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Yae... Please, don't leave me all alone again...

The fact that I was able to feel anything shocked me, because I'd thought that once Sae had grabbed me there would be no hope for survival. Her grasp was so cold that I couldn't think of a comparison. Her nails dug deep and left marks on my skin that were sore to the touch, and though I'd thought that I might die as images of her ritual and Mayu's smiling face flashed across my eyes, I slowly opened them and awoke on a futon next to a small burning red candle. How long I'd been out was uncertain to me but I was aware from the moment I woke that I wasn't in my room anymore. I was within the Osaka house once again, staring blankly at the splintered closet across from me.
The red silk blanket was pulled up to my neck, but even so there was still a chill wind coming in from the atrium behind the lattice. I remembered this tatami room very well because of the figure beneath the blanket frozen in place, but it didn't dawn on me at first that I was laying in the exact same spot. Shuffling from beneath the blanket I lifted my arm to reveal the same white kimono sleeves as I'd worn before.
Something reflecting the moonlight across from me caught my eye. Sitting on a small stand in the alcove, which still held the faded white flower scroll, was a vase with a white spider lily perched in it. Something I would have remembered seeing in the past. Somehow it looked so pure and innocent compared to the decaying world around me.

We picked it together, do you remember Yae?

A pair of hands gripped my shoulders and the room brightened around me. The scenery was changing with each blink I took, and soon I was standing in the forest. Warm summer air softly blowing against my skin, cicadas singing in the trees above, and Sae sitting against the rocks by the running stream. She was humming some kind of tone as her fingers parted the flowing waters. This felt so familiar, like the place Mayu and I use to play in when we were younger. The place where this nightmare had began for us. When Sae noticed me she turned with a bright smile on her face. Her skin wasn't pail, her kimono unstained by the blood of her victims. She seemed like a perfectly normal and happy girl.
"Yae come here! You'll never believe what I found."
I was speechless at first at how she acted, because I'd never known anything besides her twisted self. As I stepped closer she stood to reveal a small patch of wild spider lilies all crimson in color. When Sae lifted her hands toward me I flinched for a moment, until I saw that she was only holding one of the lilies, white in color.
"It's rare to find white ones."
"Why did you pick it?" The words involuntarily came from my lips, as if I'd become a puppet. "Now it'll die sooner than it should have."
Her features changed to a mix of worry and sadness, so without thinking I wrapped my arms around her. As if trying to shield her from sorrow because she was a fragile thing I wanted to keep safe. It was the same thing I did to Mayu at times, when she looked as if she might cry, because she was my sister and I loved her. I didn't want her to be sad, Yae would do the same I believe.
I assumed this flashback must be a memory of Sae's, so I wouldn't taint it but let it play out like a scene from a movie. I still knew that Mayu was my sister.
"It's alright, we'll take it back with us and put it in a vase. Let's enjoy it while it lasts." Her smile returned.
"We don't get to sneak away often so when we do I always try to bring something back, to remember the day we spent together."
I took the flower from her hand, but from the moment my fingers wrapped around it visions flashed through my mind. Yae and Sae returning to the village, the priests catching them trying to sneak into the Kurosawa house and taking them to their father. Separating them by using the cells Mayu had once been locked in, within the Kurosawa and Tachibana houses. In the end, Itsuki placed the flower Sae had been holding in a vase within the tatami room.
My body jolted and I fell to my knees as the hands grasping my shoulders returned. For a moment my head began to feel dizzy, but when my eyes focused I saw that I was no longer in the forest or the tatami room, but in the doll room of the Kiryu house. Memories of the twin girls came to mind when looking at the empty pedestals.
"Yae, are you alright?"
"Yeah..." I slowly turned my head back to see her release me as I stood. She was holding something small under her arm.

The doll Yoshitatsu Kiryu made for us. That day I was so sad when we left, because we couldn't take the doll with us. One of fathers many strict rules about focusing only on the ritual...

My eyes scanned the room for Sae's other half, the voice that echoed in my ears wasn't the same gentle tone that her good half before me spoke. Acting against my will I walked toward her and took the doll to examine it. Straight black hair reached to it's shoulders, wrapped in a red obi and white kimono, to match our outfits I assumed.
"Kiryu said he made a set of twin dolls that looked exactly like it only taller, but we can't see them yet."
"Why can't we?" My lips moved on their own.
"It's a gift to witness when we pass over the bridge connecting the twin houses."
That comment made me think back to when Sae had chased me when I dropped the camera. Those dolls opened the door to the bridge, identical twins with a red cord around their waist. Even then when I was in that room she had called me Yae. I began to wonder if she was that blind to think I was her actual sister or that determined to make me believe it.
My eyelids suddenly felt heavy as Sae's smiling face blurred into nothing more than blotchy colors. A part of me wanted to scream in protest to stop making me see such things, but when I blinked again and the pain in my head faded I saw white mist in the distance. My hands clasped the wooden rail of the bridge that lead to the Kurosawa house. At first I began to think it was another memory, but upon scanning my surroundings I saw that the village had been returned to it's horrific state. Patches of thick fog floated in various areas around the bridge, the waters jet-black surface revealed nothing below.

These memories, had they been what Mayu was seeing the whole time she'd been possessed by Sae? But surely they weren't good, because all she's ever speak of were the tragic events of the past. As I turned toward the gate leading away from the Kurosawa house I felt as if I was being watched. A cold chill rippled across my arms and down my spine, the memories of that poor drowned woman surfaced. Surely I wouldn't have to fight for my life without a camera?
"Yae..." Sae's voice sweetly whispered in my ear, I turned back quickly as she placed a hand on my cheek. "After all this time you've finally come back to me. That night when we tried to run, I fell... But I knew you'd come back to me. You won't leave me again right?" Like a marionette my lips curled into a smile, for a moment her face resembled Mayu's.
Against my will yet somehow not fully fighting it I placed my hand atop hers. "Of course not. I'll never leave your side."

Mayu's POV
The daydream of the past I was trapped in was becoming all to real it seemed. I wanted to believe that the village had been saved and was now restored to a peaceful state, that Mio hadn't given up her sight in the real world just for things to come to this, that the ritual was over. But from the events Yae told me about Sae returning it seemed hopeless to wish that everything would be alright. That's all I could do though, was hope that Mio would awaken from whatever daydream she'd been placed in away from me. Perhaps somewhere in some time like our own, we were still unconsciously side by side.
Yae had lead me down to the great hall as night fell, nothing compared to the thick darkness within the other village. Seeing how clear the night sky was when I passed the small garden by the stairs, how peaceful and at ease the villagers were, it seemed so much more deceiving now then it had before when I was with Mio.
"Why did you bring me here?"
Yae walked to the irori and this was when I noticed that the fire wasn't burning anymore, in it's place was a large pile of ash that looked as if it had built over years. There were patches here and there that looked as if someone had split water onto it, but after a moment I realized that it wasn't water at all. The floor below my feet was stained with crimson marks. Some of which were still wet.
"Yae what's going on?" She knelt in a small puddle of the blood and began digging through the ashes. "Please answer me!"
"It's here, it's hiding right here." She cupped the ash in her hand as if it were merely sand and brushed it out of the way. I couldn't see anything nor did I understand what she was looking for. What could be hiding in the ash?
A ringing noise echoed in my ears as I glanced between the walls around me. I could tell something was wrong, for with each few blinks they seemed to change, become dull in color. Then I could make out faded hand prints that were becoming a more vivid red in color. The idea hit me instantly that Mio had somehow broken away from Sae's curse.
"Could it be possible that-"
"Everything is becoming what it once was." Yae's words finished me sentence. She was standing now and dusting something off in her hands, when she turned my way I saw that it was none other than the cursed object that helped free me and Mio before. The camera obscura.
"Mio dropped it in the abyss, how is it here of all places?"
"Sometime after Seijiro Makabe was taken captive in the village someone attempted to burn this camera in the hopes of destroying it's contents, but apparently they were unsuccessful because it didn't burn. After Itsuki found it he placed it in the Osaka house so I am not sure why it's still here."
There was a sudden groan behind me and I feared to look at what it was. Another one followed it along with a horrified scream and plea for help. Sae's victims were returning to the great hall.
Yae placed the camera in my hands. "Use it to capture my spirit. I'm not sure what will happen but when you confront Sae I may be of some help if you keep the camera with you."
"But how?"
"Take it now! Before the village is restored and my spirit is tainted."
All I could manage to do was nod, holding the camera up to eye level I didn't worry about aiming and snapped the shot. Yae suddenly let out a shrill scream that startled me. I hadn't meant to hurt her if I did, but slowly her form faded and the camera in my hand pulsed. I could only believe that this meant she was still with me.
A thick miasma had began to seep into the room around my feet. Any small detail of the once peaceful village was now gone, this place was the same nightmare I'd once been trapped in. That left me to wonder where Mio was now and what was happening to the camera and backing away toward the sliding door Yae's words came back to me like a crashing wave, what she had said about Mio being the new version of her. Sae wasn't after me anymore, all she cared about was Mio. With her she could complete the ritual.
Even though I wanted it to be me who Sae was after, because I knew Mio would then be safe, it appeared our roles had been completely reversed from what they once were. I had to stop this ritual, I had to save Mio. There must be a way to escape this endless nightmare and the only thing I could imagine bringing peace to Sae was Yae. All I could do now was hope that her plan worked and that I wasn't too late when I reached them.