#002 Sitting Bull
Title First Blood
Author lanofthekwt
Rating K
Prompt Stiting Bull
POV Kohaku
Word Count 503
Warning none
Summary Kohaku's first recruits are decimated
They were a ragtag group. Their weapons were not youkai. They were not skilled warriors The expedition was supposed to be a training exercise. The only way to properly teach someone to kill youkai was to demonstrate the proper techniques on life youkai
Grubs seemed like the perfect solution. They were small,vulnerable and had minimal offensive weapons the perfect way to demonstrate the proper technique to destroy youkai in the field. What could be simpler?
Morale had been great. The men were all volunteers. All had some sort of combat training from the civil war. After weeks of training with Kohaku the men were eager to prove that they could kill youkai just like their chief
Kirata was able to locate grubs. She had forced them to the surface by digging up their birthing chamber. One by one they emerged on the surface. Kohaku demonstrated the proper technique Lopping off the head of the grub in one slice.
He turned to his students. The field test of his taijiya would start now. To his surprise the mother emerged and promply swallowed the first of the taijiya it encountered. He rushed to attack the beast while yelling for Kirata to protect hs warriors.
The mother was more fearsome than he anticipated Her skin was hardened and required several chops to sever the armored head. When he was satisfied that it was dead, he turned around to see how Kirara was faring.
To his dismay Kirara was buried in grubs and unable to assist any of the taijiya. Half of them were already dead when he got to them. Fortunately, the grubs stopped to feed on their kills That gave Kohaku the time he needed to dispatch them
By the time he finished cleaning up the grubs, Kirara dispatched the last of her attacker. Kohaku looked around to assess the damage To his horror, half of his men were missing. Half of the remaining group were wounded. Only five were able unscathed.
Kohaku dressed the wounded and sent the most severely wounded on Kirara for medical care at the Sunset Village. The walking wounded limped home to the taijiya vilalge. When Kohaku sounded roll call the next morning only five answered the call. Five had slipped away in the niight.
Kohkau always treasured those five who stayed. They had been threw the fire and had no illusions about the dangers of youkai extermination. Kohaku made sure that they knew he appreciated them. First in the new homes. The best weapons A place among the honored dead
Those five were ones he used as a base for rebuilding the taijia. They had tasted their first blood In the future, the youkai would be the ones bleeding. Kohaku and Kirara would make damn sure of that When they died, they were buried next to Kohaku's father After all it was through their sacrifices that the taijiya village had been rebuilt They had stayed when common sense said to run away. Kohaku would never forget them