Thanks to Fan of Games, AuthorNicola, The Hermit Dragon, and Texty Monster for reviewing the last chapter. Especially big thanks since most of you left good feedback telling me what you liked or didn't like about the chapter. I'm back with another update after about a month of waiting. Not as long as my last update, but it still clocks in at around 7,000 words.

Please note that this chapter is a bit strange, and very different from the others. We're exploring the plot here, and for the first time in the entire story, the questions that have been set forth in earlier chapters are finally going to start being answered. In particular, the following two questions will no longer be mysteries:

1. By now we're aware of some force operating in the village (the "unknown third party", as Fan of Games put it). What is this third party, and what is its intent?

2. It's commonly disputed in the Fatal Frame world, as well as among fans of the game, who was at fault for the Repentance. Is it Ryokan's fault since he tried to perform the ritual with only one twin, or are Yae and Sae to blame for fleeing the village in the first place? You'll start to learn the answer to that question in this chapter, but the answer might not be what you're expecting, so brace yourself.

This chapter also has something in common with Chapter 21. That chapter contained first person narratives from Ryokan's point of view. In this chapter, there is also some first person storytelling marked off by special scene dividers that look like this: (xxxXXXxxx). However, the narration is from Ryokogu's point of view, not Ryokan's! We're gonna get to see stuff through his eyes. Finally, be aware that some of the locations and events from Fatal Frame 4 make an appearance in Ryokogu's history. Yes, the fourth game is in this, but there are no spoilers from the game itself, so you can read it without fear if you haven't played the fourth game yet. And if you don't know anything about that game, don't worry. Everything should still make sense to you.

Sorry that this chapter is a bit boring, and can get confusing in places. Remember, if you're confused about something and have questions, do not hesitate to ask me in a review or PM. I check my account here very often and can quickly answer questions about this chapter if you have any.

xxXXxx

Chapter 26: Ryokogu's Legacy

Back in the center of All Gods village, the gate to Itsuki's storehouse swung open as Ryokan staggered through, his legs ready to give out under him. He knew he had no time to waste (the Malice impatiently told him so), but the old man was exhausted, and potentially near death. He couldn't even remember the last time he had eaten, and the inky river water was like poison to him. His joints ached, his head throbbed, and his heart was keeping an unnaturally high pace. Surviving in this village would probably be easier for a younger person, but Ryokan had been nearing the end of his expected life even before the village fell under its curse. It was sad, but he had to face it...he was just old.

Plus he was still worried about the fire that had nearly killed him. He knew it couldn't have been an accident. Whoever had tried to kill him with the fire hadn't been the first, of course; this potential assassin was just another to add to the growing list of monstrosities, human or otherwise, that had tried to kill him during his life. This one, however, had come too close, and there was the question of who or what had caused it.

"Maybe an old enemy of mine is still alive in the village somewhere..." Ryokan wondered as he sat down on the soft dirt, fighting the urge to keep his heavy eyelids from closing. "Itsuki, are you up there?" he called softly. No answer came for several minutes. Frowning, the old man hauled himself up and stumbled over to the window. Peering into the dark storehouse, he found Itsuki's body hanging from a noose tied to the rafters. There would be no more help from him tonight...

With no one to talk to and the Malice interfering with his ability to think, Kurosawa's attempts to nail down a possible identity to his would-be slayer didn't come easily. So many people had found reasons to hate him in life, a curse that most Ceremony Masters were familiar with. Kiyomi, Kanehira and his wife, Sae, Yae, Itsuki, Eichiro, Yuzuki, Seijiro (now the Kusabi), Ryozo, and possibly others.

The Repentance had killed most of them, and their spirits weren't smart enough to comprehend fire as a weapon. It was possible that one or more of them had actually survived, but the only people that Ryokan knew were still living were Yae and Ryozo. The attacker couldn't be either of them, though. Yae may have hated her father, but she was far too kind to carry out a plot that involved killing him, nor would she allow Ryozo to do it for her. Besides, they had nothing to gain from returning to the village. More likely they were still in the Himuro Mansion, blissfully unaware of what would happen to them in the later years of their lives.

That left Sae and Itsuki as possible culprits, them being the two clever enough to actually start a fire, but he had already ruled Sae out. Itsuki, on the other hand, had sent him to that house, all to find a book. He had loathed Ryokan in silence for most of his life. Had the search for Ryokogu's book all been a trick to lure him into a trap?

"I think trusting the Malice is a bad idea, and so is bringing Yae back here."

Ryokan stiffened slightly as the white haired boy's words echoed through his head. If Itsuki was still capable of speaking to him, the Malice would surely be his choice for the one who started the fire. It was a sensible conclusion for someone who didn't know better; the Malice was a conscious embodiment of evil, after all. But it still needed Ryokan to help further its goals. The demon wanted the sacrifice, meaning that it needed Yae brought back, which Ryokan couldn't do if he was dead. Plus, the Malice was already integrated into his body and soul. If it really wanted him to die, it would've killed him already by stopping his heart, or something similar. Of course, his heart was already beating abnormally fast, so maybe the Malice was doing just that, or trying to, anyway.

One thing was clear. If the Malice really was trying to kill him, it would have a reason. A good one, something powerful or important enough to supersede its desire for the Crimson Sacrifice. It seemed unlikely that such a motive could even exist, but it was always possible, and if it did exist, maybe a clue to it was in the book.

"That settles it," Ryokan echoed his thoughts in a hushed tone as he turned the book's velvet cover, "if nothing of value lies in this book, then Itsuki did try to send me to my death. In that case, I will leave the village and return with Yae. But, if I do discover something, then what comes next, and what will I do? I guess it depends on what I find."

The book wasn't very long, and seemed to be Ryokogu's memoir of his own life. The old man opened it, glad that it didn't appear to be long to the extent that he would have to skim everything. He was expecting Ryokogu's story to match what he had been told as a child, anyway, so there likely wouldn't be many surprises waiting for him.

Immediately, a map drawn on the inside of the book's cover caught his eye. It was a map of the world, with several X's marking destinations. Most of them were scattered around Japan, but some marked locations as distant as China, Australia, and even Europe. "He didn't seriously visit all these places, did he?" the old man wondered. Quickly shrugging off his confusion, Ryokan started to read the pages.

A couple of hours passed, with the old man trying to ignore his surroundings as he read. Even though he knew that his current location was relatively safe, the heightened state of awareness he had been in since the Repentance was biting into his ability to focus. Even the slightest sound of a twig snapping in the woods behind him would rile his fears and force his eyes away from the book and toward the noise's point of origin for several minutes.

The old man was beginning to lose hope of finding anything useful in the strangely boring pages when he reached the middle and stopped. The next chapter was marked with a strange disclaimer:

Even if this book makes it safely back into the village, I expect it will be destroyed by the veiled priests if they find it to contain any subversive content. But it took years of research, endless travels, and a lifetime of wisdom to finally collect enough knowledge to draw my conclusions, so to keep them safe I'll be hiding the more important points in the book's center, and marking them with my special seal to prevent their alteration or decay. If you try to damage these pages, the damage will attack your own body as well, so keep out if your intent is to ruin me even further.

To everyone else, welcome. I'd like to jump straight into sharing my discoveries with you, but I don't think you'll understand why I even searched for them unless you know something personal about me first...

Suddenly curious, Ryokan examined the nail of his left forefinger before bringing it down to scratch the page very lightly. At once, a similarly light scar appeared on the back of his hand, which he needed to squint in the dark light in order to see clearly.

"From the look of it, this book was written in a location outside the village, and the word 'safely' makes it sound like someone didn't want it here. But...if he was the Ceremony Master, the one whom the priests were supposed to serve, why the secrecy?" the old man wondered. Finally, it seemed the old book was keeping its unspoken promise to tell him something interesting.

Have you risked our life enough yet? Hurry up before you pass out on the ground. The Malice interrupted him before he could read further, again sounding oddly anxious for him to keep moving. Ryokan obliged its request anyway. Staying in the same place for too long was dangerous, and even amidst his fear, exhaustion was beginning to get the better of him. Actually, the drowsiness went beyond normal fatigue. He was nearing the loss of consciousness that so often preambled death, and the best way to avoid it was not to get too tired or too exhausted. To stay alive, he would have to read while alternating movement and rest. Grunting softly, he rose as his bones cracked in protest, and with some delay he staggered wearily toward the gate, passing through it without even remembering to check the road for signs of danger. He kept the book open in front of him, grazing its pages as his subconscious mind steered him around the village:

I. My Life

Twenty years after I became Ceremony Master, I was starting to believe that nothing would go wrong during my reign. I can't really explain why. Chances are that, if you're from All Gods village, you believe that I was responsible for the golden age that we enjoyed while I watched over us. What you don't know is that, until the time just before I left my village, I hadn't been any different from any other Ceremony Master. It was good luck, and nothing more, that led to those successful years that people mistakenly attribute to me now. Seasons were kind to us, wars in surrounding lands ceased which made the village easy to defend, and crime plummeted for no reason that I could determine. It's ironic that, when I finally did something worthy of real praise from my peers, they instead fought to erase evidence of it from existence, but more on that in a moment.

Our happiness, especially mine, was shattered a few mere days before the planned date for the next Crimson Sacrifice. When it happened, it happened so quickly that it didn't seem real until it was over, like a nightmare brought to life. A mourner, several of them in fact, had collaborated to cause unrest in the Hellish Abyss. It got so bad that guards had to be called away from their posts to quell the riot, and in the confusion one or two of the creatures infiltrated my house. By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late. My elder daughter, Tsuzuru Kurosawa, had been murdered by them. Worse, my younger daughter, Tsuzuki Kurosawa, found out about it soon after. Refusing to believe it, she instead believed her twin had run away and that I was just covering it up. The grief and anger consumed her, and she had to be imprisoned in the storehouse for her own safety. My wife was traumatized by the occurrence. I lost...

"Aaaahhh...!" Ryokan's head jerked up from the book instantly as he slipped on the dirt road and came crashing onto his knees...hard. Biting his lower lip to fight the urge to yell any further, the old man clumsily shifted his weight, so that he was sitting on the road rather than kneeling. Shutting his eyes tight, he grasped his aching legs as stabbing pains rippled up them, all the way to his head, where he could see spots dancing around his eyes. Fortunately, the bones didn't seem to be broken. "Well that's perfect! At least the pain will keep me awake."

Taking the opportunity to look up at his surroundings, Ryokan recognized his current location after a moment of dizzy staring. He was sitting in front of the Tachibana house, near the path that led to the Kureha Shrine. Come to think of it, this was the path that he might need to take anyway, so he might as well continue his inane venture in that direction.

But...although he hadn't walked very far, the old man was already too weak to move anymore. He would need more energy to survive the walk through the forest that followed using the Kureha Shrine door, so he decided to sit down underneath a lighted coal brazier in front of the house. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, the old man enjoyed the soothing heat of the flames. Before daring to immerse himself in the book, the nervous man took one final survey of his surroundings, turning his stiff head with some difficulty to check every corner and shadow for possible threats. It was difficult to judge the relative safety of his location with his tiredness casting a fog over his senses, but it did appear that he was alone in front of the house, and the only audible sound was the constant crackling of coal in the brazier above him. For a fallback plan, he could always dart into or behind the Tachibana house and hide if any spirits materialized nearby. Knowing this, Ryokan turned his head down to the pages and explored the book further.

Looking back on it now, I can't say that I'm surprised that Tsuzuki reacted in such a horrible way, even though it contradicted her formerly kind nature so greatly. This is how all twins in this village act, without exception. In their relationship, the elder twin always wants to spend her life with the younger twin, at any cost. But the younger twin will claim that they can be together only in death, and he or she will die, or even kill, to see this dream become a reality. Neither of them are ever sympathetic to the other's wishes. It's sad, really; in a world where the twins are supposed to understand each other so intricately, they really turn out to be quite stubborn, and selfish, in the end. They're no better than the stubborn Ceremony Masters.

It's a dynamic has existed and thrived for centuries. Why should my twins be any different?

The veiled priests universally claimed that an uprising among the mourners, staged due to poor working conditions, was the cause of their attack, but I think that even the priests are smart enough to realize that this isn't true. The mourners are as fiercely as loyal to the village as the priests are, but unlike the priests, they don't possess most of the reasoning and emotional capacity necessary to any "revolution". They're mindless, and there's no way that they did this. Not without help, anyway...

They also suggested that I should sacrifice Tsuzuki alone, to appease the abyss, but what I chose to do instead was far different from anything that they ever would've suggested. With only a couple of days left before the sacrifice was due, I made my choice...

Now Ryokan was on the edge of his seat, and he felt alert again. The feeling that he was about to learn the truth to why Eichiro had admired this man so much burned at the back of his mind, but before he could turn the page to continue, a hollow moaning forced his attention away. At first Ryokan didn't think too much of it, but almost immediately he became painfully aware of something. The howling cry that was rapidly closing in from a nearby road...he had heard it before.

"The Kusabi...!" Ryokan immediately rose from his seat, hitting his head with a sharp cry on the coal brazier in the process. Uttering a metallic groan, the brazier hurled sparks around itself, but Ryokan was far from caring about that. He hurried toward the Kureha Shrine path, where he would be concealed by the forest's shadows, but soon after he stopped abruptly. He had left the book behind!

"No...!" Stupidly Ryokan turned around and ran back into view. He scooped up the book just as the monster's gray mist materialized around the corner of the Osaka house, but by the time it lumbered into view of the area, the old man had absconded once more. Taking a brief moment to rest behind the house, Ryokan sighed deeply before pressing on. His movements were labored now, but they still carried him to his goal, if slowly.

And here I was starting to worry I'd never see it. The Malice rejoiced as the Kureha Shrine came into view. Ryokan reached the stairs that led up the hill to it, and started to climb. Hurry, hurry old man, you're close now!

Ryokan rolled his eyes at its words, but continued his ascent all the same. Cresting the hill, Ryokan came face to face with the door of the old temple. Quickly he approached it and tore the door open, stepping inside the wrecked room that made up the Kureha Shrine's interior. He walked toward the back, where the village's hidden escape route waited to be used. The blue seal that had already stopped him once was still there, but this time he had a way to break it. At once, the Malice spoke up.

Well, what are you waiting for? Your village's freedom and my sacrifice are just beyond the door. Go on...break the seal...

Ignoring the Malice's words, Ryokan became enveloped in the silence of the room. He held up the Camera Obscura and loaded the long-saved golden film into it. From the machine a whirring noise signaled its readiness to obliterate whatever spiritual presence he pointed it at. There was nothing else to stop him from leaving if he chose to. This...could be the end of his ordeal.

It made him feel strong to know all of this, but it also scared him. He felt almost beyond life itself, dazed and haunted in the knowledge that his future would likely be determined by what he pointed the camera at, right now.

"It looks like my night has finally come. But...now that it's here, I don't feel ready for it," he admitted.

The familiar weight of Ryokogu's book at his side reminded him that there was only one more thing to do. Setting the camera down, he tried to open the book again. At once the camera screeched in an attempt to warn him, but before it could a blinding white light exploded out of the book so quickly that the old man's reflexes didn't even notice. An otherworldly sense of weightlessness gripped his soul as a new vision enveloped him in its embrace.

When the blinding light cleared, Ryokan found that he no longer had any control over what he saw and felt. The effect felt akin to watching a projector video. Currently, he was staring at All Gods from atop a tall hill, where the beginnings of a road led out of the village. Since All Gods hadn't had any real roads leading out of it in at least five centuries, he realized that this must be the distant past.

Then he noticed someone standing to his left, looking on forlornly at something. He wouldn't have recognized the person if not for the striking resemblance he bore to Ryokan himself. He was noticeably younger, slightly shorter, and was wearing the same white garb that all Ceremony Masters wore.

"Ryokogu...amazing," Ryokan thought, "Are these...am I witnessing the events he wrote about in his book?" The old man followed Ryokogu's line of vision curiously and noticed the rather large sight that he was gazing at. It was an impossible sight, one that he had thought would never be seen in the village:

Huge crowds of villagers, moving in thick lines out of the village with packed belongings in tow. Around them, spaced at regular intervals, veiled priests kept watch to make sure everything stayed orderly. There were enough people present to equate to the entire village's population. That was the clue that told Ryokan what he was seeing.

"Oh my god..." Ryokan said aghast, "it's an evacuation! This is what Ryokogu did when the sacrifice failed? To think, leaving like a coward and...no!" Ryokan's disgust quickly shifted to himself as he realized he was trying to rationalize a way to ignore the book's attempt to help him. "Be smart, Ryokan. There's no room for me to be stubborn or dogmatic, not this time! Ryokogu can't help me unless I let him." With that, the old man payed attention quietly to the visions that were shown to him, and he also listened carefully to Ryokogu's words when he began to hear them in his mind.

(xxxXXXxxx)

I evacuated the village. I had to, even though it's never been done before. It wasn't easy, and it took hours to convince the priests to go along with it, but we were able to get the civilians into the forest, beyond the borders of the village. My reasoning was that, if the Hellish Abyss erupted, it wouldn't hurt any of them if they were outside its reach. We took food and enough supplies to survive in the forest for a few days, and when it was over, myself and a few priests returned to the edge of the village to see if it was still standing. We were relieved to see that there were no signs that the Hellish Abyss had overflown.

To this day, I don't regret my choice. We got lucky this time; the Hellish Abyss didn't destroy itself even though we missed a sacrifice (although that might not be a coincidence, as you will soon see). Still, I think of what would've happened if the Repentance had come. I still would've lost the village, but not a single person would've died. That made this a good decision, as well as my first true success, as far as I'm concerned.

But the veiled priests were furious with me, as were most of the other villagers. In fact, it wasn't long after the end of the evacuation and subsequent return to the village that whispers of a revolt being planned against me began to stir. I didn't think much of them, at first, but the veiled priests used the opportunity to enact a plan that I never saw coming. See, before the evacuation, I had been revered and held up by them as an icon of what a good Ceremony Master should be, and it didn't suit their agenda well when I displayed a willingness to abandon sacrifice as the sole tool to solve their problems. They mutinied, banished me to the forest, and fabricated one of the greatest lies in village history. They told the villagers that I had committed ritual suicide to atone for my "mistake", thus absolving me of most of my "wrongdoing" in their eyes. My false legacy was preserved in the village, while I was abandoned and left to die in the middle of nowhere.

Fortunately, my family still believed in me. My wife, and even my surviving daughter Tsuzuki (who had overcome her grief by then) found me in the forest and helped me to reach the relative safety of a nearby town. Once I was healthy enough to travel again, we headed south, where the director of an offshore sanatorium known as "Rougetsu Hall" was kind enough to grant us asylum.

Even if I had been forced to leave my true home, I was content just to have my family with me. For years, I enjoyed Rougetsu Island's natural beauty and spent time with my family. My daughter grew up, strong but never truly independent due to her sister's absence, and became a woman. My wife and I volunteered to do charity work in the hospital, and although we were never allowed in certain areas, it just felt good to help others in a way that didn't involve sacrifice. For the most part, I was at peace with myself, although I still missed and cared for my old village, even though it had abandoned me. I would worry about its people, wondering if the Ceremony Master that replaced me was up to the task of keeping them safe.

Our paradise went uninterrupted until I was in my early 40s. During the beginning of summer of one year, my daughter (now 24 years old) approached me and told me that she had been nominated by the people of the island to participate in a special festival called the "Rougetsu Kagura". Specifically, she wanted to play the part of the festival's lead dancer, the "Utsuwa". It was just a tourist attraction sponsored by the Rougetsu Hall staff, so I allowed her to participate. For one hundred days exactly, she practiced the steps of the island's trademark dance, and at first I was happy for her.

On the eve of September 17, I was present along with my wife in an open-air theater to watch the performance. But when the six dancers stepped onto the circular stage, I realized that my daughter wasn't among them. They were all wearing masks, but I could tell without having to see her face that something was wrong.

My wife stayed in the audience to watch the performance, but I left to search for my daughter. What had happened? Had she hurt herself at the last second and been replaced? If that was true, then she would probably be in Haibara Hospital, an establishment adjacent to the Rougetsu Hall. I ran there and asked the hospital director where she was, but he wouldn't tell me anything. By now, I was terrified, especially since my sixth sense was flaring up, warning me of danger. It was the exact same feeling that I used to get on the night of the Crimson Sacrifice. At my wit's end, I drew a dagger and threatened to kill the man if he wouldn't tell me everything he knew. The director came clean and admitted that his entire hospital was a cover, designed to hide a shrine much like my own. It had been existing underneath my nose this whole time! According to the director, both his staff and those in the Rougetsu Hall were in on it. He also explained that the Rougetsu Kagura was a fake version of the shrine's ritual. The real version, known as the "Kiraigou", was performed in an underground chamber directly below the site of the fake dance.

Finally, the director told me that Tsuzuki's role in the dance had been changed at the last minute. She had been moved from performing in the fake ritual, to performing in the real one.

As soon as the man told me where to find the path that led to the underground ritual, I ran there as fast as I could to find my daughter, but by the time I reached her, the dance was already half over. All I could do was watch the rest in silence, fearing that I would see my daughter killed.

She survived the dance without injury, thank gods. However, in the days following the dance, suicide rates on the island quadrupled, and both Tsuzuki and my wife became plagued by the rapid onset of a unique mental illness known as "Luna Sedata Syndrome", which tore away their memories and mental stability. Altogether, it was so bad that I had to wonder if this wasn't the island's own horrific version of the Repentance.

I couldn't be there for either of them when they needed me most, because I had been imprisoned in the very sanatorium that had previously sheltered me, awaiting a sentence for my crime of threatening the director's life. At first, the hospital believed me insane, but they eventually recognized my motive for threatening him as a normal one. The hospital director decided to show some leniency, but a restraining order filed against me still forbade me from ever returning to the hospital. I would never see my wife and child again.

That day, much like the day I had been banished from my own village, changed everything for me, and took away everything that I had left. A local family known as the Yomotsuki family offered to take me in, saving me the trouble of relocating for a second time. They were the ones who enabled the ritual to continue, and they felt terrible over what had happened to my family. I was welcome in their home for as long as I wanted to stay.

But I didn't want to stay. The incident had reawakened all my long lost fears and curiosities, and in the hole that my family had once filled, a hunger for knowledge now stirred in its place. These rituals and shrines that had taken everything away from me... but I still remembered their importance, why they had to exist in our world. They existed to ferry the souls of wicked, bitter, or otherwise hostile men and women safely away from the world. If those spirits stayed in our world, they would kill innocents, but these shrines also killed innocents, which caused quite an enigma for me. There had to be a way to make them safer and more durable, a way to prevent any "Repentance" from occurring ever again! I knew finding the answer to this problem would take years, decades of research. I would need to uncover secrets previously known only to the very first All Gods Ceremony Master. It would be nearly impossible, but I had no more personal ties to hold me back, so I could do it. I had to try...

I spent the remaining three decades of my life visiting every shrine in the world that I could find, reading the contents of their libraries, traveling for years at a time. Occasionally, I would return to Rougetsu Island and stay in the Yomotsuki house long enough to rest and organize my findings. Now, I am 75 years old and on my deathbed. As soon as I finish writing the rest of this passage, one of the Yomotsuki family has agreed to smuggle this book back into my old village. Sadly, the conclusions I reached in the end (which are summarized below) are not joyous or optimistic, but I was able to vindicate my decisions in life, and what I did find may still help you, if you allow it to. Below are the answers to the two greatest questions I faced in life:

1. Why did my village betray me?

2. Is there a theoretical way to defeat the Repentance permanently?

Each question was answered by my research, and connects to a characteristic of the world or its people that I found particularly important. From them, I discovered what problems truly plague our shrines, and what, if anything, we should do to counter them. Please, take this all to heart.

II. The First Question

I evacuated the village for its people's safety. That shouldn't have confused anyone, so why did my own priests overthrow me when I did?

The answer to this question wasn't hard to discover, and came to me naturally with a few years of wisdom. At first, I assumed that they were angry with me over what had happened prior to the evacuation. I had failed to save my elder daughter, Tsuzuru, from death, so maybe my failure had been unforgivable to them. But I was wrong; they weren't acting out of any hatred for me. They were acting out of a fear of something, something that I had unwittingly brought into their village when I decided to evacuate it. It is a basic fear, the oldest and most powerful ever to motivate human beings, and that's why I am so ashamed that I didn't realize this sooner. They were acting...out of fear of the unknown.

Are you confused? If so, then you shouldn't be. If you're from my village, then you are no doubt aware of the endless struggle between "Ceremony Masters" and "twins", the two most important parties in our ritual. The Ceremony Masters assert that the twins are foolish for not being willing to sacrifice their relationship to save the lives of others, while the twins say that the Ceremony Masters shouldn't be willing to use contemptible means to gain their results. They become so mired in the cycle of hatred for each other, that neither of them can see the conflict for what it really is: two sides, each with a different belief, but both loathing the other, because loathing is easier than trying to understand. Facing the unknown is what truly scares us in life. It terrifies us, and the refusal to face this fear is something that the Ceremony Masters and twins have in common.

This might all sound strange, but this is the human element that causes our shrines so much pain and unease. Sticking with what is familiar and maintaining the status quo is easy, but there are hidden dangers in doing it for too long. It's why most of the Ceremony Masters in our village's history were so stubborn, why the twins attempt escape so frequently, why the veiled priests are useless as advisers, and why they banished me when I did something that had never been done before. Also, it is the fear that enables the actions of the sinister entity that I discovered in my search to answer the next question...

III. The Second Question

Faced with immediate danger, I evacuated my village, but that was just a temporary solution, and I can't count on others thinking of it in the future. I wanted to know if there was a way to permanently erase any possibility of a Repentance occurring, but to do that, I needed to know more about it. In my village, no one actually knows what the Repentance really is, what causes it, and why. All they know is that it is fated to occur if sacrifices aren't regularly performed. To begin with, I'll explain what our village currently believes:

Up until I began my research, it was believed that the Hellish Abyss was little more than a giant, deep hole in the earth with one occupant resting at the bottom: the Malice. In case you're not well versed, the Malice is believed to be the combined energy and consciousness of the thousands of onryo (evil) spirits that were absorbed by our shrine. We all thought that the Malice would accept our sacrifices each decade, in return for freely agreeing to stay in the Hellish Abyss for that amount of time. Because of this cooperative nature that we believed it had, the Malice was revered as a god. It was also instrumental in our understanding of when the Repentance could occur; because the Malice wanted our sacrifices, it would be reluctant to kill us all. Most other sects agree with this "Malice and Shrine" belief. Rougetsu, however, does not.

This island contributed more to my research than any other shrine. The Yomotsuki's taught me about the local beliefs, and they're much different from what I had traditionally thought to be true. In their eyes, the Malice didn't exist, and never had. Instead, they believed that their island was home to the literal entrance to the underworld (as in, the place where we all go when we die).

It was a difference of opinion regarding what our shrines guarded, but in the end we were both only half right. I won't be going into detail here as to how my research led to this conclusion, but I found out that the shrines (all of them, including All Gods') guard both the Malice and the underworld. They were separate entities, not one and the same, as previously thought.

Taking our Hellish Abyss as an example, if you were to walk down it as if it were a road, the first thing you would see is the portion that houses the Malice. Shortly after this, the path on which you walked would meet up with other paths, each one from a different shrine that housed its own "Malice". In total, there would be one small road for each shrine in the entire world that all combined at some point. Now walking along one huge "road", you would finally end your descent at the "gate to the underworld", which is said to be guarded by a kami or oni.

Many theories were shared with me as to who the gate's guardian is. The people of Rougetsu believe it to be Tsukuyomi, the shinto god of the moon. Others believe it is Amatsu, the god of evil and stars. Or it could be a demon unknown to man. I never found out for sure, but it's not an important detail anyway. The important thing I discovered is that this god is the one that accepts our sacrifices, and not the Malice. The Malice, instead, is analogous to a prisoner serving a life sentence behind bars, with the demon as its ruthless warden. Of course, the concurrent truth here is that the Malice really wouldn't want our sacrifices. If anything, it would want them to fail.

This whole discovery sheds greater light on why our sacrifice works the way it does. If our ritual is successful, it is known that one half of the soul of the sacrificed twin would return from the Hellish Abyss as a Crimson Butterfly that would protect our village. However, it was never known where the other half would wind up. Now I know; more likely than not it would pass through the Malice and arrive at the bottom of the pit where the gate lies. The demon would consume the soul, becoming appeased. This was the price we paid, and in return it would keep the Malice away from us for another ten years.

When the Crimson Sacrifices in our village fails, it means that one of the twins couldn't fully accept their destiny. When that happens, the Malice takes advantage of the sacrificed twin's unsettled death by grabbing onto her soul when she tries to pass through (this makes sense, since the Malice thrives on people that couldn't accept their deaths). This would cause the soul to become part of the Malice before she can reach the demon at the bottom. Without a sacrifice, the demon would grow restless, thinking that the people above had refused to pay their toll. In response, it would weaken its grip on the Malice, which would compress itself beneath the surface of the world in a desire to escape its imprisonment, thus causing bad harvest and earthquakes. Finally, when left too long without payment, the demon would cut the offending shrine loose by setting their Malice free, dooming them to whatever they had named the resulting disaster. Calamity, Repentance, Unleashing, Day Without Suffering...they're really all the same exact thing in different locations.

Looking back, this all makes so much sense I'm embarrassed to admit I ever didn't know it. It aligns perfectly with my suspicion that the mourners had acted under the Malice's control when they killed my first daughter, and it explains many other failed sacrifices as well. In the end, the idea that the Malice felt anything other than hatred and vengeance for us was nothing but an empty illusion. It does not cooperate with us, it does not show mercy or compassion to us. It will try to trick and manipulate us, and turn us against each other. It will search for any opportunity to escape, and when it does, it will kill us all. That's really all it wants: as many people dead as possible!

IV: Conclusions

I am sorry to disappoint you, and myself, with this woeful admission, and thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings in full detail. Sadly, my final recommendation for anyone who reads this is to flee the village and never look back. I wish that there was another way, but when you combine all these factors together, you should understand why all our shrines are on a one-way road to nowhere. Spirits have long memories, and the Malice won't stop until we are all dead. It doesn't even need to try to pit us against each other; we did that for it thanks to the "fear of the unknown" I mentioned earlier. It will scheme and try to sabotage the Crimson Sacrifice, and even if it doesn't, you know as well as I that a pair of twins will run away eventually. Something will happen to make the Crimson Sacrifice impossible.

Now...what do you think will happen after that? Will the Ceremony Master really do what I did, or will he try to perform the sacrifice anyway? I think it's in his very nature to make the wrong choice, and when he does, this village will be your grave. Then you'll wish you'd been banished like I was.

Sincerely Yours,

Ryokogu Kurosawa

(xxxXXXxxx)

Everything went black for a moment before Ryokan found himself back in the Kureha Shrine, dazed and confused. He was still standing in front of the passage door, same as he had been before the vision.

Do it...do it now...! The Malice was still in an uproar, but the old man was done taking its orders at this point. Instead, he simply took another deep breath, and reflected on what he had seen in the vision. The Malice didn't seem to know that it had even happened to him, but it could sense the fire rapidly growing in his stomach as his understanding turned to fresh hatred.

This anger, where is it coming from? The Malice asked, and Ryokan drew some strength from hearing it confused.

"I guess I owe Ryokogu my thanks," Ryokan murmured, triggering an irritable growl from the Malice.

For what? What are you rambling about?

"Well, he rejuvenated my strength somehow," Ryokan started, noting that he felt stronger and less tired than before. "But more importantly, he showed me the way. I know the truth now, and no man can walk out on the truth when it's shoved in front of him, not even me."

What the hell does that mean! The Malice was outright furious now as it was beginning to suspect where this conversation was headed.

"It means that I finally know who tried to kill me with that fire, and I definitely know where my future lies now!"

Steeling himself, Ryokan lifted the camera back up, aimed it away from the door, and turned its lens toward himself.

xxXXxx

I hope everything in this chapter made sense to you guys. If not, then feel free to ask questions. The truth will continue to be revealed in the next chapter, and we'll see what becomes of Ryokan's revelation.

Reviews will be appreciated.