The Devil Doesn't Bargain

[Kao]

The last time Kotaru had been in the Akari Elder's meeting hall had been under completely different circumstances. Back then he had stood beneath the high ceiling, the five elders of the Akari clan seated before him. The black wall behind them swallowed the light in the hall, shrouding them in shadow while the rest of the room appeared a few degrees lighter. Above them painted in blood red was the Akari clan symbol. On either side of the emblem were banners. “Death to the weak” on one side. “Glory to the strong” on the other.

Back then, the bannin had been on the heels of his breakup with Ume. This time it was permanent. She had left his home, leaving nothing but a terse, neatly written note behind. He’d responded by removing the security detail he’d had follow her from the shadows to ensure her safety as she navigated the village and the Akari compound. No one was to update him of her whereabouts or status. If she wanted to be free of him, she would be free. If she wanted him to let her go, he would let her go. But not before making a visit to the damned Elders.

His requests were simple. Respect Tatsuo’s lack of interest in the clan. Leave Ume alone for good. And never summon him again.

They had been astonished at his audacity, but he was tired of their schemes, especially those from the woman that sat in the center. If the men and women at her sides were statues, she was a monolith. Officially each member of the council had equal sway. But everyone knew who the real puppet master was, who truly had the clan in her clutches. Kanehara’s yellow eyes had bore into him, cold rage rippling from her in waves.

Now, Kotaru stared at the heavy double doors in front of him, knowing the elders’ table that sat in the hall beyond was empty. The bannin took in a deep breath and drained most of emotion from his eyes, leaving only the hot coals of cooled wrath behind. He pushed open the doors and beheld the fifty or so Akari who sat on the floor before the long, ebony table that was situated on a raised platform at the head of the hall. All were confused why they had suddenly been summoned there in the middle of dealing with the fallout of the incident in the Arena. It had only been days since the destruction, and the men and women present had been scrambling to pick up the pieces. They had been waiting for an hour and were getting restless.

Finally in strolled Kotaru wearing simple black robes, open so his bare chest was visible underneath, and he had a large sack slung over his shoulder. Only a few Akari noticed as he stepped to the raised platform where the empty Elders’ table and chairs stood, but then he slammed it down onto the table. A hush fell over the crowd and all eyes fell upon him. Kotaru’s fellow clan members looked at him with a myriad of expressions. Some annoyed or angry. Others curious. Many fearful.

“I’m surprised you all had the balls to show up.”

One brave soul stepped forward. He was half a foot taller than Kotaru, dark blue hair falling past monstrously broad shoulders and his heavily scarred face. He had a large jaw, pointed canine teeth peeking over his lips. “What is the meaning of this, Kotaru?”

“Kotaru?” He echoed, brows briefly scrunching as he walked around to the front of the table. He leaned back on it, crossing his arms over his chest. “You think because you’re older than me you can talk to me so familiarly? I barely even know who the fuck you are.”

“You might be a bannin out there, but I outrank you here.”

“Do you?”

“If you or Tatsuo ever bothered to-” he sighed, clearly bothered by the lack of recognition. “I am Hachirou. I've possessed a derghoshiin from birth. Taka’aki is my uncle."

“Taka’aki?” Kotaru reached behind him, dragging the sack from the table onto the floor. He dug around in it, eyes never leaving Hachirou. He pulled out something large and round, and several in the crowd gasped. Kotaru gripped the dark grey hair of a severed head, its left side caved in from some blunt force. Its eyes were missing, and there was a round hole the size of a fist in the center of the forehead. The size of Kotaru's fist. The bannin held up the head, smiling as the color drained from Hachirou’s face. “You mean him?”

The bannin set the head on the table, and as the older Akari sputtered Kotaru reached into the sack and pulled out another. This one’s facial features were unrecognizable. The bottom half of the face was crushed and the hair had been burned away, leaving thin black whips behind. “Or was it this one? It’s hard to tell with it like this, and I never bothered to keep all their names straight. But it was definitely connected to the body of an Elder when I found it under all that rubble.”

He took out another head. “Certainly not this one. This one is female. Gotta be Makina, right?” He lined them up in a row on the table, sitting in front of the empty chairs they had occupied during life. He left a space between the two male heads, the female one at the last place on the left. The room stood in stunned silence as he pulled out yet another head and set it in front of the chair on the far right. At the back of the room, someone retched. All eyes moved to the table’s center, at the space left empty for the final member of the council of Elders. Behind it the chair loomed, crafted to look more like a throne compared to the others. Kotaru followed their gazes, and when he turned back to the gathered crowd a gleam that could only be described as a spark of unadulterated hatred touched his eyes.

“Oh, her? Tatsuo made sure there was nothing left when he devoured her.”

“Traitors!”

Before any of them could blink Kota was next to Hachirou, peering up at him with piercing eyes. The man stumbled backwards as if Kotaru had struck him. “Traitors? The only traitors are those that Lord Tsuchikage and I tore through and burned to ashes. Them and all who conspired with them.” Hachirou clenched his teeth, but the display was an attempt to hide the fear that coiled in his gut. The growl the man had intended to sound intimidating came out as a choked garble. Kotaru simply stared at him, his loose posture making him a picture of relaxation. Perhaps even boredom. “Did you know?”

“Did I know what?” His voice wavered. Such a large and imposing man, made small and meek by Kotaru's mere proximity.

“What they were planning, Hachirou.” Around them the crowd was completely still. No one dared breathe too loudly as the bannin confronted Hachirou. "Of course you did. You and your uncle were close, no? I know, Hachirou, how he was grooming you to take his seat someday. I wonder how he felt to see that you weren't in the mob that you helped organize. Were you too much of a coward to be in the Arena that day? Or was the mission you were on near the border - the mission you requested to be on - more important than the attempt on mine and the Tsuchikage’s lives?”

Sweat soaked Hachirou’s face, dripping down his neck and back. Kotaru’s presence was overwhelming, murderous intent radiating from every pore. He wasn’t the only one. Several other clan members had gone pale or had broken out in a sweat during the exchange. Hachirou wanted to lie. He wanted to lie to avoid this man's wrath. But his words trembled as he slowly admitted, “I didn’t think you’d survive with that many people gunning for your throats.”

Every time he thought about it, every time he remembered the carnage of that day the rage within him roared into a firestorm. He was barely able to contain it within him, itching to release it and finish what he had started. That day he had wanted to wield the cataclysmic fury that swirled inside him and raze the entire clan to the ground. A few murmured words from Tatsuo was the only reason the compound was even still standing. The only reason there were still survivors.

If the clan ever hurts you, I'll make sure there's nothing left.

He'd have to break that promise.

“You mean gunning for our shiin. Nothing else motivates you people like the thought of moving up in the clan, huh? It’s enough to make you fucks foam at the mouth and dare to try to kill the goddamn Tsuchikage.”

“And his fucking dog from Hell." The retort was muttered from somewhere in the crowd, from someone who didn't have the courage to say it to Kotaru's face. The bannin didn't care. Instead he grinned, the expression one of wicked delight at the moniker.

"I thought...it'd be over quickly."

"Four hundred sixty-three. That's how many thought the same. And in the off chance this operation failed, you thought you'd be free of blame and safe if you weren't part of the mob. Fucking coward, too scared to risk dying with the rest of them. Your assassination attempt became a culling, Hachirou."

"All you had to do," Hachirou began, his voice shaking from anger and terror, “was fall in line. You, Tatsuo. But you brought this on yourselves when he became kage, you bannin. You think you’re better than us, you melashiin-born bastard-” His words stopped as his throat exploded open, the thin tip of a deep red melashiin impaling him. Another pierced him just above his heart where Kotaru knew the sac of an eroshiin sat. Hachirou’s eyes widened and his fingers clawed at the tendril in his throat, his blood pouring down his body and Kotaru's shiin like a macabre fountain.

“How does it feel,” Kotaru drawled, “to be at the mercy of someone born as low as me?” Hachirou fell to his knees, the light slowly leaving his eyes. “Someone who clawed his way out of the mud and shit that you force us to live in. It must piss you off when those of us at the bottom don’t stay there. I bet it drove you insane when I got my hands on a derghoshiin." He didn’t care if Hachirou heard him or not, didn't care if the man was still holding on to life. He pulled out the two tendrils, dragging them against the floor and pulling it behind him. They left twin red trails in their wake. The air around the bannin was oppressive, paralyzing each and every person present and holding them in place. When Kotaru’s lethal gaze scanned the crowd, many recoiled and lowered their eyes. Only a few were able to look at him in awe, in terror.

“Shizumi. Kakuto. Come here.”

Heads turned as the aforementioned both slowly stood. One was a young woman with a shock of magenta hair who looked as though she would vomit at any moment. The other was a man a few years younger than Hachirou, his face stony as he stared blankly ahead. As if he knew what was coming. Kotaru beckoned them forward. They didn’t dare refuse. When they stood in front of him at the base of the platform they flinched when the bannin told them to kneel. The woman burst into a sob as she obeyed, while the man beside her stayed silent and nearly collapsed onto his knees.

“You were both Yuuki’s handlers.” It wasn’t a question. “You tortured Ume. You fed her to that bitch.”

Through tears the woman pleaded, "I'm sorry! T-they made us! They promised us-" The floor beneath her started to glow fiery red, and the two had only enough time to gasp as a column of flames engulfed them. Seconds later, only ashes remained.

"The rest of you," he breathed as the fire died down, "are here because you're all leaders in some way in the clan, and you knew. All of you knew and let it happen."

"My lord." Kotaru's eyes drifted to a woman off to his left. Somehow she kept her voice steady as she addressed him. "We know you're angry-"

"Angry? No. They haven't invented a word yet that describes how I feel." The woman swallowed. "I should kill every one of you. But I've decided that would be a waste. Corpses are easy to rule, but there'd be no point in it."

"Rule?" Several voices blended together, speaking that word at the same time.

Kotaru's brow raised. "Who else did you expect to take over?" Disbelief spread through the crowd as they muttered to themselves and one another. He couldn't be serious. The sentiment spread quickly among them.

"Well. One of us. We thought Tatsuo bu-"

The bannin raised his voice. "He is the Lord Tsuchikage. The next person to use his given name will never speak again." That quieted them. "He and I killed the elders, as you can clearly see. We killed four hundred sixty-three of you without thinking twice. And the way things work in this country, this village, and even in this fucking clan, is that the strong rule. And the Tsuchikage is too busy with running the village and preparing for war to babysit you bastards. So it's up to me to keep you all in line."

The gathered Akari gawked. It was no idle threat, and they all knew it. The three dead at his feet were proof enough. They exchanged looks, many of them silently calculating the implications of the clan falling into Kotaru's hands. It was no secret that the man held contempt for his clan. No one had ever expected he would ever dream of claiming leadership over them. Least of all him. All he ever wanted was to be left alone. But the elders had molded him into a monster, and he had become one they couldn't control. Even as he gazed at them with fire roiling far behind his eyes, Kotaru wanted to leave the room and never look back. Unlike Ume, who wanted to reform the clan, Kotaru had never thought it possible. He still didn't think it was possible. He loathed them. But someone had to keep the clan from turning on itself and falling into chaos. He didn't want to do it. Years ago he wouldn't have even considered it. But he wasn't the same person that he was fifteen years ago. Ten years ago. Five days ago. That version of him had broken completely the moment he had held Ume's cold body in his arms.

The men and women sat before him, all of them seeming to be asking themselves the same question. Finally, someone spoke up.

"And if we refuse?"

Kotaru's eyes cruelly scanned the crowd. "Five hundred and seven."

There was a long silence. Understanding and acceptance fell upon the group like a dark shroud. Not a single person objected. Kotaru walked behind the long desk, his blackened fingers lazily tracing the black wood as he made his way to the center chair. To the throne. He sat down slowly, then rested his elbow on the chair's arm. The two still-manifested melashiin curled behind him in the air, swaying like that of a feline predator. The molten wrath in his eyes cooled into thick, sharp edged obsidian. "Bow." One after the other, the terrified Akari bent their bodies forward, touching their foreheads to the floor. No one dared to raise their head or say a word until he gave them permission. Kotaru looked on. Uncaring. Unfeeling.