Tengu's hideout

Keep this a secret will you...?

I am about to tell you... what I saw there...

In the hideout of Tengus...

As I lay dying in the forest... I remembered that fake image I implanted inside the minds of myself and a pure, innocent girl... who I indirectly killed.

Despite the pains of the damage I sustained, I tried my best to repent for my sins.

Where did it all start? How did I, a perfectly normal village kid, get kidnapped by the mythical Tengus? How did my return spark the village's hatred for my family? What exactly drove my entire family – my parents and two younger siblings, still toddlers, to suicide? Why must I live to meet that girl and tell her an fabricated tale all about the Tengus' hideout?

The Tengus' hideout, it doesn't exist at all.

I was kidnapped, but I could remember nothing else other than the time I was returned to my family...

I was not even sure whether it really was the Tengus' handiwork at all.

But that little girl with green hair, she was interested in my tale.

To get her off my back, I told her a big, fat, lie about what I saw, about how the Tengus actually taught me martial arts, how they told me about the other human who was here before me – Minamoto no Yoshitsune.

Instead that turned to be my most fatal mistake I ever made, in fact, we became friends because of that fucked up tall tale I made up.

Tengus don't exist.

Even if they did, I doubt that I would be given a place there...

"Haku...? Haku onee-chan...?"

My heart skipped when I heard that voice, only an angel would have such and innocent tone.

"what the... Mi- Miku...?"

That girl who made my childhood life more memorable reappeared in front of me, she had wings, just like the Tengus I made up had.

That's right... she was killed back then, 2 years ago... when she found out about what really happened to me a long time ago - how my body was altered by scientists after they kidnapped me; knowing her, she might have figured out what the Tengus really are.

I am an altered super-soldier made to serve the Shogunate, "Tengu" was just a codename they came up with to describe the superhuman reflexes I now possessed after they literally powered up my nervous system with chemicals and removed all my bones and internal organs and gave me machines as replacements.

Simply put, they modeled me and several others into a "Minamoto no Yoshitsune".

I was just speechless when her ghost came back to accompany me.

"What are you waiting for onee-chan?"

Miku reached her hand out towards me, gesturing that I go with her to the hideout she always believed in.

"...sorry about that... it's just-"

"...That you can no longer come with me?"

Miku said the words out from her mouth without any hesitation, her eyes... were somewhat, no, her eyes definitely look very disappointed.

"Miku, I..."

"Have you had any idea how much it hurts when you left the village just like that? Without even telling me? Not even a simple little 'goodbye'?"

I remain silent.

Miku was crying her heart out as her eyes turn from disappointment into pure sadness.

"When you left, I was very, very sad. I wanted to look for you... but my parents wouldn't let me go after you because of my engagement to the neighbouring village... but I still ran away anyway, so that I can go to the hideout-"

"THERE IS NO SUCH PLACE AS A TENGUS' HIDEOUT!" I screamed with all I had in contrast to the silence I gave earlier, "You went to the army to look for me, but then what happened? You were killed, stupid! they silenced you forever!"

I coughed hard because of the rupture in my lungs - blood getting into my diaphragm, "I got my family and my two little siblings killed because of what they did to me! I left alone because I wished for your happiness and not for that you can throw it away like it was nothing! I am a jinx! thanks to you, I wished that I never existed!"

I screamed to the point of tears. "It's all my fault that everyone close to me is dead!"

"Have you ever asked me what is my happiness? Or what is my dream?"

I was calming myself when Miku asked my in her shaky voice.

"My dream... is to be your wife, where we can make our own hideout together... Haku onee-chan."

My eyes were wide open in aghast.

"So what if it never existed, at least we... dreamed of such a place, didn't we?"

more tears start to flow up through my eyes.

"Mi- Miku..."

my teary eyes noticed that her hand is reached out to me once more.

"To me... anywhere you take me and everywhere you go with me, is considered a Tengu's hideout."

I reached my hand out to hers.

"Then shall we go home? To where the Tengus are?"

Miku cupped my hand as soon as I felt it.

"yes...! let us go home Haku onee-chan... to where the tallest trees are, then you can jump to the skies with me in your arms, just like old times."

I felt warmth like ever before as her wings envelop the both of us... Miku and I faded into little specks of light, with our lips sealing our promise to each other.