A/N: Really AU story with teen!Fumi. Nowhere close to my best work, but it's dreadfully fun to write. I have many of the chapters already drafted in full, so I will try and update it every week or two provided I don't have any commissions to work on. It should also be noted that this mainly follows the game canon/lifts story elements from the game. All major character names are their Japanese variants. To clean up any confusion:

Muramasa = Snee
Fumika Kodama = Katie Forester
Kagero = Blandon
Hyakki-hime = Damona
Keita Amano = Nate Adams
Masamune = Sheen

PART I: DON'T FEAR THE REAPER

Chapter I: Awakening

The staccato ringing of the phone spooked Fumika Kodama into dropping her book. She knew she should have sat in her bedroom rather than the living room. She considered ignoring the shrill ringing, silently punishing the caller for interrupting her, but for all she knew it was her mother, and she didn't want to risk getting in trouble.

"Hello?" she said into the receiver, her tone controlled and tight despite her best efforts to avoid sounding annoyed.

"Hi, Fumi." It was her friend Keita. She had met him about five years ago when they were both in the fifth grade, and since then he had been elevated from "schoolyard pal" to "family friend" status. "I think you know why I'm calling."

She sighed, this time making sure he was fully aware of how inconveniencing she found him. "No, I didn't forget. And, no, I haven't found your silly Moximus Mask comics yet."

Technically they weren't really Keita's comics – they were her grandfather's. Keita had an intense interest in the comics largely because his own grandfather had once collected the exact same books. The ones Fumi owned happened to be the very first volumes, which were the only ones lacking from Keita's grandfather's collection. Fumi didn't understand the attraction Keita felt towards the story of Moximus Mask, something he unabashedly adored, but she did appreciate the history behind the old cartoons. She just didn't want to appreciate them at that exact moment.

"Please can you bring them over today?" He stretched the word 'please' out as if he were a little kid begging his mother for candy. "I know you're not doing anything today."

"I was reading," she said flatly.

"Same thing. You can read anytime, but you only have so much summer vacation left to hang out with your friends. C'mon, Kuma and Kanchi are coming over too."

A part of her wanted to argue with him, but another part of her admitted he had a point. When school started she could always read in between classes, but with all the homework her teachers intended to shovel down their students' throats, none of them would have much time to spend with each other outside of weekends. That, and her parents would be scrutinizing Fumi's every move, hounding her until they were certain she was writing, reading, and testing to the utmost peak of her abilities. Even then, she often felt they wanted her to perform into the realm of the humanly impossible. Suddenly the desire to spend time with her friends eclipsed her desire to read.

"Alright, you win." She set the book down on the coffee table in front of the sofa. "I'll be over in a bit. I just have to go into the attic and find them."

"Alright! See you then!" Click.

xxx

The dust was everywhere in the attic like newly fallen snow, untouched for years save for the tiny footprints of mice and insects tracing helter-skelter trails along the brittle cardboard boxes. Fumika didn't really want to root around in her parents' filthy attic for a bunch of old comic books, but after how Keita had begged to see her cartoon family heirlooms, she felt rude to arrive at his house with no comics to show. It wasn't like anyone in her household was enjoying them. When her parents returned from work Fumi decided she'd ask her mom if she could give the comics to Keita. They'd be safe with him, and she knew he'd cherish them. The first trick, however, would be to find them.

Tiny beams of light filtered through the single, shuttered window to the attic, illuminating the clouds of dust that rose as Fumi moved about. The dirty, heavy air stank of dried must and baked cardboard. Fumi couldn't wait to get out. Thankfully, she knew she wouldn't have to hang around the dark and cramped space for long. Her parents were careful about organization, having labeled the contents of each box before sending them up into storage, and very few possessed her grandfather's name. Fumi crawled over to the first box she saw with "GRANDPA'S STUFF" scrawled upon its side in black magic marker and opened it up, coughing violently when she was greeted with a grey billow of dust that stung her throat and lungs. She tilted the beam of her flashlight into the box, illuminating a messy tangle of jewelry seated upon a stack of old family photos featuring her grandfather and grandmother long before they died. She didn't think the old Moximous Mask comics would be under the photos, but she began to carefully remove the jewelry and framed memories just in case they were.

When she reached the warmth-dried bottom of the box, she found not a single issue of Moximous Mask. She did, however, find an old pocket watch.

At a glance the clockwork device appeared unremarkable in the shadows, but when the beam of her flashlight sliced into its smooth face, it revealed an open dial that provided a window to the watch's elaborate network of guts and gears. A coiling forest of vines and flowers traversed its metal backside, a miniature garden carved from silver. She tried to wind it, but the tiny knob crunched once before refusing to budge. Though it didn't work, it was attractive to her in the same way the comics were attractive to Keita; it bore that distinct historical air to it that all things once loved carried with regal pride. It came attached to a tarnished chain that was the perfect length for a necklace. Eager to show the bauble to her friends, Fumi looped it around her neck and tucked it into her shirt for safe keeping before moving on to the next box.

She found the four comic issues in the second box, each neatly packed into a protective cellophane sleeve. Knowing that Keita would slaughter her if she dare dented the corners, she lifted each issue from the box with careful precision, gently resting them on the dusty wooden beams that served as the attic's floor.

Once all four issues were safely excavated from their cardboard tomb, she retreated down the wooden stairs, closing the trap door to the attic behind her. The crisp, clean air rushed into her lungs. Even the stifling Japanese summer was preferable to the heavy heat in the attic.

Fumi began to head towards the stairwell leading back downstairs but halted in fright when she saw her reflection in the hallway mirror. Blackened cobwebs clung to her chestnut brown hair like a shroud. She could never show up at Keita's looking like she just crawled out of a crypt. He'd never let her escape the heckling, and if Kuma and Kanchi were there, the jokes would be even worse

A quick glance at the wall clock told her she was more than two hours early for Keita's. He only lived a few blocks over, so that was more than enough time to take a shower and change.

xxx

She could have sworn the antique store had been a vacant lot the night before.

Fumi found herself abruptly breaking on her bike when the store's dark facade loomed into her sight. The title "The Memory Store" was displayed on its storefront, and a neon sign reading "OPEN. WE REPAIR WATCHES" flashed brightly in its window.

Fumi fished the dead pocket watch out of her jeans, glancing at it, and then at the store. No matter how good the clocksmith inside was, he could never mend it before she needed to meet with Keita. Still, perhaps the man could give her a quote. It wasn't like she lacked time to kill; if she showed up for Keita's now she'd still be at least half an hour early.

A tiny bell jingled when Fumi opened the door to the shop. Shadows hung everywhere inside, filling the corners with an oppressive darkness. The sole source of illumination was a smattering of clocks, their faces glowing with various colored lights. Some displayed old Roman numerals Fumi could barely read, while others appeared so modern they could have been built yesterday. The silence in the shop pressed upon Fumi like a weight.

"Hello?" Fumi opened the door wider, allowing a gust of warm air to swirl into the air conditioned interior. "Is there anyone here? I'm looking to repair a watch – AH!"

She stepped in, and the door behind her suctioned shut, startling her as its bell crashed and chimed. The hairs along her neck rose to attention. The wind, she told herself, it had to be the wind.

Fumi stepped forward into the murky darkness, navigating her way through the shadows with the tip of a sneaker. "Hey, the sign says open. You should probably turn it off if you're not around."

More clocks, racks of old clothes, antique toys, and other shapeless nick knacks materialized as Fumi's eyes adjusted to the dimness. She slowly walked over to the counter, a vast glass container that encased countless types of pocket watches. Some worked, tick, tick, ticking away so loudly that if she concentrated she could hear them, while others were as dead as the one safely protected within the confines of her shirt. She hoped that her watch was the sort whose clockwork heart could be resurrected, provided the owner ever made his appearance.

Fumi squinted her brown eyes towards an old blue curtain behind the counter, concealing a doorway that led to the back room. "Are you in there, Mr. Owner?"

No answer.

Perhaps he was on his lunch break and had forgotten to turn the light off. She didn't want to risk looking like a thief, but Fumi deeply desired to browse about the shop, hoping that maybe she could find some other antique comics to showcase to her friends. A glance at her phone told her she wouldn't be late to Keita's if she made it quick. Unfortunately, she soon discovered nothing in the shop really thrilled her. The books were too archaic, the toys had seen too many playtimes, and the clothing felt more thrifty than antique.

The one thing that managed to draw her in was a large wall clock whose dial was illuminated in eerie blue lights that appeared to be neither electric nor neon gas. Glow in the dark, perhaps? Fumi could not tell. She just wanted to have it, to feel its face beneath the touch of her pale fingers…

"Hey, hey you!" The shopkeeper, a middle-aged man in a blue beanie, burst out from behind the curtains. "Don't touch the merchandise, if you have a question, ask me and I'll –"

Fumi's ears were deaf to his warnings. She was deaf to the whole world; to Keita, to the dark atmosphere of the shop, to the ticking of the clocks all around her, the ticking that accelerated as if the clocks were a collective being, a being gently urging the girl to place her hand against that one spellbinding face. Yes, yes, they seemed to say as one, touch it, touch it, feel its power beneath your fingertips, let it take you places you would never dream existed...

Her fingers brushed its smooth glass face, causing it to shatter. The cracks leaped off the clock, cleaving a rift through the air that stretched and widened by the second, its depths a kaleidoscopic maw of shifting color. For a moment Fumi woke from her trance, her brown eyes opening wide. "W-What?" She glanced over at the shopkeeper, her pleasing gaze begging for rescue.

His eyes, rimmed with a sleepy shadow of purple, goggled as tendrils bust from the rift, wrapping their glowing lengths around Fumi's wrists and ankles, yanking her towards the yawning chasm. He seemed as mortified as she was. "I told you," he said as she was pulled into the flashing show of light, "not to touch the merchandise!"

Vertigo fell over her like a colossal wave, the sensation grabbing onto her stomach and ripping at her intestines until she screamed. This couldn't be real, she had to be dreaming; no pain could be this intense, no moment this surreal. The world flashed around her in a tunnel of colors, blinding her to everything but the agony threatening to rip her body asunder. She didn't want to die this way, being torn apart like paper all because she touched a clock. She always saw it differently growing up; that she would die an old woman, her lights snuffing themselves out as she slept. This wasn't how she ever saw it at all. She always saw things firmly rooted in the realm of reality.

Fumi screamed, the agony ripping the sound from her throat. And then, just as suddenly as it began, the pain ceased.

Black flecks of light danced beneath closed eyelids. Fumi feared opening them, feared what she would see, but she could hear the loud drone of cicadas singing their summer song, and the monotonous familiarity of their insectoid chorus lulled her into comfort. She slowly opened her eyes, crescents of light filling her vision with long blades of green grass and warm summer sunlight.

Fumi sighed, her bones creaking as she sat up. Gnats danced in the air, their bodies like gold jewels as they flitted through the rays of light cascading downward through the trees. She looked around in stunned silence, realizing she had fallen into a clearing in the middle of the woods. It was an odd place, nearly a perfect circle of tall grass in which no trees larger than a sapling managed to grow. The surrounding forest was so thick that the trees blotted out the sun, shadows dancing and swaying beneath their vast canopy. The clearing was the only place where sunlight was allowed to reach the forest floor.

"Where the heck am I?" Fumi wanted to believe this was all just a dream, but the sharp prickle of grass against her bare legs felt too real. She had to find her way home, somehow.

Fumi stood, grabbing onto a nearby sapling for leverage. "And to think all I wanted to do was show Keita some stupid comic books." She was going to kill him once she got out of here, provided she even decided to inform him of her escapade. Even someone with his active imagination would never believe her.

Fumi felt something painful trace a line down her palm. She cursed under her breath and looked at her hand. A bright red gash, blood quickly welling out of the wound, slashed down her hand from the base of her thumb to the heel of her palm.

She wiped it on her shorts, wincing as the rough denim aggravated the irritation. "This is just my day. The hell did I even cut myself on?"

Fumi looked towards the sapling, expecting to see an insect or the sharp edge of a broken twig. Instead she saw that the sapling wasn't a sapling at all; it was a battered sword jutting from a crack in a rock. Its edge was tarnished and jagged, chunks of metal weathered away by the elements, but still sharp enough to cut. Steel took ages to tarnish. She couldn't even imagine how old it was.

Fresh blood from Fumi's cut was smeared in a red streak down the edge of the blade. The metal seemed to glow a ghostly turquoise where the blood had kissed it, an illusion caused by the wavering shadows and blade's tarnished edge. But then the blue light began to grow, traversing the length of the weapon, kissing color into its dirty, blackened metal, and Fumi realized with a mounting sense of dread that this was no illusion; it was something as real and sinister as her descent into this world. Cracks spidered along the face of the stone, chips of grey rock falling into the grass as the light intensified, becoming so bright Fumi was forced to avert her eyes.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!" Fumi clenched her eyes and tugged at her hair, yanking it out of its formerly neat ponytail by the handful. This was too weird, far too weird. She just wanted to wake up from this nightmare and go home.

"Ah…Finally…" The voice was deep and scratchy, clearly belonging to a creature who hadn't said a word for nigh on a millennium and was at long last giving his vocal chords a stretch.

Fumi opened her eyes at the sound of the voice, finding rock and sword gone, replaced by a strange man whose face was obscured by an unusually large sandogasa, its rim decorated in tags painted with mysterious runes that looked nothing like any characters in Fumi's lexicon. A blue flame flickered atop his hat, and the torn remains of a purple hakama, cloak, and scarf flowed about him in disheveled layers. An arm, bandaged to the elbow in gauze, gripped the once-imprisoned blade whose entire length now glowed an ominous blue.

"Hey, uh, do you think you could tell me how to get out of here?" The hesitancy in her own voice made Fumi cringe. What a stupid question to even ask.

The hairs on the back of Fumi's neck tingled and rose; the sinking feeling in her stomach told her something was deeply amiss. Run, run, every animal instinct commanded, yet she found herself spellbound into stillness by this wraith of a man who was equally as compelling as he was terrifying.

The man abruptly jerked his head upward, locking eyes with Fumi. His eyes were gold with slitted pupils like a cat's, his flesh a shadowy shade of black. He had no visible nose, and his cruelly frowning lips were the thinnest she had ever seen. No feet extended into the grass beneath the tattered remains of his hakama; there was only empty air.

"Finally, someone stronger has awoken me." He brandished the blade before him, sunlight glinting off its deadly edge. "Now, prepare yourself, little warrior. With your death, I shall finally be free!"

Fumi wanted to scream, but the sound caught in her throat, her entire body paralyzed by fear. Her parents always told her ghosts weren't real, and she had grown up thinking their word was gospel. She wished she could tell them just how wrong they were.

With fiery determination in his eyes, the dead man rushed towards her, his purple robes billowing behind him like a war banner, his deadly blade aimed right at her heart.