Demon Eyes and an Eldritch Soul
Nippon was a country that had suffered its fair share of hardship, but it was one that had known prosperity too. Nowadays especially, things were looking up for the Land of the Rising Wolf Brush Goddess. With Amaterasu returned to her full glory and splendor, and with Yami defeated, Nippon had entered a new golden age of prosperity. Humans and gods alike returned to a happiness some had feared, in those darkest days, that they would never know again. It was a time of hope and joy aplenty.
Yet even in times such as these, perfection simply wasn’t possible. Youkai, especially, were still a threat in certain places throughout the land. Though the problem was nowhere near as bad nor as prevalent now that the Master of the Sun had been returned to her proper place, still they existed, and still they claimed their victims. A few Kami and those humans practiced in Onmyoji did what they could to protect Nippon’s people, but there was only so much that so few could do...
One can only imagine what people must have felt when tales of an entirely new Youkai began to circulate throughout the villages. They said that this Youkai took the form of a young woman with skin as dark as night...that she wore a strange, perhaps even foreign garb...that she had the wings of a bat, whose tips were eternally coated in fresh blood...that where the whites of her eyes should be, only the void remained, and that her irises were a burning and hateful red. She was cold and cruel, ready to lash all who came before her with a viper’s tongue and a tiger’s claws...or so the stories went.
A portion of the rumor mill, however, painted a slightly different picture. This subdued minority claimed that, though this Youkai was brutal and callous, she also never was one to strike first. These particular rumors claimed that, no matter what she said or otherwise did, this new beast had not once been the one to draw first blood. The most ludicrous of all these more nonsensical fantasies was that the only time she had ever been seen feeding on another creature, it had been a Youkai that had attacked her while she was on the road.
What was the truth, and what was mere fable...who could say, really? However, one thing remained consistent across all the myriad tales of this newest monster: she had first appeared at the very southernmost tip of Nippon, and now was slowly making her way north along the most oft-traveled roads. In fact, if one were to be traveling along those paths now, one may very well meet this fearsome woman and risk her fury.
As the rumor mill churned and the tales grew ever more terrible by the hour, a lone figure walked down a lonely dirt road, untroubled by any presence other than her own...