[1] HOUSE OF CROWS | Haikyuu!! (Murder of Crows) ✓

HOUSE OF CROWS | 04

"It's Hinata," you mumbled, clenching your hands around your flashlight. "I can't find him."

Kuroo's face turned grim, his lips pursing into a thin ragged line, and he suddenly went on ahead, pulling you after him. You gestured quickly for the others to follow, not wanting to lose sight of anyone else.

"Hinata!" Kuroo called, his voice distorting around the trees, echoing in the spaces between them. "Hinata, get back here!"

"Where's the shrimp gone?" Tsukishima asked as he came up behind you, a cold shadow falling against your back.

You went to shrug, but your shoulders felt stiff. "He wandered off."

"Maybe he just followed the path further on," Akaashi suggested over Tsukishima's shoulder, but you could hear the uncertainty in the edges of his voice.

Tsukishima shook his head, the furrows between his brows becoming more deeply embedded. "No. He's too much of a wimp to go off on his own."

You shot him a sour look, but before you had a chance to reprimand his attitude, another voice broke through the trees.

"O-over here!"

You spun, drawing a sharp breath. "Was that Hinata?"

The four of you followed the voice like a thread to a small clearing, inclining steeply from the main track, where you found Hinata crouched to the ground amid a bed of dead leaves.

"Hinata, what are you doing? Why did you wander off like that?" Kuroo asked, shining his torch over the back of the small boy. His hair stuck out like a flame, wild and untamed. Hinata didn't move, and you noticed he was looking down at something in the leaves. Something dark and wet.

"Is that..." You ran over to him, torch shaking around your feet, before you brought it to rest on the blood, splashed across the leaves in a messy arc. It was not fresh, dried to a reddish-brown, but there was a lot of it.

"Blood," Hinata finished weakly, lifting his face towards you. His skin was ashen in the dark, and his eyes were dilated, just a little too wide for his face. Instead of speaking, you took his arm and pulled him a safe distance away, ignoring the unpleasant smell lingering about the clearing. Like something rotting in the earth. "Whose is it?"

The others had seen the blood too, and they all stared at it silently. Not even Kuroo had anything to say, standing with his hands clenched.

"Not 'who'," you said calmly, keeping your fingers wrapped around Hinata's arm, as if worried he would disappear again. "It could belong to an animal. In fact, that's the most likely explanation."

Kuroo swallowed audibly, and gave you a smile that looked a little too thin, a little too shallow. "We haven't seen a single animal since we've been here," he said. "And where's the body?"

You narrowed your eyes, finally releasing Hinata as he began shuffling his feet restlessly. When you glanced across at him, you saw he was still staring at the blood, his veins visible as blue threads running down his neck.

"Look, we don't know what happened here," you said, wetting your lips. The forest seemed more humid than ever, and your shirt clung to your neck with beads of sweat. "And dwelling on it won't do us any good. Personally, I think we should take this as a sign that the forest isn't safe. Why don't we all just go home?"

Kuroo frowned at you, taking a step closer. Akaashi shifted uncomfortably behind him. "You want to leave? We've only just got here."

"Yeah, and already we've broken our compass and almost lost one of our friends. We know we're not alone in the forest, and judging by this there might be predators around. It's not safe."

"I thought you said you wouldn't be scared."

His words were sharp, cutting like a knife. Kuroo had never spoken to you like that before. "I'm not," you said quietly. "I'm not scared. But... the forest isn't a good place to be at night. It was stupid coming here, chasing a ghost story. We're unprepared and inexperienced. If we're not careful, someone might actually get hurt."

Kuroo shook his head, his face set with hard lines and edges. "I'm not leaving."

"This isn't the time to be stubborn," you snapped, your patience wearing thin.

"You guys can leave. But I'm staying."

"Why? What exactly are you hoping to find-"

You broke off to a noise from the trees, glancing across at them. A branch, snapped clean off, fell to the ground with a soft thud. The silence that followed was sudden and heavy, laced with a breathless panic. Your torch went up, alighting on the trees that stood around you like matchstick sentinels, tall and thin and crooked. There was nothing there, but the air in the clearing suddenly felt much colder, and a thin ribbon of moonlight wound its way through the canopy, shrouding the branches in a lucid white mist. 

Then you hitched the torch higher, and you realised you weren't alone.

In the tree directly opposite, six pairs of eyes stared back. Beady and small and black as ink, the eyes belonged to six crows. Their bodies were as dark as the night and crumpled like leaves, their faces gaunt and haggard, as wizened as the forest itself. They watched you unblinkingly, eyes glazed with intelligence and intent.

You tried to swallow, but your throat had dried up. "I guess it isn't called the House of Crows for nothing," you muttered, but your humour fell flat and your hands felt clammy, the torch sliding against your fingers.

Then Hinata gave a short, sharp cry, stumbling back with his arms thrashing out in panic. "No... look... one of them... in its mouth..."

"Holy shit," Kuroo said a second later, staring over your shoulder, aghast.

And that's when you saw it. The crow in the middle, slightly larger than the others, with blue-black streaks zigzagging down its back, was holding something in its beak. Something wet and glistening.

"It... why... why is it carrying an eye..." Hinata whimpered, and you felt your neck prickle with a chill.

Before any of you had the chance to move, one of the crows parted its beak with a keening cry, and the six birds launched themselves from the tree in a flurry of midnight wings, swooping low. You grabbed the arm of the closest person - Akaashi - and dragged him down as the birds skimmed overhead, one hooked talon ghosting the back of your neck as you ducked.

When the flap of wings receded, you finally lifted your head.

"Are they gone?" Akaashi whispered as you let go of his arm.

"Yeah."

"Do you think... they would have taken my eyes too?" Hinata whispered, reaching his hands up to his face, as if to make sure everything was still there.

You shook your head, climbing shakily to your feet. "No. They only scavenge the dead."