• Chapter Five: Meeting Yourself

    A few years later when Kuro is a teenager-ish wolf...

    tab The only evil here is you. Words that have been haunting me these past years. I am apparently part of the Moon Tribe, a group of evil beings that ended up killing all of the gods. It is said that the gods send messages through the stars, which is why I’m evil somehow, also. I just don’t get it. Is all of this true? I don’t know. I still don’t have a clue to who I am. If all of that is true, though, then what? That is the knew question that is haunting my thoughts. Now what. Now what?
    tab I have been fighting random monsters I’ve found around these parts in order to get stronger. Almost the whole tribe is horrified by my new strength. No one ever talks to me, not even Steldi, who I once thought of as a friend. The ones that are full of themselves always try to push me around. Sometimes I listen to them, sometimes I don’t. So, I’m basically just a loner now. I refuse to where a mask that would mark me as one of the tribe. Yet, none of them would stand it if I left. This tribe is a really confusing group of people.
    tab The memory of the evil by that strange passage way has never left my mind. I went there at the same time of year and the exact same thing happened. Once again, it scared the fur off of me, but after a few more years, I got used to it. That time of year was coming up soon... Actually, it was tonight! Î jumped up from my little snow nest and looked up at the tops of the boney trees to check the time of day. The sun was on the verge of setting, it was time to set off to the passage way. My jaws gapped in a yawn along with my first steps away from my nest in front of the dead forest.
    tab Every small, fluffy cloud was lit up in flames of pink and orange light. Today was the first day without a snow storm in a long time, so it was almost sad to see the blue of sky disappearing. The bright, full moon took place of the beautiful blue sky.
    tab My claws dug into the ground as I neared the lake in front of the snow tunnel leading to the smaller clearing. Instead of walking around the lake, I walked right on top of it. My claws insured my body to stay in control as I walked along the frozen mass. Kamui has been getting colder year by year, cold enough to completely freeze a lake. The tribe was freezing to death and envied my rare ability to stay warm in the coldest temperatures. Despite my anger towards the tribe, I hoped they could find the solution to this problem soon.
    tab I sat down in my usual place in front of the passage way, staring up at the darkening sky. When the last trace of pink light was gone, it was only a matter of time before the annual festival of evil, as I called it. Sure enough, the moonlight was soon gone, the once clear sky covered by a blanket of the eerie clouds. The black mist appeared, followed by the menacing roar. I watched as the mist swirled round and round, but something was different. I stood up in alarm. These past years, it had been the same, but the mist was swirling in a completely different way. It started to vanish quicker than normal, only to come back again in a few minutes. Instead of just one roar made by a triumphant evil beast, there was a chorus of constant roars of pain. My eyes widened in shock as a faint howl rose up from the sky. There was a wolf howling my name! But where?
    tab I listened closer, but the pounding of paws against the ground drowned out the faint sound. I whipped around just as Steldi and Kucojen came crashing into the clearing. They were shivering, but not just from the cold. They were the first ones besides me to see the evil emitting from the passage way. “Kuro, get away from there!” Steldi yelled, his first words to me in over a year.
    tab “Kuro!” Kucojen howled, his regular sour voice traded for a voice filled with worry. They both pleaded me to get away, but I shook my head. Turning back to the passage, the faint howl calling my name from the sky became barely audible. My paws moved me closer to the mist, causing Steldi and Kucojen to yell louder. They were really worried! But why? I shook my head to clear away the questions. The howl in the sky became louder along with their voices.
    tab “Where are you going?” Steldi called after me.
    tab “I’m not going to be held back by you anymore.” I answered with moving. What use was I here anyway? No one really cared about me... Until now apparently. Besides, there were no clues about who I was, anyway. “Thanks for taking care of me. But it’s time for me to go off on my own. I don’t belong here!” I called. They both yelled at me, saying that I can’t just leave. They could have at least shown that they cared about me a little earlier! These past years went by fast, but it was time for me to move on!
    The howl of the sky seemed to acknowledge my thoughts. With a deep breath, I leapt into the mist. Steldi and Kucojen screamed in unison before their voices vanished with the sight of the clearing. My paws padded hard on the ground around the twists and turns of the passage. The mist got thicker the farther I went, nearly blinding me.
    tab Suddenly, my head broke out of the mist and into warm air. Really warm, the temperature was burning me! I began panting well before seeing that if I took another step, I would have fallen off a tall cliff. I looked down to the ground below the cliff, when a snapping sound came out of no where from the direction I just came in. My head turned and I saw that that the passage had led to a massive, metal statue. The door in the statue had snapped shut. I walked up to the door and examined it, but there was no hope of getting back through it. There was no way to get back to Kamui now, I hope I didn’t make the wrong choice! I turned back around to look at the unfamiliar, grassy hills beneath the cliff I was standing on. This place wasn’t even remotely similar to where I have been living.
    tab I looked up to the clouds, but the howl was gone. Maybe it was still in Kamui, and I really had made the wrong choice...
    tab “Tsukiyomi,” a voice whispered in my ear. I jumped up in surprise and looked at my surroundings, but no one was there. The voice sounded again, but this time calling my name. The howl that came after caught me off guard. It the howl from earlier, and it sounded a lot closer now. There was a bright twinkle in the sky, pulling my gaze to it. From the light came a shadowy figure enveloped in sparkling, black light. There was a dark mist around it too, but this mist had a good feeling instead of bad. The figure was rapidly falling towards me; I jumped back a half step to give it room on the small section of cliff in front of the statue. When the figure landed on the grass in front of me, it was hard to see it at first. The light and mist blocked it from my view, but it soon cleared.
    tab Standing there was a wolf, a lot older than me but had the same dark fur and shining yellow eyes. A sudden flashback came into my head, the time when the Oina tribe was standing around me and wouldn’t let me leave. A human, not a member of the tribe, successfully let me escape. But the human looked freakishly like me...
    tab The wolf in front of me looked very odd. With strange blue lines wrapped around his body and shafts of black light flowing from his back. Above the shafts of light was a green cylinder that looked as if it would hold some sort of ink. Coils of water and ice waved in the air around the cylinder. Silvery wing-like tufts of fur stood on the back of his paws and shoulders.
    tab “Wh- who?” I stuttered. “Who are you?”
    tab “Do not be afraid,” he answered in my voice. “I am here to help you.”
    tab “Help me? How? Why?” I asked.
    tab “Because you deserve to know. You have been struggling to find out who you are these past years, right?” he said. I nodded, curious to where this conversation was going. “I can give you a few answers, but the rest you will have to figure out on your own.” A jolt of shock went through me from ears to tail. I have been in utter confusion since I woke up in that hut, trying to figure everything out. Now I would just get told who I was? My mouth opened to reply, but no words came out. I just nodded instead. The wolf mirrored my motion and began with a short explanation.
    tab “Your real name is Tsukiyomi, representing your strong connection with the moon.” he said. It made sense. How I always saw the moon when it was full when everyone else watched as it disappeared then reappeared in the course of about 30 days.
    tab “Then, what’s your name?” I couldn’t help asking. Still, I hoped he could tell me more about myself...
    tab “My name is the same as yours.” he answered.
    tab “What? Then that means...” Was this wolf actually me? Was he that human, also? But I’m me so I couldn’t see how he could really be me...
    tab “I do not have much time left. But I have one more thing to tell you, your destiny.” he said. I shifted my front paws around. I had a destiny? A seemingly useless, insignificant wolf like me?
    tab “Everybody has a destiny.” he said as if he read my thoughts. “Yours is very important, though. You must fulfill it.” I nodded, and he continued. “Your destiny,” he turned his head to look off into the fields. “Is to find that wolf. Alive.” More confusion flickered inside me.
    tab “What wo-” a loud howl split into the air, cutting me off. It was different than the ones before, which were probably from Tsukiyomi. This howl came from where he turned his head mid-sentence. I looked over in that direction just as the clouds around the moon cleared. A shining light came from the middle of a gigantic lake in the distance. The menacing roar broke into the air soon after, but then fell silent. All evil vanished. I turned back to Tsukiyomi, but he was gone. There was no time to look, though. I had to follow the words he gave me. Even though it wasn’t very much, I now knew about myself.
    tab My paws took me to a lower part of the cliff, somewhere I could easily jump off. As soon as I landed, I began running towards where the howl and shining light was. It took great concentration to run as fast as I was, and I barely even noticed the river in front of me. I tried to slow down enough to jump over it, but I was too late. Instead, I jumped right off the surface of the river, my paws not getting the least bit wet. I skidded to a halt on the other side of the river, and looked back in surprise, but soon picked up the pace again.
    tab When I neared another cliff that I was sure the giant lake was right behind, a drumming sound stopped me. All at once, hundreds of living clay dolls flooded in around me.