"So, who are you?" Returning back her question like an utter sped, I want to slap myself.

Why would I do that?! I haven't even answered her question…

She seemed to be dazed by the turn of events as reality kicked in. She was, after all, just a village girl before this whole nightmare, to see her village in ashes with acrid blood filling her nostrils, was simply too much for her to bear.

Heedless of my presence, her tear ducts started to loosen as tears came streaming out. She sniffled as she looked around her, shuffling toward two specific corpses which still leaked their viscous lifeblood. And before long she was sobbing pretty hard.

I’m impressed she hadn’t started wailing…

That was, until she started wailing.

Why was she wailing? Well, the proof was all around us.

The ash that stung your eyes, the soot that clung to your skin and the blood that marred the air. Not to mention the charred bodies of close friends and family.

Breathing in the fetid smog, I reminisced. It was nostalgic.

No wait. Let me clarify! It was nostalgic in a bad way. A bad way! I was just remembering something that happened once upon a time.

Looking at the girl who was bawling her eyes out in front of me whilst sitting in a pool of blood was just a tad bit concerning. But then again, she was a demon, and demons were weird. Very weird.

I wanted to be concerned, but I felt like being concerned would be insulting her or something.

Instead of thinking that sitting in a pool of blood while crying was alarming it would be better to think that she was doing it as some kind of demon thing.

Likely some kind of sendoff to her now deceased parents.

Which I hope is the case. Wait, but what if it’s not the case?

Okay, now I’m concerned. Let’s clarify.

…

"That is the case, right?" A lat inquiry interrupted the little girl's sombre grievance, she looked up to him, this time with a sense of fear in her eyes, intimidated by the black cloaked figure.

Her bravado moments ago, was nothing more than her demonic bloodline kicking in, pushing her mad and causing her to go on a rampage. Despite her bloodline, she is, after all, just a normal girl from some backwater village, bloodshed and killing was all foreign to her. In fact, such thought never crossed her mind before. But being innocent meant that when life took its turns, it was all the more devastating. At least that should’ve been the case. She should have been devastated by such a loss.

But that was the fact that made her heart jump, despite all this killing and the death of her acquaintances in the village, she innately felt it a natural course of order.

They were weak, so they died. It was only natural.

Was all of this really natural? It can't be! No way!

To make things worse, whilst she was wallowing in these thoughts, some guy just comes up to her and starts saying weird stuff. What did he want to do with her? They called him a cultist, so does he want to sacrifice her to an evil god? An evil cultist who wants to gift her to an evil god didn’t sound all that unlikely. In the tales, there would also be the braves who came and slaughtered the bad guys. But the white braves wouldn’t come. Why would they come? The noble’s men wanted her dead, so why should the braves come and save her?

As soon as this thought took root, she couldn't dispose of it. An impending sense of fear started to cloud her mind, as her thoughts ran amuck.

Does he want me because I'm a monster? He asked if that was the case, didn't he?!

Panic overwhelmed the girl, she started to tremble as the cultist loomed over her. His presence was menacing like it was subtly telling her to just die. Like school children egging a classmate to just go die.

A cruel joke, done with little thought. That's what this man's presence was. Oppressive with little heed.

The little girl trembled as he casually approached her. That was a very wrong action to take in such a stiff situation. It only exacerbated the girl’s worries, as her heart pounded in her chest. The heat making her sweat cold.

"I-I don't ca-re," she started to speak in broken words, intermingled with sobs and hiccups, "j-just kill m-me,"

Her attitude took a rather dark turn. Not that this sort of behaviour was unexpected, considering the experiences she had recently undergone, as well as the fact that she was a demon.

"Why would I kill you?" Crouching down to her eye level, the man held her chin up, as he looked into her eyes. They were red and puffy from her crying, however, her own red eyes masked this, making her just look cute, not too different from a pouting child. But then again, she was a pouting child.

"Wh-Wha whaawwawa-?" The girl reddened as her sight was locked onto the man’s cold eyes. They were the colour of ash and soot, his hair mimicking these traits. No matter how hard she tried to avert her eyes from the sight, she always found herself staring back at them.

Those dark inhuman eyes.

"Why, would, I, kill, you?" He asked again, in a slow measured tone, completely lacking any emotion. Any semblance of sentiment or feeling. Was he a demon as well?

He is no demon.

"B-b-b-because, because…" Because what? The girl was hung up on this question of which she was so sure of the solution. It was because of his aura, it just whispered to her the criminality of her existence. Her sinful existence. And yet at the same time, it was so innocent in these statements. Like a young child regurgitating profanities it didn't know.

Did he really want her to die? Or was she going mad again?

"I wouldn't kill you,"

Snapping out of her muddled thoughts, she noticed that there wasn't a face in front of her now.

Taking a moment, she suddenly processed the intent of those words.

He-He wasn’t going to kill her? But she was a demon and he wasn’t! Why wouldn’t he want to kill her?!

Looking up to face the guy, those self deprecating thoughts vanished as he patted her head, not unlike how a father would comfort his daughter. The rough action comforted her. His hand wasn’t one that sought to end her.