...
After a long hike, they finally arrived at the right place — it was a fitting description: a small clearing that looked like a gap in a mighty forest. In the center of it was a stone "stump", which must have been an altar. Around it still stuck out some ruins, but they were so ancient that they were completely crumbled and deeply embedded in the ground, and now it was almost impossible to classify them. At least, the GRU officer could not do that, and did not really want to.
The two "bodies" dragging behind him were completely exhausted, and for the last forty minutes they kept whining and moaning about exhaustion, dripping on the intelligence officer's nerves. He also noted the fact that Tomoe had held up well enough, not in terms of stamina during this crossing, but mentally and psychologically, even though she knew full well what she had to do.
"Well, she has quite the motivation: if she doesn't comply with my demands, then our agents will slaughter her entire family". — The officer thought to himself. — "Cruel? Cruel. But there is no other way. That is life. Although, after all, the promise we keep, and if everything goes as it should, then no one will touch her loved ones. But she'll never know…"
As he approached the altar, the scout removed his shoulder bag. From it he took out a small silver metal box and began to open the locks on it. All the while, a pair of girls stood slightly behind him and watched his actions. The child was curious, and Tomoe was growing more and more terrified of what she was about to do.
A click, another click, and soon the code lock was over — the lid of the box opened, revealing a crudely carved stone knife underneath.
"That's it, this is where the main fuck-up begins. Fucking shamanism and the occult, goddamn it".
— Tomoe, — He pronounced the girl's name correctly for the first time, fully tuned in. — Come here, you and the girl. — When they approached cautiously, he continued, turning to the rabbit girl. — Now, here's the deal. I'm going to blindfold you and put you on this stone. Your job is just to lie there and bask in the sun. Do you understand? — He looked into the girl's eyes, but saw only incomprehension in them. Turning his gaze to Tomoe, he asked a legitimate question:
— Doesn't she speak Japanese?
— N-no, she's a local, no one taught her. — She started to make excuses.
— Well, translate her what I said!
The girl squatted down in front of the "rabbit", as the man called her.
— Pythia, listen carefully. Now he will blindfold you and put you on this stone. — She pointed to the altar. — But as soon as I tell you, run as fast as you can, don't look back. Get to any village and tell me what happened here…
— Hey, you talk too much. — The GRU officer said with a threatening tone.
— Well… She's a child, she needs to be told what to do. You don't want her moving around during this… ritual? — She asked with a little pressure, hoping to fool the man, but he only squinted his eyes in response.
"Something tells me she's fucking lying to me. Or rather, I can see it clearly". — The man grew wary, but took no action.
He took out a dark cloth and began to blindfold the child, who did not resist in any way, and generally behaved suspiciously quiet. She herself climbed up and lay down on the stone, folding her arms on her chest.
— Right. — The man turned to Tomoe and handed her a dagger and an old piece of parchment. — You take the knife and scratch the symbols from the sheet on the stone around the child. Only carefully and exactly as drawn!
— I understand… — The girl answered in an aloof sort of way.
In ten minutes everything was ready — the ancient altar was drawn with intricate symbols. The man inspected her work carefully, referring to the sheet, and corrected any imperfections where they existed.
— Well done. And now the most important thing — start reading the text from the same sheet of paper, and when you have finished, raise your hand with a knife over her heart. — He pointed at the child and stepped behind Tomoe to intervene if necessary. — I'll help you if you can't hit her yourself. — Still, the GRU officer didn't believe the girl could sacrifice a child in cold blood.
From the girl's mouth began to come out quite gibberish, painted in the sheet of audio.
Time is running out. — The scout thought, glancing at the universal clock. — But we seem to be on time…
Meanwhile, the unwitting cultist had finished speaking, and let the sheet out of her hands. The atmosphere around her grew darker, and it seemed even colder, though it was summer and the sun was shining brightly.
Tomoe took a step closer to the altar, bringing the blade of the stone knife over the shrunken girl. The scout was still standing behind her, waiting for her to strike — there was a sudden confidence in the girl from somewhere, and the man thought she could do it on her own.
But instead of hitting the girl, the scout heard the rustling of grass under his feet, and the next second he was pierced with pain in the groin — the girl kicked the fighter with all her might, which almost made him bend in half in pain.
He took a couple of steps back and was about to lunge at the girl, but she beat him to it- he fell on his back and barely managed to catch hold of the girl's hands, not allowing her to plunge the knife into the man's throat.
— Pythia, run! — The girl screamed as hard as she could, pushing her weight down on the scouting officer, pushing through his defenses and bringing the rough blade closer to his throat.
— Suka-a! — The officer yelled in the Russian language, snatching his knife and plunging the blade under the girl's ribs.
Tomoe's eyes widened, but with a willed effort she managed to suppress a flash of pain, starting to press even harder on the knife, which had already sliced the skin on the man's throat.
The GRU officer did not appreciate such heroism of the girl and began to work purely on reflexes and the desire to survive — his hand began to make quick stabbing blows under the girl's ribs until she began to cough up blood, dropping the sacrificial knife.
The man jumped to his feet and looked around for the escaped rabbit, and almost immediately saw her — she hadn't managed to get far away, and now her dress was flickering among the trees at the edge of the clearing.
Drawing his pistol — a Colt with a bolt-on silencer — the scout looked through the scope, in which the white spot that was the girl flashed. His finger was dancing on the trigger guard, and, biding his time, the officer sent a.45 ACP bullet into the fleeing figure.
Hearing a shriek, the man jumped out of his seat and rushed toward the girl. When he was beside her in a dozen seconds, he carefully grabbed the wounded child and raced was very little time; one of the two victims could die at any moment.
Yes, there were exactly two victims: the ritual had to kill both the one who was lying on the altar and the one who struck — that's how the experts explained it to the man. That is why the death of at least one of the two victims was unacceptable for a GRU officer.
— Damn all this paranormal shit! — The man was quadruple-talking to himself as he ran down the aisle.
Once again at the altar, he laid the child gently on the cold stone — her spine had clearly been broken in the lumbar region and she had lost consciousness. The profuse blood loss and internal injuries could have taken her life in a short time.
Tomoe was no better: there was a large pool of blood around her, and she was convulsing, spitting blood from her mouth, but still conscious, filled with pain.
The man dragged her up the altar by her arms, kneeling her down, and placed the knife in her hand, holding it with his own. He himself was kneeling right behind her, his head sticking out over the girl's shoulder, and the girl was in prostration, as if watching from a distance.
— You know, despite the fact that you broke the treaty and even tried to kill me, — The man began, already guiding Tomoe's hand to the defenseless girl. — We won't touch your family. And this is not due to my sentimentality, — He grinned, raising his knife to strike. — It's more a matter of rationality-why waste resources and time on them? You're going to die anyway, and we don't need them. And we are not beasts to just kill…
Tomoe heard what her killer was saying to her, and with a fading edge of her mind she thanked him at least that he would not hurt her parents and younger sisters.
The girl's head fell on her chest and her body collapsed as the knife entered under the fourth rib, penetrating the child's heart exactly in the center. Blood stained the knife and the girl's palm, over which the scout's hand clutched it.
The symbols on the altar flashed a bright scarlet light, and the ritual knife came out of the victim's wound on its own and flew into the air. Tomoe, on the other hand, fell lifelessly next to the altar.
The scout jumped to his feet and took a step back, looking around as if the twilight had faded, and the ancient ruins were also covered in flaming symbols.
"It's all fucked up again…" — The officer thought phlegmatically, but fear began to grow in his soul.
The wound in the child's chest opened up, and her heart began to rise into the air, forming a translucent sphere of dark energy around it. Suddenly, an outgrowth began to extend from the sphere, transforming into an arm that headed toward its victim. And she was by no means a dead girl in a Japanese uniform.
The man wanted to turn and run, but his legs felt like they were stuck to the ground.
— Uh, no, bitch, you can't take me! — The officer grabbed his pistol and pointed it at the reaching hand and squeezed the trigger, sending bullet after bullet into the blob of energy without causing him any harm.
The energy arm was less than half a meter away, and then a thought occurred to the fighter that he should aim for the heart, which was in the center of the sphere. He pointed the pistol at it and pressed the trigger, but no shot came — the magazine was out of ammunition.
He reached into the pouch for a new magazine, but it was too late: the energy hand jerked through the pouches, armor, clothing, skin, blood, bone, and meat-it grasped the heart, which was full of life, as unlike Tomoe's.
The man's body was paralyzed, and he slowly watched as his heart was ripped from his own chest. Ribs cracked and shattered, muscle tissues torn, cloth and armor plates burned through. The energetic hand slowly and gently pulled the still seemingly trembling heart from the officer's body and began to lift it toward the orb, under the dazed gaze of a man who was not dead only because of the energy that had saturated him.
The heart reached the orb and it began to blacken, becoming opaque and then as if it were a small black hole that absorbed even light.
The concentration reached its maximum, and under the heartbreaking cry of the GRU officer the sphere burst into an unbearable light, releasing the accumulated energy with such force that all living beings within a radius of several kilometers began to burst, magical artifacts burst from oversaturation, and an energy vacuum arose in the place of detonation, which would be filled by a new, artificial and created by design force that would come into this reality, making a corridor between the two worlds…
*GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye) — The Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The directorate is reputedly Russia's largest foreign-intelligence agency, and is distinguished among its counterparts for its willingness to execute riskier "complicated, high stakes operations".
I finally finished translating the prologue. As usual, please point out any mistakes, if any, and also write what you think about it.