Shikigami Girl Chapter 1: Stolen Name

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Gods exist everywhere in Japan.
To the people of this country, the gods, or kami as they call them, are supernatural existences that surpass humans.
The ‘torii’, the symbolic vermillion gates at the entrances of Shinto shrines, can be found on the streets. They indicate the sacred precinct of a shrine, telling humans that “Beyond this gate is where the gods live.”
Having had only just arrived in Japan for my studies is no excuse. I should not have forgotten that gods who live beyond the torii are not always benevolent. In fact, they can be bad sometimes; even evil –

“Amazing.”
I passed under the torii and past the stone statue of a fierce-faced beast. It was a komainu– a guardian lion-dog for the gods. An ancient shrine surrounded by a small forest came into view, and I could spot small pieces of paper stuck onto its pillars. Amulets. They were there to keep the place safe from fire.

“These are from the Edo period…”
As I approached the amulets, I took a proper look at the characters written on them. They seemed to date back to about 400 years or so: the age of the samurai and ninja.

During a nighttime walk, I found myself stepping into the back alley leading to the shrine out of pure curiosity. It was deserted, derelict and uncared for. In a city so full of tourists, I had to wonder why such a historical site could have been left abandoned.

Bearing no mind to the no trespassing sign, I stepped over the single rope barricade. I faced the double doors of the shrine, which were sealed shut and closed with twisted Japanese paper ropes.

What I did next was a mistake, and one which I cannot explain. Perhaps some sort of power was leaking out from the old seals; luring and enticing me into wanting to enter. It was an irresistible urge, and I stretched out my arm to touch the seal. The knots in the rope seemed to naturally undo themselves.

The wooden door let out a creaking sound as I pushed it open.
Peeking into the shrine, all I could see was a pitch-black, all-consuming darkness.
“Empty,” I muttered, mostly to convince myself. The truth was, it wasn’t empty. I could hear a suppressed giggle within the darkness.

“Is someone there?”
A child. The laughter of a little girl’s voice could be heard.

“Who are you?”
The voice began to sing what sounded like a nursery rhyme.

“Kagome Kagome
Kago no naka no tori wa
Itsu itsu dete yaru”

Every inch of my body froze.

It seems that in Japan, children have their own nursery rhymes that have passed along generations. Normally their lyrics don’t make any sense at all. However, this song –

“Oh..no…”
This is bad. Really, really bad.

“Yoake no ban ni
Tsuru to kame ga subetta”

This particular nursery rhyme is famous. Due to the meaning of the lyrics not being so clear in the Japanese in the first place, it it a little difficult to translate into English, but one common translation would be something like this:

Kagome Kagome
Kagome Kagome

Kago no naka no tori wa
We see a little bird sitting in the cage

Itsu itsu dete yaru
When, oh when will it come out?

Yoake no ban ni
In the dawn of the night

Tsuru to kame ga subette
The crane and the turtle slipped

Ushiro no shoumen da~re?
Who is standing behind you?

It is the song to a playground game but the cryptic lyrics are thought to be some kind of code. Once, in the past, there was said to have been a sadistic samurai lord who massacred his people, concealing the crimes with his power. Dying parents told accounts to their children in the form of a nursery rhyme and had the children vow to avenge them… The children promised to bring vengeance, even if it meant transforming into dreadful demons in the process…

I turned on my heels, ready to run.

“Ushiro no shoumen da~re?”

A shadow was standing in my way. A shadow of a young girl. With a giggle it began to rapidly grow in size.

“Stop…!”
Two arms extended from the shadow and made their way around me.
“Stop, stop, stop!”

I frantically struggled to free myself, but I just could not get away.

“Huh!?”
There was something happening to my smartphone. With the flash of the screen I noticed that my contacts and social media apps were all opening on their own. It wasn’t just that though- all the data was deleting itself.

The data disappearing was not only digital. I had earlier scribbled down my name onto my hand in ballpoint pen to show my new friends how it is written in my language. As I held my hand up to my face, I watched in disbelief as the letters slipped away.

“Ushiro no shoumen da~re?”

“No way.”
I grasped onto those memories, letting out a groan of despair as I couldn’t reach them. The names of my friends, the names of family, they all became blurry. Even my own name. I struggled helplessly as the being continued to steal my identity.

—Ting-a-ling
A scream was making its way up my lungs and out my throat when I heard the sound of the bell.
–What?
In that moment, I felt something brush past my cheek and swiftly fly away. It was two pieces of origami; as in the intricately folded Japanese papercraft. They were in the shape of a cat and an owl. The paper animals fluttered forward, seemingly moving with a life of their own.

I sensed the origami figures cutting and slicing into the arm of the malevolent being until I felt its grip around me slacken. I braced myself and exerted all my force, taking the opportunity to escape from its clasp. With too much force, my momentum caused me to fall on to my rear.

“Repose! Yield the virtue of Acala!”

A raven-haired Japanese girl wearing a purple kimono appeared. I noticed her red glowing eyes, sharp in the dark backdrop, when her gaze turned towards me.

“You woke up an evil spirit. You fool.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
I registered some surprise on her face when I replied in Japanese.

“Watch out!”
As the warning left my lips, she already had her left arm raised to guard herself from the sudden attack. I watched on as illuminated lines formed a glowing mandala in the air that shielded her from the attack.

The evil spirit transformed into a giant, poisonous millipede and circled around us. Even in this monstrous form, it continued to sing.

“Kagome Kagome
Kago no naka no tori wa
Itsu itsu dete yaru”

‘Tsuzura! Yoh!’
She called out the names of the origami figures, and they flew back to her. The girl interlocked her fingers in a series of positions, continuously changing their shape. It must be the finger signs that were used by ninja and high priests of Esoteric Buddhism.

“Divine Beast Incarnation!”
Upon her order, the origami figures shuddered and transformed into a real white cat and white owl. They swivelled and attacked the poisonous millipede. Her fingers continued to fly as she shouted the name of each sign.

“Rin. Pyo. Tou. Sha. Kai. Jin. Retsu. Zai –”

The white cat Tsuzura and the white owl Yoh shape-shifted into half-beast, half-human figures. Yoh was brandishing a combat cane over its head.

“Zen!”

She declared her order and Yoh sliced off the head of the millipede. The body of the evil creature let out a screaming noise, thrashing itself out of the shrine and crawling into the deep forest.
“It escaped…!”
The girl was panting heavily, her shoulders rising and falling, seemingly having depleted her energy. Her eyes followed the escape path of the being, but she wasn’t following it. While putting the white cat and owl, now in their original origami forms, into the overlapping part of her kimono, her eyes turned towards me.
“If I hadn’t been passing by, you would have met a terrible fate. Worse than death.”
“I…”
I was trembling so much that I couldn’t even bring myself to ask her if it were possible to chase after the being in order to get back my identity.
“You should pay your respects to the gods from now on.” she told me.
“I didn’t mean to disrespect anything. I just…”
Half way through saying it, I realized that I was babbling in my native tongue.
“I’m sorry.”, I said, apologizing to her in Japanese.
The girl turned around, her kimono sleeves fluttering as she disappeared into the night.

—Ting-a-ling
The sound of the bell still lingers in my mind.
That is how I first met Kuzuha Komyo.

Continue to Shikigami Girl Chapter 2: The Komyo Clan →