I am really quite flattered that he wants me with him for this. It is probably just because I’m the only person other than his dad who has seen him in that state and lived to speak of it. If things get heated, we always have Nomius outside to get us out of here.

  I have to say… Kiyui grew up in a nice house… bigger than our farmhouse. Not as much land around it… but the house itself is bigger. The garden is full of vegetable patches. I guess this is how his dad managed to pretty much avoid going anywhere all these years.

  The house is in a remote part of the village, so we left Shu and Nomius at the bottom of the garden path and walked up to the house. We did try knocking… quite a few times… and quite firmly at that. The door wasn’t locked though, so we were able to let ourselves in. Although, entering without permission does make me very nervous… I suppose we don’t really have much option… Kiyui probably doesn’t plan to return here… so we need to do this now.

  The inside of this house is not very well maintained… it is incredibly dusty… apart from some tracks along the floor where somebody has been walking to and fro, the place looks far from lived in. We could hear a fire burning in the living room… which shows how big a house this is. Then again… if my dad didn’t have a study then we could probably have had a living room.

  As we entered the living room, I got a strong smell of alcohol. The room itself looked as neglected as the rest of the house… there was a broken mirror against one of the walls… and next to that was what looked like an old bloodstain that had been absorbed by the floorboards.

  There was a trunk next to the fire… an old looking feline was sat on it… his facial hair was impressively long… and even more unkempt than Agaroth’s. His fur was grey, as were his eyes. They looked almost glazed over… like glass that was in dire need of a clean. Kiyui looked at him with a look of concern… but his voice remained perfectly calm.

  Kiyui: “Father.”

  Mr. Kintari: “You came back.”

  Kiyui: “Believe me, I had no intention of doing so.”

  The old man made no attempt to look at Kiyui… he instead turned his head to the fire. The flames reflected in his eyes. If he was behaving like the man that Kiyui had previously described to me, then I would have said that it gave him a look of fiery aggression… but he just looked sad… painfully sad.

  Mr. Kintari: “Then why did you?”

  Kiyui: “I bumped into some of my old friends, quite by accident really. I expected them to hate me… attack me… at the very least be scared of me. But they weren’t. They thought I ran away because I witnessed a demon kill my mum. Some people in town even think you killed her and scared me away. I had to come back… I had to come back and ask you why? Why do you let them think this? How can you take the blame for me? How can you let them think you killed her? I did it. It was me. How could you just sit there for years… letting them think you murdered her?”

  Kiyui started to get tears in his eyes. His voice started to crack.

  Kiyui: “We may have had our issues… but I know you loved her. So, tell me why!”

  Mr. Kintari: “You may have been the one who killed her… but I was the one who was at fault.”

  He leaned in closer to the fire and took a swig from his flagon. Kiyui moved closer to him with a look of utter confusion.

  Kiyui: “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Mr. Kintari: “You don’t remember much from that day do you?”

  Kiyui: “I remember that mark burning its way onto my back, and I remember waking up covered in blood, with Feifer next to me. I remember you sitting in that corner over there, terrified and screaming.”

  At long last he turned to face Kiyui. His eyes wet as if tears could flow at any moment… but not one tear had done so, as of yet.

  Mr. Kintari: “You and your friend may want to sit down.”

  Can he even see me with his eyes like that? Why is he not concerned that Kiyui dragged a goblin along? Or is he just so consumed by his guilt that he is blinded towards anything other than Kiyui right now?

  I walked over to Kiyui and moved him over to the bench that was opposite his father. We sat down on it together and Kiyui held my hand.

  Mr Kintari: “That mark of yours… I did not react well to it when I saw it. You were in pain… you were screaming as this mark was burning its way onto your skin… almost like it was burning its way out from inside of you. You tore your shirt off… you were screaming. You mother was panicked… she was trying to look after you. But in that moment… I knew that she had lied to me… I knew that you weren’t some human’s child. She was trying to help her son… her son who was in agony and screaming… and all I could think was that our entire time together she had lied to me. I lost it… started shouting at her… I grabbed her by the shoulders… I was screaming in her face… I was sickened… a demon had done that to her… and she never told me. She had you… this constant reminder of what happened to her… and she still didn’t say anything. I was just so… angry… I lost control. I didn’t even notice when you stopped screaming.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Kiyui gripped my hand tighter. His face lost its look of concern and it changed to a look of rage.

  Mr. Kintari: “You dived towards me… screaming for me not to hurt your mother. I let go of her and pushed you away. You fell back into the mirror and the glass came crashing down on you. You were cut… badly. Still… I didn’t run to your aid… I just… grabbed your mother and resumed my tirade. I heard you start chanting something… but I just ignored you and demanded to know why your mother had lied to me. She was screaming that she was ashamed… how she didn’t want you to be shunned… she begged me to let go of her so she could check that you were ok. That’s when there was a burst of flame. We both looked at you. Your eyes had turned black… as had your fur… your body was covered in those awful black lines. You had written some symbol on the floor in your blood and summoned that creature of yours. The thing lunged at me so I kicked it away.”

  Kiyui looked down to his ankle where Feifer was sitting. I wonder if Feifer remembers any of this… or whether his memory is like Kiyui’s and disappears after these events. They do seem to have a weird connection. He never has to give instructions to him… he just seems to act out what Kiyui feels in any given moment.

  Feifer looked back up at Kiyui. Kiyui stroked Feiffer’s head before looking back at his father.

  Mr. Kintari: “That was when it started licking your blood off the floor. It started… changing… into this… vile… beast. Your mother was paralysed with fear… she didn’t know what to do. I went to the weapons cabinet to get my sword. I fully intended to kill you that day. I thought it was the only way to stop what was happening. Your mother regained her sense and stood in the way… again… she begged me to stop… she begged me to let her help you… but I couldn’t shake the rage that was coursing through my veins. I started screaming at her… shouting at her… threatening her with the sword to try to get her to move… but she wouldn’t.”

  He glanced down at Kiyui’s arm… as if checking for something.

  Mr. Kintari: “That was when you bit your own arm open… you just bit right into your arm… there was blood in your mouth… it was dripping from you… you reached into the wound and… pulled this… terrifying red knife out of your arm. You pushed your mother down and moved towards me… everything that was you… had gone from your eyes. It was like you no longer had a soul. I went for you with my sword but you deflected it easily and kicked me to the ground. I crawled back against the wall… I believed that I was going to die in that moment. I was ready… I had accepted it. You were moving towards me in that horrifying form… that giant creature of death moving in behind you. I knew I didn’t stand a chance against that. “

  He bowed his head… I can tell he feels an overwhelming sense of shame about all of this.

  Mr. Kintari: “But your mother… she stood in between us. You didn’t even hesitate… you slit her throat… you threw her to the ground and you just kept stabbing her. You stabbed her again and again and again. I was so paralysed with fear that I didn’t dare move. Then that horrid wolf howled… there was this bright light and suddenly you were on the floor… the knife you held was just a puddle of blood… there was blood everywhere. I had sat and watched you kill your mother. I didn’t try to intervene… I just sat there. I should have died… not her.”

  At long last… the tears that had been building in the old cat’s eyes began to flow. Kiyui gripped my hand so tightly that he almost crushed it. I winced and he suddenly stood up.

  Kiyui: “How dare you! How dare you sit there and tell me that story and act like I had nothing to do with it! I was the one who lost control. I was the one who was taken over by MY demon side! Yes, you freaked out and didn’t handle it properly… but how dare you take the blame for this! It was me! I’m the horrid demon… I’m the big fucking evil creature! Do you have any idea how difficult it was for me to work out how to control when I release that side of myself? Do you have any idea how many people I killed before I worked that out!”

  Dwynfel: “But you can control it, Kiyui. You’ve only ever used it to save people since I have known you.”

  Kiyui turned to me… I couldn’t even see his eyes due to the streams of tears flowing from them. He still had a painfully tight grip on my hand.

  Kiyui: “You think that makes it better? You think the fact that I can deal with it now erases all the people that I killed before? It doesn’t! If I had any kind of courage, I would have killed myself after what I did to my mum. But I didn’t, I just ran! I never told you about all the times I turned in Kataravonia. The time I got mugged in an alley and ended up killing a whole fucking street! And all this time… he’s been taking the blame for me… letting everybody think he was some psycho who murdered his wife! No! That is not ok!”

  Mr. Kintari: “Kiyui.”

  Kiyui turned to his father. His mouth was frothing with rage.

  Kiyui: “No! You shut the fuck up! Don’t fucking speak to me! I came back here to take responsibility… I wanted you to shout at me like you used to when I disobeyed you… I wanted you tell me what a horrid creature I am… I was fully prepared for that… I was expecting that… not this!”

  Shit… shit… shit… I thought we were going to have a calm discussion here… I need to calm him down… I’ve never seen him angry like this… even when that mob came to our house… he wasn’t angry like this… this is pure rage. If he keeps going like this, he’ll end up turning… shit, what do I do.

  Dwynfel: “Kiyui, please… I don’t want to lose you… I can’t lose you… if you keep going like this, you’ll lose control… and if that happens, you’ll never forgive yourself… please… breathe.”

  Kiyui turned to me… he took my other hand so that he had both of them. He looked into my eyes and took a deep breath.

  Dwynfel: “You’re going to be ok… I’m here for you… no matter what.”

  Mr. Kintari: “That’s quite the friend you have there. Never would have expected that from a goblin.”

  Kiyui: “Shut the fuck up!”

  Dwynfel: “With all due respect, sir. You aren’t helping… just give us some time, please.”