This world is infested with humanoid creature named witches, Witches were once human or beings that are human like that obtain magic in various kind of ways. Humans in this world see witches as monsters and they are determined to eliminate them all.
But Kairo had a different idea, witches were once human and most of them don't attack humans so he disagrees with them with a goal in mind.
To save and befriend all witches in the world.
"What a stupid idea." The Demon witch who he met in the forest some time ago scoffed. Her eyes were silver and her pupils were that off a mountain goat, jer hair was also silver.
She had horns resembling that of a goat too and was holding a relatively small wand. She was drawing small circles on the dirt just out of sheer boredom.
Kairo shrugged, honestly she was right. The idea was a bit stupid and it might not even work because of his origins. You see Kairo was meant to be one of the surviving weapons against witches, a child of Salem.
A being who was born from the womb of a witch, his mother's life energy was extracted from hers and got stuffed into his body, turning him into an Anti–Witch weapon. "I mean I'm pretty sure I'm far more monstrous than a witch, honestly this human form of mine can't be maintained unless I drink the blood of a witch every few weeks since my mother was a Blood Witch...i wish she raised me."
The Demon Witch Vora, sighed and looked up at Kairo. "Witches can't have children you know, it's quite literally impossible so even if she was alive she wouldn't know how to take care of you."
Vora's words hung in the air, heavy with a biological truth that the Church's propaganda usually skipped over. To the world, witches were a plague; to themselves, they were a dead end—a transformation that traded the ability to create life for the power to warp it.
"I know," Kairo murmured, his gaze drifting to his own hands. They looked normal enough—tanned skin, calloused palms—but beneath the surface, his veins hummed with a stolen, jagged rhythm. "The Paladins who 'raised' me made sure I knew I was a freak of nature. An impossibility. A weapon made of paradoxes."
Vora stood up, dusting the forest soil from her dark robes. She tapped her small wand against her chin, her horizontal pupils tracking a flickering moth. "And yet, here you are. A 'Child of Salem' who wants to play
peacemaker, despite needing to bleed us dry just to keep your skin from sloughing off. You realize how that looks to my kind, don't you?"
Kairo rolled his eyes, his red pupils looking at her. "I can drink a bit of your blood and I will be fine for a week, I don't actually need to drain you dry."
Vora stared at his hair, a white bleached with red. "Even so, it is still something that would make a lot of witches despise you."
"True," Kairo admitted, the corner of his mouth twitching into a bittersweet smile. "But I'd rather ask for a cup of tea's worth of blood from a friend than take a gallon from a corpse. Besides, I'm not exactly popular with the humans either. I'm currently useless and the Paladins wish to erase all Children of Salem or something, I wouldn't be surprised if I was the last to survive."
Vora's gaze softened, though she quickly masked it by flicking her wand, conjuring a small, violet flame that danced between her fingers. "The last 'weapon' in the rack," she mused. "That makes you a relic, Kairo. And relics are either worshiped or destroyed. Currently, you're just a very tall, very thirsty nuisance."
She stepped closer, the scent of ozone and dried herbs clinging to her. She held out her wrist, the pale skin marked with faint, shimmering silver veins. "Fine. If you're going to be a martyr for a cause no one asked for, you might as well stay human-shaped for another week. But don't think this makes us 'friends.' It makes me an investor. I'm curious to see how long a weapon can pretend to be a shield."
Kairo hesitated, the metallic tang of his own thirst prickling the back of his throat. This was the curse of his existence: he was built to hate them, fueled by their very essence, yet his heart refused to follow the design.
He sighed and gently grabbed her wrist. "You do realise this is my first time drinking blood from a live witch right? I never killed one....by the way I usually just drink blood normally so I don't really know how to do it from a live witch."
Vora tilted her head. "Don't you drink blood like Vampire witches."
"Blood witches and Vampire witches are two completely different creatures." Kairo said a bit skeptical.
"True," Vora conceded, her tail flicking with a hint of impatience. "One manipulates the fluid of life as a medium for spells; the other consumes it to sustain a rotting soul. I suppose as a Child of Salem, you're a bit of both, aren't you? A biological siphon."
Kairo looked at her wrist, then back at her face. "I usually just... drink it from a flask the Paladins provided. It was cold, metallic, and tasted like regret. I've never actually... used my teeth."
Vora let out a dry, sharp laugh that echoed through the trees. "Oh, for the Mother's sake, Kairo. You're an Anti-Witch weapon, not a debutante at a ball. You don't have fangs, do you?"
Kairo shrugged and replied. "Not in my human form."
Vora's eyebrows shot up toward her horns. "Then change, you idiot. Or are you planning to just awkwardly nibble on my arm until I die of boredom?"
Kairo's lips twitched. "Yeah...I don't really want to go through such a painful experience just to drink blood and the moment I do that, you would be stunned by the [Charm] of a child of Salem and become immobilised, what if I do something bad to you because you suddenly gained affection for me and it also isn't a temporary thing."
Vora chuckled. "It's just a little Charm, it wouldn't hurt would it?."
Kairo hesitated for a moment before letting go her wrist. "Fine." He said as his arm began to turn red from his elbow down, his hair grew longer until it reached his back, from his shoulder blades the sounds of bones breaking before ripping put of his body.
The bone shards floated behind him before blood began to knit them together like thread through a loom, weaving sinew and membrane into four massive, skeletal wings. They unfurled with a wet, crackling sound—each one a grotesque fusion of ivory bone and crimson veins that pulsed with stolen life. His fingernails darkened and lengthened into talons, and when he opened his mouth to speak, his canines had sharpened into delicate, needle-like fangs.
But it was his eyes that changed most dramatically. The red pupils expanded, swallowing the whites entirely, until they glowed like embers in a dying fire. And around him, the air seemed to shimmer—a heat haze of magic that wasn't quite illusion, wasn't quite compulsion, but something more primal.
Charm.
Vora felt it immediately. A warmth that started in her chest and spread outward, softening the edges of her cynicism. Her breath caught, and for a moment, Kairo looked less like a weapon and more like something sacred—a fallen angel, perhaps, or a saint painted in blood and bone.
"Ah," she breathed, her voice distant and dreamy. "I see."
Kairo's expression twisted with guilt. Even in this form, his humanity bled through in the furrow of his brow, the downward curve of his mouth. "Vora, I'm sorry. This is why I don't—"
"Stop apologizing," Vora interrupted, though her voice was softer now, absent of its usual bite. She held out her wrist again, more eagerly this time. "Just... be quick about it. And Kairo?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't you dare waste a drop." Her silver eyes, still sharp despite the Charm's influence, met his. "If I'm going to be your unwilling patron saint, you'd better make this sacrifice worth something."
Kairo nodded slowly, cradling her wrist with a gentleness that contradicted his monstrous form. He leaned down, fangs hovering just above her skin, and whispered, "Thank you."
Then he bit down.
The blood that flowed into his mouth was nothing like the cold, dead substance from the Paladins' flasks. It was warm, alive, electric—tasting of thunderstorms and wildflowers and something uniquely Vora. His wings shuddered, the membranes flushing darker as his body greedily absorbed the magic-laced vitality.
Vora gasped, not in pain but in something stranger—a sensation like being known, being seen, down to her very essence. The Charm intensified, wrapping around her consciousness like silk, and she found herself thinking absurd thoughts: He's beautiful. He's trying so hard. I want to help him. I want—
She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood, using the sharp pain to anchor herself. "Enough," she managed to rasp.
Kairo pulled back immediately, his fangs retracting as he released her wrist. Already, the puncture marks were beginning to close, accelerated by her demonic constitution. He stumbled backward, wings folding protectively around himself as he tried to suppress his true form.
The transformation reversed with less drama than it had begun—wings dissolving into red mist, bones retreating, hair shortening. Within moments, he was human-shaped again, wiping blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
"Are you... okay?" he asked quietly.
Vora stood there, breathing heavily, one hand pressed to her chest where her heart was hammering. The Charm still clung to her, a persistent warmth that made her want to reach out, to touch him, to stay.
"I hate you," she said, but there was no venom in it. Just weary resignation. "I hate that I don't actually hate you right now."
"It'll fade," Kairo assured her, though his voice was thick with shame. "Give it a few hours, maybe a day. You'll go back to thinking I'm an idiot."
"I already think you're an idiot," Vora countered, rubbing her wrist. "The Charm just makes me think you're an idiot I'd die for, which is significantly more annoying."
She looked at him then—really looked at him—at the guilt etched into every line of his face, the way he held himself like someone expecting punishment. And beneath the magical compulsion, she felt something else stir: genuine curiosity
"So," she said, forcing herself to sound casual. "You've got a week's worth of fuel now. What's your brilliant plan for 'saving all witches,' weapon-boy?"
Kairo opened his mouth to reply but soon he realised he had no plan, so he coughed awkwardly and came up with something instead. "Uhh...first we'll go to the nearest church and free the witch or witches being held there, if I am going to become a friend of witches I have to first make a name for myself by freeing caged witches."
Vora stared at him, her silver eyes widening until they looked like twin moons. The silence stretched between them, broken only by the rustle of leaves and the distant, ominous chime of a village bell.
"The nearest church," she repeated slowly, her voice flat. "You mean the Sanctum of the Iron Rose? The place where they keep a dozen high-ranking Paladins and a basement full of silver-lined execution blocks?"
Kairo rose his chin up confidently. "As i said, I am mostly undefeated and one of the strongest children of Salem."
Vora let out a sound that was halfway between a groan and a manic laugh. She paced a small circle in the dirt, her hooves clicking against exposed roots. "Of course. Why settle for a small village chapel when you can commit high treason at a fortress? You're not just a weapon, Kairo; you're a suicide note with legs."
"I've got my mother's rebellious instinct...I think and besides, I'm curious to see what new method they discovered that they don't need Children of Salem anymore." He said with nonchalance making Vora glare at him with exasperation.