#//I know some of you guys were curious about the nature of Juu's insanity

[opheliajupiter99]

Scarlet Snowfall (Juu Flashback)

*High up upon a mountain, a small village lay mostly isolated. They had trade, and they allowed letters to the outside and other such things, but in terms of the people themselves, they were tight knit and kept themselves, some would say a bit too picky on how each one of them behaved*

*It was the kind of place where technically speaking, nothing was keeping anyone from leaving, but a strict sense of tradition and cultural attitudes made one feel almost guilted for wanting to leave. As such, a young Tabaxi woman, Mrs. Kageyama, and her husband had lived in the village all their lives*

*Most of their lives had been content and perfectly pleasant, not feeling the effects of their culture's strict views - that is, until the birth of their son Juu. Juu, from the moment he progressed past babyhood, proved to be extremely violent by nature, clawing, biting, and yowling, especially at strangers*

*Despite this, Mrs. Kageyama, as she went down the small path from her home towards the nearby forest, where she'd seen Juu run towards, found herself left angry at her son's actions, and angrier at the village itself. That is because she had seen, first-hand, that her son was capable of being calm, in his own odd way, much less prone to outbursts when he was around her and his father*

*She knew for certain that the village's insistence on him doing things like going to school, speaking, and making friends were only making him worse. And even with the state she was soon to find her son in, she would stand firmly to that thought*

(Gore and death warning below. I'll leave most to the imagination but still, you guys probably know by now I can get pretty gnarly lol)

*Her pace slowed as she heard the sounds of flesh tearing and squelching, until finally she came to a small clearing in the depths of the woods, her eyes widening*

*There, in the center of said clearing, was her dearest son Juu, only six years of age, sat before a small, mangled corpse, blood completely soaking the area, drenching the young boy, and the turning the fallen snow around him a bright scarlet*

"Juu?" *She said, the boy's ear flicking as he turned his head to look at her, the lower portion of his face splattered with blood, chewing on a mouthful of flesh as he stared at her with wide, curious eyes. She blinked rapidly, looking around the gore-ridden scene. The corpse he was feasting from was so savaged, she could hardly even recognize what it once was - though shredded fragments of a kimono strewn about confirmed her worst fears*

*She just...stood there for a moment, trying to process what she had seen and what to do next. Juu's happy expression slowly melted into one of innocent concern, genuinely not understanding why his mother was so upset, and stood up, moving over to her and giving her a hug, staining her own kimono with blood as well*

*She stared down at him for a moment, eyes still wide with shock - before with a soft sigh, she knelt down and hugged him in return. This would be different, she thought to herself, if there was malice; if she felt like he was doing these things out of hatred or cruelty, and she admitted it was easy to write all of these actions off as such. But those innocent looks in his eyes...she knew he considered all of this as normal as breathing, it's why he appeared so confused when the sight made her distraught*

*She knew perfectly well what would happen if the village knew what he'd done upon this day. They already loathed him enough for the dead animals and scratches and bites towards their neighbors, and she knew they wouldn't kill him, he wasn't even ten after all - or at least, she really hoped they wouldn't. Regardless, they couldn't know...they just couldn't*

*Sometime later, around the same time Juu's father returned from a rather lengthy trip to the village market, Mrs. Kageyama and little Juu returned home, kimonos freshly cleaned, as the loving mother tended to the boy, who to his father's surprise was even calmer than usual, until bedtime came, and his mother soothingly sang him to sleep...*

*Even as the village panicked over one they were missing..*