No.. perhaps that's a little too far on.
There once was a girl, as modest and shy as she was pretty. She lived in Aizu-Wakamatsu, not far from the waters of Inawashiro-ko, the Heavenly Mirror Lake, in the shadow of Bandai-san and Tsuruga-jo. It was the autumn of nineteen eighty-five, a time of great economic growth for Japan.
See her coming down from the shrine of Nakano Takeko, the woman who died at 22 in the Boshin Civil War, halberd in hand like a true daughter of Aizu. The Samurai Procession has long passed through the streets and it is nearing dark. She is walking solemnly by her father's side and her brows are bound in white linen. She does not understand the women who died fighting the forces of the emperor and are celebrated at the autumn festival. She does not understand how they stood and fought. She does not understand why the idea of it makes her father so proud. She is not that sort of person.
"Your mother" He says. "Will not come up here with me. But then she is not local."
He says this every year. Over time she began to understand a little what her father meant by this: her mother had been born in Kyoto and raised properly, to be a good housewife and not argue with her husband. She was not an Aizu girl, and the Aizu people were a surly lot to begin with and not very accepting of outsiders until they got to know them. It is said that when a stranger comes to Aizu, he will cry three times. Once at the hostility of his new neighbours, the second time when they finally come to accept him, and the third time when he has to leave. You can't really help who you fall in love with, that's what arranged marriages are for, but nevertheless, her father had fallen in love with the sweet girl from Kyoto and they had become husband and wife, and it was clear by then that he would have preferred someone a little more adventurous. It did not occur to the girl that he was trying to make his daughter fill the gap, not until she was considerably older. She enjoyed the time with her father, up at the shrine. He worked long hours and she did not see much of him. He told her stories of the wars and the castle and their family, and often looked at her to see if she was excited. Her wide-eyed admiration was usually mistaken for that which he sought.
They walked through the streets, surrounded by the sharp, warm smell of the sake-breweries until they reached their house. The girl's mother welcomed her husband and daughter indoors, and ushered the girl up to bed, scolding her father for keeping his daughter out so late when there was school tomorrow. With a last lingering look at her father, Yumiko climbed the stairs to her bedroom and curled up on her bed.
It was much later, so late as to be almost early, when she woke up, thirsty. She slid quietly out of bed and went to the bathroom to get a drink of water. Curiously, the light in her parents' bedroom still cast yellow-edged shadows on the walls of the landing. They were talking. Her father's voice sounded emotional, a little cracked. This was not normal, and worried her. Holding the glass in both hands to stop it spilling and sipping a little, she tiptoed over to the door and began to listen.
"It is tomorrow night. You cannot avoid it." This was the voice of her mother. "Who will it be?"
The voice of her father replied. "How can I choose? How can I choose between my daughters?" He sighed. "Are they all pure?"
"That is a requirement?" Her mother asked.
"Of course. If we give her … impure … food, her wrath will fall upon all of us."
"Then your choice is made. Only the youngest is still untouched."
"You did not tell me this? You are certain?"
"I am certain. These days are not like when I was younger. Your daughters go out in the evenings and I cannot say where they have been. I have found …evidence."
"Evidence?"
"Prophylactics." Her mother spat. There was shame and bitterness in her voice. "You have been too easy on them. Without your hand, they ignore any discipline I give them."
The girl did not understand a lot of the conversation, but she knew her older sisters were bad girls, out with boys on motorbikes at all hours. They laughed at their mother when she called them whores and said they brought shame on the family. Then her mother would be angry and find some excuse to hurt her when she came across her, knowing the girl was too quiet and demure to fight back. The girl would stay out of her mother's way at these times. Her mother's tongue was sharp and her slaps across the arms and legs were sharper.
"It must be her then?" Her father said, hopelessly.
"It must." Her mother replied, bitterly. "She will not be such a loss. She is only young. I can have others."
"How can you say such things!" Her father shouted.
"Hush. You will wake them." Her mother replied, quietly.
There was the sound of someone moving rapidly in the room, and the girl prepared to run away, but then she heard her father sigh. "Tomorrow night then. In the dark of the moon." His voice was getting closer. She ran. Her father opened the door, looked out, and saw only darkness.
The next day was a good day. It was the day she went with her parents to visit her grandmother, the mother of her mother. The little old woman was tiny and wrinkled with a face like a sly fox. She always smiled when she saw her grandchildren, although now only the girl and her smallest brother came to visit her. Her house was old-fashioned and full of strange ornaments and painted wall-hangings.
"How are my favourite grandchildren?" She asked, smiling and giving them sweets. The girl accepted one with a polite bow. She glanced at her parents. Her father's face was sad. Her mother's face was stern, but she did not make any comment about spoiling the children or tell her she couldn't eat the sweets till after dinner. The girl carefully ate her sweets before her mother could say anything.
"I will tell you a story." The old woman said. The girl and her brother sat down crosslegged before her eagerly. "What kind would you like?"
Her parents made no comment. Normally they might have told her grandmother not to put silly ideas in her head.
"Scary!" Her little brother said. He was sucking his finger and it came out a little muffled.
The girl nodded her agreement.
"Scary you want, eh?" The old woman's face crinkled in a smile once again. "Very well."
And so she told them the tale of the aspiring painter who slept in the temple haunted by the demon rat, who painted cats on the screen doors and was protected by them when the rat came. After that, pleasantly frightened, they asked for more. She told the tale of the ogre of Rashomon who after the great hero cut off his arm, came back in the form of an old woman to reclaim it. Then she told the tale of the hungry ghost woman who came back to drink the life out of her lover, and how just in time he discovered her nature when he saw that she had no feet and floated along above the ground. And she told the tale of the Yuki-Onna, the beautiful white-skinned snow-woman who froze humans who angered her, and other such stories until the girl was shivering with delicious fear. Her brother fell asleep. After a large dinner, so did she.
When she awoke, she was in her own bed at home. It was dark. She looked across the room at the mirror over her dressing table. The girl in the mirror stared back at her. Her face was a white blur. In the darkness, her mouth seemed to open and mouth words at the girl. A warning.
The door to her bedroom opened. Her father crept quietly in. She pretended to be asleep. Her father shook her gently.
"Yumie?" He called her that sometimes. Yumie, his little one. "Wake up. I need you for something important." Sleepily, she got out of bed. He wrapped a silk robe around her shoulders. It felt soft, smooth and cold against her bare arms, over her nightdress.
"What is it, father?" She asked, bewildered, reaching for her beside table to find and slide her glasses onto her face.
"Wait here. I'll take you." Her father said. In the darkness, she saw there were tears in his eyes and she was frightened. He walked away, slowly and closed the door behind him, leaving her in the dark. She turned and saw her reflection in the mirror again.
"Yumiko." Said the girl in the mirror.
"I mustn't speak to you. " Yumiko looked at her feet. "Mother says it's not allowed. She says I'm a bad girl and I mustn't speak of it to anyone."
"You must listen to me. They're planning something. They want to hurt you."
"You're a liar and you make me do bad things." Yumiko covered her ears and curled up in a ball on the floor.
Covering her ears didn't help. "Do what I say. Before father comes back, go into the hall and get the little sword from the black stand on the cupboard."
"That's not allowed." The girl shook her head.
"Do it or I'll make you do it."
Shivering, walking almost in a trance, the girl uncurled, padded out into the hall, pulled the bottom drawer out from the cupboard and stood on the edge so she could reach up and lift down the five-hundred year old tanto from it's black lacquered rack. She took it back into her bedroom.
"Now cut off the head of your stuffed bear and slide the sword inside." The girl in the mirror told her. The girl obeyed, trying not to meet the accusing stare in the bear's sightless plastic eyes. Then she sat on the bed and waited with a trusting smile on her face for her father to return. He did, and hiding his face from her, neatened up the robe he had given her and tied a wide silk obi-sash around her waist. Then he led her from the room.
The ancestral shrine was dark. No light would fall on the dark deed about to be committed. The bell clanked in a passing breeze and the girl walked just behind her father down the path. Tears streamed down her father's face. She walked serenely behind him, clutching her teddy bear. He led her into the shrine and lifted an ancient tatami mat. Beneath was a door, a door she had never known was there all the times she had come down the path with offerings of rice and flowers. Inside were steps. Her father gestured towards them.
"Go inside. Don't be afraid of the dark. I'm here." His voice was full of sugar and false calm. She knew something was wrong, but she put her foot on the first step and then the next and the next until she reached the bottom. She was not surprised when the door closed behind her, plunging her into darkness.
Something moved, the slow, gently hiss of silk against silk. Without really thinking about it, the girl slid her family's ancient weapon from the body of her bear. The stuffed animal slid to the floor and she stepped forwards carefully across the rough wooden floor, eyes shut, listening. Something padded towards her on almost silent feet. There was no sound of breathing. Slowly, a light began to shine, red through her eyelids. She opened her eyes and saw an eerie corpse-glow that penetrated the pitch-darkness. It surrounded a thin shape, gliding across the wooden floor. It spoke in a voice cracked with long disuse.
"Is it time. Is it finally time?"
"Time for what?" The girl asked curiously.
The thin shape moved closer, swaying hypnotically. The girl watched. It came up to her, and slowly began to lean down. She caught a glimpse of dirty teeth moving past her eyeline. She stepped back. The thing straightened up and smiled. She could see it's full length now, the floating cloud where it's feet should be, and she knew something was terribly terribly wrong.
"Where are you going, little girl?" It asked. "You shouldn't go away. You're mine. I can smell my blood in you. My pretty little descendant. You are my sacrifice. I am the ancestor you ring your bell for." It began to approach again. "Come to me." It reached up and cupped her face. "So pretty. Such soulful eyes. Let me see them better." A ghostly white hand moved into her vision, which blurred as her glasses were removed and pressed into her hands. "So much prettier without them. You look like a Takagi."
The girl blinked. That was what her father always said.
"You will be delicious." The thing leaned down, limp black hair falling across her shoulders. She felt teeth against her neck. The thing sighed in pleasure. The girl froze, terrified.
Let me deal with this. Said the voice of the Mirror Girl. Inside, Yumiko nodded, and stepped back.
A smile spread across the girl's face. There was a flash of movement. The thing twitched, and staggered back. It clutched at it's neck, where a line of blood was welling up. The girl slashed again, the same rapid movement at neck height. It was clumsy, but there was strength in the blow and a flash of escaping fury, and the thing had been starved for years and it's only real power was in hypnotising its prey. It could not heal fast enough and so, neatly and with a quiet thud, its head fell off and bounced across the floor.
Yumie smiled again. Wiping the creature's stagnant blood from the blade, she sheathed the tanto and slid her glasses into her kimono pocket in one smooth movement. Free, at last, after being trapped for years, taking punishments. She belonged on the outside, and now she was, now her traitorous family would pay. They had fed her to a monster, their demon ancestor who they kept beneath the shrine. She turned around, leaving the monster broken on the floor and began to climb the wooden stairs.
Silent as a spirit herself, she emerged from the cellar and walked down the path by the ornamental lake. Koi twirled in the depths, ghost-white and blood-red in the darkness. Ahead of her, the light shone around the cracks of the sliding door leading into the house. She reached the door, knelt and softly and worshipfully slid it aside. Standing again, she padded through the open doorway, heading for the kitchen. She would begin with the one who deserved it most.
Alas, her mother was not in the kitchen. Thwarted, but indirectable from her designs, she peered around the door into the dining room. Her mother sat at the table. Her elder brother stood on the other side of the table, leaning on his hands, whispering at her mother exasperatedly.
"I know you're lying." He said. "Where's Yumiko?"
"I cannot tell you." Her mother replied.
"I'm here, Mama." Yumie said, innocently. She stepped into the light, careful to slide the tanto behind her back, under the blood-red obi her father had tied around her waist.
Her brother turned and saw her, and smiled. Her mother's expression was somewhat different. She leaped to her feet, knocking the bamboo chair over. It clattered hollowly across the wooden floor.
"How…? " She stammered.
Yumie made tears well up in her eyes. "Daddy left me in the cellar… there was a white lady.. I ran away..I was scared. Mama, why did Daddy leave me in the cellar?" She ran across the floor and wrapped her arms around her mother.
The woman's face hardened. "It was very important, and you shouldn't have run away." She said.
"Mother, explain this." The girl's brother demanded. "Do we have a cellar?"
"Your father will explain." His mother replied. "Yumiko and I must return t…" She choked. A thin dribble of blood slid out of her mouth.
Yumie stepped back as the woman slid to the floor, pulling the blade from her stomach.
"What are you doing!" Her brother shouted, rushing around the table to his fallen mother's side. He looked up into cold eyes.
Yumie sniffed with contempt. "The bitch deserved it." She said.
"You're not my sister!" The young man exclaimed, eyes widening.
"Oh, I am." Yumie smiled, tickling him under the chin with the point of the tanto. "We just haven't met before." He swallowed dryly, painfully aware of the folded steel against his adam's apple. "Brother dear. Shall I tell you what that whore who spawned you did? Her and our precious Daddy? They fed me to the monster they keep in the cellar. Poor innocent Yumiko didn't suspect a thing."
"That's impossible!"
"Hah. You know so little about your parents."
"I know mother hit you." He swallowed again. "I'm sorry, Yumiko. I'm sorry I didn't say anything. But you have to stop this, we have to get mother to a hospital, you've hurt her badly."
"I should hope I've killed her." Yumie chuckled hollowly. "You know she hit me. Did you know why she hit me?"
Her brother blinked, confused.
"She was jealous, angry that Daddy preferred my bed to hers, just like he preferred our sisters' when they were younger. There's a reason they've grown up to be such sluts, you know. They're broken. Inside."
"Yumiko, you're sick… you have to stop saying these things."
"Oh, we're all sick, rotten inside. This whole family. Especially you. Have you told Mama and Papa you take other men's 'chins up your ass yet? Oh well, too late now." Yumie shrugged. She chuckled again watching the shame and horror cross her brother's face. "Dirty boy. Bow your head in shame and give yourself up to steel justice."
Stupidly, the boy tried to run. Stupidly, because she saw the fleeing mouse look in his eyes before he even moved, and all it took was a twitch of her wrist to slash his throat. Watching him slump to the floor, she felt the berserker's laugh rise in her throat. She quelled it, time for that later. Yumiko could awaken at any time. Silently, she began searching the rest of the house. When she reached the front door, she heard laughter and shrieking outside. She stepped back into the shadows just as the door burst open and her two older sisters fell inside, giggling drunkenly. Scooters roared away, their lift, evidently.
Dispatching them was easy. The pair of whores were so drunk they barely noticed as she spun out of the dark like a shaft of deadly lightning and opened up their innards, one to the belly (she was quite tall) and one to the throat. Then she was away down the hallway, leaving one sister screaming and desperately trying to claw her viscera back into her body, and one gurgling her last. There were two more members of her treacherous clan to root out. She hesitated a second or two, in front of a door. Then she opened it and stepped inside. In the darkness, she heard the sound of her small brother's gently breathing. She paused again. He was only four, technically, an innocent. Did he deserve death?
Of course he did. He was poisoned with the blood of her despicable family. There were no innocent. Besides, she had seen him poking a stray cat with a stick and knew very well he teased other little boys at school. Still, it would be easier if he stayed asleep. She slunk over to his bed, lifted the short sword over his little neck and brought it down. He never even woke up. The blood sprayed from his little neck, all over his pillow. She stepped back to avoid getting it on herself.
Not much time left. She exited the room hastily leaving red-splattered happy bunny wallpaper dripping behind her. Two doors further along, she heard gentle sobbing. The fool was too wrapped up in his own self-pity to hear the screams of his family. Tucking the tanto into her obi again, she slid silently through the half-open door. Her father did not even notice her until she stood right in front of him. He lifted his head and looked at her sadly.
"So you have returned as a Yurei, to haunt me." He said. "I will deserve it. I deserve to be cursed for the rest of my life. I gave my little Yumie into the open jaws of a demon to save my own skin."
Yumie reached slowly and carefully around her back for the sword.
"Tell me it was quick, daughter, my beloved one. Tell me you did not suffer."
Yumie hid a smirk behind a demure hand. "I cannot, beloved father. Your monster took my life slowly, rending and tearing my sweet flesh. I suffered greatly as its claws ripped through me, as it drank the precious blood from my veins. I was its unholy chalice."
Her father recoiled. "You torment me, demon! My dear love would never speak so!"
The berserkers laugh escaped her now, swelling up and emanating from her lips, a foul, righteous near-hysterical burst. She threw back her head and let it fill the room. When she was done, she stepped forward and leaned over to touch her father's cheek. "I speak so, dear father. See what you have made of me, with your stolen kisses and dirty touches. Thief of innocence! You send me to my death to hide your foul sins with another fouler still. I am retribution for your crime, I am punishment, I am justice. I am your true daughter, the one you longed for and cried out for in your incestuous passion, raping my young body. Your Aizu Warrior daughter, bloodstained and slaughtered. Am I beautiful, father?" She stepped back, drawing her blade with a silken hiss, dripping the mingled fluids of her slain family on the tatami, and twirled around.
"You're solid. You have feet. You're real." Her father gasped. "What has the demon done to you?"
"The demon lies in the cellar, with its throat cut. In a similar state lie your wife, your daughters and your sons." Yumie informed him. "Note I am clean; their blood is on your hands.
Her father took a deep breath and unfolded upwards to stand before her.
"I am cursed." He said. "Because I am weak, my ancestors have turned my own daughter into a monster and sent her to punish me. I will not fight it. I know my doom." He lifted his chin and stepped forwards, arms out, offering himself up to her. "Take me, beloved."
Yumie regarded the man before her, her much loved and adored father, the idol of her childhood in the bright moonlight. He was thin, and there were lines under his eyes from worry. His hands were calloused. She felt an upwelling of intense love and pity for this weak, foolish, sinful man.
Sadly, she was not a merciful spirit. She rammed the tanto up through his groin deep into his intestines and tore upwards, slicing through his stomach and diaphragm, stopping when she hit his sternum, the bone too strong for her barely-teenage arm muscles to break through. He shrieked in agony as stomach acid seeped into his lungs, and fell to the floor writhing and coughing up pink foam and bloody sputum.
The laugh came again, unbidden.
It took him a good ten minutes to die. Once she was done, she prodded the pitiful form with a slippered foot. He did not move. She nodded, acknowledging a job well done.
Now she would have to work faster than ever. She cleaned and sheathed the tanto and placed it gently on the floor beside her father, then bowed to it respectfully, thanking it for its help. Then she went across the hall and fetched down the larger katana from the three level stand she had taken the tanto from. She slid it into her obi and went to the still open front door. One she reached the door, she took a deep breath, and then ran as if all the ogres of the castle that Momotaro the Peach Warrior took were behind her.
As she ran, she felt Yumiko stirring at the edge of her consciousness. She continued running, though doing so in the thin slippers hurt her feet, until she reached the nearest subway station. It was late at night, but there would still be the odd train. There were no guards around, and she ducked under the barrier, skittered onto the station and jumped onto the nearest train. The carriage was empty, so she curled up under a luggage rack and waited till the train had gone six stops or so, well away from home. Yumiko was nearly awake now. Yumie scrambled off the train, her samurai's grace fading starting to slip away and exited the station hastily and quietly, avoiding the odd passer-by. Outside in the street, she walked calmly and close to the walls. A little way away from the station, she slid into an alleyway. She reached into her pocket and produced Yumiko's round, owlish glasses. Yumie looked at them for a while, curiously. Then she slid them onto her face.
Yumiko returned. She spun around in shock, darting like a frightened animal, terrified by the unfamiliar surroundings she found herself in. Then the adrenaline backwash from the horrific exertions Yumie had performed with her body hit and she fainted dead away.
When she awoke, she saw dark shapes leaning over her. For one absurd minute she thought they were penguins.
"Poor child." One penguin said.
"I wonder what's happened to her." The other penguin mused.
Yumiko opened her eyes properly and focused on the two women in black robes.
"Papa." She said.
"Oh, the poor dear thing!" Penguin One exclaimed, sweeping Yumiko's little body up into her arms. "We must take her home."
"And call the police." Penguin Two added.
"Yes, yes of course." Penguin One cooed.
It was warm in the nun's arms, and it felt safe. Yumiko snuggled close and fell asleep.
When she awoke for the second time, she was in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar, plain white room. She sat up and looked around. It was half-dark, either dusk or dawn, she didn't know which. A small table stood by her bed. Her glasses were on it, folded up. She picked them up and slid them onto her face. Across the room, next to the door, a strange thing hung on the wall. She slid out of bed the bed and stumbled across the cold floor on blistered feet to look at it. It was a man, hanging on a wooden cross. The man had a beard and he was wearing nothing apart from a loincloth and an expression of pious exaltation. Yumiko stood on tiptoe for a closer look at the curious thing. She could find no explanation, no small neat plaque informing the observer exactly what they were looking at. She backed away from it, nervously, and sat carefully on the bed, unsure of what to do.
There was a gap in her memory, a disturbing hole between entering the cellar in her parents' house and finding herself in an alley, cold and confused. Perhaps if she waited here quietly and didn't make a nuisance of herself, someone would come and explain what had happened.
She waited until her patience ran out, then she went to the door and opened it. Outside there was a white corridor. She walked down it for a while until she found another door and pushed that open. On the other side was a wide, high vaulted room with a flag stone floor. Two ladies in unfamiliar black and white robes stood talking to a man with an overcoat on. She walked towards them. As she did so, one of the ladies turned around and exclaimed at seeing her. She hurried over.
"You must go back to bed at once! Walking around in your condition…"
The girl blinked up at the lady. "Please. Where are my mother and father?"
The expressions of all three adults changed in a way that confused and scared the girl.
"Please…" She looked up at them, beseechingly. One of the ladies turned away and hid her face. The man stepped forward and knelt down in front of her.
"Yumiko…" He began. She didn't ask how he knew her name. "I'm a policeman. Do you understand what that means?"
The girl nodded. "Something bad happened."
He looked at the floor, composing himself, and looked up again. "You're right. I don't know how to tell you this… Something bad happened to your family. Something very bad. I have to ask you this. Can you tell me what happened before the sisters brought you here? Why you were in the street?"
The girl shook her head. "Can't remember."
"Nothing at all?"
She screwed up her face in deep thought, casting her mind back to the cellar. A flash of white, eerie light. "There was someone… thin, long hair, dirty nails." She shuddered. "I ran away." Tears welled up in her eyes. "Please, where's my Daddy?"
"Sounds like a vagrant of some sort." The man said. "Can you remember anything else about this person?"
"Stop this, can't you see she's upset!" One of the ladies hurried over and hugged the girl close to her. She was enveloped in the clean scents of soap and fresh greenery.
The man stood shaking his head. "I won't ask any more questions, Sister, don't worry. If she says anything more to you, please inform me at once." He handed the lady a card. "You're quite sure you want to look after her?"
"In the name of christian charity, officer, we cannot send away one who God has so clearly sent to us. There are several other orphans her age, she will not be short of companionship."
"If we find any extended family, we'll let you know." The police officer bowed, politely.
The lady returned the bow. "Sister Konoko will show you out."
The police officer left with the other lady. The girl looked up at the woman whose arms were still around her. The woman smiled kindly down at her.
"You must have many questions." She said. "I will try to answer some of them. I am Sister Ayame and this place is the Convent of the Blessed St Agnes of Rome. You are here because we found you lying near dead of exhaustion in the street, after you ran from the person who has killed your family." Sister Ayame paused, watching the girl. "It was difficult to say that, but the Lord commands that we speak the truth at all times."
The girl listened to the words, but did not really understand them. Killed and dead were words from the television, from the news and from books and comics and ancient stories her grandmother told, not from real life. She nodded politely to the sister.
"I see." She said.
"If you want to cry, you may do so. There is no-one here except you and me." The sister told her.
The girl blinked and waited for the tears to come. This was correct and was what happened when people died. This was what her sister had done when her cat had died and they had put it in the ground. Would they put her family in the ground? That seemed strange and impossible. Her face was wet. When had that happened?
The sister drew her close and murmured platitudes. The girl sobbed into the dark cloth of her habit. They remained like that for some time.
And so the girl came to live in the convent with other orphans and wards of the state, most of whom were fairly well-behaved. And she learned the meaning of virtue and all about Jesus and how to read the bible and to sweetly sing Agnes beatae virginis. And she was humble and sweet and kind to small animals, and no small memory, no flicker of guilt, came to worry and plague her. She cried for her family for a long time, but since she had never seen them go, never seen them dead, it always seemed as if they had just gone away. The sisters told her they were in heaven. This did not seem likely, since the things that the sisters said kept you out of heaven, she remembered her family doing quite a lot of, but it seemed wrong to think ill of the dead, so she did not argue. And she was at peace.
Until one day, working in the herb garden, with the noise of the fountain trickling nearby, she suddenly became aware that something was wrong. She got up hastily, picking up her kneeling pad and hurried inside. It was dusk, and the gentle light of evening turned the roof of the convent a warm red.
She met one of her sisters in the cloister, lighting the candles.
"Whatever is the matter, child?" She asked, lowering her taper. "You look frightened."
"I… I don't know." The girl stammered, wondering where she was going. Back to her cell? That seemed sensible. "Perhaps I'm tired."
"Working in the garden too long." The nun smiled. "Off to bed with you." She made a shooing motion. The girl bowed humbly and hurried off.
There was a scream from somewhere to her left. That way was the entrance hall. Without thinking, she veered towards it. Something inside her head screamed Danger! She slowed down as she reached the main doors and walked slowly and quietly in the half light to look in the stone hall. A white figure leaned over a nun, doing something, she couldn't see what. There was something hungry in its stance.
There was something horribly familiar about the whole scene. But she couldn't remember what it was. The white figure straightened up and she saw red splashes all down its front.
She froze, terrified, more by her feelings than what was happening. Why was this familiar? Why did she know that smell, like ancient linen and insects and old blood?
Take off your glasses.
No! It was wrong, it was evil. She remembered, from a long time ago, that it was evil when something that wasn't her spoke inside her head. Bad things happened.
Her hands moved upwards against her will, sliding the thin frames from her face and into her pocket. Her hands were not her own.
"Just fall asleep. I'll deal with this."
Yumie took a deep, but quiet breath of the convent air. Free! Time for battle. Her sword. It was here somewhere. She knew it. She could feel its ki. The nuns had taken it from her years ago and hidden it somewhere. She'd heard them talking about it while Yumiko was asleep. Yumie was always alert.
Backing away from the hall door, she headed down the corridors, following the call of her family's sword. It would be in a cupboard somewhere, hidden. She found a small cupboard under the stairs and broke the look easily with a swift kick. Finally, able to use the muscles, the strength years of hard work and good food had given to Yumiko, wasted on her. The sword could not be seen inside. She rooted through the brooms and brushes until she found a wooden tube. Gleefully, she smashed it into splinters, grabbing the sword from inside and slinging it around her waist. To battle! At last!
In the entrance hall, the nun the creature had attacked slid to the floor. It hissed something Yumie could not understand. Then it sniffed the air and pointed towards where she stood, shadowed.
Of course, it smelled her. After all, she would have known its dead reek blindfolded. It would find her as well. It was already stalking over towards her. Defiantly, she stepped from her hiding place and faced it down.
"Hhhhhhyou…" The creature ratted, extending a long-nailed finger towards her and clutched at its neck. "Hyyou did thiiiisss. Traitor child of my clan. Kinslayer!" It slid towards her across the stone floor. "So long I have sought you! I will have your blood as my sacrifice."
Yumie stood her ground. She was aware of nuns gathering behind her and in the corners of the hall and the sound of prayer. Distractions. She didn't need that right now. She sized up the creature before. Who knew what powers it had? She would have to strike fast. Someone was coming up behind her. Sister Ayame, older now, but still exuding motherly protectiveness, stepped up behind her holding up the large gold cross from the chapel.
"Back, Monster, in the name of the Lord!" She cried.
The creature stared at her and then emitted a hoarse, rasping laugh.
"Get out of the way, you stupid woman!" Yumie snapped at the sister. "Leave this to me."
"We have a score to settle." The creature chuckled.
"There is only one thing that will be settled tonight." Yumie said, pushing the astonished Sister back onto the floor. She fell hard, but Yumie did not notice. "Your account for the slaying of my Sister."
"You slew your own sisters." The creature smiled, its horrible mask splitting across the middle. "And your father. And your mother. And your brothers. I found them. My children." It spread its arms out, gesturing at the whole hall. "Behold the one you have brought into your care! She is truly my descendent. She took the lives of all her kin and then hid here!"
"THEY DESERVED IT!" Yumie roared. She looked down. "They deserved it." She looked up again. "The Lord will forgive me. The Lord forgives all!" She lifted up her sword and charged, the berserker's laugh bubbling up inside her, a wellspring of destruction. The creature was strong, but it was old and weakened by infrequent feedings. It had never been strong, imprisoned soon after it became a demon and kept weak by its family. Against a vampire of full power and strength, she would not have stood more than a few minutes, but Yumie, her body, hardened and strengthened by hard work, danced around it, a storm of whirling, flashing steel. The two of them spun, facing each other. The creature reached out with sharp claws looking to slash at her and bring her down, but Yumie was too strong, too fast, and she had the unstoppable power of the berserker who cares for neither hurt nor death. Laughing maniacally, she bore down on the creature, forcing it to the floor. It burbled, begging for mercy, but she would give none. She lifted her sword high and brought it down through the mouth into the neck and into the lungs, then twisted right, into the shrivelled heart. Then she tore it out again and brought it around for another sweep, while the creature gasped, its lungs full of blood. The hundred-folded steel bit deep, then met vertebra. Growling, she ripped it out again and slashed once more. This time, the sword found the cartilage plate between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae, cut through and swept out of the other side. Blood sprayed all over Yumie's habit and she laughed, insane, bloodthirsty, howling delight at her kill.
Her job was over now. Time to let someone else deal with the consequences. She reached into her pocket and, still smiling, brought out Yumiko's glasses.
"Let me out!" Yumiko sobbed, banging on the locked door of her cell. "Please, someone tell me why…"
There was a sigh from the other side of the door. She recognised the voice of Sister Tomoko. "We're sending for someone."
"Someone from the Holy Father. An exorcist. Sister Ayame telephoned the local exorcist Kyoto and he called a man who's coming to remove the demon from inside you. It is a very powerful demon." Sister Tomoko's voice quavered.
Yumiko nodded to herself. She knew what the other girl, the mirror girl, was now. She was a demon that lived inside her.
"The demon inside you killed another demon that came looking for it and killed…" Sister Tomoko sounded like she was fighting to keep down a sob. "…Sister Midori. They had a fight. It hurt Sister Ayame. Yumiko… the thing, the other demon..it said you.. or the demon inside you.. were the one who killed your family. That's why they never found the man who did it."
Yumiko slid down the door to her knees, and crumpled in a quiet heap. So it was true, what she'd always thought. She was tainted, evil. Bad things had happened to the people who helped her. Bad things happened to the people around her.
"How soon will the priest come?" She asked, quietly.
"Tomorrow afternoon." Sister Tomoko said, sadly.
Yumiko did not sleep. She just sat in a heap, rocking gently to herself all night long. Sometimes she prayed to Jesus, begging him to help her understand what was happening and what had happened. Sometimes she just sat, mind blank. She did not notice the small amount of dawn light entering through her window, did not notice the day passing. When the door opened, she was still sat in front of it. She looked up and saw a calloused hand reaching down to her. She looked up into the face of a western man, dressed in the simple black clothes and dog collar of a priest . He was smiling. She wondered why. His dark hair was swept back away from his face, a face it was difficult to tell the age of. His eyes sparkled cheerfully. He seemed very tall to her.
"Yumiko?" He asked. His accent was strange, lyrical. She blinked, and looked down, embarrassed. He had said her name without any suffix, the way only people who were very close did. Undoubtedly a linguistic blunder, but still enough to make her blush. He looked confused, then glanced over his shoulder. Sister Ayame stood behind him.
"Yumiko-chan." She corrected. The man nodded, thoughtfully and said something in a language she didn't understand, but recognised as English. Sister Ayame leaned down to speak to the girl. Yumiko saw that her wrist was bound up and shivered when she thought it had been her demon that did that.
"Yumiko-chan, you must get up and come with Father Maxwell. He will exorcise you."
Yumiko looked up at the man again. He was so tall. There something about him, something that made her uneasy, but made another part of her, deep inside, intrigued. She unfolded upwards and stood, demurely, refusing to look anyone in the eyes. She followed as they walked away. They led her to a small prayer room along the west corridor of the convent.
"I will leave you now." Sister Ayame said.
Yumiko stepped forward and bowed to her, dropping forward, begging forgiveness. "I'm so sorry, Sister Ayame."
Sister Ayame looked at her. There was confusion in her eyes and compassion. "Yumiko. Sweet child, it was your demon that did this. You need no forgiveness."
Yumiko sniffed. She knew it wasn't true, but it was good to hear. Sister Ayame backed out of the room with a bow, leaving Yumiko alone with the man. This made her nervous. It was rare for any man to come into the convent, especially such a strange one. The man looked at her and smiled again.
"Yumiko-chan." He said and she noticed his strange foreign accent. He made her name flow around like a stream in spring. He said something else in english.
"I don't understand." She said, quietly, he head still bowed, glancing up at him under her eyebrows. "I don't speak any english. How will you make the demon go away?"
He shook his head. He didn't understand either. He glanced towards the door and she wondered if he was going to fetch Sister Ayame to translate with the little English she had. But he hesitated. He didn't seem to want to do that. He looked at Yumiko thoughtfully. She shrank a little under his gaze. He said something again, and chuckled to himself. Yumiko frowned. He was laughing at her. She glared at him. Then he spoke again.
"Ave."
Yumiko looked at him. "Ave." She replied, her latin heavily accented with Japanese, the v practically a b..
"Quomodo vales?"
Yumiko blinked.
"I am sad. I weep." She said, in latin. Her latin was good, but formal. The priest who had come to teach them the language so they could study holy texts had been proud of how fast she learned. "Someone I knew has died."
"That is sad indeed." The man replied. His latin was accented with the same lilting tones he had spoken her name with. It seemed purer, as if it was close to the language he normally spoke. Hers seemed clumsy and stilted beside it.
"Who are you?" She asked.
"I am Father Maxwell."
"You come to send the demon out of me. Please do it. I will do anything." She bowed humbly. "It is evil and kills."
"I was told it killed another demon. A.." Here he said a word she didn't know. She shook her head, confused. "A drinker of blood." He said.
"Kyuuketsuki." The girl said the word in her own language.
"Vampire." The priest replied.
"Bampaiya." The girl made her first attempt to pronounce a word she would use many times in the years ahead of her.
"Your sisters said you cut it to pieces."
"I did not!" She protested, forgetting her manners. "Akuma. Daemon. Inside me."
The priest suddenly moved closer towards her and took hold of her chin, lifting it and inspecting her. She froze with terror at the unexpected contact. "How does the demon come out? Show me."
She shook her head, and the movement was almost an extension of her terrified shiver. The priest's quick, unexpected movements and laughing curiosity were scaring her.
"Do you want me to help you or not?"
Let me out! Let me show him. It's me he wants, not you!
The girl shied away covering her ears and whispering in Japanese to the demon in her head, begging it to be quiet. She clutched her glasses to her face, determined not to allow the thing inside her to kill again.
The priest stepped closer, watching curiously, working out what she was doing.
"Take them off." He ordered. "The…" There was no word for eyeglasses in the church latin that either one of them knew, but they both understood what he meant.
"Iie! Warui, akuma!" She shook her head. "The demon will kill you."
"I do not think it will." He held out his hand again. "Show me. Trust me."
She held still and allowed him to reach over and lift her glasses from her face. The change was amazing. Her body language seemed to expand outwards. Her eyes glittered and she met his proudly. She seemed to gain inches of height. She seemed a different person entirely.
"Loquaci Britannica?" He asked. Perhaps the demon spoke English. It would be easier. He had become accustomed to using it on his travels around the world in the service of Section Thirteen.
Yumie shook her head. The priest didn't seem to understand that they were the same person. He continued in latin.
"Will you speak with me?"
"You think I am a demon. You are wrong. I am from inside her mind. I was created when her mother and father hurt her. I was made so she could go somewhere else and let me take the pain. And it made me strong!" She clenched her fist.
"I understand." The priest nodded. "It is rare to find a true demon possession these days. I came expecting to find multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia or some such sickness of the mind."
Yumie listened to the unfamiliar words and tried to divine meaning from them. "I am not a sickness." She spat at him. "I am more. I am revenge incarnate!" She roared.
"Yes!" He gestured at her, mirroring her fury with enthusiasm and triumph and making her start back in surprise at his reaction. "You are! I see that. You are the Manus Celer Dei, the Swift Hand of God. You are splendid, an instrument of destruction!" Smiling, he folded his arms, returning swiftly to quiet repose. "And what is why I came. Whatever you were, demon, woman, monster, when I heard you had killed a vampire, I knew I wanted you."
Yumie's eyes widened. "I will kill you. I will kill you with my hands. What kind of priest are you?"
"You misunderstand me." He chuckled. "What is your name? Is it different from hers?"
"Yumie."
"Yumie-chan."
"Urgh." She spat. "You make it like I am a little girl. Better to use Yumie in the way of your people. You are strong, I see that, and I give you that, one warrior to another."
He nodded, courteously at the courtesy given. "Yumie, sometimes we must fight to protect God's people from the abominations that stalk the earth, abominations like the one that you slew. And so there must be people in the Holy See who can do that."
"You are the Pope's warrior?" Yumie raised an eyebrow in surprise. "I see why you are strong, to defend the Holiest of all people on earth."
The priest smiled. "I am his secret hand." Latin was such an expressive language. "In secret I destroy his enemies. I head Section Thirteen, Iscariot and that is what we do. I was given this task recently when the old head was taken into the arms of Mary. I need new, young people. I need you…"
"For this Iscariot?" She spelled out the syllables of the betrayer's name carefully.
"You must fight for the Lord, Sister Yumiko. He has given you to me, shown me the way. I know it."
Yumie regarded him thoughtfully through half-closed eyes. "I cannot remain here. The silly women here fear me now. God forgives me, he is eternal, but their minds are finite. Will you return to me my sword?"
"What is a warrior without a sword?"
"Dead."
Father Maxwell laughed. Yumie smirked.
"Return my glasses." She said. "I cannot walk out of here without my disguise."
The priest frowned. "How will we explain this to the other half of you?"
"She is a liar to herself. She hears all and understands all. She will come with you because she knows what she is for now. She is a snivelling worm.." Yumie sighed. "But you must take care of her. Let her look after children.. and flowers and small animals when I am not needed. She will be happy then."
"I will do that. It is a small price to pay." Father Maxwell agreed. He looked very pleased with himself as he offered the glasses to Yumie. She slid them back onto her face, and immediately shrunk a few inches. The priest patted her reassuringly on the shoulder.
They left a little while later in a taxi. Father Maxwell carried a long package carefully, fairly sure of what its owner would do to him if anything happened to it. Yumiko carried nothing but memories that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
End.