Trix

I was on the edge of my seat through the whole story. At first, by the demon introduction. Then by the ways Tenzjin might hurt Mot since the young man seemed to fragile and sensitive to everything. Then the awful possibility that Mot might indeed be a demon. And the climax scene where there seemed to be only 2 choices, both dreadful: either Tenzjin would discover that his fears were unfounded but would hurt Mot badly or that Tenzjin would prove Mot to actually be a demon and have to kill him.

Shukyou did an amazing job in creating the suspense throughout the story and inserting little tidbits that only heightened the mystery and left me wondering what was real and what wasn't. I too felt the hairs on the back of my head stand when Tenzjin discovered the description of the "blood anger demons". Again when he learnt about Ngamotzjang, the death god. And the ritual...I felt that if Tenzjin had finished that ritual things would have ended badly no matter the outcome.

I just loved this story, for its style, the open-ended finale, the mystery sprinkled from start to finish for the wonderful way in which various elements were given a dual nature and could be either taken as a source of supernatural or explained by rationale. Wonderful!