𝗝𝗝𝗞!𝗩𝗔𝗥 𝗫 𝗜.𝗢.! 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗𝗘𝗥

𝟶𝟶𝟺

The woman looked down at the baby she had birthed, smiling cruelly as she noticed her mismatched eyes. The cursed spirit would surely love this one, even though it was a girl. From beside her, a man wrapped his arm around her and looked at the child in his wife's arms.

"Good job, Sumiki.", the man said as he praised his wife for finally giving birth to a worth-while child. At last, the could offer up a child she actually wanted and then rest in peace for the coming century. They had already made plans for their future son to be head of the clan.

...

[Name] looked around in fear. The cage she was in was quite big for a child her size. The wooden bars that let a little sunlight through on fortunate days had gaps that were too small to escape from, even for [Name] who was so skinny at the time.

The people of her clan tried to give her all sorts of food to fatten her up for the Curse they'd feed her to. But she refused to eat, refused to let the thing she knew to be the devil have any more than skin and bones. Besides, if she wanted to escape, she'd have to be thin enough to pass through but strong enough to run away while carrying her sole friend, Kaburamaru, an albino snake that had slithered into her cage one cold night and snuggled up to her, keeping her warm. She had not put it down from her shoulders ever since.

She was the first female child to have been born in the Iguro Clan. All their previous and following children were males. To add on, she had heterochromia so the cursed spirit was especially interested in her.

Today was the day she'd be taken to see the Curse. In the morning, she was dragged out of her cage by the maids and showered. Her hair was washed and brushed, a rare luxury that was only limited to the men of the household. She was dressed in a loose white yukata that was much too big on her petite form.

When the women were done with the child, they grabbed her harshly by the arm and dragged her to the halls, where the cursed spirit sat in all its glory.

The cursed spirit appeared to be a woman with a snake's lower body instead of legs. She had slits instead of pupils in her eyes along with grotesque looking scars on the side of her mouth. She had long dark green hair and matching sharp talons on her hands. She sat, relaxed in a chair, as she watched the child that had interested her being dragged out into the room.

The child was thrown in front of her as one of the men, her own father, grabbed the back of her head by her hair and pulled at it, forcing her to look up.

The woman on the make-shift throne looked down at her and grinned devilishly in approval.

"Cut her mouth to look like mine.", she ordered.

Her words were the words of law in their clan. Her father grabbed a dagger from someone and put it near her mouth. Tears formed in the child's eyes, from both fear and pain as he tightened his grip on her hair. "Please, no......!", the child pleaded but her screams of utter horror fell on deaf ears as her own father cut her mouth at the edges, the cut stretching from her left ear, through her mouth and stopping at the right.

[Name] screamed and cried and thrashed at the sharp sting of pain but was immediately shut up when her father slapped her hard on the face. Her mouth was shut but her heart cried tears of blood as he held her face over a bowl and her blood dripped into it. Once the last drops had been poured, her hair was released and she fell to the ground, falling unconscious almost immediately but still being unfortunate enough to witness the cursed spirit drinking her blood.

...

It had been a few days. Young [Name] had begun planning her escape. She had really thought it through this time, keeping one of the steel chopsticks that she was provided to eat with to break away at the bottom of the cage.