, lips curling into a feral grin. She tilted her head, watching the two dazed humans stacked in a crater of their own making.
"Hah!" Tatsuya pointed his finger at the demon. "Don't you dare escape again, you…"
Tatsuya looked side ways at Luna, who stood next to him, matching the same attitude.
He pauze for a second, thinking on how he should finish his sentence.
"All-you-can-eat lover! Normal restaurants are way beter!" Tatsuya finished.
Luna gives him a thumbs up, but doesn't appear to understand the insult.
Tatsuya moved his gaze over to the demon, for the first time he could see who it was that killed everyone in the village, that made him feel hatred that scorched reason, grief that refused to fade, guilt sharp enough to pierce bone, he's disgusted at the creature before him, and an even deeper disgust at himself for being too weak to stop it.
Rage bled into sorrow, sorrow curdled into loathing, and somewhere beneath it all, a quiet, trembling voice whispered the most poisonous feeling of all—
a desire for vengeance.
He surveyed the demon instinctively looking for any sign of weakness.
He reached her eyes, warm comforting like a fireplace slowly burning on a winter evening.
Her orange eyes, they should have been filled with rage and anger but to Tatsuya there was nothing wrathful about it.
He wasn't looking at the eyes of a demon, he was looking at…
His eyes windend, and a lonely tear flow down his cheek.
He felt his world around him collapsing but he himself didn't fell with it.
The girl he loved, the girl who saved him from his self-loathing and guilt-driven despair.
His Isolation and the fear of connection. his Belief that he is unworthy of love or human attachment.
But most important of all she broke his cycle of self-punishment. She made him realize that it was okey to put his faith and trust in others with his problems.
It was relief that fell over him.
They found her.
"Meki…."