The Demon

It resolves and grabs the locket out of the air. It starts scratching something into it. I scream in pain. I yank it off and throw it down. A glowing symbol appears on it. It looked like the eyes that memory-me had when he started speaking in Old Dragon. My chest is branded with the symbol. Tohru sees this and winces in sympathy.

The demon disappears. Tohru says, "Whe-"

She looks at me and screams. The demon has reappeared behind me. I struggle futilely against the demon, who is trying to strangle me. "Tohru! Burn it! It's a messenger demon! It has a 'low' heat tolerance!"

"It'll kill you!"

"It's a mindscape! The most you'll do is give me a fever!"

"Okay…"

She stands up and blows fire over me, and the demon shrieks in my ear. Its grip loosens. "Hotter!"

She looks at me and the flames turn white-hot. My eardrums disintegrate. The demon melts into darkness and disappears, so I gulp in sweet breaths of air. "I thought you said it's tolerance was low!"

"If I wasn't being strangled, I would've made air quotes! And it is low…for a demon."

I try to stand, but my muscles are weak from under-oxygenation, and I fall. Tohru catches me and sits down, with me on her lap facing her, and my legs on either side of her. "Tohru…where's my locket?"

She reaches into the grass and grabs it. She gives it to me, and I study the symbol. It looks like the eyes of demonic memory-me. I put the locket away, and time unfreezes. When past me gets the locket and walks into the woods, I hear tires on gravel. I look and see Michiru step out of the car. I bury my face in Tohru's chest again. "H-hey…" She trails off. I assume she saw Michiru.

She just watches. I start sobbing. "What's wrong…Did she bre-" She stops when Michiru pulls out her locket, and silently listens to our conversation.

"Oh…"

In response, I pull out my locket. Tohru notices it looks like Michiru. "She's your-"

"Senpai." I confirm, nodding into her ample cleavage.

The memory ends, and time refreezes. The words come to me. "Shada naar sooth de."

The scape fades out, and I wake up. My face is wet, my head in Tohru's lap. She's stroking my hair. When she sees that I'm awake, she hugs me close. "I'm so sorry."

I feel something wet on my head and realize that she's crying, too.