The man stumbled across roots and undergrowth, ignoring the vines that whipped him as he ran. Menacing howls rang in his ears, pushing him forward ever faster for fear of meeting its owner. Soon he entered the clearing where his clan had made its new home. His peers milled around talking and drinking without so much as a glance in his direction. He rushed towards the ancient stump his leader stood upon. The old man turned towards him, his face creasing with apprehension at his subordinate's panicked expression. Gasping for breath, the man spoke.
"It is here! The Inugami!"
Almost as a confirmation, the howl rang out louder. Clan healers had lost the ability to decipher the messages of animals long ago, before even Kaze no Ichizoku had been broken, but even the youngest member could tell that it housed the greatest ill. Voices once jovial were now filled with panic. Accusations and I-told-you-so's echoed in the hollow.
"I knew it! No forest is without its guardians."
"They were bound to come running the moment you chopped down a single tree!"
"We needed shelter! We cannot save everything."
"The time of our clan is over."
"Mother? What's wrong?"
"Do not panic!" the leader commanded. His cracked Pendant of Leadership, passed down through generations of the clan's leaders, glistened in the moonlight. The crowd of his people quietened down, aside from the anxious murmurs and occasional shrieks in reaction to a snapping twig close by.
"We knew this day would come", the leader began.
"Yoko-sama foresaw this event." His tone was solemn. "As much as we wanted to believe this would be our new home, we cannot change our fate".
A younger woman spoke up, her eyes pleading as she held her baby close to her. "Yoko-sama did not know our true omens by the end of her life! Her curse overtook her-"
"SILENCE!", the leader spat, more harshly than he intended. A guilty look appeared on his face, but it quickly vanished as he regained his composure. "What happened to Yoko-sama was a tragedy. But we will only share her end if we do not adhere to the gods' wishes," he stated.
"Please…" she murmured, but the young mother's will to fight began to ebb away almost as soon as it came.
The leader's gaze softened slightly as he looked at the woman with her fated child, now sunken to the floor. Her husband kneeled close by her, head in hands, unable to look the leader in the eye. Everybody in the clan knew of this final communication. It was the haunted healer's last message, received from spirits now beyond the earth.
"The sacred trees are the guardian's most treasured children. As its child is severed, so will be yours. One loss to save you from destruction. Else fall to the curse you create."
Yoko-sama had tried to escape her own destiny. And in her wake a Tatari god appeared, threatening another imminent end to the once-thriving clan. This could not happen again. The survival of the clan was worth more than any individual life. Where all the others had failed to retain themselves through the centuries, they would was a known possibility from as early as the child's conception. She would rise to meet this fate.
Thickening clouds began to drift over the moon, shrouding the clan in darkness. The howls had stopped, now replaced with a distant scuffling, no doubt among the fresh stumps that now lined the hills.
The leader narrowed his eyes.
"You don't have much time", he muttered to the melted heap on the ground. "Do what you need to do and perform the sacrifice. Quickly", he added. At that, the ancient leader limped over to the forest entrance, where now nothing but a blurred mass of branches could be seen in the shifting shadows. Who knew now what rage was held within those creaking masses.
They shouldn't have gotten so attached... the leader thought grimly, before quickly dispersing the vile thought from his mind.
The woman took a deep breath. She shuffled the weight of the baby onto her left arm, before standing up with shadowed eyes. Her expression was unreadable. As she did so, her husband took something out of his pocket. A small black and white pendant, with the clan's symbol of rushing water within. He placed it around the sleeping babe's neck, who murmured in her final peaceful rest. This would allow her to join the rest of the clan ancestors once the sacrifice was complete.
That was all. The parents must be the ones to permit the sacrifice. As they approached the edge of the black forest, they tried to conjure some positives. They would be granting a gesture of upmost respect for the forest guardian. The curse would not continue to spread. The clan would be saved.
The mountain-dog goddess ventured among the roots of the once-mighty cedars she lived among. The ground was caked with mud, ground up from under the healthy earth from the human processes.
Those people got greedy, and took more than they needed. This area should never have been disturbed.
Shrieks of pain could still be heard by her ears. From both the decapitated trees and her lost daughter, whose cries still reverberated in her brain, as if she were still being carried further and further away by those wretched humans. She could still remember their yells of triumph, that they now owned every piece of an Inugami.
What a fortune it would make them.
All her mate could salvage was a blood-stained puppy pelt, separated from its owner. She buried her muzzle into it, breathing in her daughter's scent for as long as she could before it dissipated with time.
Her mate had gotten his revenge; he had torn those humans limb from limb, turning his white pelt a deep vermillion. But even after it was finished, he could not stop. The rage had overwhelmed him, sparking a wildfire deep inside that would never be calmed. She had found him with the last remnant of their daughter, his face in a lake as black leeches only a curse could sprout crawled over him. As much as it infuriated her, Moro-no-Kimi vowed it best to leave her vengeful spirit unquenched; she needed to be there for her sons, at least until they were grown.
Moro's ears flicked towards a sound in the forest. She snarled as the putrid scent of human grew stronger. Two of the nasty things, a man and a woman, emerged from the forest. She drew herself up, letting her enormous silhouette take over the skyline. They stopped, trembling, before approaching once again, albeit more slowly. Still quite a distance away, they stopped. Moro looked over them curiously, noticing a small bundle in the woman's arms. Shaking, the woman raised the baby in her hands towards the mountain-dog god.
"O great Inugami unknown to us, have mercy on us all for destroying your creations. We of our clan gift our youngest-born unto you, as the spirits who have come before you desire of us. Please forgive our misdeeds."
Moro smirked. A sacrifice she had not been offered for centuries gone by, when similar clansfolk worshipped her along with all the forest spirits. But now that mutuality was shattered. This gesture was not one of respect, but of fear.
Fools to think this will change anything already done, she thought. The god's eyes flashed in the darkness as Moro rapidly sped up her approach. As she expected, the humans began to panic. The baby was thrown from their hands onto the hard earth, the man grabbing the woman's arm as they ran away. Moro ran hard on their feet until they vanished into the forest. She could have gladly finished them off if she would allow herself, but alas, a loud scream stopped her in her tracks. Turning around, the giant god remembered the source of the noise. Perhaps it would make a nice snack for her pups.
As she treaded closer, images suddenly rushed through her mind.
That sound…
That cry…
She could see San being dragged away from her now; no matter how hard she ran, Moro could never reach her; she was powerless to save her precious daughter. She could hear the same pitiful noise coming from her living sons after their birth, as they reached out for the comfort of a mother.
Moro looked down at the screaming bundle on the earth, writhing in pain from the impact of its fall. Moonlight reflected off of a small pendant around its neck. Moro hooded her eyes. Unlike the humans she had killed before, this one was different.
This child has done nothing to hurt the forest. She is a blank slate.
Instinctively, Moro began to lick the small baby's face, cleaning the tears off of her. The action surprised even herself. The baby quietened almost at once. Unexpectedly, she reached out her tiny hands towards Moro, as if she were a big cuddly toy brought to life, here to comfort her. Perhaps she enjoyed the softness of fur.
This tiny, ugly thing, staring up at her with beautiful brown eyes. If she didn't know any better, Moro would almost consider the sight cute. But the more she pondered, the less absurd a certain idea became in her mind.
She will not replace the one I lost. But, perhaps, I can provide her a future she would not have otherwise.
She remembered what her own mother had told her millennia ago: "Destruction can only be dealt by oneself". But this young one was now neither human, nor dog. Her humanity was relinquished the moment her human parents left her hanging in mid-air. She would be raised as a mountain-dog, taught in the ways of the forest very few of her kind had ever known before. She would grow up flawed, of course, but this was something Moro knew she couldn't prevent herself. One thing she had learnt in her many years was that nobody ever existed without complications.
Deep in her mind, however, Moro hoped she could find a balance in the future. An acceptance. Maybe even happiness. Perhaps then, there would be an answer.
No. You will not die today, little one.
The sky began to turn from black to deep blue. Moro carefully picked up the tiny creature in her jaws, and carried it away.
Welcome to the new version of Clan Mononoke. Many ideas have come to fruition since I first began this story, the majority of which do not abide to my previous storyline you may see in the old 9 chapter version. So yes, much of it is no longer 'canon'. Furthermore, my writing looking back is quite wordy, and hard to read. I hope the reading experience is better here. Anyway, I have a clear storyline set out now that I'm very excited to write!
Notes: I will be using a direct Japanese-to-English translation here. This won't affect anything in the story, just in reading. I will be referring to things as the Japanese original does or sometimes using Japanese words e.g. 'futon' instead of bed and 'mountain-dog' instead of 'wolf'. I will also try to be relatively historically-accurate, so don't expect Gaiman-dub-esque dialogue (nothing wrong with it, but I prefer following as close to the original Japanese script as possible).
Alright, enough with the wordy stuff. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading so far!