Fenestram

Daemons, Oni, Devils, Raakshas―whatever you may call them―fester the land of the east, and only one person can collect them and stop them from wrecking chaos. They don’t have a corporeal being, so they steal bodies from innocent rice farmers, carpenters, cooks, guards, you name it, a demon will take over it. Why he chose this never-ending life of torture is beyond anyone but himself, roaming the vast expanses of eastern Asia in the attempt to finally capture his brother’s possessor. He knows he can’t save him, but a proper burial is all he wants. It has been forty years since he last saw him in flesh, but he has heard of his doings every so often, always arriving late to the destination. Moving constantly, always leaving a trail of disaster and despair.

How he captures the demons is only known by three souls, Fenestram’s master, Tamashī, a young apprentice called Yǎnjīng, and Fenestram himself. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, he interpreted the windows as the face, severing the soul from the body. It may sound simple what he does and how, but it requires agility, speed, and strength to go against demons from the far east; only a few have mastered this weaponless technique.

Some souls cooperate with the search by venturing a few meters from him, others not so much, they require locks to keep them in check. Along his journey, he has encountered a variety of faces: happy ones, sad ones, almost-demon-like, and the unspeakable ones, too, contorted beyond recovery; jagged, fang-like teeth, horns protruding from their skull, multi-colored skin, all unnatural for a human being. On the rare occasion, he would find children, the most difficult part of the job was to see their malformed faces and keep them.

Capturing is the least of his problems, he has to keep them in check, walk with them, hear them whine and wail, and sometimes heckle. Why does he keep them? Because his master vanished before he could teach the ritual of banishment, a quintessential stage in the art of soul gathering. Of course, he has already gotten used to the barrage of insults and deceptions, at times humoring those new faces that don’t know his experience in the field. Although he only keeps the worst of the worst, the ones that are powerful enough to steal another body while in soul form. Amassing a soul count of fifteen, ranging from a forty-three-year-old noodle chef, a fifty-one-year-old scholar, and a beggar that was very skillful with the scythe; those had to be locked up, they were the hardest to catch and the ones that don’t cooperate as much.

His last hunt, though, left him with a sense of hopelessness, dread, and a lack of drive. All he could muster out of a low-life thief was that his brother is a legend amongst the demons and that he will never find him. It was so until Fenestram encounters Yǎnjīng; she herself on a separate journey of the same magnitude, her uncle. She notified him that his brother, although unrecognizable beyond belief at this point and has a new soul that does not know who he is, wants to have a “talk” and see what all the fuzz is about.

He roams Japanese lands in a dirty, light-blue, silk robe, a wide pointy hat, and several key-holding chains. His hygiene suffers a little since his mind is focused on where he must go, letting his grey beard go wild in length, nails long and sharp, and barely surviving with two potatoes per day. Determination is all his face could show, nothing the likes of pity for the demons, sadness for the children, or remorse for what he does, just the need to find and the drive to do so.

No one knows exactly how many demons are scattered throughout the east, but one thing is certain, most of them are concentrated in Hokkaido, apparently waiting for a great showdown between the legendary Oni that currently inhabits Socium, Fenestram’s brother, and the skilled sorcerer that claiming some of the strongest demons. Crossing the gates, he sees some of the demons he deliberately chose not to sever because of their low status and ranking in the hell hierarchy, most actually cowering in fear of what his name entails alone. It doesn’t come off as a surprise to him, he knows his strength but doesn’t brag about it.

Just before the steps to the throne, Fenestram looks his brother’s corpse in the eyes and asks, “Are you ready?”. To which he responds in Socium’s voice, “Yes, brother”. This he did not expect; his first face with emotion in years of travels, a surprise is the least he was anticipating. Subsequently, Socium yells, “Now!”. Now the other demons had their face contorted with confusion as if there was no plan at all for this.

In an instant, Fenestram figured something unheard of was happening, his brother was in total synergy with the demon that is inside, talking by himself and in complete control of the situation; could be because of sheer willpower or a demon that is fed up with all this chaos.

Suddenly, a rapid flash of red light illuminated the room, every demon was writhing in pain, becoming rigid, unable to control their movements, excluding Socium and Fenestram. The next thing he knew their bodies slumped to the floor, unconscious, maybe dead, and the frame of a hunched old man at the front of the two big doors loomed at the only survivors of the ordeal.

Master Tamashī walked up to Socium to congratulate him on a successful plan and a big step closer to finding total peace all through the immensity of the Asian continent. What the master did was a bigger version of the banishing ritual in conjunction with the Oni, all of it was planned before Fenestram was invited to Hokkaido, he just made it easier to get them together in one place.

Soon after, they both explained how Socium had to secretly take Master Tamashī, for he was the only capable person to take on the job; they knew Fenestram would somehow ruin the plan if he was told or found his brother beforehand. Afterward, Fenestram gave the severed souls to his master so he could finally banish them. But formalities aside, he darted straight to his brother and demanded to know how he made a connection with the Oni, no doubt something anyone would question. All Socium said was that the Oni had no real reason to side with anyone, but chaos, disruption, and destruction don’t sit well with him. The Oni still dwells within him but chooses not to fight or confront anyone, so it doesn’t bother showing itself.

Of course, this isn’t something to trust instantly, but Fenestram is ready to go for the kill if anything goes awry.

This summon of the demons took more than half of the demon population of Japan, now their journey is to banish the rest of it and move to the mainland to cleanse the disease that are demons off this accursed land; bring closure to a catastrophe, an old age apocalypse, the fight always destined to happen between good and evil.