AN: Just thought I'd bring this to light.
That Youkai are not the only thing that scares an outsider.
The darkness was fear.
The darkness was unknown.
The darkness was a threat.
Not to this one, she loves the darkness. Darkness has always been her haven.
Rumia's stomach growled, A single human could sustain a youkai for a month but Rumia hadn't managed to do much more than scavenge a limb off another youkai's kill in twice that time.
"Soon," she patted her own stomach, as if it were a conscious being that could be pacified.
In the dead of night, it was time to go back on the hunt. If she didn't find another human soon, things would start to get desperate.
She wouldn't die of course, Youkai don't just "Die". The process was a bit different from that.
If she didn't kill a human for too long, her fear would wane. Slowly people would forget the wave of darkness that overcame them and the little girl with the murderous bloody teeth that tore their throat out. And with that, the being known as Rumia would slowly fade from existence, unable to keep her fear up among the humans.
*Sniff*
There! That scent!
It was one Rumia knew well, the smell of Blood.
The man was wearing the strangest clothing. Leather, a band on his arm with a rising sun. A pair of goggles on his head, and a sheathed sword strapped to his back.
He was slumped against a tree with a hole in his shoulder that leaked the red juice of life that she smelled.
"Well there… you're in a sorry state there aren't you?" Rumia whispered
"So nanoka?" The man grunted
Rumia hadn't expected that, the man spoke Japanese. Most outsiders (and it would only ever be an outsider that was wounded outside the village and still alive) only seemed to speak English.
"Do you realise what situation you are in?" Rumia asked innocently in japanese while hovering slightly above the ground, arms outstretched.
"I know what you are Youkai, you do not scare me." He forced out.
The man stuck out one hand and placed it on the ground, using it to lever himself out from under the tree and onto his feet while placing the other over the bullet hole.
"You do not fear me?" Rumia tilted her head.
The man stuck out his chin defiantly.
"There are things man fears far more than you, Youkai!" he spat.
His hand strayed down to his side where a small revolver hung in a holster by his hip.
"We have so much more in the outside world now… From the moment it takes off you're inside."
Rumia wouldn't normally understand, were it not for the vision that suddenly clouded her mind.
A strange machine; long, green, two long wings each with a red circle. Slung underneath each wing was a green cylinder, capped at one end with a propeller spinning. Floating on a sea of white fluffly clouds
"It's a cage, you see…" he said
The vision grew more detailed, a cockpit at the front of the machine, and at the back, a hatch. A hatch out of which hung the injured man gripping a thin black box with a long barrel, a barrel spewing fire at surrounding planes.
"You know your eyeballs freeze up at that altitude." He breathed, closing his eyes "At twenty, thousand feet."
"They're expected to keep you alive, the wires… the cables…" he said, Rumia could see the plane. That word came to her: "Bomber"
The vision was now surrounded by many other similar bombers, all flying towards a target.
"And then the flak comes in. Thick and heavy." The man described.
"You won't get out. Not when it dives at three hundred knots!"
And there it was, the bomber surrounded by explosions, shrapnel flying everywhere and finally another plane flying up behind to finish it off firing round-after-round of fire into the bomber as it plunged towards the sea!
The vision was gone.
Rumia's hands were by her side, her smile had faded.
Suddenly, the Gunners face was an inch from hers, his eyes filled with fire.
"There is a beast, deep inside every man." He growled
"it WILL NOT DIE! IT WILL FIGHT BACK!" He roared into the Youkais face, pulling out his revolver and levelling it at her.
"Go on then… DO IT!" he hissed.
Rumia hesitated. Something she'd never done before in her life.
The man was doomed, there was no hesitating about that. The bullet wound was bleeding badly and if that didn't kill him the other youkai would.
But now things were the other way around.
In the face of the Ki-49 gunners fury, Rumia turned.
And ran.