029. Get up and quietly look around.

I knew then that something wasn’t right because all the walls started changing, yet I was still in bed with Azami. This definitely still had to be a dream I realized as a big fireplace grew out of the ground right next to the bed. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember why at the time. Then Azami sat up and wrapped her arms around me but she didn't look quite right anymore. Her hands roamed and caressed my chest and shoulders before pulling me back into the warm covers, tempting me to love her.

I simply couldn’t resist any longer, and with her encouragement and constant touching, I was so turned on that I couldn't stop myself from taking advantage of this erotic dream. I mounded the woman and marveled at how wonderful it felt to have my dick ensconced within a woman, to let go of all my sexual frustration, even if it was only a lucid dream. But she kept changing, as did our surroundings. This wasn't the grand bed in the manor house, but a small hay-filled one in a small hut. And now instead of Azami the woman in bed with me had transformed, become younger, with a smaller bust and narrower hips. Her hair darkened to a pinkish-red and soon I realized it wasn't Azami, but Yuki. She was still unbelievably sexy and cute, and I was definitely horny, so I didn’t really care who it was I was banging in my dreams, it still felt wonderful.

My hands went to her much smaller breasts, just happy to imagine someday touching such soft feminine flesh for real someday. With zeal, I cruelly tweaked her hard erect nipples causing her to cry out. Then she evilly returned the favor, pinching my own soft and **** nips painfully hard, but that’s when things went south as I lost control of my dream and got mad. With an uncontrollable rage, my hands grabbed and began clawing at her naked flesh. She screamed and futilely tried to desperately fend me off. Blood and bones broke, her fragments of flesh ripped away and my claws easily got a tight grip around the soft thin flesh of her pretty little neck.

All it took was a sharp twist and there was a gratifying snap, but I didn't stop. Her stumps of arms fell aside as her resistance ended, her whole body suddenly going lip, but despite that my hips continued to trust my unsatisfied cock up her relaxing pussy to slam at her dead womb. I was a demonic animal, fucking her corpse as I began devouring strips of her flesh, and at that moment of horrific disgust, I finally got the power to break free from the nightmare and sat up in bed, sweat and tears pouring down my face.

"No…" I muttered to myself in shock, still remembering the scaring image of Yuki's decapitated head. Her tongue was hanging slightly out of her mouth along with a trickle of blood. Her eyes staring blankly over my shoulder, still open and looking off at nothing.

"NO!!!" I screamed again, trying to drive the vivid picture from my mind.

"Nightmare?" Kouki asked nearby, stopping her sewing of some rips or adjustments to Azami’s clothes that she had clearly been working on.

"Yeah," I gasped with exhaustion and grabbed for my clothes.

Kouki turned to give me some privacy, but asked kindly, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I’m fine," I grunted as I finished getting dressed, disgusted with my morning wood that perversely refused to go down. There was no way I was going to tell her about something so horrible. Right then I just wanted to forget it, but it still felt so real. And how much of a pervert must I be to get turned on by something as sick as that? Tucking it away painfully I belted my pants tight and declared, "I’m going out to see about fixing the plow." I just had to get some air and do something to make these insane thoughts go away. Kouki just nodded and went back to her own chores as I left and slowly walked down the hill into town.

After some deep breathing, I focused on my task at hand. With the plow broken beyond repair my only choice was to try and negotiate with old man Cho at the general store to see what it would take to get a new one, or rather an old and worn yet exceedingly overpriced one. He was an extortionist, but with the war on and all the tradesmen and metal workers gone, I had no other option. With resignation, I made my way towards his store, but never made it there since I a bunch of the elderly men and women milling around town were in an especially gossipy mood today.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on until Hazuka came running up to me and asked, "Have you heard? Someone murdered Yuki!" My blood went cold in my veins, freezing me into speechlessness, so Hazuka just prattle on. "Ya, in her own bed! Can you believe it?"

"No…" I mumbled again, not really at her question, but more that I felt like I was reliving my nightmare all over again. In a panic, I took off at a sprint and ran the whole way, nearly half a mile west out of town to Yuki’s small farmhouse. I easily dodged past the elderly people who all morosely only came out of their homes for this!

"Hey! Wait up!" Hazuka called out and followed far behind as best she could, though I easily outran her.

Outside the house was Yuki’s elderly grandmother crying as Natsumi tried to talk with her, but they both looked at me as I panted loudly and came to a stop before them. "Now hold on Kenji," Natsumi cautioned, but I ducked under her consoling arm and grabbed at the door handle. "Kenji wait!" I couldn’t and just threw open the door having to see the truth for myself.

Sure enough, Yuki must be dead, but there was no way she could have been killed by anything human. Blood and viscera coated the floor, long thin tendrils of entrails crisscrossed the room. Her severed hand lay on the floor still jutting a long shard of raw bone and I saw almost a complete leg sizzling sickeningly in the coals of the fireplace. There was so little left of her that it almost could have been anyone had it not been for her beautiful untouched head sitting blankly on the pillow of her bed, just as I remembered it in my dream. It was too much for me and I turned and started puking up my meager dinner from last night right onto Natsumi who had come to drag me away from the door where I’d stood stunned.

"Gah!" she shouted in disgust as she hopped back from me, but the gooey mass of corn and rice coated her skin-tight outfit and exposed stomach. She scraped it away with the bottom edge of her palm while I finished retching in the grass at her feet when Hazuka finally caught up, gasping for breath from her long chase from town.

"Kenji, are you okay?" Hazuka asked with what sounded like genuine concern despite her heavy breathing.

"I tried to warn him, but Mister Weak Stomach here didn’t want to listen," Natsumi chided with revulsion as she shook off a sticky clump of my spittle from her boot.

"Sorry," I gasped at her and wiped the bile from my chin with the back of my hand.

"It’s fine," Natsumi grumbled. "At least I know you're innocent."

"What?" Hazuka cried in shock.

"I’ve never seen someone killed like this, so thoroughly dismembered, and anyone who could do that wouldn’t lose their lunch so quickly looking back at their work," Natsumi explained. "Besides, I didn't think it was you in the first place. And I know you couldn't fake a reaction like that."

"Of course I’m not faking!" I yelled, upset that she considered me a suspect, and overreacting purposefully because I was wondering if I had done this in my sleep. How… how could you think anything human could have done that?"

"I’ve seen men do all sorts of horrible things boy," Natsumi growled and then pointed back to town. "Now, unless you have something to add to this investigation, get the fuck out of here!"

I didn’t have any idea of what to say, and there was no way I wanted to stay here, so I chose not to fight and tried to storm away. Stupidly I wasn't looking where I was going and turned right into Hazuka, almost knocking her over. "Oah!" the surprised girl squeaked as she flailed and fell over.

"Sorry," I apologized as I swooped down and grabbed her in my arms just before she would have painfully landed on the ground. Then I looked into her eyes and was frozen. I could see something in the darkness inside her deep violet eyes now that my face was only inches from hers. Something flickered with an unnaturally bright yellow glow that locked my gaze as I stared, trying to see understand it.

"Great, you puke your brains up over your first girlfriend, then turn right around and try to pick up another?" Natsumi mocked me with utter loathing in every word. "Go seduce her somewhere else Matsumoto!"

"Oh, er, sorry," I said snapping out of my strange sudden trance and helping Hazuka stand up. Embarrassed I turned and simply walked quietly back toward town. Hazuka awkwardly followed and once we were out of Natsumi’s earshot I assured Hazuka, "I wasn’t trying to seduce you."

"Oh," Hazuka said softly, and I realized how stupid that sounded.

"I thought… It's stupid, but I thought I saw something," I explained, but knew how ridiculous that sounded since I didn’t know what or even how to explain it. And rather than try I changed the topic since Hazuka was still being strangely silent. "Do you think anything human could tear a body apart like that?"

"I… I didn’t see it," she said apologetically, but that actually made me happy.

"And you wouldn’t want to," I said, confident that that was the truth. The vacant gaze of Yuki's eyes as her disconnected head looked off into the void. I shuddered seeing it again, haunting my mind. "It was horrible."

"Well, I heard that there are all sorts of monsters out in the world, but since I’ve never been more than a mile from home before…" Hazuka shrugged.

"Yeah, me too," I sighed, then had an idea. "But there’s one person who that we can talk to who has."

"Who?" she asked inquisitively.

"Chizu!" I almost shouted. "Not only that, but she told me once her tribe is nomadic! She has to have seen and heard of all sorts of things!"

"Yeah, but maybe Natsumi is right and it was just a person that did that to her?" Hazuka suggested. "And if it was a person then maybe Setsuko might know if someone weird was hanging around Yuki. They were best friends so surely she would know if anyone had a grudge against her."

"Yeah," I said indecisively. "Well they are both up at the manor so I guess I’ll go talk to them. See ya, Hazuka."

"Hold on!" Hazuka screeched. "I’m going too and this time you aren’t running off on me." Then she **** her arm through mine to walk right with me, intimately close, arm in arm. Then she laughed and teased, "Besides, you still haven’t properly seduced me yet."

"But… I…" I stammered.

"Shut up and walk," she ordered me and I obeyed in confused silence. Did she want me to seduce her or was she just riling me up as another joke? With Yuki dead right after I had a murderous sex dream about her, I felt scared that somehow I might in fact be responsible. And despite how wrong it was I had started thinking sexy thoughts about Hazuka. Her arm touching mine and occasionally her round wide hip bumping into mine as we tried to match our pace. It was all so bizarre, yet exciting, yet I was also sad and scared about what happened to Yuki.

While we walked up the hill I couldn’t help looking over at the girl on my arm. Did she know from this close I was almost able to see down her blouse? I had often wished I was taller, but probably never more than at that moment. I only had an inch on her so could only see the top of her fleshy valley, yet still, it got me even more worked up.

"I’ve never seduced anyone before," I teased as we walked feeling a little bolder than my usual self.

"I don’t think that’s true," she said smugly. "I can think of a few times you’ve gotten me going."

"Really?" I said very happy with myself. I never really thought Hazuka was ever interested in me. Especially with what happened when she and my sister had themselves a big laugh at my ill-fated declaration of love a while back. Maybe I’d finally broken through that mean girl exterior and she realized she could finally accept having a guy like me. My heart was all aflutter just thinking of the possibilities.

"Of course it helps that you’re like the only eligible guy in town," We both laughed though that hurt a lot, though not enough to stop me from being excited at whatever gave me the chance to get her closer to me. I vowed then that I’d show her I was the guy for her and she’d never need to look anywhere else. Grasping her arm tightly I smiled and by the time we got to the top of the hill I had almost forgotten why we were even walking up here in the first place, but not for long.

"Having fun?" Kouki said dryly as she crossed her arms looking at us being silly and close.

"Kouki," I said with surprise and pulled my arm free. Shit that was stupid. She already saw us and now it looked like I was embarrassed to be seen with Hazuka. Well I was, but not because of her, but…

"Relax girl," Hazuka giggled at my bizarre behavior. "We were just talking. Nothing happened." Then she waited for a moment before adding with a smirk, "Yet." Did she really have designs on doing something with me? My cock was getting hard in my pants just thinking about exploring that, but Kouki just took it in stride.

"Ha, ha," she said as if it was just an old joke she’d heard a thousand times before. "Was a new plow head too expensive?" she asked me seriously.

"What?" I asked, then remembered that was why I’d gone into town, to begin with. "Oh, er, well." I suppose I should tell her about Yuki and all, but if I did she wouldn’t let up on the questions for hours, especially with Hazuka here to fuel the gossip. They could talk a man to ****. Maybe I should just let Hazuka be the bearer of bad news and explain it? That way I could go question Setsuko or Chizu on my own.