The Taste of Love

The tall pillar or flame, which had once burned so brightly and solidly wavered from the sheer force of the black sphere's self destruction.

Smoke and dust filled the air from where Esmeray had been. A figure dropped to the ground from the smoke cloud. It was Kazami.

He stared at the ground as knelt before the pillar of flame, which continued to burn brightly, illuminating his ashen face. 

Tang-Ji emerged from behind him. "Is it over?" She asked softly. 

Kazami looked up at the still-raging tower of fire. Kazami's eyes flare out in shock as he looked at it more closely. "No…"

A single, black speck floated within the fire. Esmeray. 

"But—how?" Tang-Ji gasped, eyes unblinking with feigned disbelief. "That was a huge attack! He should be—" She stopped herself, letting the words hang, just the right amount of hesitation laced in.

Kazami stared at the floating figure, opening a menu that showed his opponent's health meter. It was at one health point, and was slowly climbing. "Not huge enough, apparently," he replied.

Tang-Ji stared at him, blinking, as if processing. A second too long. Then, she let out a breath, lips pressed together, shoulders tensed—not in fear, but in something else.

"Splendid really," a familiarly vile voice called from beyond the fire. "Maybe I really did do a disservice to your strength, boy."

Esmeray floated down to the base of the pillar and emerged from it unscathed, flashing the pair a cruel look. "You must have forgotten that I am invincible under the this moon, and you, children, are weaker than me."

Kazami pushed himself up, and the moment he did, his body remembered. A slow-burning ache settled deep in his joints, his limbs stiff and uncooperative, like rusted gears grinding against themselves.

It was the same as back then—when every step felt like dragging lead, when his muscles clenched and refused to obey, when the fire under his skin never faded no matter how much he willed it to. The weight of it pressed down, heavy, relentless.

A sharp breath escaped him, something between a scoff and a laugh.

"So, we're back to this…" His voice was hoarse, not from exhaustion, but from something older. "Even after all this time, you still think you can keep me down?"

"Kazami," Tang-Ji started. "You're in bad shape. If we have to keep fighting, I'll take the lead here." She stepped in front of him, holding out her jade shears. 

"How heroic you are, girl, offering to take the place of your friend here," Esmeray jeered. "The weak stick together, as they say. This will be easy pickings for me."

Kazami looked at Tang-Ji, strands of red frizzed up in her hair. "I have to help you," he said weakly as he propped himself up on his sword. 

She turned her head just slightly, her gaze meeting his, deep crimson against dark, worn exhaustion. Her lips curled—barely, just enough for him to catch it. "I can't let you die, Kazami," she murmured before pausing, as if weighed down by the gravity of her own words.

Then—

"Pfft! Bahahaha!"

The sound cut through the tension like a knife. Tang-Ji burst out laughing, loud and abrupt.

Kazami blinked, disoriented, while Esmeray's sneer faltered into a frown. "Have you lost your mind, girl? Or is the fear of death finally unhinging you?"

Tang-Ji sucked in a breath between giggles, shaking her head. "Nah," she said, dragging out the word, her voice laced with exaggerated relief.

"I just—I really tried to keep a straight face, but, ugh, it's too much effort." She waved a hand dismissively, the corners of her lips still twitching in amusement.

Kazami's fingers tightened around his sword. That laugh—it wasn't hysteria. It wasn't defeat. It was something else entirely.

Esmeray's scowl deepened. "What nonsense are you spouting?"

Before she could answer, the world around them shifted.

Darkness fell like a crashing tide. Shadows swarmed the cavern, swallowing every trace of light except for the stubborn flicker of the pillar of fire. The air turned heavy, suffocating.

Esmeray's breath hitched. His head snapped up. "What?!"

Above them, the jagged hole in the cavern's ceiling—their only connection to the violet moonlight—was gone. In its place stretched an endless sea of paper talismans, layer upon layer, a writhing mass of ink and seals smothering the sky itself.

Kazami let out a shaky breath. His pulse steadied.

"…Emiko," he muttered.

A voice cut through the darkness, dry and matter-of-fact. "His health's stopped regenerating," Emiko reported, scanning her UI. "Tang-Ji was right."

Esmeray's head snapped toward her, his expression twisted.

Tang-Ji twirled the heavy jade shears between her fingers, tilting her head. "What was that about you being invincible under the moon?" Her tone dripped with mock curiosity, her smirk widening just enough to reveal the truth—

Esmeray glared at Tang-Ji and Kazami, furious once again. "Why you little–" he tumbled over his words. "Fun and games are over now! I am going to kill you both right now and then find the rest of your brat friends and kill them all too!" he roared.

At that precise moment, the cavern ignited with a blinding flash—a jagged streak of white-hot energy lancing through the darkness. The air split with a crackling hiss, followed by a thunderous boom that rattled the very bones of the earth.

Esmeray's body jolted mid-air, a violent convulsion that wrenched a raw, guttural screech from his throat. His limbs twitched, spasming as if his nerves had been severed from reality itself.

For a moment, he remained suspended, a silhouette against the flickering firelight, his mouth parted—but no words came out. His fingers trembled as they ghosted toward his stomach, reaching for something, anything, but—

Nothing.

His hand passed through air.

Slowly, his head tilted downward, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. Whatever was left of his body trembled, the bare skin around the void rippling like the edges of burnt paper.

His chest—no, what remained of it—quivered as if struggling to comprehend its own absence. The flesh did not bleed, did not tear. It simply… ended.

A perfect, gaping absence where something vital had once been.

His trembling fingers curled inward again as he continued to grasp at the space where his core should be, as if sheer willpower could force reality to stitch itself back together.

But it was useless. His entire midsection, from ribs to waist, had been erased—like a piece of a painting burned away from the canvas, leaving only empty, flickering edges.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Esmeray's body began its slow descent.

The weight of himself, his existence, finally pulled him down. He felt light. Empty. Like a feather drifting through the air—yet there was no wind to catch him, no warmth to guide his fall.

As his head tilted to the side, his dimming vision caught something—no, someone. A shape slipping out of thin air, like an apparition stepping beyond a veil.

A rifle. Long, sleek—materialising from nowhere, its barrel locked onto him with absolute intent. And behind it, a figure crouched low, sharp eyes steady behind the scope, mercury-red hair barely catching the light.

Beside him, another lay flat against the earth, his dark, braided hair flickering as the last wisps of illusion unraveled around them.

"Ah… so that was it."

Esmeray's lips twitched into something resembling a smile. His voice, little more than a breath, escaped past cracked lips.

"I see… They didn't just strike me down. They struck down my pride—my hunt. I was the one who led myself into the trap."

He should've known. No—he did know. The moment the shadows slithered too neatly, the second his body dragged just a breath too slow. The scent of the trap had been there all along.

But he refused to yield his way. His style. His ideal and beliefs. 

A wolf does not question the snap of a twig beneath its own paw. A hawk does not doubt the wind before the dive. The butcher does not fear the gaze of the lamb.

Yet here he was—fangs bared, mid-lunge—only to feel the noose tighten around his own throat.

His descent stretched into eternity, yet time was slipping away. A creeping chill wrapped around him—not from the cavern, not from death—but from something far older, far deeper.

The cold was familiar.

Snow. Falling in thick, soundless waves, swallowing footprints before they could ever settle. His bare feet, half-buried in the frost, stung with an aching numbness.

He had almost forgotten how long he had been standing there, the sharp wind biting into the bruises that lined his arms, his ribs.

But it wasn't just cold. It was warm, too.

Warm like the arms that pulled him from that night. Warm like the voice that told him he didn't have to shiver anymore. That he didn't have to be hungry anymore.

He remembered, just for a moment—on that day, a pale bloom had clung to his coat.

A Peony.

Lush, heavy, overflowing with silken petals, as if trying to take more than the world would give. A flower of indulgence, of excess, of beauty that could never be satisfied. Nothing was eternal. Not the bloom, not the breath, not even him.

Yet that man.

He had saved half dead corpses.

Even now, the world spat on his name, cursing him for the sins he carried—not just his own, but those he led countless children to commit.

But Esmeray knew better.

Even if no one else believed in him, he would. Because that man had given him life, had seen something in him when he was nothing but a shivering, starving child standing in a pool of blood.

Even as his body weakened, even as the darkness closed in, he was… glad.

Glad that this was the end.

He had failed to be stronger, but at least, at the very least—he had remained loyal.

His body tilted. The cold stone below rushed toward him, yet he wasn't afraid. His lips parted, and the last breath left him in a whisper.

"Angel's Peony."

A harbinger of indulgence. A bloom so rich it drowns the senses, its petals sprawling wide, suffocating all restraint. It calls forth a feast, not with the roar of hunger, but with a quiet excess—an overwhelming presence where desire devours all, leaving nothing in its wake.

In that instant, everything went white.

A soundless flash erupted, devouring the cavern, swallowing the walls, the ceiling, the very fabric of existence itself.

It was hunger.

A consuming, ravenous void that devoured without fully grown teeth, without fire—only light. A light that spread through every corner, every crack, filling the emptiness inside, just as it once filled him that night so many years ago, despite having not eaten for three days.

For the first time since then, he was truly satisfied.

Then—

The world vanished.