Chapter 1: Omiah, Part 2



He escaped into the dessert, hurt and starving with nowhere to go. Eventually he was picked up by a caravan of slave traders after collapsing in the road. The demons that were with him in the caged cart that he was thrown into gave him water so he would live, yet thinking amongst themselves that it was probably better off that he didn’t. Regardless of the difficulty, when an opportunity presented itself he slipped the grasp of his captors and fled into the desert. Considering the boy more than useless from the beginning they didn’t bother in pursuing him, and so again he escaped.

Wandering for what felt like days on the open desert, it came to the point that his body could no longer handle the stress of his blight. He collapsed in the wilderness unknown to anyone, or so he thought. In the sky as vultures circled high above, a demon that bore the same pattern of horns as he upon his head appeared before him.

This demon was a mazoku, a powerful demon of his time. He picked up Omiah and carried him away to his camp in the desert. Omiah awoke to find himself splayed on a mat beside a low camp fire with a wet cloth rested on his brow. Beside him, seated on a rock was the largest and most monstrous looking demon he had ever seen. A beast without a doubt, he was all muscles with grayish brown skin old and withered and riddled with black markings. Omiah learned much later that these were cultural demon markings of the mazoku. They covered his entire body and half of his face, which was angular and appeared strangely small for his mane and body. His hair was long and big, like the body of a porcupine, and fell down the full length of his back to rest on the ground behind him.

As his vision cleared, he could not keep himself from staring at him. Knowing that he should be more afraid than he was, he couldn’t help himself from feeling a deep fascination of the demon that was before him. When he looked at him, his eyes bore an extraordinary and other worldly silver glow.

He wanted to ask who the demon was but could barely muster the strength to keep his eyes open. Eventually the demon ladled a cup of broth from a pot over the fire and said to him, “It’ll do you good kid, drink up.”

He obeyed, and the drink brought life into him that he had never known. The demon laughed when Omiah suddenly leapt up, turning from near death to lively and awake. It was then that he was able to ask him who he was and why he saved him, but the demon wouldn’t answer. Instead he explained to him what he had done, and gave him the reason why his strength was able to be replenished so quickly. “It’s because you’re mazoku, child; you’re one of us and that means you must hunt and feed boy. That broth there I made for you came from a human I killed not long ago.” And he pointed to a body lying on the ground, motioning for him to go over and have a look at it. Omiah walked in that direction and there in the sand lay a human man. His heart and liver had been carved out and his head lay in a position that seemed oddly out of place, as if the bone beneath had been broken.

“I shatter its neck to kill instantly, but usually I don’t bother. Though for you kid, I would advise it. Kill them quick and you should have no problems. And eat them while they’re fresh. Take whatever you want or need. You have the right to do it. You’re mazoku so it’s necessary; not even the gods can say you don’t have the right to take what you need in order to survive, boy. It’s anyone’s God given right.”

“Just heed this,” the demon said next. “Don’t ever eat them alive. Be sure you kill them first and give time for the soul to depart, you don’t want to risk ending up like me.” And he pointed to himself in an odd away that seemed rather significant, yet to Omiah’s eyes he didn’t know why.

Omiah looked at the demon, and realized he seemed strangely solemn. He didn’t know what he meant by this, and thought to ask but didn’t need to. “Ingesting souls causes their deaths to consume you; it’ll drag you down to the depths before you’ll know it. Many demons will try to tell you it’s the best way to gain power, but don’t listen to them. Those bastards are just headed for the pit no different than I. You stay at a distance…stay safe, and you’ll be alright.”

He didn’t say much more after that. But after a few days when Omiah fully regained his strength, he led him to a passage that crossed into the human world, so he could begin his lesions in human hunting. Along the way, he explained to him the ways of discerning paths to the human world from ordinary roads, and how not to mistake them from one another. After that he lead him to a village and pointed out an old farmer house at the edge of town, slightly apart from the rest where there were many children running about.

“Now remember what I told you boy: be quick, and make sure no one sees you. Take the prey. Kill it and make your way back to that road. Be sure the victim is killed before crossing over to our side, or that as well could cause you trouble.”

With no need to be told more, Omiah followed the instructions as they were given to him and caught a child. For a moment he thought it was going to be like the goat, a hard struggle, but the child put up little fuss and died instantly when Omiah snapped its neck. He was surprised when the child went limp in his arms, but as he was instructed he didn’t linger to contemplate on it. He took his prey and returned to camp.

He found his way back to the road easier then he thought by following the instructions the old demon gave to him, merely taking about twenty minutes. There the large mazoku was, seated just as he was before on the rock before a low fire, waiting for him.

He smiled at the sight when he saw the young Omiah with the human child in his arms. “Pretty good. Many will say kids are the best for flavor, but if you want what’s best for you I’d aim for bigger. The adults got what you’ll need, but you’ll have to get a lot stronger if you’re going to take on an adult human. You’ll find out they’re not as easy to kill as you’ll think. Some can even fight back so make sure you’re well prepared before making your move. Don’t be like those arrogant fools that assume all humans are weak, because it’ll be a harsh reality for you when they run that stick they call a sword through your heart and disperse its force with their life energy. It’s a serious threat, so don’t getting too big on yourself that you lose your sense of caution.”

After this, he instructed Omiah in the proper way of preparing and cooking before allowing him feed. The meal wasn’t like anything he had ever experienced; the energy that he had attained from the goat was entirely different in comparison. This energy was enduring and made him feel better than he had ever known, or ever thought was possible.

Young Omiah had never known exactly how weak he was or how close to death he had actually lived until he tasted human flesh for the first time. And right away, his life in the Seirim village was but a passing nightmare that he would never look back on, a period of his life he only wanted to forget. Even his mother, the whole lot of them…gone, wiped out and rid of for a much better life as a man eater.

The next day, Omiah awoke to discover that the demon he had come to know as his savior and new found mentor was gone. The fire was out. All that was left was a pot beside the coals and a stone where he had sat. He thought at first that he had gone off hunting and would be back soon and waited for him, but the demon never returned.

So Omiah left and never saw the demon again.

Life moved on, and within years of consuming humans he grew into a perfectly able bodied and strong young man. By the age of twenty, he had formed himself a little gang, all of which were man eaters, some of which he had even taught to be so.

Within time he was able to move up in the world, and perused a personal interest after hearing of rumors about a certain gang lead by a demon of unspeakable beauty, a spirit fox known as Youko Kurama. By the age twenty four, Omiah had joined parties with Kurama and worked his way at becoming second in command of one of Demon’s World’s most notorious band of thieves.

His name became known worldwide as the bandit Yomi, Omiah being a name he had abandoned years before. “What’s your name?” Youko had asked him.

Because he had decided to forget it along with his past he couldn’t answer; all he could say in response every time a demon would ask him for his name was this: “I don’t have one. I come from Hell, and that’s all I know!” And so the Youko, being a demon native to the an island off the western coast of the demon’s world called Jawah, called him Yomi.

“For that is the word for Hell where I come from.” And so the demon formerly known as the demon Omiah Benn Jinn became known as Yomi, a demon from Hell.