//kuchisake-onna.
how could i, how could i...
----=Part One: Maiden
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a young lady of an unimportant landowner's house. She was very beautiful from the day of her birth. Her hair was as black as the night in the highest mountaintops, and shone as brightly as the stars always. She had moss green eyes of a pale tint that made her glances all the more shocking. In her home province, she was widely acknowledged to be the most beautiful woman for miles around.
Even beyond her beauty, there was her personality. Visitors to her father's court returned to the capital of the land, singing praises of the beautiful child with the perfect manners and a katana-sharp wit. She seemed to be the perfect trophy daughter- so much that one day she was chosen to be the wife of the Emperor's nephew, a noble samurai who had distinguished himself for his uncle and lord many times over. He was not as beautiful as she. After their first meeting, when he had returned to his lord uncle once more, she had burst into tears and cried, for she had always dreamed of much more for herself.
But the day came, and as expected- as the daughter of her father- she donned her juni-hitoe and knelt beside the noble samurai before the priest. The wand was waved over them and the words that bound them as husband and wife were spoken. It was a beautiful wedding, with all of her family, his family, and indeed the Emperor's entire court in attendance. It seemed as if nothing could go wrong. They sipped from their cups of sake, and eventually the wedding bowl of sake was passed around; those present were meant to drink from the bowl to symbolize their observance of this sacred union.
That is where it started to go wrong. The bowl was passed to the maiden's youngest sister, an ill-favored child with none of her sisters' grace or beauty. With a determined look on her face, she took a long sip from the bowl, standing on her tiptoes. The bride could see what was going to happen before it did. The youngest sister fell back hard on her heels, and the porcelain bowl slipped from her fingers. Sake splattered and the priceless wedding bowl shattered into more pieces than the noble samurai or his wife could count. Superstition said that now that the marriage was fated for a tragic end.
But life went on, and not even the dropping of the sake bowl seemed to affect their marriage. They continued on, the noble samurai enamoured with his lovely wife, who seemed to only take interest in him when it appealed to her. She still dreamed of so much more, but didn't dare move to take it; she would never, ever bring dishonor to her family. She compromised with her heart by becoming very active in the woman's circles- sewing, tea ceremony, arranging parties, everything she could do to keep herself away from the husband she couldn't stand.
This is where it all truly went wrong.
He began to be suspicious. No one else's wife was so busy with so many things at once; they had time to have children within the first year of their marriage. It had been three, and yet he had no sons. There was only one solution- she had to be cheating on him. He knew he was no prize, but he had thought that her beautiful, demure self was her true self. Now, though, she appeared to him as a scheming, shallow woman. She had to be! She was cheating on him... He made his decision then.
She would have to die.
The beautiful woman was returning from a small gathering celebrating the first cherry blossoms. He had taken the time to procure a knife with a wicked edge, ridged and strange to the eyes. The handle was ebony and finely detailed to resemble the nukeube, the floating heads that ate the unfaithful. His eyes were cold as he stood behind the screens in their bedchamber, crouching low so as not to be seen. She entered softly, calling out a polite greeting as she usually did. He leapt out, knife clenched tightly in his hand as he pinned her to the wall by her throat. She begged and pleaded with him, asking in a whispery voice to know how she had offended. Her pleas fell on his closed ears like a pebble upon an avalanche of larger rocks and were quickly lost as he cut her face from the corners of her perfect, crimson mouth to her ears. She screamed, thrashing at him.
He let her go, and she fell to the ground; he left to go get cleaned up. It was several moments before she picked herself up off the ground and slid across the tatami on her knees to a low mirror. Gazing at her reflection, her beautiful eyes closed tightly in horror. That couldn't be her- she refused this version of her. Looking around, trying to find her solution before the husband who had ruined her so returned, her eyes fell on the wicked knife. Her fingers, so accustomed to teacups, calligraphy brushes and embroidery hoops, curled awkwardly around the handle.
She couldn't live as she was, no matter the dishonor to her family. Her resolve hardened, and she drove the blade into her chest, just under her heart. She died within minutes; when her husband returned, her hands were clenched tightly around the black-handled blade. Her body was cremated, as tradition demanded, and interred in her murderous husband's family vault. The ill-favored sister took her place as the noble samurai's wife without a care in the world, simply looking back towards her sister with only faint disgust.
----=Part Two: Youkai
Everyone thought that was the end, but it was not. Her spirit longed for vengance- upon her husband, who had so cruelly defaced her before she had killed herself, upon her sister who had cursed her so by dropping the sake bowl at her wedding. She clung to life, resisting the efforts of the shinigami every time they tried. No matter what they said to her, she stayed, watching life go on without her. No one seemed to notice that she was dead, not even her parents. Anger grew within her heart, and she found herself wishing that she could get her revenge upon them.
And her wish was answered in the shape of the black-handled blade. It was a foggy night and she was walking in the gardens, her white kimono- crossed right-over-left in the fashion of the dead- blending in and dampening with imagined dew. The chain necklace worn by female wandering spirits hung heavy on her neck that night; perhaps that was what called the wicked knife to her, falling loudly to the cobbles. She knelt, picked it up. It didn't feel so strange to her anymore.
This was what she wanted, wasn't it? Revenge upon the unfaithful husband, the spiteful sister? She smiled; the chain broke. She was a youkai, no longer simply the wandering spirit she had been. Faster than she could keep track of, she found herself standing in the room she had once shared with her murderous husband, looking down on the objects of her hate. Her too-wide mouth, ruined by the very blade she held, spread even wider open in a grin as wicked as the knife.
Her sister was first; she slit the girl's mouth from ear-to-ear as her own had been. The husband awoke to his wife's screaming and rose quickly, pulling out his katana in what would be a futile effort to kill his dead wife. Overcome by a psychotic need for vengance, the youkai drove the wicked knife into her sister, practically pulping her abdomen before moving on to her murderous,
noble samurai husband. She opted for slashing rather than stabbing, but the result was the same. Two dead bodies populated the room; the tatami mats would never be clean again.
She left the room, returning to what had been her trunk to take one of her sister's silk scarves. It had been stained a brilliant ruby red from all of the blood; she didn't mind. Twining it around her face, she hid the disgusting cuts on her face before drifting from the palace.
Her choice to remain on terra firma affected her. She became more tempermental, choosing to torment the ladies she had once held tea ceremony with, slashing their faces as hers and damn if she cared if they lived or died. She was a demon, not a proper court lady...
Slowly, her fame and her scope grew. She began to target children and people in the flower of their youth, walking up to them in quiet streets after sunset or on rainy, foggy days and asking them, "Atashi wa kirei?" Was she pretty? They almost invariably would answer yes, and then she would smile and remove her stained scarf. She would repeat the question, and they would scream and run. After that, it was so simple; her anger took over, and she would chase them and croon softly, "I wish to do to your face what was done to mine..."
As the times changed, so did she. Her kimono evolved to a western-style dress, then to jeans and a hoodie; her scarf changed to a muffler and then to a surgical mask. But she always kept her wicked, black-handled knife.
And then everything ended.
It was late in the year; snow had fallen in Tokyo and become gray slush. People were hurrying home, trying to get back inside to where it was warm. Three beings remained outside; one, a youkai, the kuchisake-onna. The other two were hunters, seeking to exorcise the demon that had plagued Japan and southern Korea. Armed with everything they could need- rock salt to enclose the demon, and holy water to dissolve it and force it to die- they went hunting, the male shadowing the innocent-looking female.
Who else was she supposed to victimize? She started to follow the girl, and eventually blocked her off in an alleyway. "Atashi wa kirei?" she asked smoothly, the appearance of a curious girl. The hunter nodded and replied in the affirmative, and then the youkai removed her mask. "Atashi wa kirei?" she repeated, her wide mouth curving in a strange way. When the girl turned towards the dead end to run, she sped forward; something repulsed her, and her front became one mass of roiling pain. She turned, meaning to run away and regroup, but she was enclosed on four sides by rock salt.
"Iiieeeeee!" she wailed, beating her hands against the invisible walls. She didn't want to die. She liked the way she was! She didn't want to die. The male she hadn't seen or sensed stepped into the alleyway, lugging a gasoline can full of holy water and handing it to the girl. The youkai whirled to face the girl she had been hunting and begging her for her life.
Please. Please don't kill me, I don't want to die again.
With her face steeled, the hunter unplugged the gasoline can and upended it over the enclosed spirit; she screamed, clawing at her own skin. The wicked knife fell away, and so did the spirit's life.
The maiden had been killed again. But that didn't stop her from cheating death just one more time.
----=Part Three: Fa'e
(working on it)
