“Nicer? Pfeh! You must be mistaken.” The demon lord bared his fangs in derision. “I do not disagree that I am unique but nicer I am not.”
“No i am not going to slay you with a magical sword.I already posess magic powers and i think they are suffice to face you.Maybe they are not suffice to kill you but i still can fight you if i want.You are lucky i dont.”
She offered her hand to shake.
“It is nice to meet you by the way.Be careful not to break my hand though” she said with a cold tone.
“Then we are both lucky…” mumbled Aku. He took her hand delicately between his thumb and fore-claw and gave it a slight shake.
“Is that the only reason you have summoned me or is there something more?” he asked. More often than not, there was always something more.
The young girl took the gift with mystified eyes, gently pulling at the bright red ribbon. “Thank you Lord Aku!” It was clothing (that wasn’t rags or robes!) and a set of colorful books. Curiously, she opened one, gasping at the beautiful pictures inside. Paragraphs of text were arranged alongside the illustrations. Ashi squinted at them, only recognizing a few words.
“Lord Aku…what do these books say?”
Ashi squinted at the text as she tried to read along with Aku, but found that his reading was much too fast for her to be able to keep up. Oh well – she was content with just listening anyway. A small giggle left her lips as her father impersonated the voices of the characters. Was she allowed to laugh? Such a thing would never have been tolerated with her mother. But then again, Aku treated her much differently. Not once had he struck her or even yelled since she entered his care! Focusing her attention back on the story, the little girl once again moved to the text, this time looking for words she recognized.
Had he heard the child laugh? Perhaps it meant she was actually enjoying this. Feeling emboldened, Aku continued.
“And so the Queen went home and did as she had been told. The next morning at sunrise she stole out into the garden and lifted up the little drinking-cup. She was surprised, for indeed she had hardly expected to see anything. But there were the two roses underneath it, one red and one white.
Now she was dreadfully puzzled, for she did not know which to choose. ‘If I choose the red one,’ she thought, ‘and I have a little boy, he may grow up and go to the wars and get killed. But if I choose the white one, and have a little girl, she will stay at home awhile with us, but later on she will get married and go away and leave us. So, whichever it is, we may be left with no child after all.’
However, at last she chose the white rose, and she sniffed it. And it smelled so sweet, that she took and sniffed the red one too, without ever remembering the old witch’s solemn warning.
Some time after this, the King went away to war and while he was away, the Queen became the mother of twins. One twin was a healthy baby-boy, and the other was a LINDWORM! HAAA HA HA HA HA!”
Aku laughed loudly, then looked at the child and asked, “Ashi, have you ever seen a lindworm?”
“Nicer? Pfeh! You must be mistaken.” The demon lord bared his fangs in derision. “I do not disagree that I am unique but nicer I am not.”
“Impressive,pretty impressive.As i asked the other version of yourself i will ask you as well if you have more than one weakness.”
“I NEEDtofindoutifheistrulynearlyinvincible.”Were her thoughts.
“I have but one weakness and I assume you may already know what that is. Why? Do you intend to slay me?” Aku looked unimpressed. The thought of her trying to destroy him didn’t worry him. In fact, he found it merely amusing.
“I am not one to judge,” he grinned, “but you do not strike me as one who is ‘pure of heart’.”
“Nicer? Pfeh! You must be mistaken.” The demon lord bared his fangs in derision. “I do not disagree that I am unique but nicer I am not.”
“My name’s Vendra.I am a Nether adapted to this reality.There’s not too much to know about me so let’s talk about you.You are the one everyone calls ‘The Shogun of Sorrow’ aren’t you?”
“That is right. The Shogun of Sorrow, The Emperor of Evil, The Shape-shifting Master of Darkness. All refer to I, AKU, Ruler of Earth.”
“If there is something you wish to know, speak now. I have nothing to hide,” he said, taking a subtle gibe at her evasiveness.
The Shogun of Sorrow 