Mochi could only watch as death completely took hold of the place.
The last surviving villagers had taken refuge in a corner of the temple, huddled together, trembling in silence. Among them were the head monk and the miko identical to Mochi.
The young woman pressed the small cat statuette against her chest, clinging to it desperately, as if it were the only thing still keeping her standing.
From outside came harsh voices, crude laughter, the sound of footsteps and objects being thrown to the ground. The soldiers were looting the temple with brutality.
It wouldn't take long for them to find them.
The monk stepped forward, straightening his back despite the fear reflected in his eyes.
"Please, remain calm," he said in a low voice. "I will go out and speak with them. I will try to convince them to stop."
"Wait!" the miko grabbed his arm. "You can't reason with people like that… they'll kill you!"
The monk looked at her and smiled sadly.
"I know. But I have to try."
"In the worst case… I'll try to draw them away from here so you can have time to escape."
Then he looked at the statuette in the miko's arms.
"I entrust you with protecting zcztzt-sama. Do not let it fall into their hands."
The miko nodded, her eyes filled with tears.
The monk gave one last look at the group, as if saying farewell to everyone, and walked toward the door.
He didn't get the chance to open it.
The door was kicked down, and without a single word, the first soldier who entered swung his sword at the monk. The cut was clean and brutal.
The body fell to the ground, motionless, and did not rise again.
The massacre resumed.
The men were killed without mercy. Muffled screams, bodies falling, blood staining the temple floor.
The women were dragged away alive, struggling, begging, destined for a fate even worse than death.
Once again, Mochi felt that overwhelming helplessness: being there, seeing everything… and being unable to do anything.
The miko tried to flee, running toward the only possible exit, but she didn't make it more than a few steps. She was grabbed by the hair and violently thrown to the ground.
One of the soldiers climbed on top of her, grinning disgustingly as he tore at her clothes, ripping apart her miko garments.
She resisted with all her strength.
In a desperate act, she managed to drive a kick into his groin. The man let out a scream and rolled to the side, writhing in pain.
The other soldiers burst into laughter.
The miko tried to get up, but she had nowhere left to run. She was immediately surrounded.
At all times, even as they beat her, she did not let go of the statuette. Her fingers clung to it with fierce determination.
"What are you holding there?" one of them growled.
"This brat is trying to steal our treasures!"
"Hand it over!"
They tried to take it from her, but she resisted as best she could—scratching, biting, screaming.
Until the bandit who had been kicked, furious and humiliated, raised his axe.
The blow was clean.
Blood splattered across the temple walls, and the miko's body fell lifeless to the ground.
Even in death, her hands remained clutched around the statuette.
The white wood was completely stained red with her blood.
"What the hell are you doing?" another growled. "That brat could've been worth a lot of money if we sold her to a brothel."
As they argued, one of them crouched down, tore the statuette from the miko's stiff hands, and tucked it among his belongings.
He planned to sell it later.
Keep the money all for himself.
Mochi felt something break.
It wasn't just anger.
It was pure, deep, absolute hatred.
And in that moment, though she did not yet understand it, something else was born in that blood-soaked temple.
A wrathful deity.
An anomaly that would never forget.
—
Time began to accelerate once more.
Years passed in the blink of an eye.
After exterminating the original inhabitants, the soldiers settled in the village and began new lives, as if nothing had happened, as if the blood that had been spilled had never stained those lands.
The few survivors were sold as slaves in distant places.
No one remained to tell the truth.
They dug a mass grave on the outskirts and threw the bodies there, burying along with them any trace of the crime.
Soon after, new people began to arrive: peasants, merchants, entire families. No one suspected a thing.
The leader of the soldiers, a former war commander, became the head of the village.
He now lived in an enormous house—practically a mansion—built from the remains of the old temple.
In the basement of that mansion, among weapons, coins, and stolen relics, there was one object that stood out above all the rest.
A cat statuette.
It was completely black. It did not reflect light; it seemed to absorb it.
The miko's blood had seeped into the wood, and something else… something invisible, had awakened along with it.
No matter how much they tried to clean it, its original white color never returned.
From the very beginning, the circumstances surrounding it were strange.
The statuette was found next to the body of the bandit who had stolen it.
His corpse was intact, but aged unnaturally, as if decades of life had been stripped from him in a single night. His face was frozen in an expression of absolute terror.
They tried to get rid of it many times.
They sold it.
They threw it into the river.
They buried it far from the village.
It always came back.
It would appear at the threshold of the mansion, as if refusing to abandon what it considered its home.
In the end, terrified, they chose to hide it in the deepest place, where no one would have to see it.
But it was already too late.
As time passed, the village began to change.
Fatal accidents with no explanation.
People who disappeared without a trace.
Silent deaths.
There was always one detail in common.
Witnesses who swore they had seen a shadow.
The silhouette of a cat.
And with every death, the shadow grew.
Nothing and no one was spared.
Mochi witnessed something even more disturbing: anomalies that came to the village, drawn like insects to light… and never left.
They were devoured. Absorbed. As if even they were insignificant prey.
The hatred did not fade with time.
It accumulated and grew.
And deep within that darkness, the cat anomaly continued to grow, feeding itself.
The situation reached an unsustainable point.
The villagers stopped going out at night.
Not even inside their own homes did they feel safe. They went to sleep not knowing if they would wake up the next day.
Then, one day, outsiders arrived.
A group of people who promised to exorcise the evil spirit that haunted the village.
As she observed them closely, Mochi understood immediately.
Each one carried an ether weapon.
They were OHRA agents… from an ancient era.
Ten in total.
The village chief led them without hesitation to the place where the statuette was hidden. One by one, they descended into the basement.
The moment the last of them crossed the threshold, the air grew heavy, oppressive.
The anomaly fully manifested.
That image burned forever into Mochi's mind.
A massive black cat emerged from the darkness, a mass of hatred, shadows, and resentment. Its eyes glowed with a light filled with fury.
But this time, it was different from the first time Mochi had seen it.
The aura it emitted was overwhelming.
Far greater.
Far denser.
It was at the absolute peak of its power.
What followed was a brutal battle.
A fight that lasted for hours.
It wasn't a one-sided struggle due to incompetence—those agents were strong. Even the weakest among them was, at the very least, on Zeke's level. Coordinated, experienced, armed with powerful weapons.
And even so, they fell.
One by one.
Not because they were easily overpowered, but because the anomaly simply did not tire. Every wound they inflicted closed. It did not grow exhausted. It obeyed no known logic.
Its energy seemed infinite.
As if it could not disappear…
As if its very existence were anchored to its vengeance.
In the end, the surviving agents understood the truth.
They could not defeat it.
With the bodies of their companions still warm on the ground, they chose the only option left to them: to seal it. Not to defeat it, but to contain it. With the hope that, over the years, its power would weaken and eventually fade away on its own.
As she watched that scene, Mochi felt a chill run down her spine.
She wondered what would have happened if that anomaly had retained all its power when it attacked her.
She wondered, with a knot tightening in her chest…
whether even Haruka would have been able to face it.
After sealing it, they built a small altar and placed the statuette there.
Time continued to move forward.
Generations passed.
The village grew.
It became a city.
An ordinary city.
The city where Mochi lived.
And so, forgotten by everyone, the hatred remained dormant, waiting to awaken once more.