Note: This is a piece of fanfiction written and submitted by a reader (Becky). If you would like to comment or contact her, please leave a comment at the bottom of the page. She also drew the illustration and its accompanying theme song. Whoa.

Even though this story is Alternate Universe, it contains spoilers for the end of Tokyo Demons: Book 1. If you’ve finished Book 1, then enjoy!

New: See Romy-chan’s adorable art for this story universe here.

Dedicated to all the Tokyo Demons staff, but especially to Lianne Sentar and Rebecca Scoble – who not only liked my random stories and drawings, but encouraged me to write more lol.

I also want to thank Phil McCauley – who begged for the Magical Girl Sachi to be drawn, so I had to give it a go!  – If not for him the idea for the story would probably not exist either.

BTW – I do not own the characters; I merely borrow them and give them back before the owner misses them.

 Episode 0: Encounters with shadows

“There’s something about shadows because you make your own mind about what’s lurking in them” – Richard O’Brien.

*The following lyrics (English translation) are from “Kiseki” by GReeeN – a song that I think really suits Sachi.

*This one is inspired by Romy-chan, because her chibis and art made me decide to go back to my Tokyo Demon alternative universe. ^__^ Romy-chan your art rules!

“On days when nothing seems to go right, just being together makes everything better!
I forget all about false courage and loneliness
If I’m with you, I can be myself!
So I want to be by your side forever…”

Sachi couldn’t get Kiseki out of his head after singing karaoke with his friends; it had been the last song he had sung and the words seemed to come out of their own accord.

The warmth from the booth still seemed to linger on his skin even though he was walking home in the cool night air and the fizzy drinks made him feel as if he was still full of sugarised power!

He had just waved bye to his friends, the leftover energy kept him wide awake, he didn’t have far to go before he was home. The streets were quiet but well lit. He couldn’t help but bob his head slightly as he mentally recalled the music in his mind.

“I’ll be smiling more tomorrow than today
Just being with you makes me feel that way
Ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years
Let’s spend the time together…”

He had even asked Kado along, he had hoped that maybe a small group of friends doing a fun activity would help Kado relax and well have fun. Kado had given him a blank guy stare that seemed undecipherable before quietly refusing, claiming he had something else he had to do.

Maybe karaoke was too much like facing an audience; still Sachi was a little disheartened at the rejected offer (even though it wasn’t uncommon). He didn’t want to push Kado into something he didn’t want to do, but at the same time he was scared that if Kado continued putting up the strange walls he sensed that something terrible would happen.

He shivered, he felt cold all of a sudden, even though he hadn’t noticed a drop in temperature. Kiseki momentarily forgotten, he realised the reason for his sudden “chill” was that the normal warmth and light from the overhead streetlamps was gone, he was no longer standing in a pool of orange light.

He looked up, the streetlight was out, but he was sure that when he had been walking there had been a clear and unbroken line of lit lamps, the orange orbs had hovered overhead like a string of giant fireflies, plus the chill had come so suddenly.

Sachi shrugged, maybe the bulb had burned out or maybe he had not noticed it. It seemed to place a damper over his cheerful mood as if the light had taken the cheer along with it. Now all he really wanted to do was get home.

He was getting annoyed with himself, as under the dull bulb he felt a little scared, he had walked down this streets lots of times in daylight, twilight and in the dark. It shouldn’t be possible for a spot so familiar to make all the hairs on the back of his neck start standing on end just because a light went out.

Stupid imagination!

He shoved his cold hands in his pockets and started to march down the street towards the pool of light from the next lamp, only for it to wink out as soon as his foot stepped into the light. Okay, he thought that was just a little bit on the side of creepy, but it was just a coincidence.

He tried to pretend he wasn’t walking a little faster than before to reach the next lamp as if he was playing a game of tag and the lamp was the safe zone. The orange light seemed to be welcoming him only for it to vanish the minute he stepped under the radius of its influence.

He gulped, two bulbs was a coincidence, but three? He was finding it hard to make himself believe that. Suddenly he got a mental picture of the street behind him being completely blanketed in darkness…and that there was something out there…

He jumped when he heard footsteps coming from the other side of the street (which was still lit, but he didn’t dare cross over in case they went out too), it had been so quiet when he had stopped singing that he hadn’t realised how loud small things could get.

He was getting jumpy; it was probably just a police officer making his nightly patrol, making the world a little safer. It made him feel a little better about the lamps going out.

However when the owner of the footsteps he saw is was another teen. The guy was swaying slightly as if he was drunk or if he was listening to some private music. He was probably getting home from some party.

Sachi blinked there was something odd about him; it wasn’t how he moved (although that was pretty weird looking). It was like there was something around the kid, it remained him of how the air above a fire seems to shimmer and distort. The night seemed to ripple around him and yet Sachi had not trouble seeing him.

The hairs on the back of his neck all stood to attention at once as he realised that the lights behind the guy were going out one by one.

Okay, okay, don’t panic, he thought to himself, this isn’t weird. There is a perfectly rational explanation why all the lights are going out, a huge power failure or something.

Still he couldn’t get over the fact that combined with the weird shimmer in the air, the sight made him think that the darkness was following the swaying kid down the street. The guy started muttering to himself and since the streets were empty, the words carried.

“Hee hee…the night is all shadows, I can make them dance.”

The creepy factor was steadily climbing higher and higher. It was then that he saw something weird; tendrils like shadows seemed to be swarming around him like a shoal of fish nibbling at speck of food. They waved like grass in the wind, making odd patterns.

Sachi was frozen by the sight and he hastily looked down at his own feet, relieved to see that there was no sign of these dark shadows around him. If he ran would they sense him and try to get him? Didn’t the guy see them? He must see them, he was muttering about them…right?

“When you think about it, the night is just made up of shadows. Night doesn’t really exist.”

The tendrils seemed to be pooling together, making themselves bigger and less defined, what had seemed like little fishes, were now sharks that was moving under the surface waiting to surface.

Sachi’s throat went dry, he could see the shadows moving around but he didn’t want to believe that they were real. The street was almost consumed as the lights were vanishing.

“Hey….” He tried to speak, but he practically choked on just one word. “Hey….kid.”

The guy turned his head to look at Sachi, his orange hair seemed practically bright under the lamp he stood under, even as the shadows seemed to be wrapping around it like a giant snake.

“Hey, do you see them?”

“S-see what?” Sachi tried to sound confident, but his voice betrayed his fear all too easily.

“The shadows man.” The guy’s voice was so happy, it was un-nerving. “They are….everywhere.” The everywhere was spoken in a long way that seemed to linger.

Sachi found all he could do was nod, glad there was a street behind them. “Yes they are.”

The shadows were now lapping at the guy’s feet. Sachi couldn’t stop staring at them. The “lapping” wave-like motion soon changed into something else as they “coated” the guy’s feet.

The guy didn’t even seem to notice as the shadows climbed higher. “Hey! The shadows, they’re- !”

It was then he felt an icy brush and he looked down to see ghostly dark hands, shadows that clung to the lamppost and were reaching for him. They moved past him like snakes heading towards the youth as if he was so sort of magnet.

He could hear creepy beckoning whispers each time the cold things even tapped him. His eyes darted everywhere, how could he tell where it was safe? What were “shadows” and what were normal patches of darkness? He felt like he was trapped and he didn’t even know the size of his “jail”.

He backed away, but he didn’t know how to get away from them, all the lamps around him were out. There was one close to him that was lit, but would it go out like all the others? Could it ward off the shadows?

“I almost feel like I am becoming one…I feel so light! Hee Hee!”

The guy’s smile was manic and seemed too tight. The shadows had now reached his waist, Sachi could see the influence of the shadows spreading beyond him as well, they covered everything they touched with a dark film that made the world seem flat and overly dim like a noir film, draining what little colour could be seen.

There were shadows within shadows now, heading for him like sharks scenting blood. He could see razor like claws on oddly human hands clawing up from the pools as if they could drag him down.

With an undignified and understandable yelp, he ran. He ran towards the lamp, the minute he crossed in the sanctuary of its light. He felt a “pop” in his mind and the world reasserted itself back into a normal night with colours. He couldn’t see the shadows chasing him any more…but he could still see them around the guy.

When he thought back on the night, sometimes he wondered what would have happened if he had run away?

The shadows seemed to swallow him, but the freaky thing was he could still the teen within. The shadows wove themselves around him and seemed to create a giant version of a human.

It looked like an inverted ghost, stark and thin, its phantom limbs were long and each hand seemed to have duplicate claws of the normal sized hands that had terrified Sachi. It was bald, naked, but that kind of naked where the lack of distinct features makes it genderless.

He watched silently as it touched the lamp post nearest to it, it darkened and got transparent until it was a shadow itself, for a moment there were two shadows, the one that had stood for the lamppost and the one the lamppost had become….and then they were both gone.

The lamppost had vanished as if it had never existed in the first place.

“Nothing is real. Everything is made of shadows.”

Sachi didn’t see a mouth on that giant, but the voice seemed to come from every corner of darkness. It turned its head to look at him and he found the giant’s eyes to be as huge and white as bleached bone.

Sachi lowered his eyes to the body, trying to see the normal person inside, but it was hard. He could just make him out, he was limp, yet still standing and his head slumped so that his chin rested on his chest. He thought the guy’s eyes were closed.

“What the hell!!!”

Sachi spun his head to see a policeman staring at the shadow in abject horror. His hand was already going for his pistol; couldn’t the officer see the teen inside?

The shadow giant reached out like a child going for a toy, touching a car, the same “absorbing” happened again as it had with the lamppost, first real, then shadow….then gone.

“Stay where you are!” The policeman yelled, the pistol now shaking in his hand. “Do not do anything!”

The shadow giant gazed at the man as if it was glaring at some new and colourful insect. One large and claws dark hand reached for him as if wanting to examine the noisy object further.

Flares of orange were bright as the gun went off, they left afterimages when Sachi blinked and the acrid scent of gun powder seemed to be everywhere.

The giant pulled back, the white eyes frowned, the bullets had gone through the hand as if it was nothing more than smoke and even through the head but the giant seemed unharmed.

“I said STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” The policeman’s voice was high with tension. Sachi tried to stay to one side out of the way of the gun’s path.

Sachi watched as the shadow giant remained unmoving, but the shadows were not idle and were moving along the ground. The policeman probably felt the cold sensation of the crawling shadows, because the gun went off again; this time at the shadow giant’s midsection.

“No!” Sachi shouted. “There’s a guy in there!!!”

There was a horrible thump and the shadows began to melt away like snow in the sun and all that was left was the guy lying on the pavement.

“Damn it!” The police officer said, his face stark white, as he reached for a radio to call for an ambulance. Time seemed to slow down and yet going terribly fast in places, for example the officer’s motions to get aid seemed to move like so slowly he felt that it would never end, but as he watched a stranger bleeding, dying, he could feel each beat of his heart going too fast as if they were cutting away his life.

He didn’t remember when the other person appeared, kneeling down next to the gun victim, talking to him, checking his pulse and yelling at the policeman to stop standing there and “fucking” help save the guy he shot.

They were checking his breathing, the severity of the wound (seeing it had gone through and through) whilst doing their best not to move him. Sachi felt useless, he couldn’t bring himself to move.

The new guy did things so coolly; he spoke to the guy, saying his name or talking about random things, it was obvious he knew the guy. He even took his own shirt off to try and use it to staunch the bleeding.

But by the time the ambulance came, it was too late. He was gone.

Sachi answered all the questions from the police numbly, all he could do was stare at the pool of blood that glistened under the restored lights (although the lamppost and car didn’t reappear), then there was the call to his parents to let them know what had happened to him. Their worry made him feel even worse.

The questions went something along the lines of:

“Did you see what happened?” Yes I did.

“Did the deceased turn into a shadow?” Yes.

“Do you know why?” No I don’t.

“Could you really see the deceased within the shadow?” Yes.

“Why could you see it and no one else?” I don’t know.

Of course they were far more professional and his answers were far more detailed, but that is what they boiled down to. They would ask him the same questions in different ways, he didn’t know if they were trying to catch him out or if they were just being cautious considering the bizarre nature of what had happened. He still didn’t grasp it completely himself.

Afterwards he felt completely drained and he barely registered anything.

“Hey, you could see Seiya, couldn’t you?” The tone was definitely wasn’t an officer and he looked up to see the teen. His eyes were bright, but not with excitement but with anger. The gaze was molten and Sachi wanted to avert his gaze, was the guy angry that he hadn’t helped to save his friend.

“I’m sorry-” He started to say, but the guy interrupted him.

“I said “you could see him” while he was that monster.” The guy said it as if it was a statement more than a question. His tone was harsher than the more gentle voices of the officers that seemed afraid Sachi would shatter if they raised their voices to him.

Sachi nodded, he couldn’t remember seeing the guy before the policeman had appeared, had the guy appear just before the fatal shot?

“I couldn’t see him in there, neither could the cop.”

Sachi wasn’t surprised, the area had been dark, the visibility low. He had been the only person who had see the guy change from the start, maybe it was something you had to know was there before you could see it.

“I’m Miki, I am part of Byakko and we’ve seen more things like that. The cops are clueless morons about this shit.”

Sachi couldn’t help but look at Miki who seemed completely comfortable with insulting the very profession that was around them, not that they seemed to notice preoccupied with everything else.

“Why don’t they do anything? Why don’t you just-“

“Tell them? Did you smack your head? Would you believe anyone that told you such a bullshit story without proof?”

Sachi felt as if he was saying all the wrong things, Miki’s eyes seemed to bore into him like dark drills. He felt more under interrogation in a few minutes with Miki than after over an hour with multiple officers.

“You want that kind of thing to happen again?” Miki said.

“O-of course not!” Sachi responded immediately. No one should have to go through that or change into something unnatural.

Miki smiled, it was a dangerous smile. Sachi didn’t learn that until later. “And if you could would you help to stop it?”

“Sure.” Sachi said with a fierce nod.

“Good, I am glad you agree.”

“…Hmm, wait what?” Sachi said as he replayed the words, he felt like he had missed a part of this conversation.

“I think I have a use for your ability and if you help me, you can help protect other people from what happened to my friend Seiya.”

“W-what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to be a ‘hero.’” The last word had a trace of sarcasm (Miki didn’t want to insult Sachi and scare him off.). “I need you to be Byakko’s monster detector.”

***End of Episode 0 ***

Proceed to Episode 1 on page 2–>