The Seven Demon's Tamer

The walk to the Nakamura family mansion wasn't so long... No, not really. That was a lie Satoru told himself every time he made this journey.

The truth was, the walk was like an endless trek, but it felt like mere moments when Yuki was there beside him, chattering away with no care in the world and laughing like he knew nothing bad about where they were headed.

"Remember that time we tried to build a structure just like the family mansion?" Yuki was saying, gesturing wildly with his hands. "And we thought all that was used for building were clay and water?"

How could I forget? Satoru smiled brightly. We nearly died—we were just four, after all.

We spent a hell of a lot of time. Satoru stressed, as if he was re-experiencing the whole moment. "It would have been less time-consuming if you hadn't kept pestering me with your stupid talk."

I still feel like I wasted a portion of my life on that till today.

"Heyyy!" Yuki screamed, his head steaming. "My talks aren't stupid!"

"Yes, they are, especially your stupid jokes," Satoru responded blandly. The impact of the next word struck Yuki like a physical bullet to the heart.

"My jokes aren't stupid! You should admit it—you're too dumb to understand them," Yuki shot back, puffing out his chest. "Like that one about the ninja who couldn't see—"

"If you tell that joke again, I'm going to feed you to the first wild animal we encounter," Satoru threatened with visible strain.

Yuki wiped a tear from his face and muttered, "I hate you so much right now."

With a quick glance at Yuki's crying face, Satoru squirmed as he tried to hold his laughter. However, Yuki's infectious character was already affecting Satoru, and before he knew it, he burst out laughing.

As they walked, other figures began to appear on the way to the mansion. All of them shared certain similarities: they were all young.

Their facial expressions varied, but the most dominant expression they wore was in their eyes—eyes that had seen too much, learned too early that the world was not a fairytale of happiness like most children thought.

As they drew closer to the mansion, the number of young travelers multiplied—dozens of children, which could also be described as a small army of young people, all bearing the Nakamura name.

They had arrived at the mansion grounds now, and the gathering was becoming clear. The massive iron gates—which Satoru remembered being impossibly tall—were still there, unchanged.

They stood wide open, guarded by security personnel in a long line on both sides of the gate, who watched the arriving children with cold, professional gazes.

"I guess we're here," Yuki spoke, with a smile on his face as he stared at the massive gate at the entrance. "Let's feel at home."

Only Yuki was still able to smile at this moment. It was as if all of Satoru's positive emotions had been sucked out of him by some malevolent force, leaving behind nothing but disdain and hatred, plastered on his face like a mask he couldn't remove.

"Don't try to act like he is our parent," Satoru growled, his hands clenching into fists so tight his knuckles groaned. "He is the kind of person I can never look up to."

But even as he said it, Satoru couldn't help but notice that his reaction wasn't unique. As he looked around at the other children going through the gates, he saw his own emotions on dozens of other faces.

Some, like Yuki, wore bright smiles that didn't quite reach their eyes. Others displayed the same cold anger that Satoru felt in his chest. While some anomalies showed nothing at all, their faces blank as stones, as if they had seen more than any child should and had simply stopped feeling anything about it.

The crowd was incredible in its number and size. Children ranging from barely six years old to young adults of eighteen moved through the gates endlessly.

Some traveled in groups, clearly siblings who had finally gotten the chance to meet up with each other.

Others walked alone, either by choice or because they were the only survivors of their family branch. But in general, all of them were related to each other by blood, coming from the same father.

If you had guessed that their father was quite a polygamous man, then you would be right. The man had so many wives that even if they took turns on a daily interval, a month wouldn't be enough to satisfy all of them.

And that was just a glimpse into their father's nature—the tip of an iceberg that went down to depths Satoru preferred not to think about.

The big gate was still sprawled open, accepting all the children, but as expected, the guards lined up for security reasons weren't ordinary security personnel—they were all summoners, and red-marked summoners at that.

The kind of people who made no hesitation when it came to taking action, and that action was usually killing.

"Only children of the Nakamura family are permitted entry," one of the guards announced in a voice that carried authority as he blocked a short figure from coming in. "Anyone attempting to bring unauthorized individuals will be dealt with permanently."

The warning was clearly directed at the children, but Satoru knew it was really meant for any adults who might have discovered the truth about the Nakamura family's child-rearing practices.

Over the years, there had been numerous incidents where children, in moments of weakness or desperation, had revealed their circumstances to adults from the outside. Teachers, workers, random good Samaritans—people who heard a child's story and decided they had to do something about it.

The problem was, the Nakamura family wasn't the kind of family that could be easily challenged.

They had backing—serious backing. Police officials, government agencies, judges, and a wide variety of others—people in positions of power who either owed the family favors or were simply inclined to the practice due to their share of benefits.

When concerned adults tried to rescue Nakamura children, they quickly discovered that the appropriate authorities they had expected to help them were not helping or recognizing their efforts.

Most of these wannabe heroes eventually gave up, overwhelmed by the harsh reality on them, how the authorities were deliberately giving silly excuses.

They would cut ties with the children they'd tried to help and pretend they'd never learned anything about the Nakamura family's practices.

But some of them—the truly stubborn ones, the people who couldn't let go of the idea that they had to save these children—would keep pushing. They would demand investigations, threaten to go to the media, insist that someone, somewhere, would listen to them and take action.

Some had smiles plastered on their faces like Yuki, some with anger like Satoru, some with no emotion at all as if they had seen more than grown-ups.

The number of children was easily hundreds, ranging from around six to twenty years.

If you had guessed, then you are right—their father is quite a polygamous man who has so many wives that even if they took turns on a daily interval, a month wouldn't be enough to satisfy all of them.

That is just a glimpse of their father's nature.

The big gate was already sprawled open, accepting all the children, but as expected, there were several guards lined up for security reasons.

No one other than the children of the Nakamura family. A few times, the children had tried to sneak in a friend once in a while, but they never succeeded.

Children would always be children, so some minor issues do pop up sometimes. While they were outside in the wilderness to learn to survive, there are some times where children get adopted.

They get adopted by an adult, and often, the adult pampers and gains the trust of the children. Soon later, they strategically question the kids about where they came from.

Of course, after the children spill out all the information, the responsible adult sometimes becomes furious and tries to play the hero.

The Nakamura family, however, isn't the family with no backing. They have some police and top officials working for them, even among the eldest of the children.

When those adults discovered the police weren't helping—the police who had some involvement with it—they made one of two decisions:

Back down and cut ties with the children or anything involving the Nakamura family, which was the best choice for them, or try to play the hero.

Playing the hero, such as charging headfirst into the mansion, is the decision the so-called hero has no option but to take, since the family keeps their tabs in check.

That's where the security personnel came into play. When threats failed to drive back these heroes, they instantly shifted to brutality without further ado.

And the results of that brutality are always the same: a spray of blood and untimely death.

They make no hesitation in taking action, and that action was killing.

"Thinking of every single memory I have from here makes me sick," Satoru mumbled as he climbed the steps leading into the large hall where, as usual, their parent would address them before they got permission to access their rooms.

Taking one more glance at the guarded gate, Satoru watched the outcome. This particular cloaked figure seemed to have figured out that he was outmatched and silently walked away. How lucky.

"This place gets uglier every time I see it," one of the children muttered as they approached the main entrance.

"I think it's meant to be intimidating," Yuki responded. "So we would all want to be great enough to feel comfortable in it."

"It's intimidating, all right. I'm intimidated by how bad the taste is."

Despite everything, Satoru found himself almost smiling at that. There was something comforting about finding people who shared his disdain for their parents' nature and property.

The building actually was one of the best in all of Tokyo. However, those who hated their father just as much as Satoru simply couldn't find any beauty in the building.

All the children gathered in the large hall, which was more than enough to accommodate them despite their fairly large number.

The hall was designed like a concert venue, wide in both width and length, with an elevated platform at the front where a speaker would stand to address the audience.

For a moment there, the children were catching up with each other. Brothers reunited with sisters, siblings laughed and shared stories they couldn't outside.

The hall was noisy and rowdy, the sound almost overwhelming—dozens of conversations happening simultaneously, laughter, occasional arguments...

Satoru found himself both grateful for the noise since he could talk to Yuki without being overheard, and annoyed at the same time by it since it was hard to think, and he had a lot to think about.

With the restrictions placed on the children by Nakamura himself, they were forbidden from communicating with their siblings no matter what outside the Nakamura mansion, or else they would be punished.

The rule was absolute and non-negotiable, enforced with punishments that had taught every child in the room that disobedience was what they should avoid.

Those who had broken the rule during their early period of learning what kind of family they were part of had been used as examples to the others.

The punishment was torture—true torture that could hospitalize the victim for months.

Unsurprisingly, Yuki had earned a good number of scars from such punishments. His stubbornness was as hard as rock; no one could change his mind or convince him to go against whatever he had set his mind on.

When the family had tried to prevent him from visiting Satoru, Yuki had simply ignored them and accepted the consequences.

When they'd tried to break his spirit through pain, he'd endured it and continued doing exactly what he'd been doing before until they eventually let him be.

*Clack*

The sound of a single footstep echoed through the hall with clarity. Despite the noise of nearly two hundred children talking, laughing, and moving around, that single footstep somehow cut through it all.

*Clack*

The footstep came again, and this time, the hall was dead silent. It was as if the air itself had absorbed all the noise—every conversation, every laugh, every whisper—leaving nothing but that single, ominous sound echoing off the walls.

*Clack*

*Clack*

With several more steps, the figure emerged from the darkness of the passage he'd come from, stepping into the light with the kind of presence that commanded attention without demanding it.

The silence in the hall was absolute now.

His warm smile came into view first, the kind of expression that belonged on the face of a beloved teacher or a favorite uncle.

Then the long, silky black hair that flowed like he was the protagonist of reality. Finally, the handsome face that was striking enough to make him a big shot in any entertainment industry.

That was a face they could all undoubtedly recognize even with the darkest sunglasses on—not like anyone would forget the face of their father to begin with.

Seeing him in person after a few months of separation still gave them an unfamiliar vibe, like he was some supermodel they had never seen before.

Despite everything they knew about him, despite all the reasons they had to fear and hate him, Nakamura possessed the charming features that could melt hearts.

"Ahem!" Nakamura cleared his throat, the sound somehow managing to be both gentle and commanding.

He stood at the center of the elevated platform, looking out over the crowd sprawled before him, and his warm smile seemed capable of melting an iceberg.

The effect on the crowd was immediate and disturbing. Most of the children's faces flushed and turned away, their previous anger and disdain toward Master Nakamura disappearing.

It was as if his mere presence had the power to rewrite their emotions, to make them forget, at least temporarily, all the reasons they had to despise him.

All of them, that is, except for one apparently ten-year-old boy standing at the back of the crowd.

If anything, Satoru's glare seemed to intensify as he watched Nakamura, his eyes staring daggers with such hatred that it was almost visible in the air around him.

Even from the stage, even with no apparent way to recognize individual glares among the massive crowd, Nakamura seemed to sense the hostility.

His soul could feel it, like a cold wind cutting through warm air. He turned toward the source with an expression of puzzlement on his face momentarily, scanning the sea of young faces until his eyes found the one that refused to be charmed.

When recognition dawned, his expression shifted back to that warm smile, but now there was something else there—amusement.

'If it isn't my look-alike,' Nakamura thought, his smile remaining perfectly in place. 'I can already tell you are an interesting one.'

'I could tell since the moment you were born,' he continued his inner monologue, studying Satoru but masking his focus with his smile. 'The hatred burning in you is like nothing I have ever felt. It's so strong, so pure, so... useful.'

'The children from your mother are surely priceless—just you and Yuki.'