A woman, of royal elegance in humble clothes, clumsily stumbles out of a palanquin. Her head hidden behind the white fabric, she steps inside of the castle, the guards greet her on the entrance.
"To help her family..." Tori's voice echoes through the play. "...she applied to be our maid. We needed one, so we searched and accepted her. Sugemi was her name."
Sugemi looks around the building, the delicious food on the corners that she yearns for, the glance and shine in her eyes as she watches Tori, her expensive Kimono decorated with jewelry, clinging to and tinkling with every step she takes.
"The men in her place didn't want Sugemi. She was, to her bad luck, infertile and couldn't bear children. That made it impossible for her to marry. The best thing to do was to work."
Fast forward, Sugemi changes linens for the bed, though her expression darkens, her brows furrowed as Tori enters and stares at her. Her curved, big stomach shows her condition clearly.
"At that time I was pregnant with my son. About seven summers ago. Sugemi craved children and couldn't see me having them."
Sugemi turns around, her fists clenched into the linens. "Why did I have to be the one with such bad luck?" Tori doesn't understand her whisper, barely a movement of her lips.
"Three years ago..." The maid observes, motionless like a corpse, a struggling child. Their features give away the identity, tanned skin as if the child had been days long in the sun. "...I birthed Natsumi. She was so upset at this, that she grew furious. She wanted to attack my daughter!" Sugemi stretches her hand out, her fingers with the long-grown nails spread wide. "But my husband Atsumotchi stopped her. Out of pity he didn't kill her but threw her out of our castle and from there on, she cursed us all and foresaw that we'll have a lot of bad luck, so far as that our children will die!"
Sugemi hits and kicks the guards who forcefully drag her over the ground to the outside. One of them draws their sword and holds it onto her neck. "Leave now, more mercy than this you cannot expect."
"To hell with your mercy!" She screams. "You'll see what will happen to you! You'll suffer!"
The medicine seller takes a close and long look at Natsumi, who hugs his leg, watching her parents and the maid in the farthest corner of the room. Her skin is tanned so far as it doesn't seem to be solely from the sun but rather a part of her body. Nariaki has the same skin complexion.
"Natsumi, come here and get away from him, listen to your mother for once! This is no situation to annoy strangers now! And we need him for this problem..." Natsumi doesn't move an inch, giggles at her mother, and lies her head in her neck. "Mr. Medicine seller, this was a nice story!" She turns to her mother again. "Why would she want to kill me, I hadn't done anything! I was a baby."
"Human minds are complex."
"Oh, are they?" She again speaks to the seller. "Why, do you know?"
"I wonder." He takes the sword in his hand. It shivers, clatters his teeth without touching them.
"Hm?"
Another shake of the building, the screech of the Ōmukade. The medicine seller pulls the child away, holds his hand out. The barriers he set don't lock it away, with the rumble, several of its legs press through the Shoji door, it flies out of the hinge directly to him. In quick response, the seller kicks it right back at the Ōmukade, which dumps it into the ground. The wood shatters in pieces and leaves a huge hole. "Dear gods!"
"Run!" the seller yells and they grab their son. "Natsumi! Come!"
"No!" What? Natsumi clings to his leg again.
He throws more paper barriers, forms a wall of them right in front of the two which hinders the Ōmukade. It hits it, tries to break through and bites with its sharp, lethal teeth. How did it destroy the first barrier? There had been in all his time only one Mononoke to be so deep in grudge beyond redemption to race past his protection. "Natsumi, you must go."
"I don't want to!"
The centipede's body flares in red and violet energy bubble over it. Like a cobra, it positions itself up, vibrates its legs, and the claw-like teeth in the front, which produces a high, soaring sound. Unbearable, the seller holds one of his pointed ears closed. "Natsumi, leave." He speaks as gentle as possible to calm the child. "No! If I leave, you'll not know the way up to the others! I'll wait for you to come."
"Show me, then."
Natsumi runs off to a sliding door in the back. Through the shaking ground, the seller manages to get past and shuts it closed. It hisses until he seals it with barriers. Then he follows the child who runs fast in her three years old body with steady steps on her small legs and the fragile, petite body as if she'd break if she'd stumble and fall. She constantly looks back, to ensure that the seller is still behind her.
The wood beneath their feet squeaks, every step sends fire which bursts in speed until the other side. This Ōmukade's power towers most Mononoke he ever met, with such an effect on things as simple as wood.
Yes truly, such enormous thing, what tragic and disgusting story hides there?
Natsumi and the seller shove it open. Inside, two broad pictures stand tall on each side, with the members huddled around a table. Tori holds Nariaki close in her arms and as soon as the seller takes a place close to them, he throws more of the seals around the room. The walls and the ground sing in beautiful, golden-brown colors, Tatami mats cover most of it and make it comfortable to sit.
"This is a catastrophe! Why would this happen to us? This cursed woman, having so much grudge...Medicine seller!" He forces his view away from the dancing woman embedded on the picture of the fabric, to study his face. "Didn't we tell you what you needed? Now, why can't you kill that monster!"
Atsumotchi's round eyes spit fire of their black holes, right at him. His light brown hair falls in strands over his eyes, coated in sweat, glued to his forehead. The seller goes down to his knees, to which Natsumi flinches a bit. He lightly brushes a few strands out of her face and deeply investigates her eyes.
If Natsumi was to cut her hair, held in a ponytail, she wouldn't make a difference to a boy. Her features are soft, those of a toddler boy, though her walk and run are far away from toddling.
Atsumotchi's tan is likely caused by the sun, while his bone structure is clear-cut. Lightly similar to her.
Tori's blonde hair, close to the color of primroses, blends in perfectly with her gray eyes. No resemblance to her.
In an upright position, the seller holds the sword up. "Sugemi was the one to curse your family?"
"Yes," the mother answers. He walks past her to the back, glances at Nariaki who comes close to an elder twin of Natsumi. Extremely familiar with all features.
He rounds the table until he steps behind the father. "And the reason was..." The sword's handle gently touches Atsumotchi's head. "Her yearning for children?"
"Yes." The knot he swallows brings a smile to the seller for a split second. Again, he inspects the features of both children. "Please hurry," Tori sobs, bites her lips.
"Your fate is in your hand."
"What? I-I...my son will die if we don't get help! Can't we just fight off this Mononoke by weapons?"
"I am afraid, Mononoke are dead and cannot be killed. Not in the normal human sense."
"Oh, oh, ohhh, this is so exciting! So, they're immortal? Imagine if we all would be immortal!" She clings to his leg.
"Lady Tori..." The seller suppresses the urge to move, as the child's in the way.
"Are these really your children?"
"How dare you question my loyalty! If it wouldn't be for this situation, I'd hang you-"
"Lady Tori, you know it isn't avoidable and if we keep-" Upon the words of the maid, Tori smacks her across her cheek. "What do they keep, Mr. Medicine seller?" Before he can open his mouth, the child answers for him. "I wonder, I wonder." She giggles and he can't but to allow warmth to wrap around his heart from Natsumi's words. The seller gives her a faint smile.
"No, they aren't." Every person's eyes land on Atsumotchi, who looks away, with no intention. As he draws breath in to continue, Tori interrupts. "Alright, alright! Filthy stranger seller, I'll reveal to you."
Sugemi, this time with the companionship of her parents. Mother, father, and her younger siblings, two more sisters. Atsumotchi, followed by Tori and personal guards, inspects her, circles around her, with the eyes of an eagle. Like a trade. She knits her hands, head low, trying her best to control the shaking that the nobles cause her.
"I..." Tori grimaces, every core of her burns in anger. "I am the one who can't have kids. I'm the infertile one!"
"Seems good...yes, healthy, not a bad face. She'll be able to birth us an heir." Atsumotchi lifts Sugemi's chin, and she wants to run away and bury herself under the willow tree further behind her house.
"But Astu didn't want to leave me. We love each other. So, he decided to pay Sugemi's family money to be able to survive, the part with her family being weak and in need of help was true. In return, she'd make children for us. We didn't want to make this public, I'd be shamed for this and lose all my dignity."
The young birthmother gently pets over the curve of her belly. "Sweet child. I'm so happy, you, a peasant's child will get to live with the nobles. I can be your maid. At the same time, my sisters would be saved."
A baby's cry, struggling little creature, held in the arms of Tori. Incredible warmth boils up inside of her, she forms a huge grin at the sight of her son. She stretches her hands out to touch the boy, but Tori turns away. Sugemi freezes in place.
"We agreed that as soon as the child was born, it'd belong to me and that she'd have no right over it. Or the children, you can see they became more."
In a leap of time, picture after picture flows past. Sugemi helps her son on his legs, bathes him, breastfeeds him, uninterruptedly talks to him, with the softness of a mother's love. Then, pictures of Tori who scolds her, who pulls Nariaki away from her and smacks her when she watches Sugemi soothing Nariaki out of a nightmare he had.
"I tried my best to be a good mother. But he still ran back to Sugemi, even though there wasn't a word of it that she even was his mother. She was just a maid! Everybody knew this, Sugemi the maid, not the actual mother!"
"We paid her again to make another child. We said, after that, we would throw her out of service. We had paid her enough by that time that she'd be able to get her family through. So, we didn't need her." Sugemi pets her swollen belly again, tears drop onto the fabric of her maid's clothes. "And the second child, Natsumi, she birthed her with huge complications. Natsumi was such a pain, she bled out days after. Maybe...maybe..."
Sugemi lies motionless, her eyes dull and empty on the child to the side, unmistakably Natsumi who sleeps, wrapped in red silk. "We didn't give her the child to hold after birth. I never even let her touch her. Neither was Nariaki allowed to visit her. I let her die on blood loss, I wanted to get rid of her. And this was perfect. Nobody would ask, she'd die and that'd be the end of her and nobody would even care to listen. She was just a maid, after all, a peasant."
A child, another child. Her daughter is the most beautiful girl she ever had seen in this world. So lovely...so lovely. Last power, the source of will, Sugemi lightly pets over her arm. What would the nobles call her? She hopes for a nice name like Nariaki's, they have a good taste.
"Maybe...She evolved the grudge because of her children. And, even after she pleaded, I didn't allow her." Tori sobs in her tears, she shields Nariaki with the long fabric of her Kimono. "She died in hatred."
Why did she poison her own child, then? Can't she see clearly in all that hate?
"Because she couldn't see her children...but felt love for them when she didn't want to...they didn't belong to her...anger for Tori and yearning for them...is the reason." The medicine seller mumbles soft words to the sword. It watches, its face turned to him.
It shivers, clatters its teeth.
The medicine seller stares at it for a good moment, unable to do anything. This...is not true either? What is missing? Or is something wrong?
"So is it then...the mother's spirit...inside of an Ōmukade?" It clatters its teeth again.
He tilts his head to the side. Nails dig through the fabric of his trousers, deep inside of his skin. Natsumi, who presses her body as close to his leg. She sniffs and trembles. Of course, she heard everything.
"Don't look at me like this!"
"I knew you are not my real mother! Look at you, I have nothing of you!" Taken aback by the quirky response, she just stares. Neither Atsumotchi nor the maid intervene. The seller watches silently.
"I don't fucking care! Were you never born, then this wouldn't happen! You are the worst child and the biggest mistake ever, I'm glad I didn't produce something like you." Natsumi whimpers at these words. "Your tantrums and your behavior, you're a terrible kid! Nariaki is such an angel, so quiet and polite, but you? This is all because of you, hadn't your mother died, she'd not hunt us down as a Mononoke. I would gladly feed you to this thing if it means that it'll leave. She can have you back, nobody here wants you!"
Natsumi's fingers dig deeper, her body is all tense. Until she takes all breath in and...cries. Cries and cries, almost screams. It is, as if she just got whipped, loses her voice in the cry and desperately, with her mouth wide open, looks up to the Seller and drags on his Kimono. "M..M...M...why does nobody want me? Why did Mother die, because of me?" The way of how she only addresses the Medicine seller, she must've had this situation in different variations. "Had we only allowed Nariaki. Nariaki would have been enough! A son, an heir, another one hadn't been important. But how could we know she'd birth something like you. An angel requires a demon as well, ha?"
He kneels, pets over her back to calm her. He never tried to comfort a child before, this isn't his job. "You should be silent, Natsumi! When this monster hears us, it'll be over."
"It knows where we are. It is a matter of time until it breaks through the barriers." The father stumbles, breaths in and out in long breaks. Natsumi cries into his shoulder, trying with an effort to be as silent as possible. In Tori's eyes, something flickers and breaks in shards. She bites her lip.
"It isn't like this kid likes me at all. When she expresses her dislike so openly, I might as well do it too!"
The seller says no word, the petting seems to calm Natsumi. How sad, poor Tori, and Natsumi. If he could help her...
"Now...Mr. Medicine seller..." This time, the maid appears from behind a wall to which she fled when she got smacked. "Can...can you...get rid of the Mononoke?"
Natsumi stops her body silent, with no movement.
"Ha-" The seller takes his hand away and hits it with the other, capturing whatever crawled on it. He picks it up and watches the long body curl in his fingers, scratches its legs around. Its dark appearance in the dim light is impossible to notice. "A bug!" Tori yells. "A centipede." The seller exclaims. "Mr...Medicine seller...this was on my back?" Natsumi appears numb, her eyes empty. "It seems," he answers. Out of the deep, luring corners, behind walls and pictures, they crawl out, little sounds pour out of their mouths, similar to scratching nails against glass.
Tori and the maid scream further, hold onto each other while Tori balances her son in her arms. Atsumotchi stabs his sword into the centipedes. "Do something! We have told you everything, now kill this monster! I beg of you!" Natsumi hides between his legs and runs around him in hopes to flee from the bugs, but they soon circle all the members. The walls fill with them, the table loses every single free spot, below the Tatami mats as well. Free themselves and get onto their clothes.
"Help! Help! Please, I'll die of the sheer sight of these disgusting things! Medicine seller, could you get your stupid ass moving now or I'll make sure before we die that I'll choke you with my own hands! You good for nothing, you useless piece of shit-"
"Your fate lies in your hands." He doesn't move even as they crawl up his trousers, hold onto the fabric of his Kimono. "Mr. Medicine seller, will we be eaten?" The seller shakes his head at Natsumi.