By the time Team LSLI had arrived at the collection of barns, fields, and small homes that made up the quaint village, it was nearly midnight. Lazula's eyelids felt heavy. Any normal night, she would have already been asleep for an hour and a half, after stretching out every muscle in her body, changing into her silk pajamas, and covering herself to her chin in plush bedding.
Yet, as Mrs. Kurayami had the habit of reminding her, that's why she was out here.
Mrs. Kurayami's fist pounded on the hunk of pine wood that made up the farmhouse door. Almost immediately a clatter came from within, and the flickering light at the window moved. The door was answered by a haggard-looking woman in a grey gown who appeared to be in her forties or fifties.
"Ah, it's the huntress! And her students!" she welcomed. She bowed a bit, fervently beckoning the five inside. "Thank goodness you're here! Come in, come in!"
"I heard there has been an attack," Mrs. Kurayami addressed, before the whole team could shuffle in through the door.
The woman stepped behind the four teens, shutting the door and clamping down its hefty lock. "Y-Yes. The pigs were making an almighty racket, s-so I had the Carter's boy go out to check the stables." She breathed a shaky breath. "Just a minute later I heard him scream unlike anything I'd heard before! My husband went out to check on the poor boy. All he's said since running back inside was that he saw blood all over. He's locked himself in the bedroom, and he won't come out for nothing!"
"So it is a singular attack? With one victim?" Mrs. Kurayami checked.
"Yeah, just one. I don't know what could have done it though, a-and my honey's not being much help."
Mrs. Kurayami nodded. She turned to Team LSLI. "I will go out to investigate. You stay in here."
"You're going alone?" Ichigo protested.
His mother nodded. "I will be fine. I do not wish for you to see the scene of the attack."
"I can go," Snow offered. "My semblance may be useful in examining the scene."
Mrs. Kurayami paused, as if considering the offer. She finally shook her head. "No. It is much safer inside." She looked to the home's owner. "Where did it happen?"
"Back this way," the woman showed, beginning to make her way through the cluttered old home to the back door. She cautiously spread the sheepskin drapes at the back window, peeking to both sides to ensure it was safe. She turned to the huntress and pointed out. "Down that dirt path along the fence. You see that light on the ground, next to the shack?"
Mrs. Kurayami squinted, and eventually nodded.
"That's my husband's lantern. He must've dropped it out of shock," the woman stated. "Around the far side of the stables is where the attack happened."
"I see. Do you mind if the students stay inside with you?"
The woman shook her head. "Not at all. And please, be safe out there."
"Attacks like this must have been common back in the day," Lazula reflected, watching Mrs. Kurayami tread the dimly lit path with hand on the hilt of her blade. "It's hard to imagine what that's like."
"I hope she's alright out there..." Ichigo said, pulling Hack n' Slash from his bag. He opened it, and his fingers danced across the keys. Though the glow of the screen in his glasses obscured his eyes, Lazula could tell his breath was one of frustration. "...Right. No connection."
"Hey, your mom's gonna be fine," Laurel assured. "I'm sure you've heard stories about her from back in the day. She's taken down some nasty Grimm."
Lazula wished she could go outside with Ichigo's mother, if only to assuage her son's worry. She had an easy enough time with Beowolves during the attack on Sentinel, and was confident she could deal with whatever may be lurking out in the woods.
She recalled hunting with Snow earlier that morning.
"Right. If that much blood nearly made me faint, I'd better stay indoors."
Lazula awaited Mrs. Kurayami's return for several minutes. The walk to the stables wasn't far by Lazula's estimate, but neither she nor any of her teammates heard anything out of the ordinary, so she figured she was examining the scene closely. Ichigo wasn't so certain. But just as Laurel walked to the back window to see if she could spot anything in the darkness, three knocks came from the back door.
The farm's owner rushed to the door to let Mrs. Kurayami in. She held a splintered rifle in one hand, bloodied cloth in the other.
As before, the home's owner lunged behind the huntress and secured its hefty lock. "So, did you see anything?"
Mrs. Kurayami lowered her head. "I am sorry, but it does not look good," she reported. She knelt down to place the weapon and cloth on the ground. "The rifle was split in half, but still fully loaded. I found a shirt at the scene of the attack as well. It is shredded, and soaked in blood."
The woman lowered her head and fell to a seat at the table next to her, wringing her hands together. "...He was such a good kid," she whimpered.
"I do not mean to alarm anyone, but the scene looked like the aftermath of a Grimm attack."
"Oh, no..." Ichigo commented.
"That does not mean it was done by Grimm," she clarified. "I noticed claw marks similar to those of a Beowolf. However, they may have also been left by a large predator such as a bear, or dire wolf."
"That would explain the pigs making such a fuss," the woman commented.
Mrs. Kurayami nodded. "They were rather quiet when I arrived. Whatever the beast may be, I do not believe it is nearby anymore." She turned to Team LSLI. "Come. We will track it, and ensure it does no further damage."
"...Would a predator really go out of its way to kill a person like that?" Lazula questioned once her team was outside and travelling down the dirt path toward the stables.
"It is rare, but not unheard of," Mrs. Kurayami confirmed. "In Vacuo, much of the wildlife is as dangerous as the Grimm once were. "We are quite a way from the mountains separating us from the Kingdom, but we are also far from civilization. I would not be surprised to find fearsome beasts here." She stopped near the corner of the stables, and was quiet for a handful of seconds. She turned to Team LSLI. "I noticed drops of blood along the ground, leading into the treeline. Unfortunately, this means we must walk near where the attack took place. Be warned, should you choose to look. It is... rather gruesome."
Lazula swallowed hard as her team pressed on, rounding the corner of the barn. She looked up. Remnant's fractured moon hung overhead, veiled partly by the fast-moving clouds.
"Oh, shit..." Laurel breathed.
"If it's that bad, I'd better keep looking away," Lazula thought.
"Yes, this is where it happened," Mrs. Kurayami confirmed. "Judging by the volume of blood loss there was a struggle, but the victim died here." Lazula heard the footsteps of her team stop. "Ah. Found the trail again. Follow me."
Unease stirred within Lazula as the black, twisting branches above thickened. She was armed, as was her team. Yet they trekked through the forest prowled by whatever monster had slain the poor farm hand, the only light coming from the moon above. Every now and then, the underbrush would stir with life, or some animal would cry out into the darkness.
As long as Mrs. Kurayami didn't react, Lazula figured all was well.
The huntress paused after what must have been ten minutes, drawing out a deep breath. She looked to the ground behind her, then to the front.
"Everything alright?" Lazula asked.
"I seem to have lost the trail..." Mrs. Kurayami said.
"Hey, maybe I can help," Laurel offered.
"How so?"
Laurel grinned. "My semblance. To put it simply, I can see heat. If the beastie came through here recently, I should be able to see its path still."
She closed her eyes, letting her mouth open slightly before breathing in. When her golden, slit-pupil eyes opened, they glowed. Another smile drew across Laurel's lips.
"Yep. I think I see already." She pointed to a bramble thicket behind Mrs. Kurayami, and stepped toward it. "It went through those bushes. There are still traces of heat around a gap in the leaves here. The thing must've been pretty big, so we should be able to fit."
After passing through the brambles and following Laurel's lead for a few more minutes, the group arrived at a clearing. At the other end, a shard of jagged rock several stories tall broke from the dirt, surrounded by a pile of massive boulders. What appeared to be smaller stones littered the ground in front of a crevice, its opening shrouded in unyielding darkness.
Lazula heard a light gasp from her side. "Are those-" Ichigo pointed out.
"Bones," Mrs. Kurayami confirmed. She eyed the crevice as she drew unnervingly close, and knelt down to examine a particularly long, straight one. "This one appears to be human, a femur." She turned it in her hand. "Tooth marks."
"Found a skull," Laurel announced, prodding it with her foot. "Looks like a deer, or... some kinda horned thing."
Mrs. Kurayami nodded. "Grimm do not eat humans when they kill them. They also kill on sight, rather than bringing all their victims to the same spot. When they roamed Remnant before, Grimm seldom bothered killing wild animals, as well. We are very likely dealing with a large predator, rather than a Creature of Grimm."
"What do you think it is?" Ichigo asked. He had taken a position far from the cave's entrance, next to Lazula and Snow.
"I bet there are a lot of coug-" Laurel began.
Mrs. Kurayami suddenly raised a finger to her lips, locking eyes with the faunus. Everyone in the clearing froze. The huntress's hand slowly came to rest on the hilt of her blade, her head tilting toward the darkness.
The wind had stopped, and the wildlife fell silent. All was excruciatingly still.
An eerie tension filled the stagnant air of the clearing, and Lazula felt the unshakable sense of being watched. It was as if all five were in a standoff with some invisible enemy. Guns drawn, but refusing to make the first move. Mrs. Kurayami rose to her feet in a measured movement, never once taking her eyes off the cave. She began to backpedal with soundless steps. Laurel began to pull back as well.
"We are leaving."
"Leaving?" Laurel questioned.
"We will return in daylight. It can see in the darkness. We cannot."
A loathsome snarl broke the silence, deep as rolling thunder and impossibly loud. Lazula looked to her side with wide eyes, meeting Ichigo's. His look of horror, as well as the weapon in Snow's hand, told her they had heard the same horrifying sound.
They retreated into the trees.
The first day and a half of Team CRLN's mission was surprisingly mundane. They had arrived in Sunsett, a sleepy township on the edge of Forever Fall, early the previous afternoon. Caspian and Rowan played card games on the way over, then board games in the homestead provided for the team and their chaperone. Yet, as they lacked half their crew in Ichigo and Snow, it wasn't quite the same. Some sparring came the following morning, nothing that couldn't have been done at Sentinel.
The afternoon was spent hiking into the forest and familiarizing themselves with the area, as well as a quick history lesson about the town. Sunsett was much like many other rural settlements. At the time the Grimm disappeared, it was an unstable gathering of huts, families, and a handful of huntsmen, just marginally safer than the nearby forest. However, its inhabitants had experienced unfettered growth and prosperity in the absence of their predators, and the population had grown many times over since, trading their makeshift huts designed to be abandoned at a moment's notice for more permanent wood-and-brick homes.
Most importantly, Sunsett was a farming town that, out of hospitality, elected to provide some of their newly-harvested surplus to their guests in the form of a feast.
"Hey, pass the mashed potatoes!" Rowan demanded after swallowing a particularly large bite of his meal.
"Again?" Caspian questioned. "You've had like two plates of it, dude."
"So?" Rowan insisted, he held out a hand. "Come on, pass it over! The food at Sentinel isn't bad, but when you get a chance to pig out like this, you gotta take it!"
"Fine, just don't get sick..."
Noxis sat with his plate at the corner of the room, quietly digging into his reasonably-sized selection of turkey, potatoes, and roasted vegetables. At the end of the table, near the window that looked out upon the sea of red, Cascara watched with a muted look of amusement, sipping from a glass of indistinct brown liquid.
Upon leaving her seat for a slice of pie to accompany her tea, Lilly sat next to her. "Excuse me, I've been meaning to ask," she began. "I'm familiar with the Professional Huntsman League, but I don't recognize you. Do you compete?"
"Nope. I'm a professional, but I'm not about all the glitz and glamor of the PHL," Cascara explained. "I prefer to stay out of the spotlight."
"Ah, Noxis has a bit to say on that matter too," Lilly responded.
Cascara smirked. "Yeah, seems like the type." She turned to Lilly. The ice inside of her glas jingled as she swirled it on the table. "What's your opinion?"
"My... opinion?" Lilly asked in reply.
"Yeah. What do you think about the whole thing?"
"Oh, I..." Lilly trailed off, looking to an old photograph on the wall. "A very dear friend of mine has wanted to join for as long as I can remember, and I believe she has a strong chance at getting in." She looked down to her teacup. "Because of her, I've always been fond of it myself. Though I guess she doesn't seem much for the 'glitz and glamor' either..."
Cascara nodded, and Lilly saw another smirk on her lips.
"I am curious, though," Lilly continued. "Most huntsmen are recruited for other jobs through the PHL's registry. How did you come to work at Sentinel?"
"I was in the first graduating class, six or seven years ago now," Cascara explained. "After graduating, I went back to Vacuo. Thought I could find work helping out with managing the wildlife there. Less than a year had passed before I realized it didn't seem like home anymore, so I came back. Luckily, the security team was looking for help right around that time, and I began to work with Kita."
"Ah, I've vacationed to a Vacuan resort before, but I admit I haven't seen much of the rest of the kingdom," Lilly said. "Living in Vale my whole life, I can't imagine what life is like out there."
"Not for the faint of heart, that's for sure," Cascara affirmed. She looked from Lilly to Rowan, who somehow still had not slowed down on his meal. She pointed to him. "Also. Tell your friend to take it easy. Just in case."
Rowan let out an exaggerated yawn as he pulled his bedcovers up and settled in for the night. "Man, this feels more like a vacation than a mission," he gleefully reflected. "I wonder how LSLI's doing."
"Yeah, I wonder too," Caspian replied. He pulled out his Holoband. "They said they probably wouldn't have any service way out there."
"I'm sure they're having a good time too. Wilderness survival and whatever sounds pretty fun to me," Rowan dismissed. He rolled onto his back, placing both hands on his bloated stomach. "Oh, man. I'm about to pass out after all that food."
"How much did you end up eating, anyway?"
"Will you two shut up? I'm trying to sleep," Noxis's voice called from somewhere in the dark.
"Right, sorr-"
The entire room was bathed in red light. A siren began to wail from somewhere outside, and all four Holobands began to vibrate with a jarring intensity, a high-pitched alert breaking from within as they began to glow bright red.
"Hey, what's going on?!" Rowan yelped, sitting bolt upright. He clutched his stomach.
Caspian's trembling began again. The sweatiness, the difficulty breathing and swallowing. His team leaping from their beds and throwing on their combat attire played out in front of him like a series of still images in the strobing light of the alarm. His mind began to race, the siren and flashes of red dredging up memories of the attack on initiation.
"Sunsett is under attack by bandits!" Cascara's voice announced from Caspian's wrist. "Get dressed, and get armed!"