Prologue—Oni Isekai

Blood.

“With these sacrifices, we do commend our love and our fealty to you, oh Hokorash!” a man called in a deep voice.

Blinking, the girl saw the black-clad arms, the pale-skinned hands gripping the hilt of a gleaming knife jutting down toward her naked body.

A chorus of voices echoed after the first. “We commend these sacrifices!”

Red blood.

“Yeeessss!” hissed the first man, and he laughed.

Everything pulsed black and red and the edges of her vision hemmed in toward the center, narrowing her focus onto the blade. Swallowing against the lump in her throat and the acidic bile rising from her stomach, she flung her head to the side.

Gushing blood.

The girl—an oni with curved horns jutting from her forehead, reached out with her hand toward another of her race; a man with stark-red skin and horns on his head. Lying upon the stone slab in the dark chamber, he did not move. His eyes remained open, still and unseeing. His mouth was a rictus of pain and terror and madness. From his bloody form, his arm hung limply down toward the floors.

Upon the floors, something glinted.

“Fa—father?!”

The girl’s throat swelled and closed, and her jaw quivered as a wordless keen came out of her. And then she screamed, shrieked in fury and in utter terror of what was to come for her next.

Squirming, the young oni tried to free herself, but she could.

Where was her mother?

Where is my mother?!

She squirmed, and caught the malicious gaze of the man above her, smiling down at her with glee in his eyes.

Then he spoke. “First the father we offer up to you as a sacrifice, that you might bestow upon us the magic of strength.” The man made a fist with one hand as blood trickled from his fingers over her face.

All around the hum of men and women filled the space, the catechism of dark worshipers. As a dark choir, they hummed and sang, and chanted. “These sacrifices we offer up to you, that you may bestow upon us your gifts!”

The man above the young oni woman cackled with delight. “Now, the mother, we do sacrifice that you may bestow upon us long life and regrowth.”

“The…” she tried to speak, but the words died inside her throat.

Mother?!

With a gasp, she glanced about, but unknown to her, these dark mages had bound her with magic so that she could not escape by any of her own devices.

A man grunted from the side, and something, like metal piercing flesh, sounded. A woman’s cut-off shriek sliced at her from her right, and the oni turned her head as the last breath of her mother’s life left her body, her hands falling limp to the sides of the stone alter.

Draining blood.

It dripped from her stomach over her skin and onto the stone slab before falling down to the floor in a fast taptaptaptaptap. Something came out of the oni girl then—something akin to her soul, for then she lost the will to live.

The last tears of her sorrow filled her eyes, the salt stinging her as the scent of iron and death filled the chamber.

Dripping blood.

The worshipers increased their catechisms and the thrum of their singing inside their throats rose to a higher degree.

Drums.

The pounding drums creating a tempo that the worshipers moved to.

Faster.

And faster.

Like the drums of blood in her ears.

“And finally,” the man above her said, his fingers tightening over the blade, “we offer up to you the offspring of their blood—the daughter, that you may bestow upon us youth and vitality and potency!”

A tremor of fear coursed through the oni girl, but it died, for she had lost the will to live, and indeed her vision was a blur, both from the tears, but also because of the rush of fear and stress.

She was, in a way, delirious at this time. The tempo of the drums increased, the chain rising high into a crescendo that filled the girl’s ears like the crashing waves of the sea breaking against cold hard rocks.

“EEeeeeyyyaaah!” the man howled with delight as he slammed the blade into her.

Unwillingly, her body jerked, and pain coursed through her core, spread out like fiery tendrils, a sharp hiss coming out of her throat. She tried to breath—tried to suck in air, but it only came as a wheeze as thunder cracked in her ears and bright lights filled the space.

There was something beautiful above as the malicious and greedy gaze of the man looked down upon her, his toothy smile lustful and wanting in every way.

“These sacrifices we offer up to you, that you may bestow upon us your gifts!”

Suddenly the drums stopped, the space went dark, and the supplicants silenced themselves in a hisses and whispers.

And even though the drums were no longer pounded, the sound inside of her own head went up.

Thumthumhum!

Whatever had held her down was now gone.

The oni girl reached up with a nailed hand, up, up at… at what? There was… light? A white—

She tried to speak, and only a gurgle came out, and the sudden urge to cough. She choked, and something hot and wet came out.

Her arm dropped to the stones.

And all faded into an unseeing, unfeeling black.

Then everything became white and powdery.

Soft.

Wonderful.

Worm.

“Sheesh!” somebody complained. “That took a lot longer than I thought it would.”

Rōkura blinked and the white void went away to reveal another dark space. With a gasp, she jerked up into a sitting position, glanced about. Had she been sleeping, she wondered?

Was it… all a dream?

“I’m afraid…” the voice said from the dark, and Rōkura sucked a sharp breath, “that what you just experienced, was quite real.”

The voice.

Rōkura didn’t know how to put a word on it.

It was annoying.

“Who are you?” she asked, surprised by the sound and the clarity of her own words. She glanced around some more, thinking that, maybe that voice hadn’t been her own after all.

But it was hers.

Footsteps, loud and echoing in the large space—a space that seemed to have no walls and no end, save for the dark floor, brightened at a single focal point in the center of the chamber from some invisible ambient light source—approached.

Heart thumping inside her chest, Rōkura looked upon the figure in the dark. She could just barely make out the outline of his form.

Of his horns.

And his luminescent red eyes.

“You’re… you’re oni,” she said. “Father?”

He came into the light, revealing a main of golden hair, a wisp of a mustache that didn’t connect well with the beard hairs jutting out from the bottom of his chin.

Hope falling, she watched him step forward.

“I am not your father, kid. My name, is Ogai—and I’m your patron deity kid!”

“What?”

“That’s right! He lunged into the space, pirouetted and slid into a kneeling position across the silky blue floor next to her, one hand pushed against his chest, the other outstretched.

Rōkura shrunk back.

“Awe,” he said in mock sympathy. “There’s no need to recoil, you pretty thing.”

“Who”—she glanced about. “Who are you?” Swallowing against the newly formed knot in her throat, she glanced about. “Where are my parents.”

“Hmm,” he mused. “A little slow on the uptake, but I still think we can work with that.” He dropped his hand. “Listen, kid. That was no dream. Your parents are dead. Now, now—don’t start blubbering like that, because I’m here to make it right!”

She looked into his glowing red eyes. “Make it… make it right?” She sniffed, swallowed. They were dead, both her parents. Mother… father.

Rōkura would never see them again.

“Listen, kid—I said stop that blubbering or I’m going to throw you out of here.” He stood, glaring down at her with a look like he had just come up with a brilliant plan, but what he said smelled of premeditation to the young oni woman. “I told you, it was all real, and no, there’s nothing you can do to change any of it, except maybe one thing.”

She moved, put her hands down on the cold floor. “I can change it?”

“Well,” the oni who had introduced himself as Ogai said, “you can change the future, surely. With my help that is.”

He offered her his hand again.

She reached out to take it, but hesitated.

With a sigh, he he jumped back on light feet, twirled in a plume of sparkling golden magic with red swirled. It moved like smoke, but it wasn’t smoke. It was like blood spreading under water.

Except they weren’t underwater.

As he rematerialized, he once again had his hand upon his chest, his outstretched hand forward like a prince from some fairy tale. “I told you. I’m a deity, and my name is Ogai.”

She took his hand and sniffed. “I am—“

“I know who you are, kid!” He yanked her to her feet and disappeared, then rematerialized in a showy display of magic behind her.

Rōkura whirled and found him sitting down, but there was no chair, and he was upside down, his eyes level with hers and his smile cutting half his face in a grin that brought images back from her…

What had that been, when she…?

When I died?

She swallowed hard and her stomach heaved.

“Okay,” Ogai complained. “I see you’re not all that impressed with the magic. Fine!” He snapped his fingers and whirled out of existence.

Then in a flash like a gust of sudden wind and an explosion of light and gold and red blood, he reappeared on the other side of the space. In a rush he ran up to her, the magic all around him hissing and cracking as he lunged right up to Rōkura.

Rōkura flinched, fell back, rolled over the floor and stood up on her hands and knees with wide eyes.

With a chortle reminiscent of a child, Ogai laughed at her.

Then he lunged, slid on his knee as he came face to face with her again. “Listen,” he said, “I get it—you’re still rather shocked at it all. That’s fine. I’ve got a proposal for you.”

Blinking Rōkura felt incredibly dizzy for a moment. She also wanted to retch.

“Oh no you don’t!” he said. Ogai snapped his fingers and the feelings were suddenly gone.

She gasped. How had he done that? Rōkura had never experienced such potent magic that could instantly remove such negative emotions and bodily reacts as that.

“You really are a deity, aren’t you?”

He nodded, smiling with delight and a spark in his eyes. “Sure am, kid.”

Then standing, he offered her his hand once again. Rōkura took it and he helped her to her feet. With a friendly smile, she almost felt comforted.

But just for a moment—until he suddenly whirled around, ran and yanked her along with him. When he jumped, they were both covered in a plume of bright magic, their surroundings gone. Rōkura screamed as her heart lifted into her throat.

With Ogai, she seemed to be floating, until he glanced toward her side. When she looked, he swiped with his hand to make an image appear through the swirl of magic. It was the image of the men and women clad in black cloaks, their eyes hungry and lustful, their mouths cracked with predatory smiles.

Upon the stone slabs were…

Oh gods—no!

She slammed her eyes shut, lifted her hand. “Please!” Rōkura pleaded. “Take it away. Please take it away.”

“Whoa, kid,” Ogai said, his tone full of concern. “Are you all right?”

Surely he didn’t care what she felt? Why did he sound so worried—this malicious, immature and annoying deity—if a deity he even was.

Turning slowly, the golden mist with the red blood-like tendrils dissipated and Rōkura found herself standing in the open space with the light between herself and Ogai. Some time passed between them before he finally spoke. “Tell me,” he said slowly. “Are you good with weapons?”

“I thought you said you were a god?”

“Why, I am!”

“Then why—“

“I am a god. I am not omniscient. None of us are, dear child.”

She took pause.

“Weapons,” he persisted.

“I… I have extensive training with the katana, a weapon of my homeland.”

“Really?” he said with deep interest. He asked the question slowly, as if he were savoring that word.

“I am a duelist and a fencer.”

“Yes you are.”

“I wiped most of your memories.”

Rōkura’s eyes widened and a worry clawed its way in the back of her mind. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“Hmm,” he mused. “We always do this to the spirits that come to us—so that they may pass on in comfort to the next world.”

“The next world?” she asked quickly, feeling a sense of hope strike like lightning inside her heart. “Does that mean I can see my parents again?”

He looked at her with his piercing red eyes that glowed in the dark. Then he shrugged. “Perhaps. I do not know.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t, child. And besides, even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Rōkura narrowed her eyes. “You like to play games, don’t you, Ogai.”

“Always,” he said, as if he were savoring a good wine.

“Then… what do you want from me?”

“Want? From you? Why ever would you think I want something?”

“Do not toy with me,” she warned.

“Oh,” he said in mock concern. “Very well.” For a moment Ogai looked at her. The moment extended into an uncomfortable silence between them and Rōkura wanted to look away.

She forced herself not to. She had just been murdered as if she were nothing more than a slave—a piece of property to be discarded or used for some purpose, her life a worthless thing to be traded away.

I won’t be his plaything.

Holding his gaze, Ogai finally spoke, clicking his tongue in annoyance. “Oh, all right! It is that Hokorash.”

“Ho—Hokorash?”

“Yes,” he said, perching his chin atop his thump as as he stroked his chin with his forefinger. “Almost getting what he wants—and doing anything to achieve his aims.” As he stood there thoughtfully glancing away from her, his back arched and his shoulders squared, Rōkura for the first time noticed his attire.

Ogai wore silken red trousers and a jacket to match with silver and black buttons, black shoes with metallic toe guards that glinted with silver light, and at the cuffs of his jacket white lace protruded.

He looked to be very much a nobleman of some far off gaijin land. Ogai sighed. “I have to admit, he has bested me far more times than I him. I want to change that. And I think you might be the one to help me.”

“Help you?” Rōkura asked. “How can I help you?”

“By killing those cultists who killed you and your parents!” he spat, his eyes suddenly wild and malicious.

The young oni woman couldn’t help but take a step back, but now she realized that, unlike before, her inner calm had reappeared, and knowing that her parents had died—and along with her—just recently, her calm was surely too collected.

She tried to remember something from her past.

There was precious little.

He was telling the truth.

“What are you thinking, little one?”

“I am trying to remember my past.”

“I told you—“

“Yes,” she said, interrupting with a nod. “I remember what you told me.” Despite her distraction, her interest was piqued and her anger smoldering. “What did you say about killing those people?”

Ogai smiled, his eyes luminescent, unlike any oni she had ever seen. But he was a god—a great spirit. The glow did not surprise her, especially now after everything that had happened.

“Yes, I can rebirth you—isekai you back to the world of the living. But there will be a cost.”

“A cost?”

“Yes,” he said. “I am not technically allowed to do it, but… if you will agree to serve some of my ends, I will risk it.”

If getting the chance to kill those men and women who murdered Rōkura and her parents meant doing Ogai some personal favors, then she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

With a firm nod, she said, “I will do anything you wish.”

He laughed. “Good.” Ogai then looked her up and down and clicked his tongue. “This will not do.”

Glancing down, Rōkura realized she was still naked and her cheeks heated furiously. “Oh,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Do not matter your little horned head about that. What I meant was that I will not be able to return you as you are. Too weak.”

“Will you give me a weapon?”

“Ha!” he cried incredulously. “How cliché, little oni. No—what I must do is give you a random stay roll.”

“A… a random stat roll?”

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully more to himself than to her. He knew just how to trick them, to keep her hidden. Then muttering he continued. “It will be the best way to disguise you from the sight of the other gods. You see, they will become jealous if they see me skirting the rules so closely.”

Covering her nakedness, Rōkura shook her head. “I do not understand what you mean.”

“Never you mind about that, my dear.”

Then Ogai snapped his fingers and a pair of dice appeared in his hand, glowing with blue magic and wisping with red flames that almost looked like blood. “These will do. I’m going to roll your stats. They will be randomized, so you might”—a worried look came over his face as he shrugged—“get something exceedingly terrible. But who knows! Perhaps you will roll something high and be quite well equipped to handle my little problem with that pompous blowhard—actually, in truth, this will not be the first time I’ve done this.”

Rōkura swallowed hard.

“Listen,” he said, “the place I am sending you—the world where your killers sacrificed you and your parents. It is an altogether different plane of existence. We have stats, numbers, levels—they determine what we can do—what abilities we will have. For instance, if you roll a low level for blade skills, you might have trouble cutting the stock of a flower with a sword.”

“What?”

“Yes,” he said with a nod. “But if you roll a high number, you might be able to cut through the trunk of the thickest trees with a blow from your palm!”

Eyes widening, Rōkura nodded, knowing a power like this would surely help her kill those people who had ended her life, and that of her parents. “I think I understand, Ogai-sama.”

“Hmph,” he sniffed with bemusement. “I am glad to see you paying me proper respect, dear child. I am a god after all, and you a mere mortal. Now… what is your name?”

“My name?”

“Yes, you have one do you not? I am certain I didn’t take even that from you.”

“It is Rōkura.”

“Then… do we have an agreement?” He thrust out his red-skinned hand.

Tentatively she moved to grasp, but he pulled away. “Remember, once you’ve entered into a contract with a god, there is no way to break the agreement, not even in death.”

“I… I want you to help me kill those men, Ogai-sama!” He caught his hand and they shook.

“Lovely!” he said, his tone predatory and his smile wide. As they shook hands, blood-like fire enveloped their hands and curled up Rōkura’s arm, hot and cold all at once.

She gasped, attempting to pull back, when Okai said, “Do not break with me now, little oni—or the pact will not be complete.”

She forced herself not to recoil as she gritted her teeth from the pain. It travelled up her arm, burning and searing away her flesh. She screamed, squeezed his hand hard.

“Yes, little one—hold firm, hold firm for your revenge, for you will destroy those who murdered you and your parents.”

It went over her shoulder and she shrieked, but suddenly the flames burst and dissipated, leaving only tendrils of smoke lifting from her skin, the pain completely gone. As she looked down at her skin, Rōkura widened her eyes. There was a kind of white marbling inside her hot-pink skin that trailed up her arm, like that of a coiling serpent. It ended in a large pool over her right shoulder.

“That, Rōkura-kun, is the pact of our agreement. It is inside you now, part of you.” Ogai pulled his hand away. “Now. Are you ready for your stat roll, child?”

She nodded. “Mm.”

“Very well.” He stepped away from her, looked off into the dark voide, then glanced back at her with a toothy smile. “Cross your fingers.”

Heart jumping inside her throat, she actually did it as he tossed the celestial dice. The cubes flipped end over and, flames and wisps of magic coming off their sharp angles as they fell, landed like thunder. They were as mountains thrown filling the lands with a trembling only the gods could conjure. As the edges flipped and and the dice rolled, lightning struck in random directions.

When they came to a stop, wisps of smoke rose from the dice.

All was still.

Quiet.

Suddenly magic plumed under Rōkura’s feet with a sharp hiss and swirled around her like molten gold. She stepped about, attempting to avoid it, but it enveloped her, swirling about her and lifting her feet up off the smooth surface of the floor.

Like Ogai’s eyes, her own, aqua in color, became luminescent, for that was what happened to the eyes of an oni touched by celestial magic.

As she alighted, she felt… different.

It was unexplainable. Like she were simply more.

“Well, let’s see what you got!” Ogai said excitedly. “Come over here, child.”

Stepping forward tentatively, he reached out a clawed forefinger and tapped Rōkura on the forehead hard enough to make her grunt from the pain. Something came out, like a big dewdrop of magical energy.

Ogai spread it out in the open air before them as words in a script she didn’t understand were revealed.

He laughed.

Then he laughed more, the pitch and excitement of his mirth increasing as he spread his hands. He knew this to be the start of a wonderful thing.

“No Dice!” he cried. “I’ve never seen such an ability before!” He grabbed her then by her shoulders and shook her. “I’VE NEVER SEEN SUCH A WONDROUS THING BEFORE! Oh—the heavens are pleased. Like a father watching his child take her first footsteps, I am pleased, child.”

“What does it mean?”

Ignoring her, he continued reading. “Oh—Overpowered! Yes! Amazing!” he said to himself, leaning back and shaking his shoulders like a giddy boy. “I cannot believe this stroke of good fortune! You may be the answer to all my woes! Let’s see, what else. Kinetic Magic. Yes, yes. That’s to be expected. Ah, Blink. Good! Good! Oh no.” Okai’s face fell. “Nonono.”

That sounded bad. “What is it?!”

“Persistent Bad Luck.”

Rōkura swallowed as her heart hammered inside her chest. “Is that… bad?”

“It’s the worst! Gods, how could we have rolled such a catastrophic ability. Why am I calling on the gods when I am the gods? Devils and demons—er, no offense.”

“None taken?”

“Okay, okay. Persistent Bad Luck is pretty bad, but… it’s not the end. Maybe its simply a way to offset your Overpowered nature, and combined with No Dice—NO DICE—I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!”

She didn’t know how to respond while he shrieked and laughed and cried and complained. He was ten people all at once and Rōkura was beginning to feel her head throb. “What else did I get, Okai-sama?”

“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “Let’s look.” He read the words. “Blink. That’s pretty good. Bloodlust—ugh! All right.” He breathed. “Balance. Balance is a thing of the gods, right?”

“What?!”

“Haha! Just kidding, kid. “Ohh! Regeneration!”

“What is that?!”

“It means your body can heal itself. Oh,” he added with a smirk. “There’s a sub category to that one. You won’t like it.”

“What is it?”

He laughed. “To regenerate, you must consume fresh blood.”

“Fresh… fresh blood?!”

He guffawed and leaned back. “And finally, the last one, Oni Rage. Ah—this is good!” he smiled. “Oh this is bad!” he cried.

“What is it—is it good or is it bad?”

He sighed heavily. “Kid, you have the abilities of a god, and the downsides of the lowest slimes in existence.”

She grabbed the sides of her head and growled. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT ANY OF THAT MEANS!”

“It means…” he sighed. “It means…” He looked at her like a boy who had gotten caught in the cookie jar. “Hells, it means you’ve got the best luck and the worst luck all at once—the best bad luck I have ever seen.”

He laughed.

Rōkura scratched her head.

Whatever…

Suddenly a plume of magic appeared, like an orb. It pulsed with a blue light. “Oh no.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh nonono—not now!” He glanced about for something he could hid her in and of course there was nothing. “Listen—you gotta go.”

She gestured with her hands. “Where?”

“Uh—back!”

“Back?”

“Yes, back into your physical body in the other plane. Do you think you can handle things from there?”

“NO!”

“Okay, good. Sending you back now!”

“Wait!” she cried, reaching out to Ogai, but a plume enveloped her and everything cut to black.

Rōkura blinked awake to a terrible pain inside her chest.

All around men and women whispered, but none of them paid her any heed. She reached with a grunt and grabbed the blade sticking up out of her chest. She pulled at it. “Hngh!”

“Oh my gods—look!” a man shouted. “She’s still alive!”

Lifting the sword out of her chest, the men and women in their robes shrunk back while others ran out of the chambers.

Rōkura sat up and glanced about as the scared and startled gazes breathed silently, watching her as she looked back at them with luminescent aqua eyes filled with hate and rage and—

“I… want to drink your blood.”

The all screamed, scrambling in every direction. Two of the black-clad figures actually ran into each other. Jumping off the stone slab where her life’s blood had dribbled and soaked into the stones, she lurched and slammed the blood-stained blade down over the man’s shoulder, sinking the blade down through his body and down out past his hip, sending the two halves apart in a hot spray of blood.

Rōkura opened her mouth and tasted the salty iron warmth on her tongue. Her chest her anew, and as the cultists fled from the chamber, she glanced down at her naked breasts, at the gaping wound as the skin knitted and grew to cover the wound completely.

With a smile like that of the predatory gazes from these fools from before, she glanced up at the ceiling and howled as a sudden heady rush filled every vein inside her body. Rōkura felt invigorated beyond anything she had ever felt.

Multiple shadows loomed into the chamber as footfalls approached. Someone came at her from behind.

The oni whirled, catching the man by the wrist. She snapped his arm with a twitch of her hand and his skin broke. Jagged white protrusions greeted her as his hot blood sprayed.

The scream that issued out of the warrior’s mouth was a high pitched shriek as she slammed the point of her blade through his chest so hard the cross guard almost sunk into the wound.

Growling furiously, another warrior came at her from the other side. Rōkura lifted the dead man in her grasp and toppled him over the other where they fell in a heap.

Wasting no time, she lifted her heel and crushed his head like a melon, the blood and pulpy masses exploding outward across the moss-covered rocks in the torchlight.

Rōkura howled, a need that came out of her of its own accord.

Two more figures appeared as lights plumed in their palms, red and blue. They hurled the magic at her. The fireball hit her in the arm and exploded.

She cried out, whirled, but used her bodyweight to catch herself from falling as she ran through the stone arches.

As men and women shouted from beyond the inner sanctum, Rōkura ran through the corridors in a circuitous route that took her to the flank of the two magic users.

A man stumbled from between the stone pillars and howled as he tried feebly to strike her. Rōkura took him by the wrist and the neck and sunk her teeth into his neck and drank.

Like a squealing pig, he thrashed and cried.

She dropped him like a piece of discarded meat and ran back to the chamber, her need to kill and to drink unstated as she came back into the chamber where the two mages were.

One of them jumped atop the stone alter where she had been sacrificed. They looked at her, and she regarded them.

“I don’t understand,” the one on the left with the water magic said. “I can’t get a feel for her level.”

“I’m perceiving no level at all—not level one!”

She smiled.

“Hey kid,” a voice said from above.

“Ogai-sama?”

“Ogai?” one asked in sudden surprise and disbelieve. There was no way she was speaking to one of the oni gods—it wasn’t possible!

Rōkura glanced up, and so did the mages. “Listen,” said Ogai, “playing catch with magic is all well and good, but I suggest you use this.”

A tear appeared and a katana fell through, gleaming with magic energy that she could feel more than see. It stuck into the dirt and the mages followed its movement with their eyes.

“I’m a bit busy now,” Ogai said, “and you’re supposed to be dead—so kill those losers and make yourself scarce for a while.”

The tear then closed and the mages glanced between the sword and Rōkura, then they bristled, reacting with deadly force.

With a grunt, Rōkura lunged for the blade as the two mages hurled balls of ice and fire magic at her.

But Rōkura was too fast. She pulled the sword free and hit the two projectiles away where they exploded hot and cold on separate sides of the chamber.

With a howl she lunged forward and cut horizontally with her sword, taking the ice mage in the hip. Her blade passed through his body and the two halves flew in separate directions.

The stunned look on the ice mage’s face and the “Huh?” died on his lips as the floors were sprayed in his precious red blood.

The fire mage atop the alter jumped back and hurled more plumes of fire at her. Rōkura hit them away with ease, almost as if she were hitting rocks with a stick thrown by a small boy.

“How are you… this powerful?!” She lunged, sinking her blade into his stomach where it protruded out the other side. “Not… poss-ible…”

She flung him away like a soiled rag and glanced about at the bodies of her father and her mother atop their alters.

Rōkura breathed, her chest heaving in and out as she glanced about with rage-filled eyes and a need to kill.

Something was wrong.

She knew she should feel something, knew that she should do something about her parent’s bodies, and yet… she felt nothing. They were sacks of meat.

And yet Rōkura felt a tinge of regret, knew mentally—without emotion—that she should do something for them. “Taking the lanterns in the chamber, she broke them over the bodies and spread hot oil over the lifeless forms.

Then, taking a torch from the sconce in the wall, she lit them. The flames licked and leapt, burning away the dead bodies.

Turning, Rōkura rushed outside where she found herself in the moonlight. Knowing not where she was, she blinked, tried to get a feel for the land as men shouted and ran.

Something bright appeared and two men lunged through a portal. She lurched, chasing down any stragglers. She cut down some of them, and followed the last man who ran through the forest, breathing like a scared child as he whined and whimpered in fear.

As he came to the cliff’s edge, he turned with a gasp. “Please—it wasn’t me. Don’t kill me.”

“I don’t care about that, you fool!” she spat.

At her words, his eyes widened. It was better to die then to be eaten alive of cut to pieces by a monster, he thought, and backing toward the edge, he spread his arms.

But she lunged, grabbing him by the shoulder.

The man shrieked and kicked at her.

Rōkura lost balance and they both went over the edge screaming.

As they fell, the enraged oni grunted, her limbs thumping against the grass and tree branches. The man hit something hard and grunted wetly his bones snapped and his muscles flopped noisily.

She came to a sudden stop as she slammed face first into a mound of dry grass, the air pushed from her lunges.

Everything whirled as she curled in on herself, the pain blooming through her core and her limbs and her chin.

For a time the oni lay there, and had she known what was happening, she would have known that the blood she had drank from the multiple victims of her rampage healed her even then.

When the pain went away, she blinked, her rage subsiding and her deep regret and and sorrow filling her consciousness.

Her parents were dead.

I… burned them!

Glancing up in the moonlight, she suddenly felt tired. Lifting her feet, Rōkura stepped forward, her body still completely exposed. Where was her sword?

Her fatigue seemed to fill her to the core, every muscle, every bone, until nothing seemed to exist but the knowledge of her tiredness.

Not even her sorry or the worry of where the sword Ogai-sama had given her could compete for her mental attention.

With a shuttering breath, she sighed, her eyes falling closed as her body slackened and went limp.

She fell softly into the grass, curled up, naked as the day she was born, clothes in not but moonlight.

“Hmm,” mused Ogai from some place that would have been unseen to the young oni isekai. “I guess I didn’t have time to tell her about the Oni Rage.” He nodded, smiling with extreme satisfaction. “Sleep, little oni—for I see great things in your future.”