One-Shot: Sisters

One-Shot: Too Much Familial Affection

Oni King's Castle — East Wing, Inner Garden

The murmur of a stream flowed between polished stones and wildflowers, filling the afternoon with peace. Ten-year-old Alicia dipped her bare feet in the clear water while trying to catch a dragonfly. Beside her, Shiro read a book calmly, completely detached from the outside world.

"They said Dad is coming today, right?" asked Alicia, eyes fixed on the insect.

"They did," Shiro replied without looking up. "Though… he'll come back different."

Just then, the sliding door of the hallway opened with a subtle creak.

Alicia turned her head and almost dropped the bamboo net in her hands.

A boy, with messy white hair, small triangular horns on his forehead, and a large black patch covering his left eye, walked toward them. The visible right eye was red. He wore a simple kimono and walked barefoot on the tatami.

"D-Dad?" Alicia stammered, confused.

The boy didn't answer. He just raised his hand with a slight nod.

Before Alicia could react, a red blur shot forward like a missile.

"Daaaddyyy~!" shouted Kurumi, wrapped in a floral kimono, her black hair styled in uneven twin tails. She jumped straight at the "boy," hugged him tightly… and without hesitation, kissed him on the lips.

"W-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Alicia screamed, dropping the net into the pond and standing up abruptly, her face as red as a tomato.

Kurumi, still clinging to little Sengo, turned her head toward her sister with an innocent expression… and a venomous smile.

"What's wrong, little sister? In the end, we don't share blood. Our 'dad' is just that by title. My birth was… let's say unnatural. Same for Shiro. I don't see anything wrong with showing affection. Do you?"

Alicia opened and closed her mouth. She didn't know whether to scream, cry, or curse.

"But that was a kiss on the mouth! ON THE MOUTH!! You're his daughter!"

"Haven't you kissed him before?" Kurumi replied, arching an eyebrow, slowly pulling away from Sengo with one last loud smooch.

Sengo hadn't said a word. His bored eye remained the same as ever, as if this was nothing new. He sat on a rock near the pond, lazily scratching his cheek.

"…It's been a long time and the reactions are still the same," he muttered.

"Dad…" Alicia glared at him. "Can you tell her that's wrong!?"

Sengo glanced sideways with a slight sigh.

"I'm too old to know what's right or wrong anymore. Besides… I don't have the energy to scold Kurumi. It never works."

Kurumi smiled proudly, clinging to his arm like a possessive lover.

"See? Daddy loves me just the way I am."

Shiro, from the shade of a tree, without lifting her eyes from her book, commented:

"Scenes like this only increase Alicia's probability of psychological instability… 73.2%, to be exact."

"You're not helping, Shiro-nee!"

────── ✦ ────── •

The sun began to set over the dark rooftops of the castle. The soft murmur of water flowing through the koi pond filled the air with a deceptive tranquility. A pair of small paper lanterns hung from the wooden pergola, swaying slightly in the evening breeze.

On a low black wooden table, a shogi board rested between two figures who moved their pieces with calculated precision.

Sengo and Shiro radiated that heavy, dark aura that identified them as pillars of the Absolute Evil Community.

"You always go for the right flank," Shiro murmured, moving her silver general. "Nostalgia for when they used to corner you from that side?"

"No, I just like being underestimated," Sengo replied, taking a pawn and dropping it with a sharp click. "It's fun until they figure it out."

A few meters away, sitting on the tatami with her legs stretched out and arms extended, Kurumi yawned like a pampered cat. She watched Alicia, who played alone at the edge of the pond, throwing breadcrumbs to the koi fish that opened and closed their mouths in a mechanical rhythm.

Kurumi didn't need to speak. She just smiled, as if she knew exactly what kind of conversation was brewing between her sister and father.

"How long do you think Azi will sleep this time?" Shiro asked softly, moving a lancer into an offensive position.

"If no one wakes him, decades. Maybe centuries," Sengo replied, eyes fixed on the board. "He needed it. He wasn't enjoying killing anymore. He just did it out of habit."

"That sounds like you," whispered Shiro.

Sengo paused for a moment. Then let out a dry laugh.

"I know."

The board creaked softly as Shiro captured a key piece.

"I always think," she said, more seriously now, "that every time he sleeps… maybe, just maybe, someone will finally show up who can kill him."

"Me too," Sengo replied without emotion.

Shiro looked up, meeting her father's red eye.

"Do you still want that?"

"Since the day they stole my right to die."

Kurumi closed her eyes, still smiling.

"Alicia doesn't know this, right?" she whispered. "That Dad wants to die."

"She doesn't need to know yet," Sengo replied, forcefully placing another piece. "I want her to enjoy life without that burden."

"You said the same about us," Kurumi chuckled, crossing one leg over the other and resting her chin on her hand. "But you ruined us from the first kiss, Dad."

"Tsk… I wasn't the one who spiked the sake during our shogi game," Sengo growled, frowning deeply.

"I trusted you," Shiro added, staring at her sister. "And you… dragged us into this."

Kurumi looked away, smiling like it was all just a minor mischief.

"Please… you weren't complaining that night. Especially you, Dad. You even told me it was the best shogi match you'd ever had."

Sengo set down his empty cup with a repressed sigh, his red eye glowing beneath the shadow.

"I was drugged, Kurumi."

"Details," she shrugged with fake innocence.

Shiro sighed. Then stared straight at her sister.

"You're the reason that now, every time Dad says 'I trust you,' my skin crawls."

Kurumi responded with a mischievous grin.

"And yet you both love me. What a contradictory family."

Sengo and Shiro scoffed in unison… but didn't deny it.

Shiro placed her final piece. Victory sound.

"I win."

Sengo frowned, sighing in resignation.

"Again…"

"Reward," demanded Shiro, already moving toward him.

Sengo hadn't even adjusted when she grabbed his face in her small hands and kissed him on the lips.

But this time, Shiro gently bit his lower lip, just enough to draw a drop of blood.

Sengo winced.

"What was that?"

"You said there was no prize limit."

"That was before you used fangs."

Shiro simply licked the blood with an impassive look.

"Tastes like repressed despair."

Kurumi giggled softly.

"You're being extra poetic today, sister."

At that moment, Alicia shouted excitedly:

"Dad, one of the fish winked at me!"

Sengo turned immediately, still rubbing his lip.

"Of course it did, Alicia. Tell it to behave, will you?"

Kurumi lay back down on the wooden floor, staring at the increasingly purple sky.

"A false peace is still peace… right?"

"Until Azi wakes up," Shiro murmured, sipping another cup of tea.

Sengo looked at his two eldest daughters. Daughters born from a sacrificial ritual a thousand years ago. But daughters nonetheless.

"Until he wakes," he repeated. "Then the world will remember what fear really is."

But for now…

The Oni King's castle was silent. The shadows hadn't moved.

And time, as always, was not on the side of the living.

────── ✦ ────── •

Footsteps echoed dully through the forgotten hallways.

Sengo walked slowly, hands clasped behind his back. Even in his reduced child form, he seemed to fit with the decay around him: cracked walls, rotting doors, and ivy-devoured pillars. Dust rose with every step, floating like ash in a place where time had stopped.

Alicia followed silently, eyes wide. She had never been to this part of the castle. Everything was dark, not due to lack of light… but because of the weight of history clinging to every stone.

They passed under a cracked stone arch.

And then—they arrived.

A massive hall opened before them, littered with debris, broken glass, and fallen paintings. The frames were empty. Only splinters and rust stains remained where portraits once hung.

At the back of the hall, on a fractured platform, stood a destroyed throne.

Not simply broken. Not merely toppled.

Violently destroyed.

Sliced in two. Burned. Splintered.

As if someone had wanted to erase it with pure hatred.

Alicia stepped forward, amazed by the hall's size. But curiosity quickly overcame reverence.

"Dad… what is this place?"

Sengo didn't reply right away.

His only visible eye, dull and red, stared with that hard-to-read expression. Not anger. Not sadness. Not nostalgia.

Just tired emptiness.

"This is the castle where I was born," he finally said. "That throne… belonged to my father."

Alicia blinked.

"Y-Your father?"

Sengo nodded slightly.

"He gave orders from there. To me. My brothers. His court."

"Brothers?" Alicia frowned in confusion. "You have… family, Dad?"

"I did," he replied without hesitation, no sugar-coating. "Not anymore."

Alicia stayed quiet.

She didn't know what to ask first.

Sengo stepped forward, standing in front of the throne.

He looked at the split backrest. The blackened wood. The claw marks and cuts.

"My relationship with them shattered," he said, calmly… but cold. "After I killed our father."

Silence fell like a slab of stone.

Alicia swallowed. She stepped closer, nervous.

"Why… did you kill him?"

Sengo tilted his head. Not like someone reflecting… but like someone who had accepted it centuries ago.

"Because he made me choose between being his weapon… or his enemy."

He looked up, staring into the throne's empty space.

"I chose the latter."

Alicia stared up at him, trembling slightly.

"And your mother?"

"Dead," he replied instantly. "Since I was a child. I don't remember her well. Only her voice."

"Oh…"

Alicia didn't know if saying "I'm sorry" meant anything.

Because Sengo didn't seem to need comfort.

He just… lived with it.

"Why, Dad, don't you ever talk about them?" she finally asked, gathering courage. "Your brothers… your past."

Sengo looked sideways at her.

His tired, centuries-old eyes held no hatred.

Just the weight of someone who no longer had a reason to explain anything.

"Because I don't want you to follow in my footsteps. If you do… you'll end up like me."

The girl looked at him.

She knew her father didn't need hugs.

She also knew… that sometimes, family wasn't just the living.

It was also the ones you chose to leave behind.

Extra: Vision

The soft rustling of blankets marked the rhythm of sleep.

In a room in the castle's south wing, a large futon served as refuge for three figures sleeping together, embraced by the silence of dawn.

Sengo, still in child form, lay at the center of the futon. His breathing was steady. His left arm was pinned beneath Kurumi, who clung to him like a spoiled sloth, her cheek pressed against his chest, fast asleep. Shiro slept on the other side, more composed, but with one hand barely touching his under the blanket.

The black patch covered his left eye.

But something pulsed beneath it.

And in the calm of his unconsciousness… the Clock Eye activated.

A heartbeat.

An image.

A vision.

────── ✦ ────── •

The crackling of dry branches marked the rhythm of a lonely walk through snowy paths.

Bushes swayed as a tall figure passed by, dressed in a flowing black haori. On his back, embroidered in white, was the kanji 「恶」—Evil. It wasn't a warning. It was a declaration.

He wore a black sleeveless shirt, tight to his torso, showing a body sculpted by centuries of combat. Around his waist, a thick red rope was tightly tied, holding up a hardened leather skirt that hung to his thighs, layered over loose black pants that allowed free movement. On his feet, reinforced sandals with crimson-decorated shin guards clanked with each step over the snow.

His white hair swayed in the cold wind, dusted by snowflakes that didn't melt. Over his shoulder, a red wagasa shielded him from the persistent snowfall.

But what stood out the most were his horns: two curved ones, half black and half blood red.

The same red that glowed in his only visible eye.

The other was hidden under a dark patch.

He raised his right hand, and with a simple gesture, a dango appeared in his fingers. He eyed it for a second, then took a calm bite.

"Seriously… I never thought purifying my soul of Angra Mainyu's corruption would take this long," he said in a quiet voice, full of irony.

From nowhere, a harsh laugh replied.

"You were purified centuries ago. I don't get why you still talk about it."

Beside him, walking through the snow as if part of the landscape, was Azi Dahaka. The infamous three-headed dragon, his bipedal body covered in white scales. His six eyes, glowing like embers, watched mischievously.

The Oni didn't stop. He chewed slowly while the snow crunched beneath his feet.

"It affected me… more than I thought. I was a blacksmith," he recalled with a crooked smile. "Then I became a [Pseudo-Servant]… ended up reincarnating with Angra Mainyu's corrupted soul. And now… look at me. Becoming a real villain, about to kill thousands of people who did nothing to me."

He paused, looking at the overcast sky.

"But…"

"…It's fun, isn't it?" Azi Dahaka completed, all three voices in unison with a deranged grin.

Sengo's eye glowed bright. A spark of genuine emotion ran through him.

"Damn right it is! It's freaking fun. My blood's boiling! This war is like a boiling forge! And I'm right where I want to be!"

The dragon's three heads laughed loudly. His huge fangs reflected the ghostly light of the winter sky.

They both paused for a moment.

The Oni slightly turned his head, his pair of horns contrasting against the snow.

"Someday, a Hero will come."

Azi Dahaka didn't respond immediately. But his eyes glowed just like his friend's.

"Yeah. Hope they come soon. Hope they're worthy."

Sengo chuckled softly, letting the empty dango stick fall in the snow.

"Until then… let's keep making Little Garden a hell. So when that Hero arrives… they'll have a real reason to fight us."

Both marched on.

On the red cloak dragging behind the dragon, the same kanji 「恶」 was embroidered. Not just decoration.

A banner.

And so, the two figures vanished into the snowfall… leaving behind footprints no wind could ever erase.

────── ✦ ────── •

Sengo stirred in the futon. The Clock Eye shut once more beneath the patch, hiding its glow.

Kurumi murmured in her sleep. Shiro barely moved.

And silence returned.

But deep in his subconscious, the image lingered.

The Hero had not arrived yet.

But when they did…

He would be ready.