FAILURE. | rui x reader

i.

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The air was heavy; the struggle for air was unbearable. The sky embodies the kami Tsukuyomi in his endless chase to pursue the sun. The moon, growing larger with time. One could have sworn they saw the moon hung from an invisible thread, the way it glistens, shines and ripples. Oh, what a night for a feast, the demons would come prowling in their bloodied limbs, tainted by the hands of chaos. Oh, what a night for a massacre, with the moon uncovering the glorious scene, and death being its only witness.

There, in the choked forest, Y/N moved slowly, carrying a worn out basket, filled halfway to the top with twigs and fallen branches. Skin burnt with hours upon hours of labor beneath the sun, and the last job for the day was to pick up sticks, beneath the gaze of the moon. A primal emotion seized her when she trekked further way up into the mountain, heart pumping with adrenaline and the biting chill was rewarded with cold sweat.

Y/N paid her fear no heed.

What a stubborn girl.

Natagumo Mountain was known for its countless myths and stories. It has its own share of interest if you were to go to an izakaya with drunkards and all kinds of people, lore and alike come spooling from their telltale lips. Stories about demons, creatures that lurks in the night, preying on the flesh of human, and how the mountain became their favorite playground of hell. Y/N did not believe those stories. In fact, what grown-up would be tricked into believing tales meant for little children and their slumbers?

And so she picked another twig, and another, and another, following the trail of broken branches, picking her own pace in her activity as well. When her basket was one-third to the top, she stood up, stretched, and getting rid of the spider webs that clung into her samue. She bent down—

A scream tore the air.

With a fast movement, she snapped her head towards the source of the scream. Pupils dilating in response to her shock. A second scream follows, this time, the sound was so close to her, and she thought her ears would bleed from the blood-curling voice. Then a third scream follows, a fourth, a fifth scream, a chorus of discord. And at last, dead silence as if it was a postlude to a pandemonium of a piece.

She can't even decide whether that voice was of a man or a woman, due to the raw fear mingling in the sound. A serenade for death. A call before the last gasp of air. Her hands were trembling and it grew cold from both being scared and the chilly air.

Run. Her thoughts screamed at her to move her legs. Leave this place. Now.

But she stayed glued to her spot, paralyzed as if turned to a statue with the touch of king Midas. But this is no fairytale. And her statue did not turn to gold, her skin does not transform to marble or stone or iron. Her mortal flesh remains the same, but her muscles stiffen and still, lungs hyperventilating, legs shaking, head spinning. Being a statue is one, but being mortal comes with the fragility to pain, and death.

She can't breathe. Memories of a woman's screams racked through her mind, then all she could see was blood red, red, the sky tinted red, the leaves, like autumn leaves, fluttering in the cold air, and her hands, stained with sin, red.

Releasing a sob, her legs gave up, and her breath evened, she fell to the forest floor, regaining the control on her body and the consciousness of her mind. It must have been a few 10 minutes after the scream, but it felt so long, as if ages of time pass through her very own soul in her petrified state. She momentarily closes her eyes. The recollection of trauma came to her. Slowly, this time, but it didn't stop the pain, prayers uttered from her lips now forgotten, only leaving a trail of wisps from breaths, she greedily took. Oh the irony. They mumble prayers in the day; yet fail to remember the same prayers in the companionship of monsters that painted the night in sanguine glory.

She heard footsteps approaching. At first, it was as if the trees swayed with the rhythm of its gait, she knew someone is coming. Then, the rustling of grass came ever so nearer, snaring her auditory senses. She regained gradually, mind clearing with every deep breaths she took. Not yet quite out from her haze, she lifted her eyes towards the source, eyelashes quivering from welled up tears.

Bathed in moonlight, a white-haired boy stood, casting a shadow to her form. The figure looked ethereal as if birthed from all things pure. The white web-patterned haori catches her eye, as the boy stood a few steps away from her. She couldn't see his face, but after feeling the presence of his figure, she finally came to. If whoever screamed left this world long ago, maybe she can still save this boy.

"Boy! You should get out of here! It's not safe, I heard a scream a while ago and-"

Her words were cut short when his face, reflected by the gray planetoid came into view. It was a horrifying yet serene sight. The calmness in his eyes told a different story from her startled one. Because those eyes belongs to something else. Something that isn't human. At the very least- not anymore.

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an: keywords in case ya'll are too lazy to google the words in italic (i know i am). italic looked like this.

kami: god in the shinto deities

tsukuyomi: japanese god of the moon

natagumo mt: the mountain arc, where they fought spidey fam- fictious

izakaya: informal japanese bar

samue: traditional japanese work clothes

haori: the traditional jacket over a kimono (for reference, the outer shinobu wears, that butterfly pretty looking outer)