A/N- Right. Has anyone reading this gotten to play Fatal Frame 3? I don't have a PS2 and I can tell you now, thanks to the ten-million crappy FPS games out there, I'm not gonna find a complete plot summary anywhere. I need to know what happens/happened to the Camera Obscura after that game. I don't mind if it just nicely faded out of existence. ;)

A/N- And on a random note, Woman in Dark scares the crap out of me.

NOTE- I DON'T OWN FATAL FRAME, FATAL FRAME II, MIO, MAYU, THE CAMERA OBSCURA, THE KUSABI, OR ANY OTHER GHOSTS MENTIONED.

The Many Faces of The Kusabi

Chapter Eight: Fall

"We will perform the ritual with Sae al-" A buzzing noise, a brief second of static.

"One small step for ma-" BZZT.

"Now we add in the cinnamon to-" BZZT.

A Spanish program about lizards. There's a faint, distant noise, seemingly coming from a separate plane than the green lizard perched on a log. It sounds like a small argument. Suddenly, BZZT.

A chef is cutting up some celery on a well-cleaned cutting board on an equally sanitary counter. Some recipe name is on the top of the screen...vision... thing. There's a scratching noise, faint and distant like the argument. After a second of frantic scribbling, someone says "Okay, go." BZZT.

"Uh, okay, um... Z, four, Q, another Q... uh, a third Q, and the Batman symbol." BZZT.

Angst!Sae standing in front of the screen-thing, the background looking like some kind of dark rock. She taps the left-hand corner a few times. "Is this thing on?" Someone in the background says "Yeah." She straightens her posture and clears her throat. "Uh, yeah. I don't know which of you is getting this, but, ahhhhh, there's something really, really bad going on down here at the Abyss-thing. Should probably bring that instrument of de- camera. Pretty please?" She glanced behind her for a second. "Yeah. Please hurry." BZZT.

Static.

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Mio reflexively yanked her hand away from Mayu's, the odd vision still in her mind, though some part of her shrugged and said "Well, at least it ain't creepy kids hanging in a hallway somewhere."

"Sorry." She said after a second, looking into her twin's eyes.

"It's alright." Said Mayu, smiling a little. That particular breed of vision only appeared once or twice in the whole game anyway.

They stared into each other's eyes for a second, digesting this new vision, before Mio asked "Should we go?"

Mayu nodded. "If we don't, they might go back to trying to kill us again."

That was one of those rare times where Mayu's creepy statements, casually of course, didn't send shivers down Mio's spine.

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Most of the villagers knew the truth about the Kusabis, to one degree or another. Usually, the discovery came about when -insert 'brother' here- gave a strange answer as to why -insert 'brother' here- wasn't around, or visible. If The Kusabi, as a whole, had its way, it would simply project its hallucinations into the mind of the other ghost present. But it's much harder to trick a ghost's mind, requiring much more energy and focus than, say, a human.

Yet, when a few spirits were paid t- bravely ventured down to the Abyss, they saw two spirits. One was Angst!Kusabi, suspended in the air by his neck. The other was someone new.

It was as though some deity had a little too much to drink and decided to go and make a Kusabi brother infused with vampire, werewolf, zombie, jiang-shi, Barbie, chupacabra, gorgon, unicorn, angel, cake, demon, wolf, dragon, spider, ninja, vulture, space alien, pirate, lawyer, and a touch of cute fluffy kitten.

Okay, not really.

It was like the other 'brothers,' a freaky-looking guy with really poofy hair and ropes. They all do, underneath the various individual attachments.

This new one had one of his arms tied to his chest, and his ropes were what they were meant to be; not a makeshift straightjacket, not used for turning pages, not metaphorical writhing snakes. They were spread, making him seem impossibly large and as though they were close to ripping him apart. They even looked like a butterfly's spread wings, though they were far from lovely and delicate.

His eyes were dark and rather blank; he wanted to kill, but had all eternity to do it. Occasionally there was even a flicker of pleasure at the thought.

And that was what was holding Angst!Kusabi by the throat in front of the Abyss, looking mildly interested, and causing more than one ghost to run back up the stairs screaming.

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Mio and Mayu made their way down the underground path, Mio making sure that she moved slowly enough that Mayu could keep up. Memories of the last time Mayu was outrun still sat vividly in her mind...

"YEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAW!" Young!Mio yelled in a fierce battlecry, running down the forest path for no obvious reason.

Young!Mayu stood there for a few seconds, stunned. Eventually, she said "Oh my god, she just ran in."

Young!Mayu ran after her occasionally-not-bright sister, yelling in her general direction, in varying levels of politeness, to stop or at least slow down. Suddenly, her foot slid. Looking down, she had about half a second to think to herself, "Oh crap."

Young!Mio eventually found her way to where Young!Mayu lay, facedown and far too still. For a second, she feared the worst, then...

"... Mio, you are just stupid as hell." She said, voice muffled by a forest floor of leaves and dirt.

"At least I have chicken." Mio replied, holding up what seemed to be a form of the mentioned poultry.

But she did not have chicken, only a deceiving pile of leaves.

Mentally shaking herself out of her thoughts, she realized that there were no Mourners bumping into the walls and talking about prune juice as usual. As the twins went further down the path, they began to hear and sense the ghosts ahead. A Mourner stood towards the right-hand side of the tunnel, mumbling what sounded like "Dude... what?..."

They continued walking, the number of Mourners increasing as they came closer to whatever the big mess was.

When they reached the very end of the tunnel and stepped into the candle-filled chamber, Mio almost gasped in reflex, the intake of air being held down only by the ever-present fact that the Wanderer often had them around for tea on Tuesdays.

There was a line of what looked suspiciously like yellow Silly String drawn across the entrance to the next tunnel. Clustered around it was variety of ghosts; Pete the Mourner, a few priests, the Ceremony Master, Mr. Kiryu, and Angst!Sae. Nearby, a few People in Dark were shooting stupid videos with a tripod camera.

A little nervously, Mio and Mayu approached. Angst!Sae turned and scampered towards them, looking a little relieved.

"What's happening?" Asked Mayu, taking Mio's hand to keep her from exclaiming something like "Holy crap!" and running away.

"You have to come see..." Angst!Sae said, sounding greatly and genuinely worried about whatever it was.

Carefully stepping over the Silly String, the three girls snuck down the tunnel, Angst!Sae in the front. Towards the end of the path, Angst!Sae held up a pale hand to stop.

"Alright, slip up here and look." She whispered, drifting aside and partially into the wall so that the twins wouldn't need to walk through her.

They carefully tiptoed a few steps down the path, both of them rather tense. When they saw the ghosts, they both had to use their hands to stifle a gasp and other sounds of surprise and shock. However, Mayu was the only one to say "Holy shit!"

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The three of them regrouped further up the tunnel, close enough that they could see the crowd of ghosts, and far away enough that the Ceremony Master couldn't begin his distracting scowl-fest.

"So what are we going to do?" Asked Mio.

"We don't have a lot to work with. The only thing I can think of is using an Intimidating Sho- I mean, my new power, to try and stun him enough that Yae can run in and start using the instrument of d- camera." Replied Angst!Sae.

Mio ignored the usage of 'Yae' for the ten millionth time this little vacation. "What do you mean by new power?" A dark part of her mind scrambled for a pencil and paper, should the ghosts start trying to kill them again.

"I'll show you." Angst!Sae turned, looking at the candle-lit room where most of the ghosts were. "Hey, you! Woman in Dark!" She yelled.

The ever-fugly ghost-ess drifted over to them and hovered nearby. "Yes?"

Angst!Sae's eyes suddenly glazed over, staring right through her. Woman in Dark looked a little confused, then...

"Oh my god, Canon-B-Gone!" She screamed and turned to run, but a number of Black Butterflies (tm) swooped in and clung to her in mass. Apparently, these were the fat butterflies, for she was pinned to the spot. For a few seconds, she squirmed and squealed, before going oddly limp. The black butterflies fluttered off of her, save for a few that stayed near. Combined with her bowed head, Woman in Dark looked like a fuglier version of Sae.

Suddenly, she turned around, posture instantly straighter and eyes bright.

"Say, love, would you be interested in a cup o' tea?" She asked in a new British accent, acting as though she was like this every day.

Angst!Sae's gaze sharply returned to normal. Woman in Dark stood there for a second, staring off into space, before she too returned to normal. After the half a second needed for the memories of Canon-b-Gone to return, she ran away screaming.

"...Wow." Said Mio and Mayu at the same time, something they rarely did.

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The new Kusabi (Henceforth temporarily known as WrathKusabi) dangled Angst!Kusabi by his left arm, creating a slight contradiction in this chapter by using his upper-right rope.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaaaasseeeeeeeeee leeeeet meeeeee gooooooooooooooooooo!" Angst!Kusabi whined in his most annoying voice, the voice that would make any adult within thirty feet exclaim "Oh my god, shut up!"

WrathKusabi ignored him, instead cocking his head ever-so-slightly. In reply, Angst!Kusabi stuck out a trembling lower lip, another one his deadly weapons, but it fared no better than the whining.

It was then that something wispy and intangible hissed into the back of WrathKusabi's mind. Turning, he saw a girl in her teens, dressed in a black kimono with a red obi. He couldn't see her face, as her head was bowed slightly, her long black hair hiding most of her visage.

WrathKusabi growled a like a wary animal, revealing that for some freaky reason he had sharp canines.

The girl did nothing.

After a few seconds, he turned back to the captive Angst!Kusabi, who was also staring at the girl. However, his eyes were wide and frightened, but not for himself.

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About thirty seconds earlier...

Mio stared in numb horror at the two Kusabi ghosts. One Kusabi, a lone One-Hit-Kill-Your-Mirror-Stone-Sucks-Hahaha was bad enough, but two?

By this point, thankfully, her mind had learned that panicking and getting scared only made ghost fights harder. Shortly after that, she learned that that was probably the first thing anyone would notice. D'oh.

Anyway, she stood tense at the Abyss entrance, about a foot away from where the rope hung from the last gate. Mio tensed as the bigger ghost turned its head, and Mio squeezed Mayu's hand, but it looked at something about thirty feet to her left. It growled and bared its teeth for a minute, but turned away.

Mio glanced at Mayu for a second. They were both worried... Mayu had to stay here while Mio had to fight this thing...

Her cue would come at any second.

When the ghost let out an animal howl and dropped its captive to the floor, Mio swallowed and ran into the Hell-Turned-Arena.

Raising her camera, loaded with Type 90 for now, she saw that it was ready to make a Zero Shot. She pressed the shutter button and the Kusabi-thing let out an angry cry, stumbling a few feet. Stopping itself about a foot away from the Abyss, it glared at her, still looking oddly animalistic. The camera still promised a Zero Shot...

Mio pressed the shutter button again, and the ghost fell into the Abyss with a wretched scream.

"Huh?" She slowly lowered her camera, staring at the air where the ghost's face was. After about five seconds, she glanced behind her. Angst!Sae drifted out of the wall where she had been hiding after casting Canon-B-Gone. Their eyes met. Angst!Sae shrugged.

Suddenly something big and gray lunged out from the wall directly behind Angst!Sae. Mio, afraid there wasn't enough time to take a picture, leapt to the left. The Kusabi ghost missed her, stopping itself after a few feet and disappearing.

Mio frantically looked around, afraid it might lunge from a wall again. It did, this time from the east. Better prepared for the lunge, Mio shot its picture. Fatal Frame!

After the harsh combo that almost sent it back into the wall, the wraith hissed and faded. Since she knew that it would be another four or five seconds before it attacked again, Mio quickly changed her film to Type Zero.

She made about three of these Fatal Frame combos, the last of which began with the OMGWTF Power Lens. About three-fourths of its health was gone!

In the pause between lunges, Mio never lowered her camera.

Ten seconds had passed.

Fifteen seconds.

Thirty seconds.

Mio allowed the camera to dip below eye level... Did it run away?

"MIO! LOOK OUT!" Mayu screamed, sounding terrified.

On a whim, she looked up, raising the camera at the same time...

The ghost hung from a web of ropes...

Suddenly it dropped, screaming, arm outstretched... Grinning...

Too late to move...

Mayu screamed again...

Something massive and black, a rush of air...

"MIO!" Mayu...

And then there was nothing.