[MaraTwasHere]

“Nagareteku toki no naka de demo kedarusa ga hora guruguru mawatte Watashi kara hanareru kokoro mo mienai wa sou shiranai…” A small, yet firm voice sung out into the black sky, where the stars bled away into night’s darkest inky blackness before light could throw it’s first rays over the east horizon. Up on higher ground, walked the girl of this world along a worn dirt path too close to the edge. The path that was taken by the villagers who resided far below, their hay roofs of their huts having a nostalgic, missed, shine in the darkness. Eiko had slaved to create this world, performing one too many tasks for the world bearer, minogame,  to create this haven of ancientness. It had been many centuries, and her influence over things given to her by minogame helped keep this land as it should–feudal.

“jibun kara ugoku koto mo naku toki no sukima ni nagasare tsuzukete shiranai wa mawari no koto nado watashi wa watashi sore dake...” The world, though quite new, looked just as it did before the waves of time came to wash it all away with nuclear bombs, destroying the city for it to become anew with tall sky scrapers and fast moving cars. It was so loud no one ever thought to think of how traditional things once were; how you’d make your food from scratch everyday, watch the fisherman go out to the waters to bring home the village’s food. How all the village children would run around barefooted playing Kakurenbo (hide and seek) or Kagome, Kagome. Eiko had missed these times as they were like home, but there was still something missing. The reason why she had minogame create this world…for the Kindan no yōkai. 

Eiko stopped at the end of the path where rocks were stacked on one and the other in a pattern of largest of a boulder to a pebble. Eiko reached into her floral and black kimono’s long sleeve to retrieve a straw, green dyed doll with a single red thread tied around it’s left arm. Slowly, watching with those oh so large eyes, Eiko’s porcelain colored fingers reached for one of the loose ends to pull it free. The thread caught in the breeze flying back behind her. It landed against a concrete building as the world of the lovely feudal era dripped away like runny paint from a picture. The soft greens and velvety black with the luminent bright moon fell away to the crude grays and smokey black, the orange lights from street signs and the bustle of people as they pushed by the black haired girl who nearly blended with their black coats. It was almost as if no one saw her. But when her eyes flashed a brilliant red in the orange lighting as she turned her head people gave her a wide girth around her. “I see you.” She murmured feeling her next ‘victim’.

 

[Chris the wise]

Miles hurries through the crowd to nowhere in particular, dodging around the slower pedestrians. For a moment his eyes alight on Eiko but soon she too is lost in the swirling crowd.

Ducking in against a building, he checked his phone, zero messages, all is normal. He takes a deep breath and looks for a suitable opening in the crowd.

[cass coltheart]

Mitsu strode out of the orphanage toward school. She hated it but she had little choice until she found a way back. Sighing heavily she scuffed her pumps along the sidewalk, humming a tune to herself

[MaraTwasHere]

Eiko, though short, was able to follow the foreigner until he dipped out of the crowd and pressed himself against the building near the alleyway. Foreigner–he looked American, not having a cat-like look to his eyes, but any searching yokai could sense the different energy he was letting off. Most likely unknowingly. Excitement bloomed in her chest at how familiar  the hint of energy was, like the way someone passed by you just far enough away that you recognized the perfume they wore, but just couldn’t quite tell what memory it stoked or what it was. Slyly, Eiko snapped her fingers summoning a red string that had straw dolls tied along it, similar to the one she’d used to open the doorway from her world to this one–except these dolls were black, and their left arm was practically red with how many individual red threads were tied around it.

Her dark penny loafer stepped from the crowd’s bustle and into the darkening mouth of the alley-way. She did not smile, and did not keep a very ‘arms-length distance’ from him, coming close enough and head on for him to wonder ‘who is this girl?’. Eiko raised the red yarn, making it taunt, and the straw dolls danced along it unsuspectingly as she did, the way they brushed together sounding like a strange off-tuned melody. “Would you like one?” Her small voice came out just above a whisper over the loud noise of modern Japan. Oh, how she could not stand it here.

[Chris the wise]

Silently observing the girl, a small smile tugged at Miles’s lips. he slowly bent at the waist to peer at the straw dolls.
“A gift, or to buy?” Miles’s asked looking from the dolls and into the girl’s eyes.

[MaraTwasHere]

Eiko reached for one of the dolls, untying it from the the red yarn with a slight ‘thrum’ that hummed up to her elbow and to her shoulder. She held it for him, her red eyes showing a bit of interest at the energy that came off of him. Definitely a Yokai. Definitely someone who was a part of the Kindan no yōkai. “It is…a gift for you. It is not polite to reject a gift, yes?” She tilted her head slightly looking a bit like a cat with that rather blank expression.

[Chris the wise]

A shiver runs down Miles’s spine. He feels something coming from this girl, but can’t quite place it. Instead he chuckles, gently taking the doll.
“You are right. Thank you for the gift” he studies the doll for a moment.

[cass coltheart]

*Mitsu passed through the morning without event, the day simple and boring. She sat in the shade of a tree, eating onigiri for lunch*

 

[MaraTwasHere]

Eiko does not look at the doll, instead, uses this chance of his distraction to study his face. There are some changes, yes, but he is still uncannily familiar to her. She raises a nimble finger to run along the left arm of the doll, the red thread bright and soft against the black and smooth straw. She had made this, got the grain herself to dry it out, fold it and weave it into these little anonymous looking people. “Legend has it that red strings lead to your destiny; such as future lover, friend, or even a place you are meant to be in the near future.”Her red eyes never left his face, looking for some signs of recognition of an object like this. For the most part, he wouldn’t have other than curses placed on each other by humans and demons alike in the feudal days. Nowadays, in this ‘modern world’ the dolls were even given away as toys and replicas just like this. Foolish to make fun of such magic, and to give it to a child as toy…
“You are supposed to take one of these off when you’re feeling…aloof.” Her smile came as if she knew something he did not, and she redirected her gaze to the doll, fingering the red threads. Slowly, hesitantly, she took a step back—the splash of emotion in her expression blending back to the monotone look. “Until we meet again, stranger,” She added just for irony’s sake, twirling the slack of the string around her finger as she thought back to the feudal era she could escape to in her mind when she really despised this place. Could this even be Japan? She saw reminiscences of what it once was by the chop-sticks, the language, the Japanese festivals…but that was only child’s play compared to the real Japan filled with the monsters and humans battling constantly. Even the children were not spared in constant raids of villages, and it seemed this Japan had forgotten of those hardships completely to big lights and subways. Thinking of the children brought the rhythmic eriee song, ‘kagome, kagome’. “Kagome kagome…” Eiko moved swiftly back toward the crowd, looking down at her red string of dolls as her voice was swallowed up, and she melded with the figures rushing by: “Kago no naka no tori wa…itsu itsu deyaru…?” The red string, once pulled off will guide him into the new olden world. She thought, letting the people jostle by her. First you will become lethargic…and then you will be sitting in a whole new world more alive than ever. Eiko was pleased with her work…he would be the first she found again. She snapped her fingers, making the dolls disappear and simultaneously lifting her up off the ground with a breath of smoke. The yokai sat back in her long kimono seemingly in thin air over the oblivious humans passing beneath, her eyes glowing she smiled freely a sharp toothed grin.

[cass coltheart]

*it was evening. The school day was over. Mitsu walked home slowly, taking her usual route through the park, one of the few places she liked. It reminded her of the old world, and all the beauty that  it had lost*

[Chris the wise]

Chuckling to himself as he watched the girl leave, Mile’s gently spun the doll in his hand. Returning to the flow of people he made it quickly back to his one room apartment, a simple affair with it’s own toilet but no bath. He sat at a low table and studied the doll, idly twirling the red string around his little finger.

[MaraTwasHere]

Eiko looked up at the sky, the city lights so bright you could not even see the stars that were hidden up there. Slowly, keeping her kimono on, Eiko let herself land to the ground on her Getas footwear, becoming visible to humans once more. From her kimono  sleeve she pulled a silver lotus hair comb to take to her long, dark, pin-straight hair. As she walked along she had to weave her hair through the throngs of the comb for it to actually stay in one place in the sea of black as she made her way farther from the city and toward the park. The noises were too loud with the humans here, and she doubted that anyone other than a care-taker of the park featuring some rock gardens would even be out this late.

[cass coltheart]

*finally turning toward home mitsu saw a young girl, and felt a tug on her soul. There was something familiar about this girl, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Curiosity getting the better of her, she approached the girl*

 

[MaraTwasHere]

Eiko immediately sensed the attention shifted to her, and her red wide eyes flicked over to where a girl with dark hair approached. “You must be far from home,” Eiko murmured quietly just loud enough for her to hear. Realizing that sentence could have more than one sense as she turned her body completely toward the girl. Is this why the city noises hurt her trace of mind? For her to come to this park as if led by a red-string of fate? Because this girl’s soul was also very familiar. Could she really get two in one day?

[cass coltheart]

“Further than you think…..” *the girls red eyes bothered mitsu, not because she was scared, but because she knew this meant something, but what?! She searched the depths of her mind for an answer* ” what is one so young doing out here alone?”