"Mother! Mother!" Kichigai screamed as she ran to her home at the other side of the village. Her feet padded against the dirt and her doll hung at her side. She reached the house, and ran up the staircase in front of the house. The entrance was in the back, no time to go through there. She got to the roof and broke through the trapdoor on the roof leading to the staircase leading to the inside. She got on the second floor and saw her mother and two masked men with daggers.
"Mother!" Kichigai called. Her mother looked up and saw her daughter reaching her hand down for her. The men threw the daggers, and they struck her in the chest. Kichigai screeched, "MOTHER!!" Burning tears drowned her eyes, and her heart ached so much Kichigai wished to rip it out and die. She jumped over the railing and ran to the tallest man. She jumped and grabbed him by the neck, holding so tight beads of blood began to pop out of his throat. She jumped once more and slammed the man down to the hard stone floor by kicking him across the face and grabbing his throat twice as hard. The blood flowed in red streams down his neck and her hand.
"YOU KILLED MY MOTHER! YOU WILL DIE NOW!"
The other man tried to grab Kichigai, but when he leaned in to grab her she flipped upwards and knocked him in the chin, knocking him out. The man she was chocking gagged and squirmed, trying to free himself from Kichigai's long nails piercing his neck and making him bleed.
"IT HURTS? DOESN'T IT?! YEAH! IT HURTS TO LOSE MY MOTHER, TOO!" she yelled in a deeper, more mature and feminine voice. That meant the Toshiosurukemono was helping her. Sand flowed from the open window to her hand and made her nails longer like claws.
"YOU ARE MY VICTEM. YOU SHALL DIE!" She shouted, despite the tears in her eyes. The man gave one more fetal attempt to push her off, then fell still. Dead.
"YOU'RE DEAD, AREN'T YOU? FINALLY! LAST BREATH WASN'T SO SWEET WAS IT? THAT'S FOR MY MOTHER!"
She turned to the man she'd knocked out. She grabbed a dagger from her mother's chest and grabbed a vase full of water. She stood above the man and poured the water on his face. Sand crept up around her arms as she poised the dagger above her head.
"I didn't want you to be asleep when I did this, did I?" She smiled maliciously. She thrust the dagger down and it penetrated his throat. Kichigai looked at her fingers covered in blood. The sand returned out of the open window and settled back down. She licked her index finger, savoring the blood of her victim.
"It tastes, like iron," she said and smiled. She looked back at her mother and ran to her side. She pulled the other dagger from her chest and called, "mother?"
Her eyes opened slightly.
"Kichigai. W-where are the men? Are you hurt?"
"The men are dead, I am not hurt. I killed them," Kichigai showed her mother her hands, drenched in blood. "I wouldn't let you die in vain."
"My beautiful Kichigai."
"May I ask you a question?"
"Anything."
"What does pain feel like?"
Her mother's eyes opened a bit wider, and she frowned. She slowly pushed her brown hair out of her face and sat up in pain. She took her daughters blood-stained hand and smiled gently.
"Pain is, well, hard to describe. It is a feeling that makes you want to stop feeling it. It seems to eat at you until you want to die, depending on the wound."
"What about yours? Does it hurt?"
"Yes, it does. Often, pain will fade away, and with medicine, can fade faster. But sometimes, there is a pain that hurts worse than any wound. Loneliness and a broken heart. These can make your heart wrench and twist until you want to rip it out and die."
"I think I have felt pain all this time. I am not bleeding, I have not been stabbed or shot," she put her hand to her heart and gripped it, "but it really hurts here."
"There is a medicine for that," her mother put her hand on Kichigai's that was holding her heart.
"What? Can it help me? Please! I do not want to feel this anymore! This, this pain. It is hurting me so! Please!"
"It's love, Kichigai."
"Love? How am I supposed to get that? Everyone hates me! It's hopeless!" She cried even more, putting both hands to her heart.
"Not everyone. I love you, I do. And hopefully, I can help the pain go away."
"But, my heart hurts twice as much, seeing you like this! It's my fault. I didn't run fast enough! Wait. Medicine, that's it! I'll be right back!" Kichigai ran to the other room and pulled open a cabinet. She grabbed a hand rag and some liquid used to help open wounds and ran back to her mother. She kneeled next to her mother and dabbed some of the liquid on the rag. She dabbed it then on the open wound in her mother's chest.
"It is better?"
"The pain is going away, th-ah!" Her mother yelled. She put her hand to her chest, and began to get weaker and weaker.
"Mother!"
"It is not the medicine, Kichigai, rest assured. It is the wound. It is too great to heal."
"Are you-?!" Kichigai asked, panicked.
"Y-yes. I love you, Kichigai. And despite all that everyone says, and you have a demon within you, you are special. No one can take that from you. M-my Kichigai…" her voice trailed off, and her eyes shut. She looked as if she was sleeping.
"Mother? MOTHER?!!?!" She grabbed her hand and held it close to her. It was so cold.
"You can't be, no. This feeling. Mother, please wake up. GAH!!!" Kichigai clutched her chest and collapsed to the floor, sobbing hysterically. She could barely stand this.
"P-p-please," she whispered mournfully, "wake up. Please, please wale up."
Her mother was still.
"KUDASAI OKIMASU! KUDASAI! KUDASAI! ANATATACHI SHINAKEREBA NARIMASEN! MITE KUDASAI! KUDASAI!" She screamed. She only spoke in Japanese when she was really distressed. (Translation: Please wake up! Please! Please! You have to! Look please! Please!)
"TASUKETE KUDASAI!! TASUKETE! Tasukete kudasai? Kudasai," she cried out helplessly, and her voice faded as she clutched her stuffed doll to her heart, which felt as if it had burst like a bomb, and felt as if it was now bleeding hysterically.
(Translation: Please help me! Help! Help me, please? Help. [This is actual Japanese])