Afro dragged his feet, leaning his weight on Himari's shoulders. Each step was a defeat. His ebony body, once a fortress of muscles, was wasting away. His skin clung to his ribs, his cheekbones sharp. He knew what was happening: the demon inside him had taken its toll for fighting the samurai. It always did.
He pointed to a tree by the side of the road.
"There," he hissed. His breath came out in a wet, heavy wheeze, as if his lungs were filled with sand.
He sat down, leaning his head against the trunk. He looked at Himari. She was there, impeccable, her kimono clean, a vision of purity he had sworn to protect. But hunger... hunger knew no oaths. If he didn't feed on strong flesh soon, instinct would take over, and his "honor," the girl in front of him, would become nothing more than protein.
Afro's hands trembled. He felt his consciousness slipping away.
"HIMARI!" he shouted her name. The voice held no sweetness; it was a raw command, a warning. "You have the money. Go to the village. Bring help. Water. Now!"
"What about you, Father?" She hesitated, her large eyes fixed on his deplorable state.
"I've never failed you, have I? Then don't fail me now. Be like me. Go!"
He roared the last word. Himari recoiled, startled by his sudden force, and began to run toward the village that was already visible ahead.
Afro was left alone. He turned his head slowly, staring at the other side of the road. Someone was there, a presence watching him with the patience of a predator. Afro knew he was an easy target, but he didn't even have the strength to growl. If that shadow wanted to kill him, it would have done so already.
The world began to spin. He needed to black out. He needed to stop feeling Himari's trail in the air, because as long as he could smell her, the demon inside would keep trying to wake up to hunt.
The darkness claimed him. Afro's last thought was a question: Who will be here when I open my eyes?
Afro's head fell against the tree trunk. The memory cracked like a whip.
He was in a stone courtyard, barefoot. In front of him stood the master, a wall of calm with a wooden sword. Afro wielded his own, his fingers white with the force. His golden eyes didn't blink; the effort was so great that the capillaries burst, and blood began to run down his cheeks like tears.
"Control yourself, Afro!" shouted the master.
The sound of wood striking wood, with each blow the master defended, he returned an impact to Afro's ribs or thighs. The pain should have stopped him, but it only fueled him. The heat in Afro's chest rose to his throat. His nervousness became an electric vibration in his muscles.
Suddenly, Afro's wooden sword seemed like a useless toy. He dropped it.
The boy lunged at the master with the speed of a hungry animal. There was no technique, just nails and teeth. Before the master could retreat, Afro sank his teeth into his shoulder. The fabric of the kimono tore and the flesh gave way. The taste of blood, metallic, hot, vibrant, flooded his senses. It was the best thing he had ever tasted.
A sharp blow to the base of his skull blacked him out.
When Afro opened his eyes, it was night. The silence was broken only by the sound of crickets. He was lying on a thin futon. Beside him, the master sat motionless, watching the full moon silhouetted against the horizon.
"Afro."
The master slapped his palm on the wooden floor, the sharp sound echoing in the room. Afro got up. At that time, opening his eyes was dangerous; the outside world was a trigger for his rage. He moved blindly and sat down next to the old man, crossing his legs in the formal pose. Only then, with an effort of will, did he open his eyelids.
The master plunged his hand into the folds of his black kimono and pulled out an object. It was thick and heavy. He handed it to Afro.
The cover had a strange design: an inverted moon, with its points facing down, positioned over a flower. The petals of the flower opened in such a way that they looked like the rays of a sun, creating the image of a perfect eclipse. The moon design shone with solar intensity, while the flower was a cold, lunar white.
As soon as Afro touched the cover, he felt something react. Where his fingers pressed the leather, the color changed, leaving visible traces of heat, like embers under the ashes.
"This book was made for you," said the master, his voice low. "It only shines in your hands. When I found you, you were clutching it. I fought a child who had this book clenched between his teeth, growling until he lost his sanity."
The old man paused, looking at his own calloused hands.
"The whole village was dead. I had never seen anything like it, a demon that walks under the sun without burning... I didn't know if I was facing a monster or a man."
Afro didn't answer. The weight of the book on his knees seemed to increase. He opened the first page. The paper was old but well preserved. At the top of the page, in letters of the Latin alphabet, letters that merchants and some scholars used, something he and the master could identify. It was his name, dry and direct, engraved at the top of the page.
D'Afro
The master stood up and left the room. Afro was left alone with the weight of the book. He leafed through the yellowed pages with silent curiosity. He couldn't read the text, but the illustrations spoke for themselves: diagrams of weapons he had never seen, complex runes, meditation poses, and drawings of giants that made mountains look small. There were also detailed sketches of leaves and plants, all recorded in that strange, curvy writing.
"AFRO!"
The voice cut through the silence of the courtyard like a blade.
Afro raised his head. He was in a square training courtyard, surrounded by wings of rooms where the other apprentices slept. In the center of the square courtyard stood himself. Or rather, the demonic version of himself.
The man resembled the human Afro, but his physique had been pushed to the limits of predation. His dreadlocks were longer, falling to his waist, and they weren't still; they moved as if there were no gravity. His eyes were a deep red, eliminating any trace of humanity.
His fangs were permanently exposed, ready to pierce and tear. At the tips of his fingers, his nails had given way to black claws, solid as obsidian. He was the predator inhabiting the same body, waiting for the human part to fail so he could take command of the machine.
The square courtyard disappeared. And in the blink of an eye, the scene was the center of a village in flames, the air saturated with the smell of burnt human fat and iron. In front of him, the Afro-Demon watched him. At his feet, the child version of Afro crouched over the corpse of a pregnant woman, finishing consuming the fetus he had torn from her open womb.
"Times of freedom, isn't it, Afro human?" said the Demon. "Look at us. Happy. Feeding ourselves."
The child Afro wiped the blood from his chin and stood up. His eyes, red with fatigue, stared at the adult version.
"It was you, not me, nor us."
The Demon tilted his head, making a sound like a bone snapping.
"But what is 'I' to us? We inhabit the same body, but we are different essences. Right now, I'm not talking to Afro."
"You're talking to the human part of him," replied the human.
"Exactly! And when that human part abuses me, I want to feed myself. Do you think it's fair to deny me sustenance?"
"You assume that the 'I' is a territory that can be divided. You're wrong. The 'I' is neither the engine nor the fuel. The 'I' is merely the result of friction between my desire to remain and your need to consume. You are not a separate entity; you are the name I give to the flaw in my biology. If I were infinite, you would not exist."
The Demon smiled, showing his long canines.
"Complex words for an empty stomach. You exhausted your eyes training with the master. You spent energy you didn't have. Three days later, here we are, converting this village into muscle mass so you don't die. If I am the flaw, why am I the one keeping you alive?"
"You keep the machine alive, but you destroy the operator," retorted the human. "If you emerge whenever I fail, then the 'I' only exists when you are contained. The moment you feed, the Afro ceases to exist. What remains is only calamity. You call this freedom, but a river that overflows is not free; it has only lost its form. I am the form. You are the overflow."
The Demon approached. "And yet, you remember the taste. You keep the memory of satisfaction in your stomach. If there are two of us, why is there only one pleasure? If I am the overflow, why do you feel satiety?"
"Because the body is the limit," said the human. "The 'I' is the awareness that this body has a price. You are the collector. But make no mistake: on the day Afro chooses a side, as the master said, one of us will cease to be an essence and become only a remnant. If he chooses Man, you will be a tool. If he chooses the Demon, I will be just a corpse that has not yet stopped eating."
The village scenery began to shake. The flames became blurs of black light.
"The thing is, human Afro," said the Demon, merging his shadow with the boy's, "is that you never choose. You just fall. And this time, you fell on a man who smells of fear and alcohol. The 'I' is no longer in charge. The stomach is."
"PAIIIIIIII!"
Himari's scream interrupted the movement. Afro's mouth was millimeters from Shinjimaru's jugular. The heat of his predatory breath reached the thief's skin, but Afro's system locked up. The recognition of Himari's voice forced human consciousness back into command.
Afro immediately realized the situation: he was on top of Shinjimaru, and on the street, the doors of the houses were beginning to open. The footsteps of adventurers echoed a few meters away.
In a blur of movement, Afro grabbed Shinjimaru and jumped into the bedroom window.
A second later, the adventurers stepped out onto the street. They looked around and saw only the remains of the demons falling from the ceiling and Shinjimaru's urine on the floor. The alley was empty.
Inside the room, Himari slammed the window shut. Afro kept his hand pressed against Shinjimaru's mouth to silence him. His black claws were still exposed, ready to pierce the man's skull. Himari stumbled as she tried to intervene, grabbing Afro's arm.
"Dad, stop! He helped you!"
Afro turned his head toward her. His voice came out hoarse and dry:
"I am not your father."
"But he helped!" insisted the girl, squeezing his arm where the claws still throbbed.
Shinjimaru managed to pull his mouth away from Afro's hand for a moment and shouted:
"I KNOW THREE WAYS TO ERASE THE MEMORY OF THE IMPERIAL PORCELAIN MASK!"
Afro froze. His body, which had been trembling with hunger, became static. He released Shinjimaru and took a step back. The black claws retracted into his skin, and the red in his eyes gave way to a lucid golden hue.
"Speak," said Afro.
Shinjimaru fell to his knees, gasping. The fear was still there, but he realized he had captured Afro's attention. The game had changed.