1 The bastard child

The child's mother, an angel from kin of pure, fell deeply in love with a demon's beauty on their first encounter. The man miscalculated his well-thought-of plan as he was caught red-handed by the maiden while stealing the notorious orb of the Crescent family-- one of the many spheres that can open Heaven's gates.

As the maiden gazed at the demon's beauty, something sinister began to brew in her heart-- lust. The pure was not capable of having desires as it often leads to corruption. However, in her case, she yearned for the demon more than anything.

"I will give you the key to access far more powerful treasures under the Crescents' name if you sleep with me."

The demon was baffled by the angel's proposition. "A maiden of purity shouldn't propose such obscenity," the man said. But as he was about to jump to his escape, a thought hit him-- "how could I let an opportunity of acquiring rare treasures of the infamous Crescent family pass?"

With that, a temporary pact between the pure and impure formed. The demon attended the maiden's needs night after night in exchange for treasures from her family. With each night passed, the angel's heart clouded with lust, that it came to a point where she was ready to turn away from her kin and run away with the demon. "What a preposterous idea," the man scoffed, dismissing the idea of elopement. His coldness angered her and clouded her heart with lust all the more. "I want him," she thought. "And there's only one way to keep him on a leash." She smiled in contentment.

However once one of the seven deadly sins have corrupted a pure's heart and soul, the outcome will be their inevitable demise. Their minds will think nothing but immorality to appease their yearning-- in the maiden's case, her lust for the demon himself.

On the night of their expected rendezvous, the demon awoke to a four-walled barren room. His ankles chained to the floor, and his arms to the wall. His head is throbbing in pain. He only remembers coming in the maiden's chamber and everything else after was empty.

"You're awake, demon," an unfamiliar voice said coming from outside the cell. The man adjusted his gaze to the iron door and found the maiden with her father. "Misaki Hyukagi, the infamous thief, and the son of Satan himself. It's a pleasure to imprison you in our humble abode," the head of the Crescent family, the maiden's father, leered. "Best make yourself comfortable, boy. As this cell will be your tomb," He said in contempt. "Come Milea, leave the corrupt to rot." The head walked away in disdain from seeing the demon.

Anger enveloped the demon's being as he realized the maiden's betrayal. His pride shattered, as this is the first, out of the many decades of thievery, that he was apprehended.

"I'm pregnant with your child, Misaki," the angel said with a genuine smile. "I could care less," the demon thought as he started devising an escape. "If you have run away with me, you wouldn't be in this position," her tone harsher. Misaki kept to himself, wishing the maiden would leave him alone. "I'd choose isolation over being with you in a heartbeat," he thought.

"I will orchestrate your escape if you promise to run away with me right now." The maiden sounded desperate for a response. The demon glared at her out of resentment, "For a maiden of purity, you sure know how to spout lies." He scoffed. "I want nothing to do with you. Cherish the days of your life from now on; because when I get out of here, I will kill you."

The night the baby was born was the night he finally escaped. Misaki went to the maiden's room to kill her-- and oh, how he longed for her murder. Although when he saw the infant in her arms, there was no doubt at all that the infant was his. He fell in love with the boy as he was the spitting image of the demon. Out of brimming affection he never thought he had, he gave his word of surrender if they let him take care of his child. The Pure immediately refused and swore on their life that he would never have the boy.

"Now why would a demon be so interested in a child of a pure?" The head of the Crescent family wondered. "There is no way the child is the demons'. My daughter conceived the boy with another pure angel long betrothed to her."

However, the demon's resemblance to the infant is undeniably uncanny therefore further investigated. The truth came out.

The angel was at fault— clouded with an obsession with the demons' beauty made her betray her kin by conceiving a child with the impure. Misaki was just a pawn in her plans to escape from her own family, and yet the demon is also what she most desired.

Milea was exiled, along with the child, as punishment. The demon wanted to take the child and leave, but she refuses to give the child unless they make yet another deal.

"Never leave me, and you can take care of your child to your heart's content."

The demon, contrary to his race, kept his promise. "Anything for my son," he continually thought as he lived with the maiden with contempt. He showed no love to the angel, and gave all his attention and affection to the child, to his son whom he named— Kouichi Hyukagi.

Four years have passed, and the angel, now clouded with envy, could not take it anymore. She waited until Misaki left for food one afternoon until she attempted to eradicate the child's existence. "I should be the one he gives his affection to!" She screeched as she choked the child on the cold floor. Kouichi's instinct overpowered his fear, and in self-defense, cut and stabbed his mother's right eye. She wailed in pain away from Kouichi while he held his neck, gasping for oxygen.

"You! You will pay for this!!" And with that, she locked him in the cellar and tended to her injured eye. When Misaki came home, she told him the child lost control of his inherited skill and in turn, killed himself. "It's the two of us now, Misaki." But the demon is clever and did not fall for her words. It was evident that she murdered his son and had her right eye to prove the accusation. "He was all I had!" He cried out in agony and anger. And without hesitation, he left the angel and burned the place down with her.

Kouichi was quick enough to save himself and his mother from the fire. Regretting what he had done, he vowed to take care of his mother as he begged for her forgiveness. Realizing that Kouichi is the spitting image of Misaki, she decides to keep him with her. She kept Kouichi to keep her sane; she had herself believe that the demon would eventually come back for her— or for the child.

One year has passed, she has become desperate. And out of her grief, she began to have suicidal fits. Kouichi has made sure that none of her attempts made past the first swing to the throat. The maiden grew weary of waiting that she led herself to her destruction— to madness.

When Kouichi came home with a loaf of bread, just like what his mother wanted, he arrived at a house engulfed in flames. Without wasting a second, he barged in and looked for his mother, hoping and praying to see her at least alive enough to save.

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" YOU SEE THESE FLAMES?! THESE CAME FROM YOU— FROM YOUR OWN HANDS! MURDERER!"

His mother was laying on the living room floor, laughing maniacally. She was not far from the door where Kouichi was; he sighed in relief. "I can still save her." He thought.

"I hate you."

Those were the last words she said before everything blew up sending Kouichi flying off to the streets.

He became an orphan and placed in an orphanage surrounded by children who rejected him. The incident traumatized him, and he was still trying to cope. Even though his mother never showed him her love, he would always give everything to have her back. He misses his father amidst of his abrupt abandonment shortly after his mother attempted to kill him. He was getting the idea that his parents never wanted him in the first place. He was a nuisance; he thought— a burden. And yet, despite all that, he still wishes them back. He cannot make himself hate his parents, the beings that brought him to life. He wanted them back.

It has been a year since Kouichi came to the orphanage. He was slowly adjusting to his environment. Although not entirely accepted by all, he made a few acquaintances who are not too scared to approach him like everyone else.

Then one quiet night, after stealing from the orphanage, thieves decided to burn down the place, with all the sleeping children with it— all 50 of them.

That same night, Kouichi committed his first murder.

He did not want to kill the man who started the fire. No. He just wanted to scare the man away so he wouldn't hurt his friends. But since he was a child, the thieves called his bluff and instead, stabbed the child. Out of fear, Kouichi, unknowingly, released his inner demon, killing the man with his bare hands. Being the only discovered survivor out of the orphanage and finding a dead man beside Kouichi, he got blamed for everything— arson and the murder of 55 people. Out of fear, rage, and disgust, the townspeople put all the blame on Kouichi. "That's how humans are after all," the voice in Kouichi's head said, "They won't rest until they place the blame on someone."

As a result of the townspeople's accusations, Kouichi was locked up in prison with no light, and no freedom— confined in isolation.

"Hey bastard child, you've been bailed by a businessman. Start walking and get out of here!" The correctional officer opened Kouichi's cell doors indicating his release after two years in confinement. Kouichi kept his eyes shut all throughout his walk of freedom as his eyes have not yet adapted to the light.

"Don't be scared. You can open your eyes now." Kouichi shot his eyes open even though he knew it would hurt. But it did not matter. That voice belonged to someone he longed for to come back to him ever since they parted-- the sound that kept haunting him every night. That voice belonged to someone very dear to him— it belonged to his mother. What a joyous moment it was to see his mother alive and well. And all these years, she made him believe that he killed her. Although her hair grew longer and she has both of her eyes now, his mother did not age a bit. She was showing an expression he remembers when his father is around— she was smiling.

The child did not think of how, or why the maiden appeared in front of him unexpectedly. All that mattered was that the maiden was alive. The euphoria that overcame the child's emotions made his eyes moist. "Mother came back for me," Kouichi's tiny heart filled with the happiness that he thought vanished along with the flames a long time ago.

"Mother came back for me; my wish came true."

"Is this him, Milea?" That voice made Kouichi's smile waver and dimmed his excitement a little. The voice was not familiar to him. "Is this your first son?" He was tall and handsome, "but not more than my father," Kouichi thought as he recalled his father's features. "The guard was right; he is a businessman." His mother is sitting in a long car, "a limousine," Kouichi recalled as he remembered reading it from one of his books in the orphanage. The businessman was holding the door open; his hands were on the top of the closed window. A gleam came from the silver band on the ring finger on his left hand, the same place where a ring is on his mother's. Kouichi recalled these rings; it was what his mother never stopped talking about when his father was still around. "The rings she said she wanted my father to give her, and that she would only accept one from him and no one else," Kouichi uncontrollable reminisced from the past.

"Women lie, child." The voice said in Kouichi's head. "Your mother is an angel of pure, but a woman nonetheless."

"Mother would never lie to me," Kouichi thought. "Mother loves me."

The woman is wearing a light blue dress, "her favorite color," he thought. "The color is pure, just like her." A white cardigan was resting on top of her shoulder. A tiny hand was wrinkling the bottom dress of the woman; now this made Kouichi's smile disappear. A small head peeked through his mother's frail body. Kouichi noticed the hesitant look from behind his mother.

"Natsume, don't be shy. Say hello to your older brother."

The last three words pierced through Kouichi's heart. Last he remembered, it was only him and his mother. Who are all these unfamiliar faces?

"As I told you all these years boy, your mother doesn't love you." The voice in Kouichi's head said. "She never loved you." The voice continued. Kouichi lost count on how many times he heard that in two years. But Kouichi would still not believe it. His mother never told him that she doesn't. And how can a parent not love their child? That is impossible especially that his mother came from kin too pure.

"Does mama love Natsume more?" The three-year-old in the car asked the woman. Kouichi was disgusted by Natsume's unbelievable ignorance. How could a child ask a mother that question? Is it not enough to see it through actions as to even question its existence? How ungrateful of him.

"I'm sure he would get slapped," he thought as something inside him was eager to see it come to fruition. The maiden raised up her hand to a trance he remembers very well. Upon seeing that, his eagerness disappears.

"Wait—," he thought, "He's just a little child, he would easily understand a well-stated reply. The violence would only consume him into mindless thoughts of insecurities." Kouichi was about ready to pounce on the hand just in time to see it land gently on Natsume's head. "Of course. Mama's heart only has room for Natsume." The maiden said kissing Natsume's forehead after ruffling his hair a little.

His mother's affection for Natsume left Kouichi dismayed, frozen, and most of all, crushed. He remembers a different outcome that he went through when he asked her the same question years ago. He recalls how long the sting lasted on his cheek, and he remembered how heavy his mother's hand was. He remembers it all in detail.

"Come to think of it, mother never lets me sit beside her; I always had to be far away from her."

She threw fits when Kouichi came near her for a hug right after a nightmare. Kouichi wondered why all these once pleasant memories are coming back with a completely different emotion-- It's painful.

"That's right," he thought. "I remember every single thing because I had something to compare it with now." Kouichi's tiny heart was tightening. Kouichi was scared. He did not like where his thoughts were leading him to think. He was frightened that the realization he worked so hard to oppose all these years, is coming back and with all the evidence he needed right in front of him.

The thoughts of comparison kept on appearing for every observable bond Natsume has with his--no, their mother. "It's unfair." Kouichi thought. He is the first son, why does all the love Kouichi longed for ever since he was an infant all given effortlessly to the little child he recently met? And with an unfamiliar businessman?

It's unfair. "I was a good child," Kouichi thought. He did everything his mother demanded. He slept out in the cold with no complaint when his mother did not want him inside the house. He tried to find his father when told to do so even though he did not know where to look. "I did everything for mother," He thought, his heart tightening even more. The thoughts were non-stop, flooding his head with suppressed realizations, one after another.

Then, with a simple kiss on Natsume's cheek from the woman, it all became quiet in Kouichi's head. The feeling in his heart as tight as it can go-- the sharp throbs were continuous.

"Oh," Kouichi thought.

After all those years of hoping, trying, and enduring, Kouichi finally succumbed to the bitter reality: The love he longed for from his mother, never existed.