CHAPTER ONE

Where it all started.
Six years ago on this day.

The day I met her.

When Otsino was born, the doctors had grim expectations.  
Helena, his mother, wept slowly as she was told that her son was turned backwards in the womb; what’s more, the umbilical cord had been wrapped once, perhaps twice, around his neck since her last ultrasound.  
    It was a worse case scenario for expecting mothers.  
For sixteen hours a dedicated team of three doctors worked to exhaustion to ensue a safe child-birth.  After the first 6 hours, Helena lay in a cold sweat there on her gurney - somewhere between feeling alive and dying slowly.  
The tears fell often from her face as she lay docile and coherent on her back; her head turned to the door her husband was told he was not allowed to enter.
She would push when told to, and she remained conscious the entire time, refusing any anesthetic out of principal and force of will.  
Still, the sterile lights of the hospital room and the mind-numbing pain of labor began to wear at her nerve. Her eyes clouded over, her gown was drenched, and her body began to chill, but she did everything she was told to do.
Every time.

In the fifteenth hour,  Doctor Odama, pediatric speicatlist called in after 8 hours, actually had to turn away from the procedure for a moment to clear his eyes of the tears welled up at the sight of this woman.  This woman displaying such will and focus, even as she bled heavily at times he figured she'd be lost.
She didn't even know how her baby was doing. Her head merely turn to the door she knew her husband to be behind, and cired lightly- in a haze.
A nurse would occasionally pop in and out of the forbidden door that lead way to a cramped waiting room, where she would vaguely give to Helena's husband, Chino, a euphemism of what the situation actually was involving his dormant wife and his fragile baby.
When the child was finally aloud breathe into the world. he was not placed into his mothers arms, the boy- Otsino- was taken immediately into pediatric intensive care, where he was blue in the face and clinically dead for two minutes.  
He pulled through. He lived.
And life moved on for those of the Tazugan name.

Then it was when Otsino turned four and a half years old, old enough for the boy to have memory of conscious life, Chino and Helena had their second child, Anya, a little girl.
She was born without problem at all.  A blessing of light and good luck to the small, farm working family.
Twenty-eight minutes, including the cut of the umbilical chord, Anya was birthed a beautiful and healthy baby girl from the very start.  
Before he could even remember fully she was quickly the dearest of little sisters to Otsino there could be.
Then, only four months later, Otsino's mother descended into a deep fit of postpartum depression and became a different woman.
She wouldn't talk anymore. She never dealt much in the actions of her children...
Helena would cry for hours, sometimes, seemingly without reason.  Once in a while she would burst into a fit of rage from what would seem like out of no-where.  
As Otsino aged it only got worse.
His mother would now try to hurt herself frequently, without regard to whether the children saw it or not, she would pick up letter opener and knife alike with foul intention.
Before long she was directing her condition onto her own children: trying to strangle Otsino on three different occasions; and attempting to drown Anya twice before she turned three, Helena, later then tried to cut Anya twice before Chino intervened and forcefully stayed her hand.
Chino was always devastated by his wife’s actions, but he had truly loved the woman she was, and always hoped she would return one day.
Before long Otsino was approaching full-grown manhood, his mother was now unresponsive 75% of the day, and he tilled his family’s acreage while Chino made end's meat.

Then one day, when Chino got home, he saw the letter… there on his doorstep, neatly and decisively placed.
On the letter, he saw the insignia.  And he felt his stomach sink.  It had been twenty years since he had last seen that insignia.
Chino would spend the next three days reading the letter every once in a while. When he'd pick it up, he would read it over and over; keeping it and his concern for it secret to his family.
He would cry sometimes while reading it.  
He should have listened to the advice he’d gotten back then.  
He should have taken it to heart.
He should never have started a family.
It was then, on the fourth day, that Chino came home early from work- a different look in his eye.  He walked into his house, retrieved what he tells his children is the "old ceremonial katana" -bearing a distinctly familiar insignia on the butt end of the handle- and walked downstairs into the living room.  
He stood there for a moment, behind the chair his wife sat unresponsive in.  His knuckles bare white with tension around the blade handle.  A single tear fell down his cheek. With out further hesitation, he quickly slides the blade downward into his wife’s collar, ending her life quickly, the only way he could bring himself to do it.
Helena slid slowly out of the chair- lifeless and bloody - she slumped to the floor in a pile.  Chino closes his eyes and turns before she makes a thud.  
He then walks to Anya's room.  
When he has done his only daughter as he had her mother, he sheaths his sword again and walks to the back door to go out to the field, so he could find his son working the crop.
     But at the door, Chino and Otsino are both surprised by one another attempting to open the door at the same time.  Otsino haphazardly welcomes his father back, happy he is home so soon.   Chino thinks fast and in a semi-panic takes the butt of his blade and strikes Otsino in the face.  
Otsino falls,  Chino hesitates for a moment, another tear wells in his eye, but never falls as he kneels down. He takes the blade handle to Otsino's skull four more times before his son goes limp, and his lungs no longer rise or fall.  Chino wipes his face of his emotions, and slowly walks off to dig the hole.

     Chino takes the time to piece together enough spare plywood to fashion a casket big enough for his family.  When it is filled, he slides it into the shallow grave he'd spent the earlier part of the day digging.  
By midnight the earth had been set; and Chino had left the small ranch he had called home for the last twenty years along with those people who lived in it with him.
That was also about the time Otsino began to regain consciousness.
At first, he just lay there in a state of confusion until his senses began to come back to him and he became more coherent.  He could smell cut wood and he could tell the floor under him was uncomfortable and splintery.  
He thought he had opened his eyes now, but saw only more darkness.  So he moved his arms around to feel.  Otsino soon felt a body, and then another.  But the skin was cold to the touch, and they did not respond to his movement.  After further investigation, he could identify each of them by feeling the necklaces they always wore at their neck.  
His swollen eyes welled with tears as he realized he was in a wooden box with his mother and little sister, and try as he did, they would not wake up.
For a while Otsino just laid there and cried. He had a very deep connection with his little sister because of mother’s condition.  
She was only fourteen years old, and now his hands were coated in her cold blood.   

Then his memory came back. That one instant before he woke up here: His father kneeling over him, and knocking his vision white, and then the immediate dark, and numb.
      His tears welled now aided by the fuel of building rage.
Surging.
Pounding.
Seething rage.  
Otsino clenched his fists and swung hard at the roof of his casket prison, over and over.  He could hear the wood cracking, but he could not push it loose; he could not break it loose; the pressure of the dirt on top was just too much.  
He continued, over and over, and soon, he felt the oxygen run thin in his box;  he became light-headed;  and then he lay back.
After a moment, Otsino thought he drifted off to sleep, when suddenly he heard the laughter.
It was a quiet, female laughter- sounding far off at first.  
When he opened his eyes, Otsino found himself standing in a cloud of fog, moonlit - a woman’s silhouette amidst it.  He could smell, feel, and see nothing else… except her shadow.
"Who-What...?" Otsino began dumbfounded by the sight of this woman... this beautiful creature...
“That was the most amazing sensation I have ever felt, but it’s far too sad.” She says, and she steps from the mist instantly, as though it were only a curtain she could step passed.  She is a radiant young woman with relatively short, deep black hair. She wears a beautiful classic dress, like the women of the Victorian age, or perhaps the early 20’s would wear if they were rich.   Her piercing eyes glowed of orange, like a shifting fire; her skin was the most beautiful shade of light blue.
She approached Otsino, and looked into his eyes without hesitation.
“It is too sad to see such lush, vivid rage go to waste.” She says.
“What is this?” Otsino asks, a bit spellbound.  “Is this what all dying men see?”  
She smiled to him.  “I was lured here from nearby.  I could smell the murderous intent in the air, and it gets a girl like me curious.  I followed the scent through the woods until I came across a quaint property in a field.  I arrived just in time to see the swordsman kill the young girl.”  She said, eyes moving over his body and returning intently to his own gaze.
“You saw who did this to my family?” Otsino asks, surprised.
“Indeed, the same man who killed the older woman and then bludgeoned you.  I could tell he believed he finished the job, but I stuck around because I saw that you still had life in you.” She said, her voice now glimmering with a faint echo that made Otsino question his own senses.  But he was too deep in thought at the moment to feel any fear... only the same stinging rage, tightening his throat with pain.
“My father?… WHY HAS HE DONE THIS!?” Otsino yells, baring his teeth, eyes wide and red with salty tears.  
The woman shivered a little and smiled. “I—I’ve never felt this from a human before. I knew there was a reason I watched this whole scene unfold. My nose never lets me down.” She says. Otsino wasn’t listening at the time.
“I know my mother wasn’t in her right mind, but Why my sister?  Why me?  WHY DOES A MAN-“ he hesitated, swallowing his sudden lump of bitter hate forming in his throat. “-KILL HIS ENTIRE FAMILY?!”  Otsino screamed as he fell to his knees in pain unbearable, and began to weep again.
As he sat slumped there, a mess.   The woman’s expression slowly, gradually changed to a much more serious, captivated tone, as though she were just told a tragic poem of undying love unlike no other.  She moved slowly, inquisitively, around Otsino’s back.  Reached to touch him, but retracted as though he were too fragile to touch.  
“That is…this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”  She thinks to herself.  She then approached Otsino slowly, lowered herself to his level, and placed her hand on his shoulder.  Otsino looked up to her, his face the very picture of a broken man.  She licked her lips a little before she spoke the words that Otsino would never forget.
“I might be able to help you find the answer to that question.” She says, with more than a hint of seduction in her voice.  

Otsino began to force his head to clear.  “How?” he said.  He brought aggression to his voice, though it was hard to build the sound from the shaking, breaking pitch of his cries.  “Just where am I!?" he eeks.  "..and what are you?”  Otsino then asks quietly, hushed, too sad to cry anymore.  The woman gently used her thumb and forefinger to tug his chin up to meet her eyes, like a loving mother would to console a child.  Otsino was in no mindset to oppose.
“My name is Ayuri... and you’re species’ scripture refers to my kind as Succubae.” She says.
Otsino sniffles, “You’re a type of demon, then?  Is this my own mind that you have come into, then?” he asks her.  “Or am I just dead?”
“You’re a sharp one." she says jestingly.  "I entered your mind just before you lost consciousness so I could have this moment with you... You see, though you may not desire it, or even care… I think we’re both in a position to help each other right now.” She says raising her posture again to look down to him.
Otsino let out a short burst of stuffed-up laughter. “I didn’t know demons were in the habit of helping men… I’ve always heard differently... How? What could there possibly be to gain from this..” he asks, bringing his hands to his face to wipe his eyes dry as he may get them. She smiles.
“Well you see, among all the ways my kind interacts with your kind, there is one thing the two species can do that rarely ever happens; but I’m more than sure it will benefit the both of us in this situation.”
“What will it do?” Otsino asks, willing to let her continue.
“It will allow you to escape this mortal casket, and give you a chance to seek your answers.” She began, taking time to think of the most appropriate words. “and it will give me… more power in my home world.” She finished in a way that made Otsino think she feared he would immediately turn her down.  But she spoke of answers, so with a little thought, Otsino responded.
“Tell me what this thing is, this mutual benefaction, and why it sounds too good to be true.” Otsino says.
“It translates to what your people would call ‘the Dead-Man’s pact’.” She said, she then put her hand slowly onto Otsino’s chest.  “It gives me your life energy, which is triple to my kind in my world then what it is to your kind in this world.  And in return, a portion of my power is thusly given to you, which keeps your body animated.  However, though you will still be yourself as much as you feel right here and right now, your vital organs which allow you life will stop… you will essentially be a walking corpse, suspended the way it is upon the seal of the deal by my power.”  Ayuri says, standing again, crossing her arms as though the mention of her power should dignify a surprised response.  She continues.
“But for this to work several criteria must be met.  For one, you have to WILLINGLY give up your life-force- I cannot enthrall you to do this, it will not work.  For two, I have to believe that I’m getting a good source of life, among other nit-picky things of my people… We only want the best.”
“So how will that help me?  Didn’t you see?  I don’t even have to strength to get through this wooden casket.  Agreeing to this means I’ll be a zombie in a closed grave for eternity.” Otsino says.  She almost cuts his sentence off-
“-You didn’t let me finish…  I was going to say that... in your case..."  She started to bend down to look into his eyes again. “ if you were to give me your life force, I would give you more than just a portion of my own.  Since it’s worth triple to your kind in your world than what it is to me in mine, i can spare you a more generous amount.” She says.  Otsino thought on that for a moment.
“And why should I trust you to do that?  Humans live in fear of demons for a reason.” Otsino states.  Ayuri takes her time to look as serious as she can.  She leans in seductively close to Otsino’s face.
“Because your sorrow is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen; and your rage tickles me in places humans have only dreamed of touching… and I won’t-“ she put a finger to his lip. “- I CAN’T walk away from that.” She says with a smile to turn the dead.  
Otsino turns from her for a second to think again about his life, his family, his father.”  He then turned back to her, a small smile of his own across his wrecked face.
“Ayuri… my name is Otsino, and I agree to give you what is left of this pitiful life - In exchange for a chance for my answers, and if given the chance... my revenge.” Otsino says, offering his hand.
Ayuri gently places her hand in his like a delicate woman.
“I promise I’ll make good on my offer.” She says.   

And there was a burst of light.

Suddenly Otsino’s eyes shot open.  He was back in his pine casket, back in the suffocating dark.
With one breathe, Otsino balled up his right hand, raised his back off the floor for as much momentum as he could muster, and thrust once.  
The impact not only shattered the plywood, but loosened all the stamped dirt on top of the shallow grave.  With a free hand now feeling open air above the dirt, Otsino slowly unearthed himself from the casket he lay in; which was now the cradle of his rebirth.  
Otsino stand up to his waist now in earth, and as he looked around, he realized in the darkness that he was still on his family’s property, but there was no sign of Chino, or that he would still be around.
“How does it feel, Otsino?” He hears suddenly from behind him.  He turned to see Ayuri there standing over him, now wearing a more provocative black gown which cradles her body tight at the bust but slacked at the hips, reaching down as far as her mid-thigh.  
“Can you feel that little bit of me inside of you?”  she asks, with a coy smirk and a girlish sway.  Otsino thought for a moment, and analyzed his body. He looked at his two hands in front of him, filthy with earth.  He could feel the wind, and the dirt, but he could feel no more pain in his face.  He put his right hand to his chest, and felt not a single beat.  His heart did not move.  Yet he could feel something making him stronger, almost invigorated.
“I can, Ayuri." he says aloud.  "A strange, but soft warmth- this chill of the dead.”  He thought afterwards.  He immediately thought about what now had to be done. “I Daresay, that in my death, I feel more comfortable and ambitious then I had my whole life.” he assures her.
“I told you I’d make good on our deal” she says with a playful looking smile and a sway of the hips.  Otsino finishes unearthing his body.  “Being the womb of my rebirth, I will trust you from now on… and…”  Otsino paused for moment before he turned to Ayuri. “Thank you.”
“For essentially killing you?” she giggled.  “You are one silly human.”
“How about you?” Otsino ask, suddenly.  “How do… I feel?”
“It feels amazing Otsino, I knew I’d made the best call a girl could make when I found you.  Your life flows with the very essence of beauty my people desire so much.”  She says.
“Well don’t fill on it too quickly, Ayuri.  For with the luck I’ve had in my life…there will be no shortage of sorrow and rage in my death.”  Otsino said, as he began to walk back to his house for what would be the last time.