The Seven Demon's Tamer

The Nakamura family—a name that carried weight in the shadows of Tokyo's city, whispered about in secrets and feared in back alleys.

To the outside world, they were successful entrepreneurs, with their charitable donations making headlines in the news.

But behind the gates of their mansion lay a truth so twisted that no one could guess or even imagine: they were a family that focused on making children and breeding them like livestock.

The comparison to livestock wasn't some sort of exaggeration—it was generous compared to their treatment.

Even cattle, after all, received more mercy than the Nakamura children.

Consider the humble cow: it gets shelter built or designated specially for it in whatever weather.

Though confined within their owner's boundaries, they still receive the privilege to roam freely within those limits, to graze and interact with their kind.

They're fed regularly, given medical attention when needed, and generally kept in conditions that ensure their wellness.

If the Nakamura children were treated with even a fraction of such consideration, they would have fallen to their knees in gratitude.

Unfortunately, their parent—a man who wore the mask of respectability and warmth while harboring the soul of something far more heartless—had brought them into life for reasons that were purely selfish, and utterly devoid of anything resembling parental love.

The only similarity the Nakamura children shared with livestock was the final stage: after reaching a certain stage of growth and development, they were sold off to wealthy families, their worth determined not by love or potential for happiness, but by profit and value.

At the tender age of six—when most children were learning to tie their shoes and read picture books—all the children under the Nakamura family roof, every single son and daughter bearing that cursed name, would be expelled from the mansion.

They would be expelled to live their lives in whatever way they could manage.

They weren't taught survival skills, weren't given a handbook of guidance with the teaching of good morals. Instead, they were granted what Nakamura called the gift of free will—the freedom to live their lives however they pleased and craft their own path and career by themselves.

The children were given only one rule to follow, a commandment as simple as it was cruel: no one from the Nakamura family should mingle with another person from the Nakamura family outside the mansion.

No exceptions, no mercy, no room for the natural human need for connection and family bonds.

This rule was absolute and must be abided by strictly by the family.

The enforcement of this rule had been brutal to date. A few unfortunate souls had tested the boundaries by trying to secretly meet up with familiar faces during the night.

Brothers had tried to meet fellow brothers and sisters in secret. Cousins had attempted to share resources and so on.

The consequences had been... educational. Those who broke the rule became living examples of what happened to those who disobeyed Nakamura's will.

They were brought back to the mansion, and what occurred next was seared into the memory of every child who witnessed it. The screams echoed through the halls for days.

After witnessing such horrors, the rule was strictly abided by all the children. All, that is, except for one stubborn, stupidly brave young boy named Yuki.

Yuki had faced the torture multiple times but remained unshaken.

However, he wasn't foolish enough to casually disobey their father. He had learned to be strategic, to pick his moments carefully; that was only how much all the torture could do to him—teach him to be careful, only to still be noticed.

He knew the right time to mingle with his siblings and get overlooked—during the chaos of the bi-monthly gatherings, when hundreds of children collectively traveled to the Nakamura mansion.

Satoru was the only one to mingle with among all the siblings after all. He and Satoru were the only children of their mother; they shared the same mother and father.

The reason for Satoru's burning hatred toward Nakamura—their father—ran deeper than his cruel nature. His rage was personal, rooted in a particular tragic incident that had occurred when he was barely seven years old.

Their mother had been different from the other wives in the Nakamura household.

While most of the women who married into the family did so willingly—drawn by wealth and status—she had been forced into the family.

Her family had accumulated debts to the Nakamura family that they couldn't possibly repay even with a whole lifetime. So, in a transaction that belonged more to old times than the modern world, she had been offered as payment.

Unlike the other wives who had chosen freely to marry Nakamura for his wealth and the privilege of breeding valuable heirs, she retained something that the others had never possessed: genuine affection for her own children.

During the early period when Yuki and Satoru were sent out of the mansion at age six, their mother found herself caught in an impossible situation.

Every instinct she possessed as a mother screamed against allowing her babies—for that's what they still were to her—to face the harsh world alone.

But she also understood her position in the household and the consequences of challenging Nakamura's authority.

So she did what she thought was the smart thing: she let them go without making her pain too apparent.

She stood in the mansion's grand foyer, watching through forced cold eyes as her sons were led away by security personnel. She didn't cry out, didn't beg, didn't throw herself at their feet and plead for mercy.

She simply watched, and waited until they were gone.

However, a mother's love isn't something that can be easily contained or redirected. After the boys had been gone for several weeks, the worry and caring nature made their departure too much to bear.

She began to formulate a plan that was as dangerous as it was necessary.

She would sneak out of the Nakamura family mansion somehow—most likely using her family's connections—and search for her children.

The first time she found them, living in conditions that would have been considered inhumane for animals, she nearly collapsed from the shock.

Satoru, barely seven, was trying to cook something that might generously be called soup over a makeshift fire.

Yuki, two years older but still impossibly young, was attempting to mend a tear in his only shirt with thorns and grass in replacement of needle and thread.

They were thin—not just slim, but greatly malnourished within just a few weeks. Their clothes were tattered beyond recognition.

They had cuts and bruises from their attempts to survive in a world that showed no mercy to even the littlest children.

When they saw her, their faces lit up with joy so pure and bright it made her fall to her knees, emotion welling up.

From that moment on, she made it her mission to care for them in whatever way she could manage without arousing suspicion.

She brought them food—real food, not the scraps and garbage they had been surviving on. She brought clothing that actually fit their small bodies. She brought medicine for their cuts and infections.

Most importantly, she brought love, attention, and the reassurance that they mattered to someone in the world.

She had promised herself that she would be careful, that she would be smart about it.

She would visit only when she was certain she wouldn't be caught. She would bring only what she could reasonably explain if questioned. She would limit her interactions to her own children and avoid drawing attention to herself.

However, motherly love, once awakened, is not easily contained to just two people. During her secret visits to Yuki and Satoru, she encountered other Nakamura children in similarly desperate situations.

Six-year-olds trying to find shelter in abandoned buildings. Eight-year-olds searching through garbage for something to eat. Ten-year-olds with infections that urgently needed to be tended to.

Despite her initial promise to herself to remain focused and avoid unnecessary risks, she couldn't bear the sight of the helpless children.

She began to extend her care to other children she encountered during her visits. She brought them food and clothing as well. She treated their wounds and illnesses. She offered them the same care that she gave her own sons.

Her heart broke for each and every one of them. These were children who shared her sons' blood, who had been cast out to the wilderness. How could she help Yuki and Satoru while ignoring the suffering of their half-siblings?

What she didn't realize was that this expansion of her care had made her more visible to the surveillance personnel that monitored the Nakamura children.

A woman visiting two specific children occasionally might be overlooked as coincidence. However, a woman providing care to dozens of children was a pattern that couldn't be ignored.

The rule about no communication between family members outside the mansion wasn't something Nakamura had enforced lightly.

Every aspect of his child-rearing operation depended on maintaining the isolation so that the children could choose their path by themselves.

When children were forced to survive entirely on their own, they developed different skills, different strengths, different breaking points.

Some became excellent thieves. Others became natural leaders. Still others developed abnormal resilience or impressive problem-solving abilities.

This diversity of development was exactly what Nakamura was looking for, to make sure there were a variety of different kinds of children to attract greater prices and wealthier customers.

But when children received outside support that they didn't struggle for, it disrupted the entire process. They would be less desperate, less willing to struggle for survival, less likely to develop the hard edge that made them valuable and attractive.

So when Nakamura's surveillance personnel reported the pattern of intervention, disrupting the flow of things, he didn't respond with anger or surprise.

He responded with cold demeanor.

He waited and watched, planning his response. He identified every child who had received assistance, and prepared his retaliation.

The opportunity came sooner than expected. One evening, as his wife prepared for another of her secret visits, Nakamura's surveillance team reported her movements in real-time.

This time, however, instead of simply documenting her activities, they were prepared to act.

When she arrived at the location where she usually met her children and catered for them before the others—an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Tokyo—she found more than just Yuki and Satoru there.

All the children she had been catering for were all there coincidentally.

This should have been her first warning that something was wrong. The children were careful about gathering in groups, knowing it could be assumed as interaction outside the mansion and get punished for.

However, her motherly instinct took over her cautiousness. Since they were all gathered in one place, it meant she could be faster in carrying out her operation.

She rushed to them, checking on their health, distributing the supplies she had brought, and so on.

It was only when she heard the sound of vehicles surrounding the building that she realized she had walked into a trap.

They restrained her and brought her back to the mansion.

When they arrived at the mansion, they were taken not to the usual gathering hall, but to a special room in the basement that most of the children had never seen.

Nakamura entered the room wearing his usual warm smile, but there was something different about his demeanor. The charm was still there, but underneath it lay something cold that made the air in the room feel thick and oppressive.

"My dear children," he had spoken. "You're here today to witness an important lesson about the nature of rules, consequences, and the love that I have for each and every one of you."

What happened next was burned into the memory of every child present with perfect clarity.

The torture of the children was inhuman—each scream echoed through the entire mansion.