The forest broke into a clearing.
Keyuzu's breathing was heavy, ragged.
She stopped running as she entered the centre of the clearing. The moonlight beaming down. Bleeding over the open area.
Every breath scraped her throat. The air was cold. Still.
Mud clung to her feet. Sword feeling heavy at the hip.
For a moment she thought she escaped.
Until a voice cut through the silence.
"There! She's here!"
A figure stepped out from behind the trees. A hunter wrapped in animal fur. His hand trembling slightly on a spear. Eyes wide as she looked upon the girl.
"Red eyes."
He muttered
"They weren't joking. The cursed child."
He kept shouting for others.
From every direction footsteps thundered. Torches closing in on the clearing. Flames blooming.
Eyes locked onto Keyuzu who stood in the middle. Full of hatred.
"P-please"
Keyuzu begged. Her voice quivering
"I-I don't want to hurt anyone. I-Ive never hurt anyone."
Nobody was listening
"I-I just want to leave."
A man lunged. Blade raised high above his head.
Her hand moved to her blade instinctively. Quickly drawing it from its sheathe and blocking the attack.
A clean deflection. The way her sensei had taught her.
The men surrounding her took that as all the proof they needed to attack.
Another blade followed. Steel closing in from every direction. Sparks cluttering on her skin.
A blade grazed her arm. Then her shoulder. Another caught her side.
She couldn't defend against all of this.
She staggered back. Gasping
There was no blood.
None of the cuts leaked any of the red liquid the people wanted to see from her so badly.
Instead there was just a faint red shimmer from the wounds.
Her veins glew slightly. It felt like her blood was being drawn to her hands. Then through her sword.
The sword began to shimmer. The same hue as the moon.
Her heartbeat slowed. The world around her fading
The hunters shouted. But none of the words made any sense.
Something deeper. Older. Ancient even. Spoke instead
You were born under my sky. Child.
The blood moon is a gift. Not a curse. A gift the people of this world fear for they do not understand it.
Her grip tightened around the hilt.
The air shifted uncomfortably.
The world spun. A shifting haze of colours and shouts.
Her sword moved. A silent swing she didn't even think about performing.
The man in front of her fell. A deep red line across his chest.
Another tried to run. Though her blade reached them before their foot even touched the ground.
Her eyes glowed red. Like the moon overhead. The veins beneath her skin pulsing with each time blood was drawn. Her hair swept up into the air, flowing freely in the wind.
Come forth my child. Embrace the Revenant.
She no longer felt pain. No more fear. No thoughts.
Merely a rhythm. A primal, pulsing rhythm that drowned everything else out.
A merciless rhythm of death and blood. Two languages of the sword being spoken in their purest forms.
Cut. Turn. Block. Step. Cut.
Each motion fed the curse. Each drop of blood drawn to her blade.
Her wounds seal tightly shut sooner than they can be drawn on her body.
The air reeked of massacre.
This clearing was no mere clearing anymore. It was a mass grave.
The resting place for over a hundred men.
Some tried to escape. Running through the forest. Though that only drew her in. slashing down any who tried to run after a short chase.
Her mind did not move. Only her body.
The Revenant.
Through the trees she murdered any man who she could see.
The forest was lit aflame by the dropped torches of fallen men by the time she exited the treeline.
Gazing upon the gates of the village where this horrid night began. She did not speak.
One house fell to her blade.
The next torn open.
Screams filled the night.
Men, women, children. The blade did not judge. Only killed.
It fed her. Filled her.
The blood moon pulsed with joy. Watching its child performing the task it was so eager to see.
Then silence.
The final house was gone moments before the red moon fell below the horizon.
Only the sound of wind swept over the fields as the sun rose.
The slow dripping of blood seeping from every house.
The sword faded slowly. Keyuzu fell to her knees.
The Revenant had disappeared.
Her eyes slowly focus. Down at the ground.
Her reflection stared at her through a pool of blood.
Eyes wide open. Eyes that were no longer hers alone.
Gaze fixed upon a body she lost control over.
A body she no longer solely owned.