Five Truths About the Oni-Eater
tactics - v9 spoilers [i.e., Haruka's past]
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1.
On a certain day every year, during the full moon, he returns to a
specific mountain, to the base of a specific tree, and spends the night
there; he will raise his cup to the youkai who pass him, and they nod
politely to him in turn; only here does nothing live in awe or fear of
him.
The secret is: he actually likes that quite a bit.
2.
It's not so much that he disdains humans as he worries, in a vague way,
about how fragile they are. An oni can be tossed from a cliff and not
worry too much about the fall; they're made of tougher stuff than most
youkai, even. To kill a human, it takes only a little pressure, a fast
enough fall, a drop of poison -- a hundred thousand things that youkai
can shrug off with relative ease.
Still there is a particular young onmyouji who will not
leave him alone; this irritates him to no end, but he figures he just
needs to be patient: time, also, is a great killer of humans.
3. On the other hand, he does
have disdain for other youkai, especially those that simper and cower
at him, like he might spare their lives. The only thing he's ever
killed are oni and those stupid enough to directly challenge him;
there's no honor -- and no point -- in killing something so much weaker
than yourself.
And yet other youkai still flee before him, or
freeze up; he cannot speak to most without being begged for mercy and
that becomes tiresome quite fast. He retreats to live in the mountains
by himself to avoid the trouble.
4. "Rin" is awkward, sitting
across his shoulders at a bad angle; sometimes, he fancies he can feel
it digging into his skin if he turns wrong. Others still call him the
Oni-Eater -- Fuji still calls him the Oni-Eater at times -- but that
doesn't change the fact that he has been named, and he thinks
that nothing will ever be the same in his life again.
5. However, he did not hate Fuji until the moment she betrayed him.