The pale spike was driven through Mura’s heart with a resounding and sickening thump. Mura lurched back against his restraints in pain, nearly biting his tongue off as his teeth clinched together in shock. His eyes rolled back as his toes curled, legs spasming as the spike protruding from his naked chest pulsated grotesquely.

“Stings, doesn’t it?” Nergal spoke, his voice croaking and empty. A smile began to stretch across his face as the defenseless man before him finally sputtered out a moan of pain as he regained his breath. With a full intake of air, Mura screamed out a bloodcurdling yell as tears welled in his eyes.

“Take your pain like a real man and suffer in silence,” Nergal crooned, taking a sterile wad of bandages off the table and stuffing them into Mura’s open mouth.

Despite the grievous wound caused by the arcane spike, not a single drop of blood seeped from the cavity. Mura’s brain couldn’t fathom the pain, nearly passing out twice from the attack. He looked down at the pale stake embedded in his heart, the fat end of it still visible outside his body. The runes were glowing blue, but a less vibrant shade than they were before.

He felt something odd throughout his body, primarily underneath his skin. The feeling was like his veins were being flushed with an uncomfortably warm fluid. The bizarre sensation began to numb his body and brain, taking the pain away for the time being.

Mura’s eyelids flickered repeatedly as he gasped with labored breaths. He noticed something was changing with the arcane markings on the spike’s surface. They were beginning to shift in color.

But that wasn’t the only thing changing. Looking down at his bare arms, stomach and legs he saw that his skin tone was transforming from a lightly tan complexion to one more jaundice and sickly. It wasn’t long before his skin was nearly a pale yellow, the blue network of veins beneath his flesh becoming incredibly apparent as seconds passed by.

—I’m dying… I’m going to die. He’s killing me.

The once ocean-blue markings on the ivory stake were now crimson, like blood spilled from a freshly-severed artery. Mura’s pupils shrunk as the whites of his eyes began to turn an unnatural shade of lavender. His frame convulsed as the stake finished pumping its ancient and ungodly magic into the demon’s body.

“Now, Mura… You will know true agony.”

Golden amber liquid oozed from Mura’s mouth around the makeshift gag and trickled down from his nostrils. The once ivory spike was now shifting its color again, becoming black as a raven’s shadow. It gurgled and seeped the same amber fluids from the wound in Mura’s chest.

With a shudder, the arcane device began to sink further into Mura’s body on its own volition. It disappeared within his flesh as the wound mysteriously repaired itself. Mura’s skin reworked itself like putty, filling the hole made from the foreign object previously.

Nergal crossed his arms, a large toothy grin plastered across his face. He knew that the flesh was the first to be broken. With that, the final destination of pain would be the spirit itself.

Surely enough, the magical weapon was no longer within Mura’s physical body. It had dissolved and penetrated Mura’s very soul, wounding him in a way that would have been impossible through modern magic.

As the ebony talon stabbed his soul, Mura felt any thoughts he had vanish. His consciousness faded at last, but somewhere deep within, he felt a pang of darkness flood his being. Even after blacking out, he could feel this new pain within a fragment of his brain.

The sensation felt like the birth and death of something foreign. It was as if he had generated a third arm from his body, but just as quickly, had it hacked off with an axe.

Sadness flowed through his core, then quickly passed through like a steady brook. Suddenly, joy crept in. However, this was joy he had repressed. The happiness he felt after knowing Behemoth would never hurt another person. The jubilation of slicing an incubus to ribbons. It made Mura happy.

“Hm?” Nergal mused, looking at Mura’s naked body.

The Minster noticed something occurring with the parts of the chair Mura’s naked skin was touching.

They were beginning to warp. No, he corrected… they were beginning to melt.

“Impossible… is this his… Tamashi Genkai? But that should be sealed away with the rest of his magic!!” Nergal shouted in disbelief.

The leather straps around his limbs and torso bubbled and melted as his Tamashi Genkai began to materialize itself in full. As it did, black marks began to materialize where the spike had pierced Mura. Lines etched and singed into his skin, spreading across slowly like a gruesome tattoo.

“Dammit, the Anima Stain is nearly completed too!”

Such an event happening was unheard of. All traces of magic, including the ability to access a Tamashi Genkai and Primal Release, should be sealed away permanently by an Anima Stain.

“Could it be because… he never truly awakened his?” Nergal pondered aloud. There was no way to halt the process now. He couldn’t murder the boy, as the cover-up would prove far too difficult. Nergal could only hope this was the last ebbs of his power draining away.

Surely enough, before the leather straps could break and the seat could melt away, the magic emitting from Mura ceased altogether. As it did, the black lines finished their design upon Mura’s skin. It had created a rune of arcing straight lines, twisting into triangles and diamond patterns. Trailing off the ends of the unholy brand were straight black lines running down his pectoral like tears.

The Anima Stain was complete.

Slowly, the color began to return to Mura’s body as blood began circulating. His heart had been healed by the lost, ancient magic of the Anima Stain during the ordeal. It was as if nothing had happened at all. All that was left of the procedure was the fresh brand scarred into Mura’s breast, amber discharge around the mouth and dried blood on his temple from the kick earlier.

For now, Mura was completely unconscious. The horrid feelings within his soul had faded. Nergal waived his hand once, causing the straps binding Mura to the chair to unwind. Swiping upwards, Mura’s limp body floated out of the chair with the aid of Nergal’s telekinesis. An imprint of his body had been permanently molded into the chair.

Nergal walked Mura out of the sealed room, hands within his pockets as Mura levitated behind like a marionette.

As the doors opened, Lilith gasped at the sight of her friend. Tears had already been rolling down her face from having him taken away earlier. After hearing his screams behind closed doors though, she was nearly hysterical.

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“M-Mura!! What did you do to him, you goddamn bastard!” Lilith choked out, still crying at the sight of his beaten and branded body.

The guards holding her in place struggled to keep Lilith pinned down as she attempted to lunge at the Minister. Nergal blinked, letting Mura’s unconscious body drop and crumple to the floor.

“You’re a monster! All you demons are godforsaken monsters!! I’ll kill all of you!!” she sobbed.

Nergal smiled at her display, contently relishing in it. He blinked again, causing her to levitate just as Mura had. The guards, being a little surprised, stumbled slightly as their weight shifted forward with Lilith’s rise into the air.

Lilith struggled to get free from the invisible grip holding her in place. She tried to scream, but was unable to open her mouth. Quietly, he walked back into the chamber with the young yokai.

“Men, make yourself useful and drag that traitor over to the pedestal,” Nergal commanded as the metallic door slid and locked behind him.

The armored guards lined up as ordered around Mura’s naked body and with a grunt, lifted him as they began to carry the demon toward the teleportation receiver across the room.

Within the room, Nergal flung the defenseless girl against the wall for her earlier outburst. Lilith gasped out as her muscles and bones screamed out in pain. She could detect the tang of copper within her mouth after a few seconds had passed, spitting a wad of blood onto the floor.

Without moving, Nergal stood in place as Lilith was telekinetically dragged across the floor. Her body, already filthy from grime and sweat, was being used to mop up the blood she spat out. Tears spilled from her swollen eyes as Nergal pulled and pushed her body across the sleek floor until the mess was gone and instead staining her prison jumpsuit.

“It’s true what they say, you slaves truly are good at cleaning up after yourselves,” he said mockingly.

Nergal dragged Lilith across the floor as she fought in vain to fight back. She couldn’t even speak. Her body stopped directly at his boots, freshly polished with the tip of one adorned with the blood of her friend.

“You don’t know what a true monster is. That degenerate Grendel, were he in my shoes right now? Who knows what he’d do. The hunter Wendigo? Likely would have consumed you alive, judging by past instances.”

He placed a boot atop the side of her face, pressing it into the floor. With a flick of his fingers, Lilith’s jumpsuit dissolved just as Mura’s had. The cold air of the room hit her exposed skin as she was left bare and defenseless.

“You vermin are somehow even lower than a human… you’re just the husk left behind; drifting about our streets like filthy vagrants,” Nergal spat.

He lifted her magically once more, this time placing her into the chair Mura had just sat it. The shape felt uncomfortable as the cushions and material had molded to his form, not hers. The mangled belts fastened around their new victim as she was released from Nergal’s telepathic grasp.

“You’re… wrong…” Lilith gasped out, a grin finally forming on her face.

“Excuse me?” Nergal said, taking the second pale spike out of its lockbox.

“You’re wrong… about us. Even if we are husks… It’s a shell of what we once were. It’s proof… that we existed. That we lived…”

Lilith chuckled to herself through the pain and humiliation as Nergal’s eyes furrowed and his teeth clinched together.

“You may be more powerful than me… Mura too… But you’ll still die one day. And when you do… there’s not gonna be anything left of you. No one left to mourn you. Nothing to prove you ever existed…”

Lilith summoned everything she had in her throat and spat it across the room, allowing it to land on Nergal’s pristine boots.

“You’re just another piece of shit without any hope of paradise! So do your worst, you ugly bitch!”

Nergal gripped the spike tight and yelled out in fury, stabbing her in the breastbone as the tip descended into her heart. He struggled to catch his breath as anger flushed over him. This yokai did the one thing few seldom managed: she got under his skin.

❇ ❇ ❇

The guards stood by Mura’s sleeping body, now stabilized as it was laid out across the receiver platform. The machine was primed and ready, with a destination already selected. When a prisoner is exiled, they are given a randomly selected location to be dropped off on Earth. They are left with nothing: no money, no belongings. Not even clothing.

However, the one guard who had shown his support to Mura previously tampered with the location on the receiver. He secretly set it to spit Mura and Lilith out in a location they were familiar with, so as to give them a setting that was easier to adapt to.

The mechanical doors of the chamber slid open once more, with Nergal emerging from the darkness with Lilith in tow. She was hoisted behind him telekinetically, naked and unconscious. Between her breasts was the same brand that had been etched onto Mura, marking her as exiled and powerless.

“Did that one put up as much of a fight as her friend, here?” One self-righteous guard laughed to Nergal.

“No. She didn’t exhibit anything out of the ordinary,” Nergal stated matter-of-fact.

He walked across the large room, his boots clicking and his longcoat swaying from behind. As he reached the receiver, he dropped Lilith’s body next to Mura. The two of them slept next to each other, with the last experiences they had in Yomi being that of pain and misery.

“The teleportation device is functional and primed?” Nergal asked, turning to the sympathetic guard.

“Yes, sir,” he replied with a salute.

“Good. Send the traitors away, I don’t want them present in these lands any longer.”

“Sir!” the five guards said in unison, saluting the Jikininki.

One of the men pressed three buttons on a nearby console lifting out of the floor. Upon doing so, a magically-projected touchpad appeared on the console as the teleportation machine hummed to life.

Lights that had been dim on the machine prior flicked to full brightness as the platform Mura and Lilith were laying on radiated brightly.

Nergal stepped back behind the men that began to run the machine, watching the events unfold.

“Clear the area!” a guard yelled out to the others.

“Primers functional. Reservoir cells at ninety-nine percent,” another responded.

The man in charge of the touchpad scrolled through the white transparent screens projected in front of him.

“All priming operations successful. Safety disabled.”

“Charging.”

Magical energy crackled and arced across the platform as the light reflected off Nergal’s dull, emotionless eyes.

“Realm set. Location set. Sending credentials check… successful,” the guard said as his fingers expertly zoomed across the touchscreen.

The humming of the machine began to increase in volume and pitch as it whirred and shined brighter.

“Teleportation imminent. Ten seconds to sendoff. Nine. Eight. Seven—”

Nergal spoke up, his deep voice making itself known over the powerful machine.

“I’m proud of you men. Thank you for your service to this wonderful empire.”

The guards turned to Nergal, who had now removed his hands from his pockets.

“I’m sorry, Sir?” one of the men asked puzzled.

“Oh, right. I forgot to mention earlier… this is a clandestine operation. Your Majesty appreciates the understanding.”

Before anyone could speak, Nergal darted his index finger from left to right. The teleportation machine continued to count down on its own.

“Four. Three.”

The five men stood frozen. Not from telekinesis, but the shock dealt to their nervous systems. One by one, the pieces of armor and flesh dropped to the hard floor in a disturbing cacophony of gore. Organs spilled out, the bodies of the men cleanly bisected by Nergal’s Tamashi Genkai.

“Two. One. Zero.”

Nergal turned his back to the fresh corpses as the familiar stench of bodily fluids wafted into his nostrils. Silhouetted in the brilliant light of the teleporter, the Minister of Defense walked out of the room. The guards would be mourned as heroes fallen in the line of duty, giving their lives fighting the vicious criminal Mura. Sadly, Mura cut them down before he escaped to the human realm. An unfortunate fable, but one that needed to be told for the betterment of the empire.

“Good riddance,” Nergal murmured.

With a final flash, the two traitors were gone: never to return to the realm of demonkind.