Disclaimer: No Jigoku Shoujo
It was a city she had never been in before – a place far from the sea, far from the equator, far from everywhere she had ever once wished to be. So far from a place which could no longer be found on any maps. So far from home.
She had never seen snow before, but here, now, it fell softly from the sky in silence, dusting her shoulders and hair until they shimmered as if covered by a translucent veil.
She did not move inside, away from the numbing cold, only tilted her head back until she was looking at the sky. A single snowflake latched onto an eyelash, and as she blinked, landed in her eye.
Ai thought of dust, sunshine laughter, and jewel-red eyes. She breathed in ice. She thought of a thousand years, money, greed, despair, revenge and her mother's voice, pleading.
Oh yes, revenge. Her the Jigoku Shoujo.
Snow caressed her face, ghosting over her eyelids, cheekbones, lips. She thought of death and hatred and the feel of blood. A chill wind ripped through her, numbing her soul.
It must have been then when she started to forget.
Small, valiant seedlings push their bowed heads through the cold, hard earth and the sludge that was once snow. Soon, they will be flowers, blooming in light and dark.
She would have thought something as simple as this poetically beautiful once. A triumph of one aspect of nature against another! Something seemingly harmless and weak, winning against a whole world of frost.
Ai is the hero of this story, but the world is a large place to fight.
She does not see how the earth reawakens. She does not care about such things as the feel of a soft breeze against her face, although it is no longer bitterly cold.
She does not smell the air, though now it is no knives, but the faint musk of bark and spring. She does not recall how he would have been fascinated by all of this, as a child.
In the end, it is only the snow that melts. Not her heart.
She thinks that, perhaps, there is something wrong with her when her eyes turn the dark red of rust and drying blood, instead of the brightness of fire.
Ai sits on a throne of thorns which she herself has made.
It is built from her anguish and despair, and it is the one thing above all else that makes her a tragic hero. Once upon a time, it dug into her painfully – a constant reminder of her duties (despair revenge mourning hate). It was a motivation to action: she could not sit still for the pain.
But now, it is old and battered. Where there were once thorns are now spots worm smooth. She settles back into her throne at the end of a long day, and forgets why she built it.
When there is eternity, all pain fades away. Wounds are not healed, necessarily, but grown into. And nothing seems to matter as it once did.
Soon, she forgets the friends of her childhood (seemingly perfect children with brown hair and warm brown eyes, and laughter like sunlight).
Soon, she forgets her mother's face (and her voice, her feather touch, her last words Gomenasai Ai-chan).
Soon, she forgets why she dresses as she does (time spent so meticulously hooking invisible fastenings and tying ridiculous bows, only to be stuffy and hot and irritated all of the time).
Soon, she forgets Ren, Hona-Onna, and Wanyūdō. Soon she forgets the Spider of Jigoku.
Soon, she forgets why she had been in such a hurry to send people to Jigoku.
Soon, spring is upon her, and the seedlings bloom into beautiful flowers (morning glories, fragrant vine-like jasmine, and forget-me-nots, with their heads bowed low, hung sadly with the weight of dew and shame).
When Ai first realizes what is happening, she tries to stop it. She spends hours reading, researching (A head trauma without an accident? Repression? It's her brain on revolt!)
But that affects new memories, not the old, and just like that it all falls apart) because she doesn't want to forget, not really, not everything.
She sleeps more, in hopes that it will cure, but wakes as from one dream to another.
She loses all sense (sight of red, smell of blood, feel of steel). It is the sound of the screams that fades last – echoing languorously in the empty corridors of her mind.
Spring has long past, and still, she has not left the city. It does not seem as foreign as it once did – what had she been comparing it to?
She walks the street of sunshine and smiles at strangers. She breezes past a tall man in a dark coat, mind on the book she hopes to finish later that afternoon. The man turns to Ai, perplexed at silence, but Ai is already past.
Still smiling like a fifteen year old girl.