Most days, Tōga wished for nothing more than to spend the day with his mate and their pups. He'd already won any number of wars and brought home trophies and bedded his share of females. He was young still, by demon standards, and yet he craved the serenity of the citadel and the peace his family offered.
And yet here he was, inspecting the remains of a burned out human village. The air was rancid with the scent of burning flesh and emptied bowels, and everywhere the bodies of naked females lay scattered and defiled. The multitude of scents coming off them turned his stomach and roused a volatile mixture of pity and rage. Teeth gritted, he forced himself to turn away and continue searching.
He'd been away from the citadel for almost a year now, thanks to villages like this one. Someone, possibly bandits, was ravaging his human villages. The first few attacks had happened across many months, and he'd assumed at first they were separate incidents but the similarities of the devestation and way the remains were left destroyed that hope.
Someone was leaving him a message, and leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.
Gou stopped next to him. "No survivors," he said, his words achingly loud in the too quiet village.
"We knew there wouldn't be." Tōga studied the burned-out husk of what had once been a shrine to Ebisu, the God of Prosperity. He'd helped the humans build it. He remembered the way they'd shied away from him at first, but he'd been intent on building good relationships with them as those from the House of the Moon in the past had not. It hadn't mattered to him that they were human, not really.
All that mattered was that they were part of the people of his lands. He'd wanted them to know they could trust him. He'd wanted them to know that he would protect them, always.
He had failed them. Horribly.
Suddenly it was too much. This made seventeen. Seventeen villages of humans slaughtered on his lands and he'd been too late to save a single bloody life. Rage exploded inside of him and Tōga shifted in an explosion of light and fur until his hulking inu towered over even the forest that surrounded the village. He roared and shattered the bulk of his yōki around him so that all but Guo, powerful in his own right, was flattened.
He stood there panting, his eyes as red as the blood that painted the ground around them as his beast surveyed the damage. Guilt shackled his soul, the only bond of restraint left to him and when the rage had passed and he was himself again, burnished gold studied the scene and so he did the only thing he could do for the people he had failed—he walked outside the village and dug. His massive paws had no trouble rending the soft soil, his claws ripping out roots and boulders that dared to hinder him.
When it was done, when the grave was almost as deep as his torso, he shifted again. "Fetch a monk," he told Guo, and turned to the small platoon of soldiers he'd brought with them to search the remains of the village. "Return to camp. Send word to the Citadel. I want a unit of one hundred soldiers stationed at every human village in the west, two hundred at those on the borders. There are thousands of soldiers at the citadel, but if there is a need for more, give word to the Master of Arms to begin conscription."
Guo hesitated as he listened to the Lord's orders. "You prepare for war," he said, and frowned. "We do not yet know who is doing this. Your orders might set off uncontrollable ripples in the other domains—every Lord will be up in arms to prepare to face the wrath of the West."
"I prepare for vengeance," Tōga corrected. "I will respond to these acts of violence and terrorism with force and without hesitation. Whoever is attacking my lands and murdering my humans will pay in blood. I will stand for nothing less." He paused, closed his eyes. "Fetch a monk, Guo, so we might be over with this ghastly task and hunt down the creatures attempting to decimate my lands."
The great bear hesitated still, before he finally nodded. "The East will stand with you in war, as we always have." And then he was off.
His men fell into their orders quickly, and so Tōga set about his task. He did not allow a single one of his men to help as he carefully picked up the scattered remains of each human and laid them out in the grave he had prepared. Perhaps it was guilt, perhaps it was shame, but he was prepared to shoulder it all as he sent each one off to the afterlife. If all he could do was insure their passage to Yan and his underworld, then that is what he would do.
He forced himself to memorize every face, every expression of sheer terror and pain frozen by death to their features. He did not know their names, could not offer them anything more than this last dignity, and the promise that they would be avenged. As rain thundered down around them, he made that vow.
o.O.o
Word Count - 886