August 16, 1882
By now, Kinako and Kensuke had been having sex on and off for over two and a half months, and while the relationship was largely physical, there was clearly a hint of romance beginning to show itself between them. However, the odds would turn out to be against them when something that changed Kinako happened on a Friday night in Yoshiwara.
"Himawari," said a client to Kinako, calling her by her stage name of sorts as an oiran. "Come on over here. You're giving me a hard-on."
"Alright, alright," she playfully replied, knowing her part very well in keeping her customers happy, regardless if it was for sexual or non-sexual purposes. "I bet you've had a very stressful week, mister. Would you like a nice fuck to get your mind off of it? I can help you with that. All you have to do is say yes."
"Fuck yes," the man replied as Kinako straddled him and began to strip down for him. "I paid good money for this, and I intend to make the yen I paid worth it."
"I can clearly see that." As she began to remove the belt around the man's waist, she thought to herself, "Like I haven't heard that a hundred times before. It feels like I'm a machine at this point, saying the same shit over and over and over again to perverted men. I've only been doing this for two years, but it's starting to feel boring and tiring. At least I'm not a lower-ranked courtesan or prostitute. I could be getting fucked by ten or even twenty guys a night if I was, which… Yeah, I can feel pain in my loins just thinking about that. Fuck that shit."
The man said to Kinako in an attempt to sound seductive, "How bad do you want me?"
"Not any more than any other client," she thought to herself, clearly used to this by now. "How fucking original." To disguise her true feelings, she whispered to him, "I want you so bad. Fuck me like you mean it. Come on."
"Okay, okay, stop being so feisty. It sounds like you're gonna rip my pants off and fuck me instead."
"Believe me, I've done that before to a man," Kinako thought to herself, once again expressing her true feelings in her head. "It was a bit odd, but I wouldn't mind doing that again." Then, suddenly, Kinako began to feel a bit sick. "Agh, shit…"
"Huh?"
"Oh fuck," she said before she got off the man and then raced to a nearby window, forcing it open as fast as she could before looking down on the street and doing her best to hold in vomit. "Agh… No… Fuck…"
"Hey, what the fuck?! I thought we were gonna get down to it! I paid for sex! This is my third visit to you!" The man was clearly not happy with this predicament of Kinako's.
"Shut up, I'm gonna be-" Kinako then puked out of the window and onto the street below. "Agh, motherfucker… Oh no…" As she puked again, she thought to herself, "No way.., I can't be… Am I pregnant?! How the fuck am I pregnant?!"
The man then shouted, "Stop fucking with me! You aren't si-" He then saw her turn around and saw a small trail of vomit hanging from her mouth. "Oh shit… You are…"
"I told you…"
…
An hour later, after an examination by a doctor, Kinako had been told the news: She was indeed pregnant with the child of someone she had had sex with in the last two or so months. As she sat in her room by herself, she thought to herself in a state of panic, "God damn it, why now? Given what the doctor said, the father could be at least six or so men… Hell, it may even be Kensuke-kun… I'm actually praying it's his child I'm carrying, but I have a bad feeling it's one of my customers. What the fuck did I get myself into?" Then, she heard a knock at her door. "Come on in."
Daki then opened the door, still dressed in her outfit as an oiran. "So, you're pregnant, are you?"
"Yeah," she replied. "I did my best. I didn't let every client finish inside me, even though some really wanted to. I even took the herbs that people say can reduce the risks, but…" She then sighed. "This whole baby thing is gonna fuck with my life."
"We have ways to get it out," Daki told her. "If that's what you desire." In her mind, she thought to herself, "I'm actually hoping she takes this route, even if it's the riskier one. We can't afford a girl like her being bogged down like this."
"We do?"
"Yes," Daki replied. "They're a bit risky, though. I'm not saying you have to, but it would get you back in business and more desirable faster if all goes to plan."
"Desirable?"
"Most men don't want to have sex with oirans that are pregnant," Daki explained. "They think the girl looks ugly and undesirable since another man claimed her and her belly protrudes."
"What will happen to the baby if I keep it?"
"Well… If it's a girl, it'll be raised here and will probably follow in your path. If it's a boy, anything could happen."
The thought of giving birth to a girl and then immediately grooming her into a life of prostitution like her own in Yoshiwara sent chills down Kinako's spine. "Should I tell Kensuke-kun about this? It may be his child I'm carrying."
"No," Daki immediately shot her down. "He doesn't need to know. We'll never know if it was his baby, anyway."
"You're right," Kinako agreed. "The men I sleep with all tend to blend in with one another after a while." She then wiped her eyes of tears as she began to cry. "Sakurahime, I'm scared. I don't want to have a baby girl. I don't want to have her groomed into this life. I don't want to have a child in these circumstances. Why the fuck did this have to happen to me?!"
Daki, who normally might have brushed off her concerns as being the menial worries of a human, actually felt bad for her. "I'm sorry you're going through this."
"I can't have this child," Kinako decided out loud, which both lifted a weight off of her shoulders but also put a new weight on. "I just can't. How do you get rid of it?"
"I can take you there tomorrow night if you desire," she replied. "If you change your mind, let me know. Once you go through with this, there's no going back."
Kinako nodded. "Okay."
…
August 17, 1882
Daki, disguised to hide her appearance and prevent others from recognizing her as she walked in the street late at night, took a similarly disguised Kinako to a small house in the poorest area of Yoshiwara to get her an abortion. As the two walked along the dirty and trash-filled path past several dilapidated buildings, Daki thought to herself, "I still remember spending my early days here as a human. It feels so odd to go back after rising through the ranks. I just hope nobody recognizes me."
As the two stopped in front of a small building, Daki knocked on the door. An older woman in her sixties answered. "Hello? What services do you need?"
Daki then replied, "Services for ending a pregnancy."
"For who?"
"Me," Kinako replied, incredibly nervous and even shaking slightly. "I'm the one."
"I see," said the old woman. "Come with me."
Daki then told Kinako, "You'll be in good hands, Himawari. This woman is very experienced with this sort of thing."
"Okay…" Kinako then sheepishly walked in with the old woman.
"Come back in about two hours," the old woman told Daki. "I'll send a messenger if anything goes wrong."
"Thank you." As Daki began to walk away, she resisted the urge to salivate from the stench of death and blood in the area. "Focus," she thought to herself. "You aren't here to eat, Sakurahime. Just go back and focus on your work."
…
An hour and a half later, as Daki had finished entertaining three guests with a shamisen performance, she put her instrument away in a box and said to herself, "No sex tonight, but I'm glad I got to play this for a whole visit." She then heard a knock at the door to her room. Annoyed, she replied, "Who's there? You're disturbing me!"
"It's an emergency," said an unknown voice. "You need to see Himawari-oiran now!"
Daki's mood immediately changed as she got up and raced out of the room. "What the Hell?"
The messenger, a younger girl Daki had recognized from the same secret clinic she had taken Kinako to, told her, "There's been complications."
"I'll be right there," Daki then told her. "Go back to your boss and tell her I'll be there."
"Got it," said the messenger as she raced down the hallway.
Daki then went back into her room and discarded her oiran outfit for her disguise from earlier. Once she was dressed, she used her obi sashes to sneak through the walls of the brothel and out onto the street without anyone noticing her being gone. "This doesn't sound good," Daki thought to herself. "If she died, I'm gonna have to cover it up somehow. This is gonna be a huge damn mess, regardless of what happens."
…
About fifteen minutes later, Daki arrived at the secret clinic and raced inside. "Where's Himawari?! What the Hell happened?!"
"She… She's almost dead," said the old woman, her clothes bloodied and soiled. "I'm sorry." The room was a mess, with dirty medical instruments all around and blood all over the floor. Kinako herself was lying on a blood-stained bed and was clearly on the verge of death due to complications during the abortion that the old woman had attempted. "I'm really sorry…"
Daki sighed and walked over to Kinako, ignoring the old woman. "Himawari… Hey… Hima-… No, Kinako, are you there?"
"Hey…" Kinako turned to her, her voice far weaker than before. "I, uh… It didn't work…"
"I know…" Daki was feeling bad for her, something she rarely felt for other people, especially humans. "Damn it, this sucks."
"Hey, listen… Don't… Don't tell Kensuke-kun… Tell the others I ran away…"
"That you ran away?"
"Yes… I don't want them to know about this…" Tears began to flow down her face as she then told her, "Tell Kensuke-kun I was beginning to love him… It's not his fault…"
As Daki looked on, Kinako used the last of her strength to grasp one of her hands, which she did not resist, and squeezed it before she then went limp and proceeded to die in front of her. She could sense Kinako's life pass on in front of her and sighed out of a mix of annoyance, anger, and even sadness. "Damn…"
The old woman asked her, "What do you want to do with her?"
Daki then shot a glare at the old woman, angrily telling her, "What the fuck did you do?!"
"It was a mistake! I swear! It wasn't my inte-"
Daki then grabbed her by the neck and held her up by her hands. "You killed her! You killed one of my best oiran! I'll make you pay for that!"
"Agh… Let me go…"
"No… No!" Daki then squeezed so hard on her neck that she decapitated the old woman, her blood splattering all over the room and all over Daki's disguise, disgusting her.
"Agh, shit! It got all over my fucking clothes!" She then took off her disguise, revealing her regular outfit as a demon underneath, before wiping the old woman's blood off of her face with a piece of clothing she ripped from her bloodied cloak. "I'll have to cover this up. I can't believe I got all their damn blood and shit on me. Fucking disgusting."
The messenger from before then returned to the clinic, and as she walked in, she asked, "Hello? Anyone he-?" When she saw the scene before her, she froze in a state of panic before Daki used her sashes to quickly grab her arms and legs to restrain her and then slit her throat to kill her.
"Looks like I'll need to store this food," Daki said. "But before I do that, I need to cover up for Kinako's death…" She then reached for an unstained piece of paper and a pen in an inkwell to quickly pen a letter that she would pretend was from Kinako, perfectly mimicking her writing style as she wrote a short letter that would give the impression that Kinako ran away from Yoshiwara. As she finished the letter, she looked at the now deceased Kinako and said to her, "I'm… I'm sorry I let this happen to you."
Once the letter was complete, Daki used her sashes to grab and entrap the bodies of all three women within them before sending them into the ground to store them in the caverns beneath Yoshiwara for safekeeping. As the last of these sashes disappeared into the ground, Daki first grabbed a set of clothes nearby to disguise herself once more. She then grabbed a torch used for a light nearby and set several papers on a desk on fire before then setting the bed on fire. By the time she left the small clinic, smoke poured from the front door.
As far as anyone else knew, Kinako, or Himawari, had disappeared, as did the old woman and her assistant, and her run-down clinic had burned down. Nobody would suspect anything about what had happened.
…
August 18, 1882
Kensuke was deeply confused and also saddened by Kinako's disappearance as he talked to another oiran at the brothel. "I can't believe she just got up and left like that," he said to her. "This fucking sucks."
"I know," the other oiran replied. "This is so unlike her. She was really dedicated to her work. Well, I suppose we don't always know what's happening in someone's head."
"That's true."
"Look," said the other oiran to him. "I know you and Kinako-chan had a special relationship, so I can only imagine what this must feel like. I'm really sorry this happened to you."
"Thank you." Kensuke then sighed as he looked out at the street below him during the daytime. "On top of that, we had that fire in the poor area of the district last night. Something like five buildings went up in flames before they got the fire under control."
The other oiran nodded. "Yeah. Fires in this area of the city can be really bad due to how tightly the buildings are packed here. We can only do prostitution and other forms of work within this very small area, so space is at a premium. If firefighters don't get to a fire in time, it could destroy most of Yoshiwara. We have some volunteers inside the district itself, but they can only do so much until the permanent professional firemen from right outside the gates arrive. It's a miracle there hasn't been a massive fire here since the Meireki era some two hundred years ago."
"How bad was that fire in the Meireki era?"
"It destroyed over half of Tokyo," the other oiran replied. "Or as it was known back then, Edo. It started in the Hongo area of the city, and it basically flattened all of Yoshiwara. It's never been proven, of course, but people say that the fire was started when a priest tried to cremate a cursed kimono."
"Cursed kimono?"
"They say it was cursed because it was previously owned by three young women who died before they could wear it."
Kensuke, creeped out by this, replied, "Holy shit… Maybe that kimono was cursed."
"If it actually ever existed," the oiran pointed out. "There's a chance that the story is just a myth. Either way, the fire started in Hongo and spread from there in the span of three days, killing over 100,000 people."
"100,000?! That's insane! Holy fuck!"
"Even today, the city is a dangerous place to have a fire. It was even more so back then. At least some places have electricity now, but back then, we all had to rely on candles." The oiran then asked him, "But getting off that topic, have you seen Sakurahime? She seemed pretty shaken up by what happened to Kinako-chan. It's so odd to see her like this. She's usually either very strict or giving off a polite face."
"I noticed that, too. I know the two were somewhat close. Kinako did give the letter to her first, after all."
