"Ha?" Yorimitsu looked down at the small girl. She didn't look back, her fingers simply continuing their rhythmic, persistent tugging at his hem.
"Taisho... I think she's asking for food," Watanabe muttered, his voice softening as he looked at her skeletal frame.
"Yeah, I know that, but everything we had is g—"
"Here..." Before Yorimitsu could even process the situation, Watanabe was already reaching into his pouch. He handed over the last piece of dried meat he was carrying, a tough, salted strip he had been saving in case of an emergency.
"Hmmpt, shshshshshhs."
The young girl snatched the brittle meat from Watanabe's hands. She didn't thank him; she didn't even look at him. She simply turned her back and began to scurry away like a rat.
Shhhhhhhhpt!
Boom!
A stone whistled through the stagnant air and connected sharply with the back of the girl's head. She collapsed instantly.
"Ha?!!"
A young boy, no older than her, lunged from the shadows. He snatched the meat from her limp fingers and stuffed it into his mouth. He didn't even chew; he swallowed the mass whole, his throat bulging as he fought to force it down.
"What the hell?!" Watanabe's voice rose in a mix of disbelief and horror.
"What the hell are you doing?" He roared.
Thud!
Thud!
The young girl dragged herself back to her feet. Blood began to drip from the gash on her scalp, staining her matted hair, yet she didn't cry. There was no sob, no scream, only a terrifying, hollow silence. She limped back to Yorimitsu's side and began tugging at his robes again, her small, filthy hands open exactly as they had been the first time.
"What the fuck is this... what is going on?" Watanabe's eyes bulged.
From the darkness of the tilted alleyways, more shadows moved. Within moments, dozens of children emerged, their movements jerky and coordinated. They surrounded the group in a tight, silent circle, a forest of tiny, grasping hands reaching out to tug at the silk of Yorimitsu's robes.
"Just how dire is the situation here?" Gabimaru asked, his voice tight with horror. "Even in the worst slums of the capital, I doubt children are this ruthless."
He began searching every corner of his clothing, pulling out whatever brittle scraps of dried rations he had left and handing them out, one piece at a time. But his charity only fueled the fire.
"Ahhhhh, I think I understand what is going on here. You saw the farm lands here; nothing grows. I doubt these children have eaten anything in weeks." Yorimtsu spoke, handing out his dried food as well.
…
The more he handed out, the more ferocious the children became. They began shoving and clawing at one another, their desperation turning into a frenzied madness. One boy let out a guttural shriek as he shoved his thumbs into another's eyes just to snatch a sliver of salted meat that had fallen into the dirt.
'This is madness. How come there are so many orphans here? Where are their parents? Why doesn't the government do something? Gabimaru thought.
He pulled out his final rations, watching the chaos. Every child who managed to grab a piece stuffed it into their mouth instantly, swallowing before it could be stolen. Only the young girl was different.
Every time she received a share, she tried to tuck it away and scurry toward the shadows. And every time she did, the pack descended on her, beating her back to the ground and tearing the food from her small, bloody hands.
Within moments, they had run out of everything. Even after shouting that they had nothing left, the children didn't stop. They kept begging, pushing, and clawing at the group's legs like a rising tide of starving ghosts.
For a brief second, Yorimitsu looked over at Shion. Her usual unreadable expression had shattered; a single, silent tear tracked through the dust on her cheek.
"We have to leave. Now," Yorimitsu whispered, his voice cracking. "Use whatever skills you have to get clear."
In the space of a heartbeat, the group vanished. They moved with such speed that they left only a gust of stale wind behind, leaving the circle of children puzzled and clawing at empty air.
"That was freaky, it looked like they would kill for that little food," Gabimaru panted as they regrouped on the outskirts of the residential block.
"By the looks of it, this land is so barren that no one can afford to eat; they might eat once every three weeks if they are lucky," Yorimitsu said, his gaze fixed on the dirt beneath his feet.
"Every three weeks?!" Watanabe muttered, his face pale. "How can a whole village survive weeks without a single person eating?"
Yorimitsu didn't answer immediately. He knelt, using a fallen shard of wood to draw a rough sketch in the dust. "The marshlands are bone-dry. The water wells and rivers have collapsed, and the soil is dead. It's all broken... they can't grow a single grain of crop here."
He finished the drawing with a sharp, decisive stroke, then stood abruptly. "I'm going back."
"What? Where are you going?!" Watanabe called out, reaching for him.
Yorimitsu didn't look back. He moved with a sudden burst of speed, his form blurring. Within a few moments, he was gone, leaving his companions behind in the stifling haze.
In the same breath, he reappeared at the village entrance. The crowd of children had dispersed, leaving only the young girl behind. She was pushing herself off the ground, her movements jerky and weak. She stumbled, her knees buckling once, twice, before she finally found the strength to stand.
Without acknowledging Yorimitsu's presence, she began to walk. She swayed with every step, her small frame tilted as if she were carrying an invisible weight. Yorimitsu followed silently from the shadows, his footsteps light and ghostly.
Thud.
Thud.
The sound of her small, bare feet against the hard-packed earth was the only noise in the street. She turned a sharp corner into the deeper, darker alleyways, where the stilts of the houses leaned together like ribcages.
Within a few moments, she reached a dark, secluded corner of the alleyway where the shadows of the overhanging eaves blotted out the dim light. Lying on the damp, cold ground just a few paces away was a young boy. He was curled into a ball, his small frame racked by violent, hollow coughs that seemed to shake his very bones as the girl approached.
"Onii-chan…" she called out, her voice barely a whisper.
The boy's coughing fit subsided for a moment, leaving him gasping for air. He looked up, his eyes wide and clouded with fever, searching for the source of the voice.
The girl knelt beside him, her hands reaching out to touch his face with a tenderness that had been completely absent during the frantic struggle for food in the village square.