A Demon's Revenge

[Clownpiece]

And that was the work for the day finished. With a tired sigh, Meira slumped in her chair, its loose, wooden backrest creaking quietly as she leaned back. Her head lolled, eyes staring blankly at the plain ceiling above, stained slightly orange from the early dusk light streaming in through the window behind her. Faint voices, cheers, and laughs and general chatter echoed crept into her still room, loud enough to be heard, yet silent enough as to not overpower the samurai’s quiet breaths.

What an uneventful day it had been. Everyone in the villa was as happy and healthy as ever, and quite notably not missing, their scouts had returned back unscathed (as per usual), no injuries during training, so on and so forth. It had just been... a normal day. Or at least mostly normal. There was still the matter of the fairy hostage they had managed to capture days ago.

How long had it been now? A week? Two weeks? However long it had been, it didn’t really matter. They still had her, and Meira was quite certain that wasn’t about to change anytime soon. Their “friends” over at the other village probably didn’t even know she was gone, outside of perhaps this mysterious “Lady Death” that Belle had stuttered out and immediately regretted. Or possibly whoever Clownpiece was. The fairy had mentioned the Hakurei more than a few times, and even in their... interrogations... continued to stubbornly argue that the Miko had been the one to send her on such a reckless mission.

Yes, the little brat held quite firmly to the fact that Reimu Hakurei, famously known for wanting to do everything her way - or rather, not wanting to do these things per se, but needing to if she was to have any peace and quiet - sent a fairy out to halt an attack. Unable to really get anything else out of her (damn she was stubborn for a fairy) and not really familiar with the Hakurei Miko, her brothers-in-arms had given up and accepted Belle’s explanation. Meira, on the other hand, did not believe it for a moment. It just didn’t fit.

And so, she also didn’t believe that Miss Hakurei would realize the fairy was missing. Hell, it was hard for the samurai to imagine her even realizing the fairy existed in the first place. But in the end, unable to really argue her point without giving away exactly how familiar with this “Reimu Hakurei” she was, all she could really do was put her foot down that they weren’t acting on any of the information they’d managed to extract from her yet and ended the discussion. An abuse of authority? Sure. Something that inevitably landed her in hot water? Yes. But it was something she needed to do. Right?  

Of course, even without her meddling, this new information didn't really change anything anyway. To Aldwood’s militia, they already had a face, a target, and a location. They had their eyes over in the other village to thank for that. So all they really got from this was a name or two, and the knowledge that the people they should have managed to take out already knew about their rivalry, and were aiding them.

To Meira... Well, she actually wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Her world had been upended. Aldwood was her home. It had been for some time now. She’d never been the overly nationalistic type, but if she needed to protect her home, then so be it. If she needed to ensure the safety of her home, then so be it. While she’d never really bought into the Duke’s propaganda (she sincerely doubted they ate babies), the fact of the matter was that their neighbors had attacked them several times (and Aldwood had returned the favor several times, of course).

Never had the other gained the upper hand, and each excursion only left both villages hurting for supplies, and bodies. While there had always been temporary armistices, by now the hostilities ran too deep for diplomacy. While she’d never particularly minded this before, now this troubled Meira deeply. The Village had one hell of a leg up over them. Not only did they have Primes now, something neither side had been blessed by in the past, the fairy’s attack had left them wanting for supplies. The samurai sighed deeply, sinking even further into her chair.

She shouldn’t have done that.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she should've just subdued the fairy then and there. She should've just continued to march on the Village, like intended, putting all this nonsense about Reimu Hakurei out of her head. Certainly, the Miko couldn't have been too attached to the village anyway, right? She'd only been around for a few days. There was no way she'd lay down her life for them, right? And what if she did? Couldn't Meira just... claim the go-shintai like a certain foolish, younger self of her aspired to do back when she lived in Gensokyo? Fulfill that pipedream of hers?

No. It... it just didn't feel right. She'd long since given up on that dream. It didn't fit her anymore. Meira closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. That didn't matter now. The why of all this didn't matter now. She could ruminate on why why why she'd done all this all she wanted, but it didn't change what she had done and what came of it. She'd let a fairy slip through her grasp and launch an attack on their forward camp. They were out weeks worth of rations and arms thanks to that "slip-up." She suppressed the questioning of their prisoner, ordering that they weren't to act on any of the info pried from her. It was no surprise she was in hot water with the Duke now.

While he hadn't said anything explicitly questioning her allegiance, questioning how loyal she truly was to the Duchy, Meira could hear it in his voice, in his orders. As per the orders of the Duke himself, she was no longer to be involved in the actions they would take towards the Village. Though that wasn’t said in so many words. Rather, she was told that, in the interest of public safety or something like that, she was to head out to one of their neighboring Villas, closer to the mountains in the east. There, she was to investigate a purported demon attack and, being one of their more competent demon-slayers, deal with it should those rumors turn out to be true. 

Honestly, Meira doubted there was actually one, and she figured the Duke probably thought the same. But it kept the samurai somewhere where she couldn't meddle in this affair between the Duchy and the Village. And that was all the Duke was looking for. But of course, on the off-chance that it was something, well then... problem solved before it became their problem. A demon running amok through their Duchy was the last thing they needed right now. Probably nothing, though. Meira lifted from her seat with a groan and set to work packing up a few necessary supplies for the trip. Rations, camping equipment, her sword, the usual. In the morning, she’d set off. She didn’t imagine the trip should take too long, even with the stretch of rough forest between here and there. Certainly, she should be able to reach it by nightfall...