Gyakkyou: Chapter Two

Chapter Two: Forging Hate

With adversity, 

Pain will always trail behind,

Ever intertwined.

***

Two days.

It felt longer.

Gyakkyou’s legs ached, the muscles frayed from hunger and exhaustion, but still, they moved. They had to. His breath came in shallow gasps, raw and ragged in the back of his throat, past lips parched from thirst. He hadn’t eaten since the night before the world ended, since his brothers had left him behind with promises they couldn’t keep. He hadn’t cried yet, not fully. The tears came in bursts, then retreated as quickly as they’d formed, leaving him hollow.

The village looked smaller now, like something far away, distorted through coying smoke. It was just a smudge of black and grey at the base of the mountain, but as Gyakkyou stumbled closer, it became a clearer, uglier picture.

The fire had done its job.

Ash blanketed the ground, swirling in the faint breeze like ghostly snow. Houses were now little more than charred skeletons, jagged and twisted. Blackened beams jutted out of the ground like broken bones, and the air was thick with the scent of burnt wood, scorched flesh, and something else—something sickly sweet, rotting, clinging to the back of his throat. His stomach churned at the smell, but there was nothing left in him to vomit.

He stood at the edge of the village, staring at what remained. No screams, no shouts, no one. Just the crackling whisper of embers and the occasional thud of something collapsing under its own weight. It was worse than he’d imagined. Worse than he’d feared.

He didn’t want to see more, but his legs kept moving.

The first body he saw was barely recognizable as human. A heap of flesh and bone, twisted into a grotesque form, its skin blackened and peeling like old parchment. Gyakkyou stepped around it, careful not to look too closely, but his eyes kept darting back. He couldn’t stop. He had to know if he recognized them, if they had been someone he knew. Someone he’d spoken to. Laughed with. It was impossible to tell.

Further in, the bodies were clearer, less burned. He saw a man—he couldn’t remember his name, but he remembered his face. He had helped Gyakkyou catch fish once, down by the river. Now, his chest was open, ribs broken and exposed, guts spilling out onto the ground like a macabre offering to a kami who knew no mercy. Gyakkyou’s feet dragged him onward, past the carnage, his breath catching in his throat. Each step forward peeled back another layer of the horror he hadn’t been ready to face.

The village had been a home—his home. Now it was a graveyard.

He found his way to what remained of his family’s hut. Or rather, what he thought was his family’s. The roof had caved in, leaving a jagged frame of wood and thatch. The walls, where they stood, were charred, blackened with streaks of ash. Gyakkyou stepped into the alien space. His feet sank into the debris, ash puffing into the air with each step.

And then he saw them.

Takuma and Ishimaru piled atop one another at the entrance, a single spear skewering them both to the ground. Takuma’s legs and arms had been crudely chopped off and tossed carelessly aside. Ishimaru had four burnt arrows sticking out of his face. 

Their grandmother’s body lay crumpled further back near what had once been the hearth, her small, frail frame burnt beyond recognition. Gyakkyou knelt, his fingers trembling as they hovered over what was left of her. Her arms were twisted awkwardly, her skin cracked and flaking like old bark. Her face… he couldn’t even find her face.

Beside her, Sakura, or what was left of her, was slumped in a corner. Her clothes had been torn, her belly—once rounded with child—was ripped open, dark blood staining the dirt floor beneath her. Her head lolled to one side, mouth agape, eyes wide and empty.

For a moment, there was nothing. No sound. No movement. Just the raw, overwhelming pain. Gyakkyou sat there, staring at their broken bodies, his mind struggling to make sense of it all. They were gone. All of them. His brothers, his grandmother, his sister-in-law, his unborn niece or nephew.

Gone.

His chest ached, a deep, hollow pain that seemed to spread through every part of him, but still, no tears came. His hands clenched into fists, nails biting into his palms, drawing thin lines of blood. He wanted to scream, but the sound wouldn’t come. Instead, his body moved on its own, stiffly, mechanically. He stumbled across the room to the tsubo hidden beneath a floorboard in the corner, tearing open the paper lid with shaking hands. He forced a handful of stale rice into his mouth, chewing slowly, his throat raw and tight.

The food, bland and tasteless, was the first thing to touch his lips in days. It did nothing to fill the void inside him, but it gave him enough strength to do what needed to be done.

He found a shovel near the wreckage of the house, the handle scorched but still intact. Gyakkyou began digging, his body moving without conscious thought. The ground was hard, unyielding, but he worked anyway, sweat mixing with the grime and ash on his skin. He dug shallow graves, one for each of them, careful and deliberate, as if it mattered. As if anything mattered anymore.

By the time he had finished, the sun had sunk low in the sky, casting long shadows over the ruined village. Gyakkyou walked off to find water but stumbled upon a corpse at the fringes of the village

The body was slumped near the tree line. The clothes… It wasn’t someone from the village.

Gyakkyou approached slowly, warily. The man lay face down in the dirt, his strange garments tattered and bloodstained. He nudged the body with the toe of his sandal, flipping it over. The man’s face was pale, slack, his eyes open and glassy. A deep wound cleaved the back of his skull, splitting it nearly in two. Blood had pooled beneath him, staining the earth dark red.

And his hair—it was red.

Not red, as in bloodsoaked. Red as in a striking, unfamiliar red mane with rust-coloured strands. It was matted with blood and dirt, but unmistakable. Gyakkyou crouched beside the body, his fingers brushing the man’s face. This one hadn’t belonged here. He wasn’t one of them.

A marauder.

The hair… Red hair.

Akaoni.

Gyakkyou’s heart pounded in his chest, a cold rage stirring deep inside him. His fingers curled into the man’s blood-soaked tunic, gripping it tight. A wrathful sob racked his chest as he screamed a silent, whiny scream. As if demanding answers from the corpse. But there were none.

Minutes passed and the sky grew overcast. Soon, a light rain began to fall. Gyakkyou released the body and stood, his eyes burning, not just with tears, but with something darker. 

Hate.

Loathing.

In that moment, forged in Gyakkyou’s soul was a great abhorrence for a certain red-haired people.