The words echo
The pier dissolves into darkness.
Mizuki jolts awake.
She sits upright, her breath uneven, her skin damp with cold sweat.
"That's- Raiyu chan's memory..."
Outside the window, the night sky pulls at Mizuki's focus. It is crimson. Not the jet black curtain dotted with stars, nor is it the soft red of dusk, but deep suffocating red. Almost like the heaven themselves have been soaked in blood. A haunting sight, it reminds her of the tasks assigned to her earlier.
"Daisuke kun!"
Mizuki shoots out of the bed, the door slides open with a sharp crack as she rushes outside. Bare feet slamming against the dirt. The air feels heavy, oppressive.
Above the village, nailed onto the celestial ceiling is the moon, but it looks wrong. The moon, hued with red, appears as though it is crying tears of blood. As if a titanic being is bleeding from the other side with the moon itself serving as the floodgate. As the blood flows past the moon's edge, they scatter in the wind as they rain down onto the earth, watering the land of this twisted dimension.
Mizuki's eyes widen, she hasten her pace after witnessing the eerie phenomenon, the bleeding moon. Branches whip past her shoulders, her breathing picks up and becomes uneven.
'Daisuke kun... please be safe..'
She place her hand atop her chest, trying to quell her worries.
'Raiyu chan...'
The crimson moonlight stretches long shadows through the trees. The noise from Mizuki's footstep fades into the distant.
And the dream continues.
Little Raiyu returns home, an unfruitful return.
"Mommy.. sorry.. I can't find Daddy.. I tried asking the scary uncle at the harbour but.. they got angry at me.."
She stands beside the bed, twisting her thumbs together and turning to the floor like she's speaking to it.
"but that's okay, I can help you too while we wait for Daddy"
The girl forces a smile through her trembling lips.
Only silence answers back. Her uncertain smile fades. She hesitates.
"mommy..?"
She touches the adult arm, tugging at it.
The lack of response from her mother starts to worry the little Raiyu. Slowly, carefully, she climbs onto her mother's bed to check. The woman lies still beneath the thin blanket. Her small hands pressed against the limp shoulder. The body is cold, the woman lays without response. The house remains quiet.
That is until her sobs breaks the silence.
"MOMMYYYYY!!!"
The girl cries her heart out in that small wooden hut. Shaking the lifeless body over and over again in hopes of catching her opening her eyes again. But to no avail. Only the cold wooden roof and chilling night breeze bears witness to her loss.
"don't leave me alone mommy! I'M SCARED! I'M SORRY FOR LEAVING YOU! PLEASE WAKE UUUP!"
She cries throughout the night until her voice gives out, until exhaustion claims her. Even unconscious, she stays curled beside that cold body. Waiting.
Until the next morning, then another, and another. The house grows colder. Her stomach rumbles louder, though only today does she notices it so. The ache has become unbearable now, a slow twisting hunger. She searches the house, drawers, crates, nothing. She pushes back against her tummy in hopes of reducing the pain but it stings even harder.
Then-
'what's this... smells nice... it's sweet..'
An alluring aroma catches her attention. It drifts through the cracked window like a promise.
Raiyu steps outside to find the village is very much alive. Lanterns hang between rooftops, laughter spills into the streets. Music drums against the air. It's a festival.
She walks through it unnoticed at first. Small, thin and quiet. Her nose stays locked on the source of the aroma. A vendor stands over a wood grill, turning skewers of roasted fish. The skin crackles. Fat drips into the fire with a hiss.
The vendor turns his back for only a moment, hands full with coins and paper wrapping.
'n-now!'
Little Raiyu moves in reflex, instinctual even. That small fingers of her reach for the skewer, it sits warmly against her skin. A brief victorious second.
Until a hand slams down on her wrist.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
The shout cuts through the air like a siren, turning heads towards it.
Little Raiyu freezes.
"I- I..."
Her voice breaks, her throat lumps.
The vendor jerks the skewer away.
"I'm already having a bad season, and now you- Get your thieving hand off my business!"
The word spreads faster than smoke. The commotion gathers some crowd.
"Ahh, of course it's the demon girl"
More adults gather to condemn little Raiyu for her crime,
"It's a shame, but that's what you get for stealing"
"Petty thief, trying to ruin the fun in our festival!"
"She is the demon child after all, I had a feeling this would happen"
One of the children in the crowd takes it upon himself, he bends, picking up a pebble and direct his aim towards Raiyu's center mass. It strikes her shoulder. Seeing that, some other children follows in response. Another pebble hits her arm, tiny rocks thrown carelessly.
"Ahahaha take this you evil demon!"
A boy snickers. Some chanting a nonsensical spell that have no effect and some striking a cool pose after his throw. It's all fun and games, nothing is real, nothing should hurt. And so, other kids join in, and more stones follow suit. The adult villagers around them stands still, only watching. Some with open disgust, some with faint discomfort, but none of them step forward. The silence only spells further approval for the rock hurling kids, and so the onslaught continues.
'it hurts! It hurts! It hurts!'
Little Raiyu shields her head with trembling arms but the rest of her body still registers the pain.
As the rock keeps coming, Raiyu turns and make her way out of there. She run as fast as she can, away from the stoning, away from the gaze, away from the disgusted stare directed towards her. The pain, the pressure, the scorn, they're unbearable. Her small feet slapping against dirt roads as she escapes the public.
Some of the village children give chase while laughing, even outside the festival site. Hurling more stones as they make their way. Brave heroes who chase out the monster that's been terrorizing the village, or so they would think of themselves. Indifferent to the pain they inflicted onto little Raiyu.
Tears blur her vision as she run passing the houses, passing the last lantern, passing her own house even, past the edge of the village. The laughter fades, the rocks stop coming after her. Yet still, she keeps running. Through bushes, through uneven ground, through the darkening woods. Her breathing ragged, her legs tremble, and still she runs.
Until a jutting tree root catches one of her feet and she fall to the ground. The momentum carries her light body across the dirt. She lands under a tree. After being motionless for almost half a minute, a twitch signals the remaining life left in that tiny body. Her arms shaking, she tries to pick herself back up but her malnourished body can no longer support her weight. She kisses the earth again, this time, softer. Beneath the quiet forest she lays motionless. Above her, the sky remains vast and indifferent.
Little Raiyu lies in the dirt, too exhausted to cry. Her tears running alongside her tiny footsteps earlier have all but dried up at this point. In this quiet moment, she can only reminisce the good old days when everything was still good, when she still has security and comfort of both her parents. When warmth was something promised to her as long as she can reach home. But that home is no longer, her family is no longer. Though only less than a week ago she was just happily laughing with her parents, those happy days now seem so unattainably distant to her. Only a single tear makes it way out of her left, the one that's still unswollen from the fall.
"..mommy... dad-..dy..."
Then everything blacks out. Until-
At the end of her life, a burning, vengeful, almost demonic voice expresses it's anger.
"They must pay! THEY WILL PAY FOR THIS TRANSGRESSIONS!!"
That voice alone echoes, the last thing remaining while the scene fades out.
Mizuki's footstep crashing onto the ground breaks the silence of the forest underneath the eerie night scape. The forest ahead reveals a clearing, an open area. The closer she gets to it, the louder her heartbeat thumps, as if her entire body screaming for her to stay away from the direction ahead. But Mizuki persists.
As she reaches the location, where Raiyu clashes with Daisuke, the scene of horror there promptly reminds her of the last sight she saw in that dream.
Contrasting the bleak past, the tragic misfortune befalling the little child, the ending scenery after the voice in that dream was straight out of a nightmare. Not that of further suffering, but that of a terrifying monster born out of pure vengeance. There she is, Raiyu, standing still amidst the massacre, the pool of blood sustained by countless bodies and mutilated corpses scattered about on the ground. The flashback.
Though in the present, the scene is not too dissimilar. The same cold gaze, the same Raiyu standing before Daisuke. He's all chained up and bound to the earth overlooking the executioner before him. Raiyu holding his head up with one scythe in hand while the other scythe is adjusted in preparation to execute him.
Meanwhile, beyond the forest, far from that scenery.
Daisuke is sent into a different plane of existence. A dry arid dimension, a desert. He's overlooking a far off city in the horizon veiled by the sand.
"This is..."
Daisuke mutters under his breath.
"It feels... familiar..."
A few meters to his left, a figure turns to him. A person, cloaked in black linen from head to toe, the strong wind blowing onto their clothes reveal a slender figure. And then, a soft voice.
"What's wrong?"
"I..."
Daisuke isn't sure what to say. This scene feels alien, but somehow oddly familiar to him.
Further behind that slender figure
Holding up their arm to protect against the sands, are 5 more people in similar getups. A mercenary band, carrying minimal luggage and long wrapped equipment, weapons.
"The final mission..."
He whispers, almost in a lulled state.
"Of course... after this... I can finally rest..."
"No... "
He shakes his head.
"There's something else I must do.."
He pulls his head down. Staring into the ground, the sand swimming around his shoes like flowing currents of gold. Further cementing the reality of this scenery.
"I have to.. make sure.."
Until suddenly.
Mizuki's voice knocked on his mind.
"Raiyu chan!"
'That voice...'
His eyes widen, a realization.
'no.. that's right... I was..- I have something else to do now... something important..'
And just like that, the whistle of the sandstorm fades into the distance. The blinding hot sun disintegrates into shadow. The vast open desert starts to change. Until everything fades into black.
"Mizuki kun!"
Daisuke whispers under his breath. Finally snapping out of the illusion.
Back to the crimson red night sky and black forest soaked in blood. Only to find himself wrapped in chains up to his neck, unable to move a muscle.
'I see so that's what happened..'
Having figured out his circumstances, he recalls the last scene he saw. Looking straight into Raiyu's glowing white eye and feeling himself getting absorbed into it, his eyelid instantly turning heavy. Until he wakes up in that desert.
"An illusion made from your own past huh...?"
He snickers to himself.
"Why... why are you here...?"
His executioner's monologue pique his attention. Behind the sharp edge of her kama pointed at him, is Raiyu, frozen in place. Raiyu's eye wide open in disbelief, afraid almost. Daisuke trace her line of sight to see her source of fear.
"Raiyu chan..."
Mizuki stands there, a hundred meters from them, in tears. Her feet dirtied from running barefoot, her clothes mildly torn here and there with some branches stuck in between. Her face, scratched and bruised.
"Don't do it..."