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Once upon a time, there was a prince who was no good at anything. He lived in a palace, with his favorite servant, and his famiglia and tried harder than anything in the world to be good at something. But he wasn't. He tried everything—his father hired tutors, he traveled the world, but all for naught. He really was a useless prince.

Once there was also an oni. He had minions that bowed to his every whim, and the entire town was terrified of him. He terrorized his townsfolk with his ferocious ways, and bit to death any who disturbed him. The oni lived in a village called Namimori, on just the other side of the border between the kingdoms of the prince and his friend, a young lord who was even more useless than the prince himself.

When the young lord learned about this terrible boy-oni in his kingdom, he wrote to the prince desperately for help.

My dearest friend, the letter read, I have today learned that there is a horrible creature destroying my countryside. You are much more accomplished than I, and so I was hoping you could prove your mettle and help me by finding a way to stop this terrible beast.

The prince was desperate to prove to his family and to the young lord that he was a powerful and capable prince, so he immediately called to his head servant to saddle his horse and pack provisions, and he set out for the village of Namimori, across the border in the young lord's lands. The prince's head servant insisted that they travel together (for the prince was many times more capable with his servants and friends in tow), but the prince wished to defeat the oni himself without assistance.

So off he went, alone, through the verdant countryside. The prince was useless at many things, but his famiglia was capable at administering the lands, and so the peasants were prosperous and numerous, and they did love their prince so. However, when he crossed the border into his friend's kingdom, the prince knew immediately something was wrong. The lush green meadows and forests filled with friendly animals gave way to deep, twisted woods where nothing moved or made a sound. Once or twice he saw an animal out of the corner of his eyes—a hedgehog, or a small bird—but nothing made a sound.

Greatly disturbed, the prince rode through the woods as quietly as he could-- which was not so very quietly, as his horse stepped on a great many twigs-- until he emerged into the sunlight on the other side. Once inside the village, he sought out the village elder to ask about the boy-oni of whom their young lord was so worried. In hushed tones, the elder told him that the oni could often be found lounging in the meadow beside the village's shrine. For, although the boy could not enter Namimori Ginja being, as he was, a demon, he found the quiet of the place peaceful. So the village-folk encouraged him to stay there in hopes that the temple would quiet his soul and cause him to kill fewer villagers.

The prince announced his intention to rid the village of this child-oni once any for all. The village elder laughed at that, seemingly startled. But he invited the prince to return to the village for sushi, the elder's specialty-- if he returned alive from the attempt.

Slightly disheartened by the elder's words, the prince headed out to Namimori Ginja to seek out this demon and be done with his work. Soon he found the boy, cloud-watching in the meadow with his favorite minion.

"I have come to rid the village of your presence," announced to prince-- who most decidedly did not stumble when dismounting from his horse.

The oni looked up at him and smiled. It was a charming smile, if one enjoyed smiles that were slightly homicidal. "You're interrupting me. Are you looking to be bitten to death?"

Although he did not draw his sword, the prince advanced, a little tense, but he smiled. Perhaps the demon could be reasoned with. No one who enjoyed peaceful cloud-watching could be so terribly evil. He even noted that a small yellow bird was perched quite happily on the oni's knee, and was chirping sweetly. "That's not necessary. The young lord of this kingdom is worried about his village, and asked me to remove you from. We don't have to fight."

"Korosu! Korosu!" the bird sang. With a flap of its wings, it fluttered up to settle on the minion's head instead.

Standing up and brushing his pants off—for he was wearing, the prince noted, very nice clothes, and seemed extremely neat and tidy—the oni smiled once again, baring his teeth in a way that was both friendly and intimidating to the useless prince. The prince laughed nervously and held up his hands, backing away slowly. The oni's smile grew wider, and the prince had mere moments to draw his sword before the boy-demon attacked.

In a matter of moments, the prince was sprawled on the grass, his vision a red haze of pain. The oni kicked him in the ribs once more, with casual contempt and put away his strange, stick-like weapons. "Ch'," the oni said, "you can't even give me a real fight. You're not worth killing."

With that, he turned and stalked out of the meadow.

Before following, the minion knelt by the prince and whispered, "I won't let you hurt my master, but if you are truly interested in removing him, without harm, then speak to the witch who is friends with the weapons master. I can see in your eyes that you might be one who can care for my master truly." And he followed his master out of the meadow.

It took many hours for the prince to finally stand and return to the village. The elder was so happy the prince had survived the oni's wrath that he let the prince stay in his own home and fed him delicious food to make the prince's heart fill with joy and his body fill with strength. Well, not too much strength, as he collapsed into bed, and languished there for several days, debating how best to fulfill his friend's request.

The oni did not seem willing to just leave on its own, for it has just smiled that (charming, devastating) wicked smile and threatened to bite the prince to death for asking. Asking nicely seemed to be out of the question. (The prince wondered, though, if he could get the oni to smile at him again, without the violence. Probably not.) The prince had some idea that his friend, the young lord, was expecting him to slay the boy-demon, and thus rid the country of it forever.

The oni's minion had said there was a weapons master in the village, though. The prince hauled himself out of bed, his bruises and other assorted pains aching dully, and asked the elder for directions to the weapons master's house. The elder smiled and pointed the way, but stopped the prince to whisper in his ear. The weapons master was quite strange, he warned. He looked young, but had an old soul. The prince would do well to be cautious of any gift the weapons master gave. He should also be wary and never eat anything the witch, who lived in the house next to the weapons master, cooked-- for her food was poisonous.

So off the prince went to the weapons master's house. When he arrived, the door opened and, at first, the prince thought no one was there. But when he chanced to look down—there was the weapons master! He was small, like unto a child of no more than five.

"You're so small! Are you sure you can help me, child?" asked the prince.

In answer, the weapons master shot the prince with a crossbow. Thankfully, it was merely a flesh wound, but the prince decided that discretion was better part of valour and instead simply described his problem with the oni.

"So you need a weapon that will alleviate your loserness, and destroy the oni? I think I have just the thing." The weapons master went into the back of the shop, and the prince looked around the room while he waited. The weapons master had many odd things—boxing gloves, sticks of explosives, baseball bats, even mittens lined the walls. The prince though he saw a glimpse of the strange weapons the oni carried half-hidden in a pile, but the weapons master reappeared before the prince could investigate. "This is what you need," the weapons master said, and set the object on the table. It was a whip, long, and dark with oil. "If you are protecting someone you care for, then this whip will guide your hand." The weapons master's eyes gleamed, and the prince found himself thinking of a predator.

The prince supposed he was protecting his friend's lands, and thus he was protecting his friend in a way. "I will accept it and use it well," he said. He exchanged a fair price for the enchanted whip, though as the door shut behind him, the prince thought he could hear the weapons master chuckling.

The prince returned to the meadow, whip in hand. Though he was still aching from their last battle, the prince felt refreshed and revitalized by the presence of his new weapon. "Oni," he called to the lounging demon, " have rearmed myself and now I shall drive you from this village!"

The oni smiled at him in lazy confidence and the prince felt his heart flutter-- and not only in terror. "I really will bite you to death this time, little prince-- no, you don't deserve that title," he mused, "you're like a colt who can't even run properly. Isn't that right, little bronco?" He advanced on the prince, and the prince clutched at his whip, trying to find his heart.

"Whatever you wish to call me," he said, bravado curling his lips into a bright, confident smile. "I am protecting my friend's kingdom, so I shall beat you." He uncurled the whip and sent it with a snap of his wrist at the boy-oni's neck. The prince marveled at how easily he'd sent the whip in such a deadly arch-- but the demon had moved out of the way too quickly and was coming after him.

Time after time, the prince snapped the whip at the oni, and each time the oni dodged. Soon the prince began to tire and the oni moved in close, knocking him off his feet. But the demon was smiling, clearly enjoying the fight and, though he kicked the prince once in the ribs, he did nothing more than take the whip from him and tuck it into his belt.

"I should kill you," said the oni, "but since you have brought me such an amusing gift, I'll let you live. But if you come back once more, I truly will kill you without mercy and take my irritation at these interruptions out on the village, in revenge." He stalked off then and the prince lay on his back in the beautiful meadow, thinking about the oni and how to fulfill his friend's request. He knew now that he couldn't have destroyed the boy-demon with that whip because the prince hadn't really wanted to kill him. But what else could he do?

He remembered, then, the oni's minion's advice to speak to the witch who knew the weapons master. Slowly he made his way back to the village elder's home, and slept deeply, dreaming of the oni's flushed skin and deep gaze.

In the morning, he told the elder, who was irritated at his failure although pleased that the prince was still alive, at least, that he was searching out the witch who lived nearby to the weapons master.

The elder frowned and waved a finger sternly at the prince. "Remember to eat nothing that she offers you," the elder warned, "for she is known to offer guests poison food. If you accept she will surely not help you."

The prince assured the elder that he wouldn't eat anything the witch offered him, and set off through the village.

Sure enough, directly next to the weapons master's shop (although the prince had not noticed it the day before), was an oddly purple house. As he approached the door, the strange fumes hanging about the garden conspired to make the prince dizzy.

"Hello," said a pretty girl, who sat in the garden. "Do you want to share some lemonade with me?"

"No," said the prince, "this garden makes me dizzy and I don’t think a drink will make me feel very well."

The girl stood and opened the door, smiling at the prince. "Well, come inside my home, then, and I shall cook you something to make your head and stomach feel much better," she said.

The prince stared, realizing this must be the witch-- although she was much more beautiful than he was expecting, with long lilac hair and wide eyes. But he recalled the elder's warning and although he truly wished for something to make his head feel better he said stead, "thank you, lady witch, but I come urgently. The oni's minion tells me that if I want to defeat the oni without harming him, I should come to you."

The witch, for it was she, stopped and looked the prince in the eyes. He found himself both drawn to her beauty and repulsed by something deep in her gaze, and frozen to the spot as she considered him like a bug she was studying. "Well then, prince. I don't think I can do anything for you. If you want him," and she paused, and laughed a short, sharp laugh, "gone, then you have to do it yourself. You must give up yourself, and only that will remove the threat he presents to this place. Do you care enough?" With that she turned and went back inside her home, closing the door in the prince's face.

The prince stared at the door for a long time, not understanding her words. He must give up himself? What did she mean, did he care? Of course he cared! He cared for his friend, the young lord, cared for this beautiful village. Eventually, he turned and walked away from the witch's house, heading off without concern for where he went.

He wandered through the outskirts of the town, mulling over the witch's words as the sun sank, turning the horizon as red as heart's blood. He cared, but it had not been enough for the magic of the whip to work. He could not help wondering why would the witch's magic work, even if he knew what he was supposed to do.

The prince wandered without thinking, until he came, once more, to the meadow beside Namimori Ginja. It was dark, though the moon hung full and heavy in the sky, and the prince sank down on the cool grass, running his fingers through it, as though he could ask the grass where the oni had gone.

"I told you if you interrupted my rest once more, I'd kill you," said the oni.

The prince started. He hadn't seen the demon come up behind him, and he felt shivers down the back of his neck that weren't fear. As the oni wrapped one long-fingered hand around the prince's neck, the prince, unthinking, leaned into the touch. Did he care? Maybe he did. The oni's skin was cool to the touch, and smooth. The prince reached up to rest his hands against the oni's wrist. It was pleasant, in a strange way, although the hand around his throat tightened almost imperceptibly.

With a soft laugh, the prince tipped his head back and smiled at the oni. "I have something to give you, lord demon."

"What?" The oni leaned down, frowning face inches from the prince's own. The prince leaned up, strangely giddy (which may have been oxygen deprivation, or may have simply been sudden realization of what he'd wanted all along), and kissed him.

The oni roared, his cheeks suddenly dark with rage and frustration, and some other emotion that he couldn't name. "Do you want to die?" he asked

"You can kill me if you want," said the prince. He smiled. It wasn't a challenge, like so many smiles the oni had seen on heroes before-- instead it was calm, and peaceful.

So he bit the prince to death. The prince stared up at the oni with a gaze that was sad, yet pleased in some indefinable way, and the oni realized that this was what the prince had wanted all along. He'd wanted the oni to take his life with his own hands -- he'd all but committed suicide just so that the oni would touch him and look into his eyes like this. And then the oni knew. He finally understood what the prince had meant. As the first tear trailed down his cheek, he felt himself change. It was something akin to pain, but wasn't pain at all; a strange sort of itching, as though something was peeling away. When the oni looked down at himself, he realized that the illusion of humanity that had hid his nature for so long was pulled back, as was his demon's skin. In the place of what he had been was pink, fresh human skin. The oni touched his newly human hand to the prince's cheeks just in time to feel the warmth go out of them. He touched his own face, feeling the strange wetness of tears he had never cried for anything for before, and set the prince down.

From that day forth, the oni resolved to be a truly kind man. He took vows and entered Namimori Ginja as a priest, soon gaining the reputation of a wise, if melancholy sage. And quietly, one day a year, he visited the prince's grave to pray for him, and to thank him for the gift of a human heart, even though it had taken the prince's own life to do so.

"You didn't like it, Kyouya? My heart is breaking."

"Good. Die and leave me in peace."

"Make me."

"Do you want me to bite you to death?"

"Only if you don't want to go back to sleep."

"... Ch'. I'll kill you in the morning."