caster snakes kid

"For now, let's talk over a drink. Won't you eat that?"

The other man, with a face as expressionless as a mask, gauged the tied kid and Ryūnosuke. Feeling anxious, Ryūnosuke couldn't tell by the silence if his words and intentions had hit home. Maybe that was asking for too much. After all, who decided that demons eat children?

Silently, the man picked a book from a pocket of his robe. The bulky book appeared to be an antique treasure from an ancient era. No doubt it was some gadget of the demon.

Ryūnosuke noticed in one glance what hide the cover was made of.

"Ah, cool! That's human skin, right?"

Ryūnosuke can recognize it because he once tried to put up a lamp shade with human skin pelt off a victim. Eventually, he got discouraged at his poor handicraft midway, but he can't help but respect an elder who has achieved a similar work through the end.

The man, casting only a glance at Ryūnosuke, ignored his compliment and gently opened the book, his hand rapidly flipping through the pages; he then muttered one or two words that made no sense, and as if it was enough, closed the book before putting it back in his pocket.

"... ?"

Leaving the helpless Ryūnosuke, the man walked toward the boy rolled up on the floor. At the strange events that had kept happening, the boy winced harder as if death was inevitable, trying to crawl away from the man.

Looking at the child in such a state, the man seemed suddenly full of compassion and kindness, which startled Ryūnosuke. What does that mean?

"― You have nothing to be afraid of, my boy."

Unlike what his odd appearance suggested, the strange man gently spoke to the boy. The imprisoned kid gradually notices his warmth, and looks at the man questioningly.

As a reply, the man gives a smiling nod, bending toward the boy and extending his hand at him― gently untying his ropes and gag.

"Can you stand?"

As an encouragement, the man patted the boy on the back, helping him up.

Of course, Ryūnosuke had no doubt the man was a devil, but he was really dissatisfied with how he was treating the child. Is he actually going to let him live?

Anyway, no matter how you looked at him, the man is queer. When silent, his features would look dreadful like the face of a corpse, but when smiling without any apparent maliciousness, he would seem as pure as a saint.

"Now, my boy, the door over there will lead you out of this room. Don't look around, walk straight forward by yourself. Can you do that by yourself?"

"... Yes..."

At the boy's brave nod, the man responded with a bright smile, softly pushing his back.

The boy started running lightly across the bloodstained living room, as he avoided looking at the corpses of both his parents and his sister as instructed.

"Hum, hey..."

Of course Ryūnosuke couldn't ignore it all and spoke, but the man quickly interrupted him with a hand sign. Overpowered, Ryūnosuke helplessly watched the kid escape.

The boy opened the door and stepped into the corridor. In front of him was the entranceway. His eyes drowned in fear until then were now shinning again in hope and relief.

The climax came the next instant.

The boy was leaving the stairs behind him, facing the entranceway. From the second floor, invisible from the living room, something suddenly fell down in an avalanche on the young boy. A bundle of heavy ropes ― no, a flock of countless snakes ― an indescribable life form, or rather, a living creature twined around the boy's whole body, and with an otherworldly force, took away the young body up to the second floor.

Then― a soul-rending scream. The clicking tongues of an infinite number of creatures, and the echo of small bones crushed. The rashness of whatever was happening on the upper floor easily stimulated imagination even without witnessing it.

The strange man closed his eyes and raised his face, listening to the nightmarish sound, drunk it in attentively. His hand shivered. Apparently he was deeply moved.

But the emotion was just as great for Ryūnosuke... No, as he didn't expect something like that to happen; the catharsis was far more intense for him.

"There is a certain freshness in fear."

The lingering memory of the horror he had himself planned out hadn't drawn out yet ―there now was no remaining doubt he was a devil― when he started speaking, and his voice sounded like he was entranced in a dream.

"Fright is about the feeling that you will die. The true meaning of terror doesn't lie in a static condition, but in a change― this is the instant when hope is turned into despair.

How was it? The smell of fresh fear and death."

"― Kh ―"

Ryūnosuke was at loss of words.

The 'thing' that was feasting on the kid's remains upstairs was, apparently, the man's doing. He was the one who had appeared from the bloody magic circle, after all. There was no possible doubt something had happened when he had opened his book with the binding made out of human skin.

The method was nerve-racking, but that is what is splendid in this philosophy. Ryūnosuke was no match for the creativity and perfect aesthetics of such evilness. Him who held such a vivid and moving "aesthetics of death" deserved the greatest praises.

- Fate/Zero: Act 2, Part 3