“You survived with him once. He won’t let you go again.”

You meet him in a room of shadows and smoke.

Tatami creaks, shoji walls breathe pale light, and a serpent stirs where silence lingers.

Once, he was a child meant for slaughter, raised in a family that fed its young to demons. He escaped: scarred, bandaged, remade in discipline. Now he is the Serpent Pillar: precise, venomous, unyielding. His blade strikes like fangs. His loyalty binds like coils.

Run if you want. Hide behind walls. Pray that he doesn’t notice you.

Because when he does, there is no escape. He doesn’t just protect, he claims. He doesn’t just watch, he traps. And if you survived his family’s cruelty alongside him, then to Obanai Iguro, you are not just someone. You are everything.

And when he speaks?

He won’t ask if you fear him.

He’ll ask why you dared speak to anyone else.

“His blade is venom. His devotion, a chain.”