Forgot to include my disclaimer: As this is a work of fan fiction, the characters and settings of Fatal Frame are still under their original copyrights. I make no claim to them.

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Chapter 3: The Girl and the Doll

Akane Kiryu, like so many other remaining twins, wasn't the same person she had been when she returned home to her father. As she became more and more depressed and withdrawn, to the point that she wouldn't so much as utter a word to anyone around her, Yoshitatsu likewise became increasingly desperate to find a way to ease her pain.

Fortunately, he was in a position to do just that. Yoshitatsu specialized in doll making, and had an innate knowledge of western mechanics. Eventually, he reached the conclusion that the best, and only way to cheer Akane up, would be to construct a life-sized replica, a doll, of Azami.

Initially, his idea seemed to work marvelously. Akane and the Azami doll quickly became inseparable, and Akane cheered up. Told about it, even Ryokan liked the idea. The villagers of All Gods would be less likely to step out of line if they didn't have to feel too guilty about their actions, and that state of mind could be achieved if the remaining twins were to live their lives happily.

But Ryokan's glee faded away into feelings of unease when he received a visitor one fateful night. He had been meeting with the some of the veiled priests that were closest to him, when another priest joined them in the great hall. When he came stumbling into the room, tripping haphazardly over his own robes in evident panic, Ryokan knew immediately that something was wrong.

When asked, the panicking priest, who had come from the Kiryu household, blurted out a brief recount of what he had just seen. Ryokan looked on, feeling panicked himself, as the priest told him an almost impossible sounding story of how the seemingly harmless "Azami" doll had become possessed by macabre forces and ultimately taken control of Akane's soul and body. The priest had returned to the Kiryu house to find an already dead Yoshitatsu, with the hands of Akane and the doll wrapped around his throat. It didn't take the "reunited" twins long to turn on the priest himself; he had barely escaped with his life, and come in search of help.

Overcoming his fears quickly, Ryokan walked over to a wall, where a sword was mounted on a plaque. It was his father's sword, and he would put it to use wherever he saw the chance. Rallying the other priests, Ryokan led them into the Kiryu house, where they quickly overwhelmed and restrained the Azami doll. As the priests went looking for Akane, a hollow and maniacal laugh began to emanate from the mouth of the doll. The voice that croaked out wasn't Azami's; it was malevolent and inhuman. When the priests finally found Akane, her frail body stuffed into a closet, they knew why the spirit of the doll was so gleeful.

They had been too late. Akane, the latest remaining twin of All Gods, was dead.

Ryokan never got to use his sword, as he happened to chance upon some notes left behind by his late friend. They were instructions detailing how to destroy the doll that he had created. Deciding that it would be best if Akane's body were disposed of in the same manner as the doll's, Akane and the Azami doll that she had literally sold her soul for were hung from the house's rafters and cast into the Hellish Abyss without fanfare or concern.

A decade passed in relative peace, until the time eventually came that the next crimson sacrifice was needed. The Kiryu family had waned since the loss of its twins and family master ten years ago, and few of its members persisted in life. Still, the Kiryu house was important for being one of the places in which the twin children destined to take part in the sacrifice would stay, in their final days together.

A couple of days before the sacrifice was meant to occur, two twin girls of sixteen years, belonging to the Osaka family, had been left almost alone in the Kiryu house to reflect on what they would soon take part in, with only one member of the Kiryu family to share the house with them. The other Kiryus were scattered in various parts of the village.

Ryokan, actually taking time to relax in his manor's courtyard for once, knew that this sacrifice would succeed, just like the last one. He had made a point of talking to the two Osaka girls personally, and they were both willing and able to carry out their sacred duty. Only a couple of days separated him from success.

Perfect...

Until a shrill scream tore through the skies, reverberating off of the gate to Kurosawa manor. He heard it barely, but from the air of dread that Ryokan now felt, it may as well have emanated from right next to him. The scream, it seemed, had come from the Kiryu house.

Running toward the source of the blood curdling scream, Ryokan tore off his robe so that he could quicken his pace. As he bolted across the bridge that lead away from his house, two more screams joined the first one, coming from the same source and sounding no less horrible.

When he finally arrived at the entrance to the Kiryu house, a small crowd of curious villagers had gathered at the doors. A few priests that had been standing guard in the village had already acted, some trying to break down the Kiryu house's locked doors, and others opting to take the long way around, by entering the Tachibana family's house and crossing the thin bridge that connected them to the Kiryu house. Either way, everyone was in a state of panic; the sound of shattering furniture and agonizing moans had just come from within, but now the house was silent. Too silent.

Ryokan waited for the priests to break down the doors, and then followed them into the house, effectively joining the search. When he called out to the other villagers, ordering them to tell him when they had found anything, one of them immediately answered his call in a shaken voice.

When Ryokan worked his way through the twisting halls to the source of the call, he found himself in the "twins room", the room where the sacrificial siblings spent much of their time. He was side by side with one of the villagers, a grown man who was sobbing uncontrollably. What could this poor soul possibly have seen!

And then he saw what the villager saw: The two Osaka twins, huddled together at one end of the room amidst a pile of broken furniture, as pale as death itself.

They were dead, that much was certain. Looking closer, Ryokan could see that both twins had bruises around their neck, and it didn't take much imagination for him to be sure of exactly how they had died. But who killed them? Some random activist who was opposed to the ritual, maybe?

As if the true source of the panic sought to answer Ryokan's question, the villager standing in the room started to groan and cough. Ryokan's eyes darted over to the man's increasingly pale face, but he couldn't interpret what was wrong until his eyes focused on something surrounding the man's waist. The sight made him want to retch in disbelief.

Akane Kiryu was standing there, a malicious smile on her face.

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The story darkens. Reviews will be appreciated.