The Demon Queen

The Cult Leader

We entered the temple to be greeted by a long, dark corridor. Both sides of it were covered with large, golden Buddhist statues, all of them bearing a lotus flower somewhere on their body. A few dim lanterns hung from the ceiling, hardly providing enough light for us to see well in our surroundings.

I stepped in front of Muzan and started to lead the way down the corridor.

"I should be leading, you know," he said.

"Yeah, yeah, sure, but I'm more interested in this than you are," I said and continued to move down the corridor. "You sense the energy here, don't you?"

"Of course I sense it," Muzan said.

I could get the feeling that he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest behind me.

"It crawls under my skin and feels invasive," Muzan said.

I knew what he meant. There was an almost itchy sensation coming along with the energy inside the temple. It was like it latched onto you and decided to tickle you just for fun. But it was a warm tickle, a welcoming tickle, as if it was being done by someone who wanted to amuse you, calm you, and guide you along.

I could guess, to guide you along the lotus flowers' path to enlightenment.

"I was thinking of turning whatever human is here into a demon, but now I'm thinking of just killing it," Muzan said.

I heard him brushing off his body, as if trying to push the temple's energy off of him.

"Don't be so rash. Let's check it out first before deciding on killing it." I stopped in front of a sliding wooden door with golden accents and trimmings on it. I looked back at Muzan. "I'm not against killing this human, by the way. I'm just saying, let's not jump to conclusions and decide in advance."

Muzan stared at me. He seemed like he was about to protest, but then held himself back. "Fine," he said and sneered a bit, turning his head slightly away from me with his nose in the air.

I turned back to the door and slid it open.

Inside was an unexpectedly bright, large room with no windows. The majority of the floor was covered by a sparkling pond of crystal clear water. Floating on top of the water in masses were fresh-looking white and pink lotus flowers sitting on lily pads. In the middle of the pond stood a wooden path secured in place to the floor. The path grew broader as it extended into the room, until it met an ornate shrine at the end. The shrine lay over the entire width of the back wall. All kinds of flowers of all the colours of the rainbow flawlessly blossomed at the back of the room, both at the base of the end of the wooden path and all over the wall. In the centre of the flower shrine stood a soft, cushioned white chair, upon which sat a broad-shouldered man with long, light blond hair and dressed in long black robes.

Upon seeing our entry, the blond man stared at us curiously. I found myself immediately drawn to him, as if something I could not explain connected us and latched us together from the moment we set eyes on each other. The blond man, from his intrigued and confused shift in his energy, also seemed to not understand what was going on.

That moment of our odd, yet beautiful connection lasted only a couple seconds, before something like static out of nowhere seemed to push us away from each other. It was as if we were from two similar, but very different worlds, that were forbidden to merge into one.

This guy ... I thought. What the hell is he ...?

The blond man stared at me a moment longer before a large smile suddenly burst on to his face. "Hello, hello!" he called from his spot at the back of the room.