June 14th, 2022

Mion trailed her fingers over the scabbard of her katana, thinking. She…wasn't thinking of much, only the whorls and ridges of her fingertips sliding back and forth over the polished lacquer. Her thoughts were as empty as the night that had closed around them –her, and these ridiculous tourists– and as silent as the patient, drenching rain. She had never remembered her mind being so quiet back…back when she had been alive.

Being dead was strange. Being alive again –for some definition of the term– was strange. Mion and Shion had always been two halves of one whole, and like left and right hands, they were distinct in their matched differences. Mion had always –she had always been herself, and the name she attached to that self was unimportant, the identity she wore to others as easy to discard and don as her clothes. She was herself, and whether that self was Mion or Shion had never mattered to her or her twin.

Perhaps that was why Shion was so easy to possess.

There were a lot of myths about how closely the spirits of twins were linked, and Mion and Shion had been closer than many casual twins ever since the beginning. From the moment that roaring explosion had torn her soul loose from her body, Mion had found it easy to attach herself to her twin, floating behind her like a shadow. It seemed more natural than breathing (something she had no longer been able to do) to link up to her twin, to guard her. She had met Shion in her dreams, watching her grow older and older, looking more and more like mom.

The car crash had been frightening, but it had provided Mion with an unexpected opportunity, and like they had done so many times before…Mion and Shion switched places.

It was, being…being in a body again, was odd. Mion could feel her breath and her pulse, wheezing loudly in her lungs and throbbing patiently though her ears and throat, but the sensation was distant. As though she were still alive and merely paying intense attention to the workings of her own body, rather than wearing said body like a second skin. She was and wasn't in control of her own breathing, and moving Shion around was as natural as moving her own limbs, but it…wasn't, all at the same time. There was something there, disconnecting her mind and Shion's body like a thin film, a barrier between the living and the dead.

But it was subtle, and easy to ignore. Mion fit almost as snugly into this body as though it was her own, and her drifting, near-silent attention was arrested for long moments, just simply staring Shion's hands, clean enough except for the traces of gunpowder under her nails. This was what she would have looked like, if she'd had the opportunity to grow up. This was exactly what she would have looked like.

But Mion brushed those thoughts aside, coming out of her wandering haze with ease. She was here for one purpose and one purpose only, to seize the handbell and legitimize Shion's control over their family. She knew that Mifune's men were lurking about the village, and she knew as a matter of course that they weren't going too down without a fight. As heady as it was, even the excitement building in her was distant, like an electric jolt coming through a chain of linked hands rather than touching her skin directly. Mion was already dead, after all.

But she wouldn't let her sister join her.

That determination was foremost in Mion's mind as she unsheathed her sword and strode forward, unafraid, into the metaphorical lion's den. She was fiercely proud of her family and her home, and she knew well the legends that surrounded it. This was no longer the rural village of Hinamizawa, but rather the mysterious land of Onigafuchi, a ghost town where the dead walked and demons dwelled. Mion was a demon, of a line of demons, and she had that mark carved into both her skin and her very name.

She would make these men regret crossing her. A spirit possessed this woman that they saw before them, a demon with a legendary sword in her hand and a gun tucked into the back of her obi. They had come to her, in her very own home, planning to wrest way Shion's rightful inheritance, and they had been stupid enough to come with weapons. They had been foolish enough to confront her head-on.

"I don't have time to do this elegantly!" Mion called to her foes, her head held high, her expression steely, and Shion's heart thumping nervously in her chest. "Come at me only if you won't hold your death against me!"

More than anyone, perhaps, Mion had reason to offer that disclaimer, since she was already on the other side of the river and would have to confront her victims almost immediately. But they did not take her advice, as part of her had known they wouldn't, and lunged for Mion and Shion without another word.

Mion smiled, thinly, and the slaughter began.

8.02 AM, USA Central Time

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