[center]WHEN THE SUN SETS WE GO HOME TOGETHER EPISODE HOTARU - CHAPTER 0 [img]https://i.imgur.com/M5DuOtF.png[/img][/center][center] [sup][h1] [color=black]CRIES FROM THE MOON VALLEY [/color] [color=white]CRIES FROM THE MOON VALLEY[/color] [/h1][/sup] [/center] [color=DCDCDC]“Alright!”[/color] The mayor slapped a hand against his thigh, sitting down cross legged on the floor in front of them. Hotaru worked on healing Chisato’s arm as the old man spoke. [color=DCDCDC]“I’m open to any questions you lads might have, but I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer all of them.”[/color] Hotaru nodded. He understood they hadn’t really been in a position to study the situation. [color=FF00FF]“You can start by telling us exactly how this all began then.”[/color] The mayor reached up and took off his hat, scratching the hair underneath. [color=DCDCDC]“It all started a couple of months ago, during the rain season…”[/color] [color=DCDCDC]“Things were tense between all of us; the rain hit our fields pretty heavy this year and most of our crops were withering away. Our village lives off our produce so we were bracing ourselves for a pretty hard year. When Shizuku barged into the community hall screaming about her husband going missing, we assumed he had lost any hope of providing for his family that year… Every now and again we’ll lose someone that way. Even as the mayor, I don’t have much power to help the lower income families around these parts.”[/color] [color=DCDCDC]“We couldn’t just leave poor Shizuku hanging though, so we rounded up most of the man and went out into the forest looking for his body. We found it…rather, we found pieces of it, scattered around.”[/color] The mayor grew silent, his eyes darkening as the memory kept him from being able to speak coherently for a minute. Hotaru frowned but it was Chisato who spoke up, calling the man back to the present. [color=FF4500]“I’m guessing he didn’t cut himself up into pieces himself.”[/color] Hotaru reached out and slapped the back of his friend’s head, but the mayor didn’t actually look bothered by his words. As if no joke could penetrate the horror of what he’d seen. [color=DCDCDC]“No, he did not. It didn’t look like a bear had done it, either but, at the time, we didn’t have no other answer for it. We brought back as much as we could of it back home and told everyone it had been a bear attack.”[/color] [color=FF00FF]“Is that when you messaged Konoha?”[/color] Hotaru asked, needing to know how long the Tsukitani had been waiting for their help. The mayor sighed. [color=DCDCDC]“No, lad. But, knowing how long it took y'all to show up, I sure damn wish I had.”[/color] He had the right to be angry but, behind them, Sayuri cleared her throat; signaling she was still awake and listening. The mayor looked down at his hands with a heavy sigh and breathed out an apology that Hotaru waved away so he could continue the story. [color=DCDCDC]“For a while, everything went back to normal. We held a funeral and quieted down any suspicion about the attack; Junko was already having enough of a rough time, facing life without her husband and with a baby to take care of.”[/color] Neither Chisato nor Hotaru needed to ask; they knew neither the widow nor her child had made it out alive, by the tremor in the mayor’s voice. [color=DCDCDC]“She didn’t need any more tragedy in her life.”[/color] [color=DCDCDC]“A few weeks passed with nothing happening…until we had another missing person reported to us. The cases just kept piling from then on with a week, sometimes two, between each disappearance. All of them were from people who had gone into the woods, most of them we couldn’t find with search parties but…the ones we did…they…”[/color] [color=FF00FF]“You don’t need to describe the gritty details,”[/color] Hotaru told him kindly, reaching out to pat the older man’s shoulder. The mayor took a deep breath and nodded. [color=DCDCDC]“We began discussions of whether we should contact Konoha on this or not then; nobody in their right minds believed it to be a bear or any kind of animal by then. We figured we were being attacked by a psychopath or something…so we issued a law. No one was to head into the woods for any reason and we created a village wide curfew to ensure every villager would stay indoors at night. For a while, it worked; for three weeks no one went missing…however,”[/color] the mayor’s eyes hardened and his hands curled into white knuckled fists. Confused, Chisato looked at Hotaru who filled in the blank. [color=FF00FF]“Since no villagers went into the woods, the creature must’ve come to the village.”[/color] The mayor nodded, his eyes filling with tears at the next part. [color=DCDCDC]“Little Suzume went to visit her friend and was on her way back home when that…thing, came out of nowhere. It wasn’t as big as it is now but it was enough for us to know we weren’t dealing with anything normal. You see a lot of things when you leave in these rural parts and that monster…well, you lads saw it for yourselves.”[/color] Both young men nodded, their faces grim as the mayor recounted the events leading to them being called. [color=DCDCDC]“That’s when we finally decided to send word to Konoha. Mind you, we don’t have any of your technologies here so we could only send a written request.”[/color] [color=FF00FF]“You don’t mention a monster in that request, though,”[/color] Hotaru interrupted, recalling the content in the copy of the message they’d received along with the mission brief. [color=DCDCDC]“We didn’t want you to shove it aside thinking we had gone cuckoo, lad,”[/color] the mayor explained, frowning. [color=DCDCDC]“Suppose it had the opposite effect instead…y’all probably didn’t think it was urgent enough.”[/color] [color=FF4500]“You didn’t try fighting back?”[/color] Chisato scoffed, raising an eyebrow. [color=DCDCDC]“We did,”[/color] the mayor nodded. [color=DCDCDC]“That’s how most of us died. When little Suzume and her dad got taken apart right in front of our houses by that thing, we formed ourselves a mob and went after it. Lost more than half our village that day. The creature will leave us a lone a couple days if it feeds but, otherwise, it’ll comb the village clean. Most of our houses and buildings are destroyed…this is our last hidden safe place but we heard it slithering over our heads yesterday.”[/color] [color=FF00FF]“That’s why you went out,”[/color] Hotaru nodded, seeing the whole picture in his head. [color=DCDCDC]“I wanted to give Shizuku and Koya a chance to get the kids out. The elders wouldn’t be able to leave quick enough but we wanted to at least save the kids.”[/color] [color=FF4500]“That…”[/color] Chisato’s voice faded as he looked at the older man with newfound respect. [color=FF4500]“Takes some seriously large balls, old man.”[/color] [color=FF00FF]“Chisato!”[/color] Hotaru chided him but the mayor only chuckled, if a bit sadly. [color=DCDCDC]“We got no idea what that thing is or why it started targeting our village,”[/color] the mayor whispered, hand over his eyes. [color=DCDCDC]“Maybe the Gods are punishing us…”[/color] Hotaru shook his head and Chisato shrugged. [color=FF00FF]“Go be with the rest of your people. Come tomorrow, we’ll see about hunting that thing down,”[/color] he assured him. The mayor nodded and got up with a small grunt, whistling for the dog to follow him back into the bunker. The pet wagged his tail a few times, and rubbed his muzzle against Sayuri before heading back as well. The mayor’s eyes rested on her figure for a few seconds before he turned his back. [color=DCDCDC]“You have my apologies for what happened earlier, missy.”[/color] He didn’t explain what he was apologizing for before he went back inside. Chisato glared behind him. [color=FF4500]“The fuck is he apologizing about Sayuri?”[/color] Surprisingly, Hotaru also found himself worried. He had just left his female team mate in the company of a strange man…but his blood cooled when she answered a few seconds later, with a tired voice. [color=00FA9A]“Nothing gnarly, don’t worry. Just a small unpleasant issue I had to fix before I could go get you.”[/color] She left it at that and they mostly trusted she’d be enough of a princess to be crying if something truly bad had happened. But Hotaru took the chance to finally speak his mind. A bit shaky and a bit shy, but honest. [color=FF00FF]“Thank you, by the way.”[/color] [color=00FA9A]“…you’re welcome.”[/color] Chisato, on the other hand, stared at both of them with a judgmental face. [color=FF4500]“You two are so fucking gay.”[/color]