The Yandere Demon Lords & Me

The silence returned.

They didn't bury him.

They didn't need to.

The moment the knight's breath stopped, the ash reclaimed him.

It moved with purpose—sweeping over his corpse like a tide, dragging bone and cloth and melted armor into the dirt.

No one moved to stop it.

Not even Caelia.

Especially not Caelia.

"He shouldn't have been able to speak," she murmured.

Elaris turned to her.

"Explain."

Caelia kept her eyes on the settling ash.

"The god-rot burns everything sacred. Mind. Memory. Will. The body dies in minutes. But he walked. He spoke. He… knew things. That's not infection."

She looked up slowly.

"That's possession."

Silence.

Then Valaithe giggled.

"Possessed by what, darling? He was stuttering prophecy like a drunk bard in a haunted alley."

"You didn't feel it?" Caelia snapped.

"He wasn't alone."

Rein said nothing.

His heart was still racing, but it didn't feel like fear anymore.

It felt like something beneath fear.

Recognition.

The things the knight said—

"The gods fear what loves you."

"The ash followed you."

He couldn't shake them.

Zeraka moved closer.

She didn't say a word.

She just touched his face, thumb brushing just below his eye.

A rare, vulnerable motion—rough hands gentled to a whisper.

"Don't think too hard, prey-boy," she muttered. "That's when the monsters crawl in."

Rein almost smiled.

Until Valaithe leaned in from the other side.

"What if they already have?" she whispered near his neck.

"You didn't scream when he died. You didn't cry. You watched."

He pulled away.

Just slightly.

She laughed.

Caelia turned sharply, stepping between them.

"Enough. He's still shaken. We all are."

"Speak for yourself," Zeraka said.

"I am," Caelia growled. "Because I recognize god-rot, and none of you are taking this seriously."

She pointed to the ash which simmered.

"It doesn't follow the laws of this world. It answers to something else."

Rein looked down at his hands again.

They were clean.

Too clean.

Even the blood from earlier had vanished.

As if the ash had… claimed it.

Erased it from existence.

"Why me?" he whispered.

"Why is all of this… me?"

Iris answered, distant.

"Because they can't touch you."

Rein turned.

She hadn't moved from where the knight died.

But her gaze was elsewhere—locked on something none of them could see.

"The gods. The heroes. The angels behind their mirrors. They built a world they could name."

"And then you walked into it without one."

Zeraka bristled.

"Then we name him."

"No one else."

She moved to Rein again, wrapping her arms tightly around his chest from behind.

Not gentle.

Not seductive.

Possessive.

"Mine," she whispered.

Valaithe leaned in too, a breath from his lips.

"Ours."

Even Elaris stepped closer—though she said nothing, her sword still in hand.

Only Caelia stayed where she was.

Frozen.

Watching the knight's ash pile smolder like it remembered breathing.

 _______

Far away…

…through a still-burning glass eye now buried in the dirt…

…something divine watched.

And smiled.

_______

They left the clearing.

But it did not leave them.

The ash followed—silent, obedient, unholy.

It didn't fall like snow anymore.

It flowed, curling behind Rein's footsteps, coiling around the prints he left like vines of soot and memory.

Caelia noticed it first.

She stopped walking, staring down at the trail.

"It's writing something," she whispered.

They all turned.

The ash behind Rein was forming symbols.

Not letters.

Not runes.

Just marks—like the alphabet of something older than language.

Each one flickered for only a second before dissolving.

But Elaris had drawn her sword again.

Zeraka snarled.

Valaithe licked her lips, amused.

Only Iris smiled.

Rein froze.

"Stop following me," he whispered to the ash.

It didn't.

It just kept tracing.

Until one glyph—one symbol—lingered longer than the others.

Burned into the dirt.

𓆤

Not a word.

A name.

"What does it mean?" Rein asked.

No one answered.

But Iris turned to him, eyes glowing faintly.

"That's the one they tried to erase."

"Your name. Before you had a body. Before they built the thrones and the temples and the lies."

"The name they swore no one would speak again."

Rein stepped away from the symbol.

But the ash drew it again beneath his next footstep.

And the next.

Each time, the same sigil.

Each time, closer to permanence.

Zeraka grabbed his arm—not hard, but firm.

"You don't need to know what it means," she growled.

"You just need to stay close. Let them burn trying to reach you."

Valaithe ran a finger up his spine.

"Let them scream your name," she whispered, "when they realize they can't touch you."

Rein closed his eyes.

But the images didn't stop.

— Flames burning in the sky.

— Crowns split in half.

— A woman hanging in chains, laughing as she whispered his name through blood.

He opened them.

And the ash spelled 𓆤 again.

This time without movement.

Without fading.

It had learned how to remember.

Far above in the sky, a crack of light split the clouds.

Not lightning.

Not sun.

Something else.

And Rein heard it.

Not in words.

Not in prophecy.

But in himself.

A voice.

His voice.

Older.

Stronger.

Frighteningly calm.

"You are mine."

________

The fire burned low.

Rein slept.

Not peacefully.

His breathing was too shallow.

His hands twitched.

His legs jerked now and then like he was running from something even dreams couldn't catch.

But he didn't wake.

Not when the air shifted.

Not when the shadows thickened.

Not when she approached.

Iris knelt beside him.

She didn't hesitate.

Her fingers, pale and blood-flecked, moved with terrible grace—sliding beneath his tunic, baring a patch of skin just above his heart.

She didn't sigh.

Didn't smile.

She simply started carving.

It wasn't a blade.

It was a quill—black and brittle, plucked from a bird that never existed.

It bled ink that hissed against skin, and where it touched, the mark began to bloom.

A rune.

Not like the first.

This one was shaped like an open eye with no iris—just the hollow of a scream drawn in a circle.