It was almost more cruel this way. It was better when something--anything--was happening. Several times, she determined to speak to the guards, but could not find the courage to speak.
The hours dragged on. It was enough to make her want to scream. After the sun set, and the cell had sunken into blackness, three women arrived.
The white-haired lady at the head of the three wore the kind of outfit Youko had seen in old historical dramas about China. It was a tremendous relief to finally meet someone, and a woman at that, not one of those grim-faced men.
The old lady said to the two who had accompanied her, "You can leave now." They deposited the articles they were carrying on the bed, and, bowing deeply, exited the jail cell. After they had gone the old lady pulled the table next to the bed. She placed the lamp on the table. The lamp resembled a candlestick of sorts. Next to it she put a bucket of water.
"Well, then, you'd better wash up."
Youko answered with a nod. Slowly she washed her face and hands and feet. Her filthy, blackened, reddened hands soon regained their normal color.
By this point, Youko began to notice how hard it was to move her limbs. This was no doubt because of Jouyuu. Over and over he had forced her body to do things it was hardly capable of, and now her muscles were torn and stiff.
As best she could she washed her hands and feet. The water soaked into the fine lacerations. She went to comb her hair, undoing the three braids gathered at the back. That was when she became aware of something truly strange.
"What … what is this?"
Undone from the braid her hair spilled down like a wave. She stared. She knew she had red hair, a red that faded at the ends, almost as if bleached. But not this! Where did this bizarre color come from?
It was red, a red steeped in blood, a red changed to a deep, dark crimson. To be called a redhead was one thing, but this was not that! She could not think of what to call it, this impossible, freakish hue. A shudder ran through her. It was the same red color as the coat of the creature in her nightmares.
"What's the matter?" the old lady asked. When Youko indicated her hair, she tilted her head to the side. "Why worry yourself so? There's nothing strange about it. A tad unusual, perhaps, but pretty enough."
Youko shook her head, searched in the pocket of her uniform and brought out a small hand mirror. No doubt about it, those scarlet locks were hers alone.
But who was this person peering back at her? For a moment it didn't make any sense. She timidly lifted her hand and touched her face. So did the stranger in the reflection. It was her, she realized in amazement.
This is not my face!
Even accounting for the effect that her hair might have on her appearance, this was somebody else's countenance. Its attractiveness was not the problem. The problem was plainly that this face--with its sun-bronzed skin, its deep emerald eyes--was the face of a stranger.
Youko cried out in great alarm. "This isn't me!"
The old lady turned to her with a dubious expression. "What isn't?"
"This! This is not who I am!"
2-4
The old lady took the mirror from Youko's distracted grasp and calmly examined it. "Nothing wrong with the mirror from what I can tell." She handed it back to Youko.
Now that Youko thought about it, her voice sounded different, too. She had become a completely different person. Not a beast or a monster, but … .
"Well, then, so you don't look exactly like you used to."
The laughter in the old lady's voice made Youko look at her. "But why?" she asked. She again peered at herself in the mirror. It gave her a strange sensation, seeing that stranger in place of herself.
"Why, indeed. Not something I'm bound to know."
With that, she took hold of Youko's hand and with a wetted cloth dabbed at the many small wounds.
When Youko looked more closely at the her inside the mirror, she could begin to tease out the vestiges of herself that seemed familiar. But they were very faint.
Youko put down the mirror, resolved not to pick it up again. As long as she didn't look it wouldn't matter what she looked like. True, mirror or not, she couldn't very well ignore her hair, but if she pretended it was dyed she could put up with it. That didn't mean she was resigned to every other aspect of her appearance, but at this point she didn't have the courage to take an unvarnished look at herself.
The old lady said, "Can't claim to know much about it myself, but it happens, or so I've heard. Sooner or later you'll settle down and get used to it."
She took the bucket off the table. In its place she placed a large bowl. It contained something like mochi rice immersed in soup.
"Go on, help yourself. There's plenty more to be had."
Youko shook her head. She had no appetite whatsoever.
"You're not going to eat?"
"I don't want any."
"Give it a taste and see. Sometimes that's the only way to know if you're really hungry or not."
Youko silently shook her head. The old lady sighed. From an earthenware teapot that resembled a tall water jug she poured a cup of tea.
"You come from over yonder?" she asked. She drew up a chair and sat down.
Youko raised her eyes. "Over yonder?"
"Across the sea. You come from across the Kyokai, did you?"
"What's the Kyokai?"
"The sea at the foot of the cliffs. The sea of emptiness, the sea as black as night."
So it was called the Kyokai. Youko tucked the word away in her mind.
The old lady put a box with an inkstone on the table and spread out a sheet of paper. She took a writing brush out of the box and held it out to Youko.
"What's your name?"
Youko pushed aside her mounting confusion, obediently took the brush and wrote down her name:
"Youko Nakajima."
"Oh, yes, a Japanese name."
Youko asked, "This is China, isn't it?"
The old lady cocked her head to the side. "This is Kou. Specifically, the Kingdom of Kou." She picked up another brush and wrote out the characters.
"This is the town of Hairou. Hairou is in Shin, a county of Rokou. Rokou is a prefecture of Fuyou, which is a district in Jun. Jun is a province in the Kingdom of Kou. I am one of the elders of Hairou."
Her style of writing was only subtly different from the Japanese Youko knew. Even the Chinese characters looked pretty much the same.
"That's kanji, right?"
"If you mean what I'm writing, then that's what it is. How old are you?"
"I'm sixteen. So what are the kanji for Kyokai?"
"It's the Sea (kai) of Emptiness (kyo). What's your occupation?"
"I'm a student."
The old lady paused hearing Youko's answer. "Well, you can speak, and you do know your letters. So, besides that strange sword of yours what else are you carrying?"
Youko emptied out her pockets: a handkerchief, a comb, a hand mirror, a notebook, and a broken watch. That was it. After a cursory examination, the old lady asked what each one was or meant. She shook her head, sighed again, and deposited everything in the pockets of her dress.
"Um … what's going to happen to me next?"
"Well. That's to be decided by my superiors."
"Did I do something wrong?"
They were sure treating her like a criminal, Youko thought. But the old lady shook her head.
"Don't mean you've done a thing wrong. It's just that all kaikyaku got to go see the governor. That's the way it is. No need for you to go jumping to conclusions."
"Kaikyaku?"
"Means the visitors (kyaku) from across the sea (kai). They say they come in from the east over the Kyokai. They say that at the eastern edge of the Kyokai there's a country called Japan. No person has ever seen it for himself but it must be true, what with so many of them ending up here."