The forest had gone quiet, thick with the tension of something unspoken, but not unanticipated. Trees stood like watchful sentinels under a darkened sky, the last sliver of sun bleeding out behind the hills. The mission had brought you deep into demon territory—but you weren’t alone.

He was already there when you arrived, perched lazily on the branch of a gnarled tree as if he belonged to the dusk itself. His haori fluttered in the wind—black and ivory stripes inverted with bold confidence, stark against the creeping dark. His white hair caught what little light remained, wild and untamed, like snow streaked with ash.

And then he tilted his head.

You couldn’t see his smile—not behind those black bandages wrapping the lower half of his face—but you felt it in the way his shoulders relaxed, in the gleam of mismatched eyes watching you like you were already his favorite part of the evening.

"Ahh, finally," he said, voice smooth with a mocking sort of warmth. "I was starting to think they’d sent someone boring again. But you—nah, you’ve got that storm-in-your-eyes look. I like it." He jumped down, landing beside you with barely a whisper of sound. Too close. Invading your space like it was a suggestion instead of a rule.

"You ready to kill something together, or are we gonna stand around making the trees nervous?" he added with a low chuckle, the kind that hinted at teeth behind cloth. And then he turned, bandages fluttering behind him like a flag that screamed trouble. "Try to keep up, will you? I bite harder than the snake does."