Yamiyo no Hotaru

Chapter 11

It was a memory of a distant day. A girl was running frantically through the dark forest, out of breath. From behind her, the sound of several people running after her.

The girl's pretty, young face is distorted by suffocation and fear, and her eyes are filled with tears. There was despair, sadness, and frustration at the absurdity of it all.

Why must I suffer like this? Why do I have to face the threat of death? Why do I have to go through this horror? Why, why, why...?

"Aaaaah...!?"

She must have gotten caught on a tree root or something. The girl falls with a sprained leg. And perhaps aware of the sound, footsteps, and angry voices approaching her. Immediately, the girl hides in the grass and gasps for air.

"Hey! Where the hell did that monster run off to?"

"It can't be that far away with that body! Find it! Find it and kill it!"

Slowly she peeks out from the grass to see her pursuers. There were men with machetes, hoes, or maybe even hunters with flintlock rifles.

"I didn't think that girl, that monster brat was here..."

"Yeah, I was thinking it's hilarious. She got lost in the mountains. But then, she came back a month later. It said that brad was rescued in a mountain village, but it smelled like some kind of animal. I never thought we'd be mixed up with that monster!"

One of the pursuers shouts in a tone of deep disdain and there was a sense of hate in his voice. At that time, only a few decades had passed since the Great Human Youkai War, and the Imperial Court was eagerly engaged in clearing away the remnants of the defeated forces. They marched their troops into the open road and killed the monsters without mercy, even babies. They also put a bounty on the monster's head to make the people actively hunt in the mountains, and finally invade the territory of the monsters who did not participate in the great uprising.

There is no mercy for the weak. Neither is there any mercy to be given to the monsters. After all, if human beings compromise even a little, if they give them a little mercy, the past wars will be reenacted again. Then, Fuso-kuni and human beings, who have barely won the war after so many sacrifices, will not be able to endure another great war in the future. Therefore, the seeds of unrest must be killed before they sprout.

And in such a time, there is a tragedy that a half-Youkai girl was killed in an unknown way, but in a sense, it might have been inevitable. That is the trend of history, and the tragedy of a single individual has been swept away and forgotten in the vast sea of memories.

...Yes, even if she had seen her mother, the only family she had left, brutally murdered as a traitor to mankind while hiding in a gap in the storeroom...

"Sob... Sob... Mommy... Save me..."

The girl cries out as she crouches down, sobbing uncontrollably. She wishes she could wake up from this terrible dream as soon as possible. But it is an unfulfilled wish. Reality is right in front of her.

"I found you!"

The girl's distinctive "fox ears" were jerked back before she could even let out a small scream at the sound of that voice. A forceful pull that almost shreds the ears, sending the girl to the ground. If her fox-like tail had not killed the impact, she might have hit her head.

"I've got it! That's it!"

One of the farmers shouts and the farmer's men gather in droves. All of them are furious.

"Eeek...!?"

A girl's legs tremble with fear, and she can't even stand up.

"White hair, tail, and ears, I knew it! It's the monster fox!"