Volume 1 - Prologue

A lukewarm drizzle pelted the blossoms of the long-lived weeping sakura—

As my hair grew increasingly vividly red over the years, I was ostracized by others as an unsightly oni child that even my father turned his back on me.

Unable to bear the pain and loneliness, I cried all the way till daybreak until my sleeves were wet with tears.

A sweet, familiar scent brushed past my nose.

Dragging along my long hair and the robes of my ko-uchigi, I crawled under the bamboo blinds and entered the corridor.

There, I was entranced by the light crimson shower of the weeping sakura petals dancing through the gray skies of the cursed capital.

They looked just like the color of my hair…

Suddenly, I felt a gaze upon me.

Atop one of the many flowing branches, he stood there watching me.

—It’s an oni.

That jet-black hair and eyes I’ve always wished for.

However, the young man wasn’t human. That sinister-looking pair of horns on either side of his head spoke eloquently of the fact that he was one of those oni threatening Heian-kyo.

But more than anything, he was exceptionally beautiful.

“I’ve come to bring you away.”

Saying so, he held out a hand and called my name.

Name.

My name is—