"Make sure the infants are dead. They grow into rebels."
"Waaa… waaa."
The cries tore through the forest like rusted blades—jagged, uneven, and cruel.
"Kami-sama… where are you…?"
A boy's voice, barely above a whisper, was swallowed by the wind.
Children shrieked, their high-pitched wails echoing through the trees like the haunted howls of mountain spirits. Mothers wailed—low, guttural sounds of grief that twisted the stomach and bent the spine.
The air, once filled with the gentle scent of cedar and river mist, now stank of copper and fire. Blood. Smoke. Burnt rice. Human fat.
The scent of death slithered through the forest like a serpent, coiling around the trees of Yamino Mori.
"No—run, Kaede, run—!"
The Tsukigami Tribe were known for their wisdom. Poets, healers, and spiritual mediums, they lived by moonlight and meditated with wolves. Their elders believed the forest had a soul, and every tree listened. But wisdom, in a land shaped by war, is no shield against steel.
The Tsukigami Tribe, once the guardians of the eastern glade, had been reduced to prey. They were no longer the noble keepers of the Moon Prayer Shrine, no longer the whisperers of spirits who had once walked hand-in-hand with shadows.
Now, they were hunted. Disassembled. Like deer in a fox's den.
"Why…?" gasped a young woman, her arms cradling the body of her infant. Her kimono, dyed once with the soft blue of riverside indigo, was now soaked in dark crimson. Her lips trembled, trying to speak, but death is never patient.
A blade glinted.
And then silence.
"These Tsukigami were weaker than I thought," a voice muttered—low, guttural, and vaguely amused.
Two men stood over the slain woman, their armor lacquered with blood, mouths wrapped in black cloth. The kanji on their shoulder guards read: Kagutsuchi, the Fire God.
"Cowards. Look how they kneel before death like dogs."
The other man bent down and pried the jade prayer beads from the woman's hand.
"Don't underestimate the dead. Their ghosts will remember this."
"Let them haunt the ashes. We'll burn their spirits too."
He laughed, then spat on her corpse.
"Fan out. The elder's corpse wasn't among the dead."
"You think he fled?"
"Doubt it. That crippled old man can barely walk. Maybe they're hiding him somewhere."
A third voice scoffed.
"Why bother? These people are worms. Burn everything. Kill everyone. Don't waste your sword on vermin."
"Still, orders are orders. Find the moon-child."
"You mean that cursed one? The kid born under the blood eclipse?"
"Yeah. Our lord wants her."
"Tch. If I find her, I'm gutting her. Orders be damned."
They moved on, footsteps rustling in the ashes.
From the hill above, overlooking the smoking ruin, stood a black-armored general whose posture resembled a rooted oak—unbending, proud, and weathered.
General Ranka of the Kagutsuchi Tribe narrowed his eyes as he surveyed the slaughter. His face was stone-carved, but his brow twitched once—just once—as a child's scream rose, then cut off abruptly.
"It's cleaner than last time," he muttered.
His second-in-command, Captain Ibara, smirked. "Efficiency comes with repetition."
"You speak like a butcher," Ranka said.
"I am one," Ibara replied, shrugging. "Of tribes, not pigs."
Ranka didn't smile. He never did.
The flames danced in his obsidian irises as he turned toward the war map spread over a flat stone.
"Speak."
Ibara knelt, brushing ash from the map.
"We descended from the western ridge, under the cover of dawn mist. The Tsukigami were blind. Their sentries couldn't see beyond the Yokai Marsh, which we blocked with an earthslide two nights ago. That pushed their evacuation paths east—right into the kill zone."
He tapped a point marked with kanji: Dead Hollow.
"We flooded it with oil before they arrived. When the first villagers reached it, we lit it. Over a hundred dead in minutes. The rest scattered back toward the central shrine."
Ranka's jaw clenched.
"The shrine…"
"Already burning. Their moon-priest is dead. Their spirits are ash."
"And the moon-child?"
"Not found. Yet."
Ranka exhaled.
"There is no such thing as fate, Ibara," he said quietly. "But there is symbolism. And symbols, once powerful enough, become truths. The girl born under the red eclipse is such a symbol. And symbols can outlive even armies."
"You mean myths can become rebellions."
Ranka nodded.
"That girl is worth a thousand swords if she survives. Find her. Don't fail me."