Chương 54: Bloodthirsty Beasts I

Japan, Hokkaido, Mount Yotei.

In the darkness of the night inside a small shed, a girl sat on a small chair.

'It feels so lonely... I'm so hungry'.

*GRUMBLE!*

Her stomach was making some rather bizarre noises. Never had she in her life been subjected to such torture but it was all necessary.

'Everything is for Ray-chan... everything is for Ray-chan...' she kept repeating in her mind, giving herself strength.

There was only one thing in this world she liked more than food and snacks. Her parents and her crush, Ray Lux. And even then, lately, the figure of her parents seemed to blur ever so slightly just like Ray's. Everything seemed to be overshadowed by an unprecedented hunger that had struck like famine in a godforsaken desert.

They were supposed to be some happy family holidays, that was until the hunger struck. Anna had told her parents that she felt hungry and they had gotten plenty of food, but it didn't seem to be enough.

Soon, her body began to transform inadvertently in front of the onlookers and they had to flicker away before the Onmyouji showed themselves.

'It is all due to the hunger... it has begun' that's what her father said.

The world around her was dark with nothing but a bright light of the moon entering from the small window at the corner edge of the shed. Her limbs were frozen against the chair and her body was no longer that of a pretty middle school girl it wasn't even that of a gorgeous frozen butterfly, her Youkai form.

No, it was slowly turning into an atrocity.

As she saw her body, she thought about Ray.

She wanted him to be here to support her, but she refused vehemently to be seen in this condition.

'H-He won't think I'm cute...'

Even though he had said he would always be there for her, she had a hard time believing he'd stay after seeing her like this, let alone whenever she thought of him all she could do was lick her lips and think about how delicious he may be.

According to her father, the only way to get rid of this condition was to 'control the hunger'.

Amid her thoughts, the cabin gate opened and a huge gust of cold snowy breeze seeped through accompanied by the silhouette of a lady in a kimono with frozen hair and sky-blue eyes.

"Mom?"

She took a peek left and right; carrying what looked like a sack from which blood was spilling.

"Anna-chan..."

"Mom, you can't... I-I have to resist the hunger!" Anna mumbled but her gaze was firmly looking at that bloody sack as if hypnotized.

Sanae's brows twitched, she knew that what she was doing wasn't right but the grumbling coming from her daughter's insides filled her with determination, there was no way she could let her starve like this.

"But you're hungry, Anna-chan... I can't just hear you grumbling!-"

Just then a black haze flickered from the cabin door and landed in between the two of them, it was Yuki in his hybrid form, angry.

"What are you doing Sanae!? I told you not to feed her!"

They quickly devolved into an argument as the sack of blood feel on the rotten good floor, revealing its content, the bodies of mutilated Youkai half-frozen. She had hunted it for her daughter.

Seeing her husband's insistence, Sanae cried. "How long can you do this to our daughter!? Can't you see she's hungry?!-"

Her rant was interrupted when a pair of pitch-red bloody eyes opened behind Yuki and all of his trained instincts told him just one thing: run.

*WHOOSH!*

"AHHHH!!!"

He flickered away as fast as he could but even then he couldn't escape, one of his wings got chewed as fast as lightning and he fell on the ground shrieking.

"Yuki!" Sanae rushed to aid her husband, watching in disbelief how a long tongue extended towards the sack filled with Youkai remains, dragging it across the floor until it was close to reach.

*MUNCH!*

With a single biting motion, her shadow devoured it all leaving nothing but hideous bone-shattering and flesh-chewing noises. It was then that Sanae realised that her cute daughter would never be the same again.

By the time she finished, all of her monstrous features had receded and she was back to being that gorgeous frozen butterfly... watching how her dad groaned on the ground, missing one of his wings and watching her not in fear but with apprehension.

"Dad?"

"I-It's okay... Anna, it is okay... try to resist it once it strikes again, alright?"

"Are you okay, dad? I'm sorry... *sob*" she sobbed, shattering his heart as he could do nothing but curse his lineage, this is precisely what he didn't want. He had been having nightmares at this moment.

The moment his beloved cute daughter awakened as a true shinchu was a nightmare he had in his mind for a long time, what he didn't expect was that it would be this bad.

"D-Dad... am I... still cute?"

Trying to repress the fear in his heart he approached her and patted her head, it didn't matter what sort of monster she'd become in the future, this was still his daughter.

"I love you, Anna, you're the cutest little thing in the world, alright?~ I'll come back soon".

"Uhm..." She nodded, looking at her mother whose eyes glanced at her aghast and without words.

"I'm sorry, Anna-chan... I'm sorry".

Her parents left her alone in that dark shed once again as a single lonely tear left her right eye that after a mere pair of minutes, had already turned once again slit and merciless.

"Ray-chan... I'm still hungry".

After leaving the shed, in the middle of the blizzard nearly at the top of the mountain, reality sipped through: They had no way to contain this disaster.

Yuki thought about his own experience reflecting it on his daughter and he realised it just wasn't this bad back then.

"Dear, what are we going to do!? WHAT CAN WE DO?!" Sanae was starting to get exasperated, thinking this was her punishment for having betrayed her master, Yasaka. If this was allowed to continue, perhaps the next ones to be eaten by Anna would be them.

Today she had gone past a threshold that shouldn't have been trodden. She had eaten one of her father's wings.

"I told you not to feed her, Sanae! if she's unable to control her hunger-"

"Does she look like she's able to control it now?!"

The mother grasped the father's collar threateningly... she didn't want to blame him for this, but it was all because of his demonic shinchu lineage. If Anna had been born just as Yuki-onna, this wouldn't be happening.

"..." For his part, Yuki had no words to say. In the past, the way he had managed to control his hunger was by practising abstention.

'Anna is not old enough yet, when I awakened I was in my twenties... I had a much stronger mental fortitude but she's just thirteen years old and hasn't even experienced hardships in life, her mind is too weak... what can I do?'.

"I'll call Ray-kun and Reina-san..." Sanae determined. She even thought of calling Yasaka if they didn't answer, regardless of who it was, someone had to be able to help them in this situation.

"Wait, Sanae. What can they do?! don't you see how much Anna likes Ray-kun? if she sees him it may be worse!" He tried to stop her but she slapped his hand away.

"They must be able to do way more than us-"

*BOOOMMMM!!!*

All they heard was an explosion before a shining figure flashed towards them from the destroyed shed. Sanae was too slow but Yuki saw it clearly.

*WHOOOSH!*

The world itself seemed to get sliced as five sharp claws tore everything in their way, Yuki grasped his shocked wife and ducked just in time, allowing the trail of destruction to split several trees and the very snow.

'S-She broke... my ice? w-we just fed her'.

Anna didn't land instead her momentum made her crash heavily against the snow.

"Sanae, call Ray!"

Yuki gave up, seeing that attack just now he realised this had already gone out of control, they could no longer shackle Anna, all they could do was kill her... and that's something he absolutely wouldn't do.

Someone stronger had to come and he only knew two people.

"W-Wait, my phone!-" The Yuki-onna pointed at the flashing phone that had fallen on the snow close to where Anna was, recovering her bearings.

"nø... dôn'T CäLL... hIm!"

!!!

That was no longer the voice of their daughter. Yuki put Sanae down and began transforming into a gigantic insectoid emitting darkness.

"Sanae, I'll distract her... take the phone and call Ray tell him to bring his mom if possible!"

*WHOOOSH!!*

That phantom figure flashed towards him and with all the pain in his heart, he was forced to look at his daughter as if she was a threat, 'If I don't take her seriously... she's going to kill me!'.