I'm still bad at spelling Mayu and the rest of the characters, yeah?

Any feedback would be appreciated and I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Fatal Frame or its characters.

"You shouldn't be here!"

"Sister, are you listening to me?" Mio asked.

Mayu Amakura woke up abruptly and looked at her twin. She was used to the fact that since she had recently been found with amnesia after going missing in the woods, the older of the sisters would periodically "switch off" from the world around her. This always happened involuntarily, but Mayu was beginning to get used to it, and those around her were sympathetic.

"А? Sorry, I think it happened again," she apologized to her sister. She was already ashamed that Mio had always taken care of her injured leg, and now this. Mio herself didn't seem to mind it, though. Sometimes she was the first to realize when Mayu was having another attack.

"It's okay," the younger twin smiled and took her sister's hand. "Especially since we're almost done with our homework. "Honestly, I couldn't have figured out algebra without you! Those logarithms are so hard..."

"It's not that hard. I believe Mio would have figured it out herself eventually," Mayu replied quietly. Yes, it was true that Mio was worse at the exact sciences than she was, but this was more a result of the fact that Mayu had not had as many opportunities to devote herself to more active pursuits. In fact, in her opinion, it was Mio who was the more capable and talented of the two of them, and could easily have been one of the best students in their school had she not devoted so much time to taking care of her.

Another regret. Another addition to the damned piggy bank.

"There's a ballet rehearsal tomorrow. I know it's not much fun for you, but I hope..." Mio started uncertainly.

"Of course I'll come. As long as you're around, I'll be fine everywhere," Mayu assured her, and it was the pure truth. Truth be told, the older twin hadn't had much of a plan for the future for a long time, unless you count "Being with Mio forever" as such. Adulthood promised them separation and a life of solitude, something Mayu had always feared. But now, even though she doesn't quite understand why, she really doesn't want to worry about it. Unexpectedly, but for the first time, the twin thought that it would be a good idea to go to medical university after high school. Maybe she could help people the way doctors couldn't cure her leg back then! That would count as a dream, wouldn't it?

"A dream? For a sinner like you? You were happy with your own injury when you realized you could tie your sister to you! The fact that you are alive is a mistake!"

"Sister!"

Mayu woke up again and realized that Mio was shaking her shoulder.

"It's okay," the older sister tried to reassure the younger one (and herself to a lesser extent).

"Two seizures almost in a row? That's never happened before. Shouldn't we tell Mom?" Mio stretched out uncertainty.

"And then I'll miss your rehearsal. I think we should just go to bed early, and then we'll be fine," Mayu countered.

"But..." Mio wanted to object, but Mayu just got up from the table and headed to her bed, trying not to give away her panic.

No, two attacks in a row didn't scare her much. It could still be explained away by going missing during summer vacation, even if there were questions about that.

But the voices in her head hadn't been there before.

"Feel the music, girls!" exclaimed Mio's band ballet teacher.

Mayu herself was sitting in a chair in the corner at that moment. Normally the sitting gymnastic trainer would have been with her at this point, but he had recently fallen ill and had to miss class this week. Thanks to Mio's persuasion, she was allowed to be in the gym, but on the condition that she sit quietly and not make a sound. The older twin was fine with that. Even during her classes she always tried to look at her sister anyway, so in essence nothing had changed. It was even more comfortable. Nothing could distract her from watching her sister now.

"Leg up, leg up!" the instructor kept shouting.

Mayu had always loved the grace of ballet dancing, but in Mio's performance it was simply mesmerizing. Her movements were so fluid and precise that it was pathetic to look at the others. So great was the gap between them and her younger sister. Sometimes the older twin wondered if she could have achieved the same if she hadn't fallen off the cliff, but those thoughts left her head as quickly as they came.

"So you ruined that chance yourself by jumping off the cliff. After all, instead of leveling up with Mio, you decided to take the easy way like death!"

That mocking voice again...

Mayu began to search with her eyes for its source. There was none among the ballerinas. Then next to her...

To her right stood the transparent figure of a woman in a white kimono wrapped in red thread. It had blood stains on it that formed a bizarre pattern, the outlines of which Mayu seemed familiar, but she couldn't figure out what exactly they represented. The face of a woman...

It was gone.

In its place was a haze through which her gaze could not penetrate.

"You'd better be quiet. We don't want to spoil your dear sister's rehearsal, do we?" pronounced the figure contemptuously. Even with the haze, it was clear that she was not taking the ossified twin seriously. "That would be in your spirit, though. Always selfish, always worrying only about yourself and your fears. Wouldn't it have been easier to die falling into some godforsaken pit and let Mio live with the happiness of the fact that she no longer has to take care of such a fool?"

"I don't understand..."

"Oh, you understand perfectly well, even if you won't admit it. After all, I know you better than your sister knows you," the ghostly figure walked up to May and put a hand on her shoulder, "or how you think you know your Mio."

After that, the twin could have sworn her breath burned her skin.

"If you don't believe me, then answer the question. What is around your sister's neck?"

Despite the absurdity of the situation, Mayu followed the ghost's words and looked closely at her sister to discover that

She couldn't see anything on her neck. It was as if she was wearing the same haze that her "vision" was wearing on her face.

"I'm exhausted today," Mio sighed as the two of them made their way home. It was evening, and the sun was slowly and inexorably continuing its sunset. "I was afraid I was going to fall off my feet by the end of rehearsal."

"Seems to me Mio performed as amazing as ever, even if it's just a rehearsal," Mayu said with a shrug. After all, when her sister took on a case, she gave it her all.

"By the way, Sister, was everything okay today?" the younger twin suddenly asked seriously.

"А? Yes, perfectly fine. Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing, I just felt like you fell out of your surroundings again."

"You really do seem to have lost your strength, if you still had time to follow me," Mayu replied with a chuckle. "Probably another seizure."

"That's what I thought at first," Mio shook her head, "but then I saw your lips move. It certainly hasn't happened before. Are you sure you shouldn't see a doctor?"

"Maybe later," Mayu brushed it off with an uncertain smile. She should have been more careful. But Mio was at the other end of the hall! She couldn't have noticed it without knowing it beforehand.

Never mind. She won't (anymore?) worry her sister about such trifles. Enough of her own panic.

At this point several butterflies flew in front of them on their way home.

Crimson butterflies.

Mio's face suddenly took on a fierce grin. "Go away! Get out! I hate you! You bring only grief!" she shouted, her hands trying to ward off the sudden...

The guides?

"Sister?" the younger twin turned around to see Mayu frozen in place and her pupils dilated. Her breathing became increasingly razor-sharp and her skin began to cover in sweat.

"Ho, are you finally starting to remember?" the reappearing ghost said again. The pattern on her kimono now looked more and more like a butterfly wing, but her face...

It was her own face.

Mayu Amakura's face.

Mayu replies, "We can't be together forever..." As she lies down on the stone altar before the Abyss, she continues, "But with this, we can become one."

She places Mio's hands around her neck and whispers in her ear.

"Kill me."

Mayu didn't realize how much time had passed when she realized she was sitting on her lap and Mio was shaking her by the shoulders. She didn't care about that, either. Now she had to make sure.

On Mio's neck...

She really wasn't supposed to be here.

There was a butterfly mark.

Mayu was killed during a ritual in Minakami village.

She wanted answers.

With that thought in mind, she walked into her Uncle Kei's office. Mayu had to do it without Mio. It was outrageously easy to pretend to be sick enough to be allowed to skip school today. Even though her little sister was worried, she assured her that everything would be fine.

Though Mayu herself wasn't so sure anymore.

"Uncle Kei, I want to talk to you!" called out the twin to her uncle. While her mother was at work, it fell to Kei to keep an eye on her.

"Are you sure you're allowed to get up? You could have just called me," Uncle replied, getting up from behind his desk.

She should set him up for a serious conversation right away.

"I want to talk to you about what happened while they were looking for me," pronounced Mayu in a trembling voice.

Damn, she was too afraid to find out what she probably shouldn't.

"Well, I thought you knew yourself. Kept in touch with the police all the time, looking all over the woods..."

"I should be dead, right?"

That was it. The words came out of the girl's throat, as if suddenly hoarse.

Her uncle's face took on a grim expression. "Oh, so you remembered..." and then he went to the bookcase and began actively searching for something. "Does Mio know?"

"I hope not," the older of the sisters sighed. Her twin was already too worried about her.

"Good. She's had enough pain already," Kei replied, then finally found what he was looking for and took a book off the shelf. "While you were gone, your sister and I and a couple of other people were under a curse. A different curse from the one you had to endure in that village. It was tied to guilt over the loss of a loved one."

Mayu gasped. "But you all survived, didn't you?"

"Fortunately, yes. Although in my and Mio's case it was a huge fluke," said Uncle, flipping through the book. "But the thing is, unlike us, the other victims, Mio... Didn't come to terms with your loss. She could smile and say otherwise, but it was a lie first and foremost to herself. She couldn't move on without you. Yep, found it," whereupon her uncle handed her the manuscript.

At first glance it was just a collection of occult rituals mixed with folktales. It was also rather shabby. Its owner obviously didn't care about its preservation.

"Before you started hating me… I didn't know anything about this book. I just wanted to make Mio feel a little better, even if she asked me to buy such a thing..." excused Kei to her. But Mayu just kept reading.

"Soul mate ritual. In the Minakami region, people believed that a loved one could be brought back if your souls were intertwined by fate itself... After performing the ritual, the person you consider most important in your life, if your feelings are reciprocated, will return to you, but the price will be that he will take half of the life you may have lived..." With each word, her voice trembled more and more.

"I like the paragraph below better," Kei grinned incredulously.

"... If the returner dies, so does the resurrector, just as the reverse is also true..." After this line, Mayu threw the book at her uncle, but it only fell on the table nearby. "Why the hell did you let her do that, Kei!"

"I didn't let her," Kei replied seriously. "Mio did it all by herself. I still don't see how. But her reaction to the police call the day they found you..." Uncle shuddered. "I don't think I'll ever forget that crazy laugh."

"But why?!" Tears were already flowing from the twin's eyes. Kei then crouched down slightly so that he was at the level of her face.

"It says you can only bring back the most important person in your life. And you will always be that to Mio. She loves you more than anyone else. And if she was denied the right to stay with you in the afterlife, she chose to bring you back into her life."

"...What am I supposed to do now?" said Mayu in a slain voice.

"Just live. You don't have any other options anyway," Kei said earnestly, looking her in the eye. Then he got up and left the office, but before he did he turned around with a grim smile.

"You know, you really are, in a way… As Mio used to say... Yeah, 'Became one.' Even death alone won't be a threat to you now."

"I can't believe you almost missed the test today. If it hadn't been rescheduled yesterday, Sis might have been in trouble. Lucky you," Mio said as they walked home from school.

"Come on. I just got better today, so I got lucky," Mayu squeezed out a smile.

Lucky her, yeah.

"Oh, you're finally starting to have the right thoughts in your head. I didn't think you could be capable of them, given the careless chatter you're having right now."

Ignore her. And maybe she'll...

"Disappear? Oh no, my dear, I'm not going anywhere. You don't deserve this. You don't deserve this life. You never even wanted it, but our dear sister gave half her life to you for some reason. And she could have used it a lot more than the idiot who never mentally outgrew primary school."

"Shut up."

"Or what? You'll kill me? Only after you. Even though you want to do it yourself, right? Even knowing it would kill Mio? That's just the way you are, though. Get rid of your fear, and I don't care how much it hurts others. You can justify it with obsession all you want, but I know you, I know that's what you wanted as soon as you understood the meaning of the ritual. Minakami village is lucky that they found exactly the kind of fool they wanted, and that she had a sister who wouldn't leave her alone, even though she should have. I wonder how Mio would react if she knew your real wishes?"

"Shut up."

"Shut up, shut up, or else what?" her "ghost" stood right in front of her. This "Mayu's" face expressed nothing but hatred. "What's there in you besides empty threats? I do, though. Sins. Countless sins for every manipulation of Mio's life to make you get what you want from her. And after forcing her to live for the two of you, you can forget about everything and start living for yourself?" The ghost girl closed her eyes and smiled broadly. "You deserve to die in that abyss!"

"SHUT UP!"

"Sister?"

Mayu blinked. Right in front of her was Mio's terrified face. But the anger wasn't going to come off her own face, as if the source of her anger was still right in front of her.

Was Mayu angry at Mio?

Mayu stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

All this time she had been avoiding the truth. Plans for university? Just another attempt not to think about the sad truth.

Mayu really resented Mio for bringing her back when the older twin clearly didn't want her to. After all, at the time she believed that they really were one. Still, the girl couldn't shake the guilt that it was because of her that Mio's life wouldn't last as long as it could. After all, without Mayu, nothing would hold her back. But would her little sister be able to live her life, albeit half-shortened, just as vividly when her twin shackles returned?

Should they really die now instead of continuing this misery?

With these thoughts Mayu returned to their room.

Quietly opening the door, she saw Mio frantically fidgeting on the bed, stretching out her hand in her sleep.

"Sister! Don't leave me! I beg you, come back to me! I beg you! Don't leave me alone!" pleaded Mio desperately in her sleep.

Mayu jerked as if struck by an electric shock.

All her fears were unimportant now.

They had never been important.

The only thing she cared about was one thing.

Mayu hurt Mio.

Pain was so intense that in order to get rid of it, her beloved sister had to go against her twin's wishes and bring her back to her, despite the cost.

Because Mio loved Mayu.

Maybe even more than Mayu loved Mio.

"Finally you understand her," the ghost said contentedly beside her, and disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.

But Mayu didn't care about her anymore.

Her sister needed her now.

Mayu went to the bed, lay down next to Mio, held her tightly against her, and whispered softly the most important words she should have said a long time ago.

"I won't leave you. Never again. I promise."