THIS IS WHY I DON’T TRUST JAPANESE GIRLS ANYMORE


The California sunset bathed the sky and the ocean in a brilliant reddish orange.  A young but grizzled man by the name of Seriy sat by the shore and observed it pensively, as though waiting for something to happen.  He was lost in a jumble of thoughts, most of them being about his old hometown of Vladivostok.  It had been nearly 3 months since he had left his Russian motherland and arrived in America, the land of dreams and opportunities.  He couldn’t have picked a better time, either.  It was now late in May, and spring was just giving way to summer in sunny California.  The weather was warm and breezy, everyone was celebrating on the beaches, and he had found a well-paying job selling snacks and souvenirs to the beachgoers.  But his favorite part of the job was the American women.  There were always many women at the beach, dressed in an endless assortment of bikinis and other such swimwear.  Being Americans, they were fascinated by his thick accent, broken English and chiseled face and he would flirt with them from the time he started his shift until the sun went down.  His boss loved the attention he got, as sales began to increase steadily ever since he hired the exotic young immigrant.  Seriy was certainly living the good life.  Little did he know that things were quickly about to spiral out of control, and he might very well have to singlehandedly rescue his beloved new country from a force that nobody could have possibly expected.  The hapless hero-to-be stood up, brushed the sand off his slightly worn denim shorts, and began to walk home.

The journey back home took Seriy past the home of his new American friend, who he only knew as “Allen”.  Allen was a professional translator who specialized in the Russian and Japanese languages.  Prior to meeting Seriy, he was quite a shut-in.  His house was littered with empty ramen cups and Corona bottles, and he would spend most of his day working, playing videogames, and browsing Japanese message boards.  But now that he had a friend who worked at the beach, he started to leave the house more often and even developed a suntan.  Seriy helped him get his social life back in order, and he helped Seriy to get a better grasp of the infuriating English language.   If he wasn’t walking home with Seriy after a day at the beach, he would be waiting outside his house to greet him in the evening, which happened to be the case on this occasion.  “Привет, Серий!” said Allen, which of course is how you say “Hello, Seriy!” in Russian.

“Ах, Добрый вечер Аллен” said Seriy, which was Russian for “Ah, good evening Allen.”  Seriy much appreciated being able to talk to somebody who spoke his native language, besides his family and his Russian friends on Facebook.  “Why did I not see you at the beach in this past week?  The weather and the girls are so nice…”

“Oh dude, don’t remind me” said Allen.  “You have no idea how much I’d love to just swim and party with girls all day.  But I got this project I gotta work on; sixty three episodes of some freakin’ animated television drama that this Japanese company wants subtitled and made into a DVD box set so they can sell it to all the anime nerds here in America.  I’m talking like, nonstop reading and typing and copying and pasting and proofreading and sending copies to my associates overseas so they can proofread it and waiting up to 3 days for them to send me their revised copies and…well, you get the picture.  I hardly have time to get up and make food, let alone go out and have fun.”
Seriy replied “Allen, I think what you are needing is a vacation.  You shouldn’t have to work so hard like that during the summertime.  After all, this is America is it not?  Perhaps after this project of yours, we should get together our money and go on a crazy road trip, like in those comedy movies.”

“Y’know…I think you’re on to something here.” said Allen.  “I’ll uh…get back to you on that once this stuff is out of the way.  See ya tomorrow.”  And with that, Seriy continued his journey homeward.

That night, as Seriy dozed off to sleep, he felt a disturbing aura about him.  In the darkness behind his eyelids he could see a jumble of faces, many of which were missing features such as eyes or mouths.  As the night progressed, the eerie faces were replaced by an even more eerie dreamscape.  All around him, Seriy saw great plumes of dense black smoke rising from cracks in the otherwise barren ground.  About 20 meters away, a girl stood facing away from him.  Seriy slowly approached the girl.  “Miss?” he asked.  “Is there something wrong?”  He was only a few meters from her now.  “Can I help-“  Before he could finish his sentence, the girl turned around.  There were gaping holes of indeterminate depth where her eyes should have been, and thick black ooze was pouring from her mouth.  She reached up and dug her long, sharp fingers into his neck.  He tried to grab her wrists, but it made his hands burn.  As he began to gurgle on his own blood, the world faded to black…and then he awoke in a cold sweat.  Seriy lay there panting and feeling his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest.  After he realized that he was in his room again, he looked at his alarm clock.  It read 2:39 A.M.  “Bah…stupid dream” he said to himself, and went back to sleep.

That morning, after eating a traditional Russian breakfast of buckwheat pancakes and a triple-egg omelet, Seriy set off for the beach.  Upon arriving, he noticed that it was strangely empty.  People usually came early to claim their favorite spot or a bonfire pit.  Even his fellow employees had not yet arrived.  Being the optimistic man that he was, Seriy decided that this was the perfect opportunity to take a leisurely stroll along the beach.  He took off his shoes and felt the cool sand between his toes.  A light breeze blew through his hair, and he took a deep breath of the salty air, savoring it as he did.  In the distance, he could see a high rocky cliff, which he thought must have a great view of the ocean.  And so he walked towards the cliff, the fine sand shifting pleasantly beneath his feet as he went.

As he approached the cliff, he realized it was much larger than it looked from a distance.  To him, this only meant that the view would be even better, and the climb would be a nice challenge.  Carefully and purposefully, he climbed the rocky face of the cliff until he had reached the top.  It was there that he saw the girl who would change his life forever.  She sat on the edge of the cliff, looking out into the ocean.  Her silky black hair fell to her waist and just barely touched the rocks she sat upon.  She was slightly sunburned, and she wore a blue one-piece swimsuit.  Even though he hadn’t yet seen her face, Seriy thought she was beautiful.  After a brief moment, he worked up the courage to say something to her.  “Hello, miss.”  The girl turned around, and Seriy saw that she was very cute, and very Asian in appearance.

	“Oh, hello.  You’re the Russian guy who works at Barry’s Big Beach Store, right?  My name’s Misha.  I’m an immigrant too, from Osaka in Japan.  What’s your name?”
	“The name is Seriy.  I’m from Vladivostok.  It’s pretty close to Japan.”  Seriy’s heart was aflutter at the stunning beauty and cuteness of the girl that sat before him.  “I have never seen you here before.”
	“I just arrived here about a week ago” she said.  “This is my first time here.”
	“Well then, perhaps I could show you around the city sometime” said Seriy, trying not to sound too hopeful.
	“I would like that” said Misha with the sincerest smile she could muster.

Seriy and Misha really hit it off.  The two of them were practically inseparable.  Seriy would use his position at Barry’s Big Beach Store to get Misha free ice cream.  They would spend their summer evenings holding hands as they watched the sun set over the ocean from the cliff where they first met.  The girls who would gather around the beach stand to admire Seriy now stood about bickering in jealousy over his lovely new girlfriend.  The couple loved to join bonfire groups and dance the night away.  Sometimes they would just lay in the sand and talk for hours, telling stories from their respective home countries and how they planned to make it big in America.  Seriy had never been happier.  He truly felt that he was living the American dream.  He had it all: a beautiful girl, good friends, no financial troubles, and a cozy bachelor pad by the beach.

One day, they were sitting on their cliff and watching the sunset, when Misha said “Seriy, I have to ask you something very serious.”  She looked a little bit nervous, and Seriy immediately noticed this.  He placed his hand on hers, hoping that it would comfort her.  “We’ve been dating for a long time now, and I think it’s about time we took our relationship to the next level.”  Seriy’s heart skipped a beat.  He was sweating with anticipation.  Misha let out a sigh, and gazed deeply into Seriy’s eyes.  “Seriy…will you give me your soul?”

This wasn’t quite what Seriy had been expecting.  “My…soul?”  he asked.  Now, Seriy was not a religious man.  Throughout most of his childhood and early teenage years, he had been taught by the Soviet Union that God was just a crutch for the weak, and that he should live to serve his comrades instead of some deity.  He never really gave much thought to his own spirituality.  As far as he was concerned, a soul was just something that Christian folk talked about at funerals and such.  “Yeah…I suppose you can have it.  I don’t think I need it.”

Misha was positively elated to hear this.  “Oh, thank you so much Seriy!  You have no idea how much this means to me!”  She pulled him close and kissed him.

Now, what Seriy didn’t realize about Misha was that she was not a cute Japanese immigrant girl at all.  In fact, she was a terrible demon who terrorized the Japanese islands thousands of years ago, until a Buddhist monk placed a curse on her that confined her to a mortal human body where she could trouble them no more.  Once she spent the duration of her short human lifetime, she would be reborn into another body to repeat the process, and she was doomed to experience this cycle indefinitely.  She was burdened with the memories of every past life she had ever lived, as well as those of before then.  Every moment of every day she seethed with an inexorable hatred for humanity, but she generally tried to hide this lest she be killed and spend another 12 years as a child.  She had been biding her time, waiting for somebody to willingly give up their soul to her so that she could use it to get into Hell and have the devil himself strip her of the curse.  And now, that day had come.

Seriy awoke from another terrible nightmare to find that Misha was gone.   He also noticed that his alarm had been turned off, and it was 11:36 A.M.  “Oh no, my boss will be furious” he thought.  He sprang out of bed, got dressed, and ran out the door without even getting breakfast.  As soon as he stepped outside, he was struck by the acrid stench of smoke.  The city was burning before his very eyes.  “What in the hell has happened!” he yelled.  “My wonderful city, it is on fire!  Oh no, where is Misha?”  He decided to ask Allen if he had seen her.
Seriy pounded on Allen’s door.  “Allen!” he yelled.  “Allen, I need to talk!  This is very important!”  Allen answered the door, looking weary and sleep deprived.  “Allen, what has happened?  What is going on?  Have you seen Misha?”

“Yeah…I saw her last night.  She was just standing in the middle of the street, right in front of my house...and all of the sudden, she sprouts these big leathery wings and flies off towards the city.  I thought maybe I was just freakin’ out because I missed a few nights of sleep, but then there was explosions and the city was up in flames!  Dude, how have you been dating this girl for so long and not realized she was the Great Beast of Osaka?”

“Great Beast of Osaka?” said Seriy with a mix of confusion and anger in his voice.  “What are you talking about?  Misha is no beast!”

“C’mon man, don’t you know anything about Japanese folklore?  Well…I guess you don’t.  Okay, uh…The Great Beast of Osaka is a demon who regularly attacked the former capital of Japan back around 300 B.C. or so, until some holy man banished her and she was never seen again.  But it looks like she’s back, and since she’s not in Japan anymore, California is gonna be her new playground.”

“Damn it!” yelled Seriy.  “You’ve got to be kidding me!  Are you telling me I just gave my soul to some demon lady?”

“Holy crap dude, you gave her soul?”  Allen yelled in mixed shock and despair.  “I think you screwed the whole world over!  She must have used it to get her demon body back!  Aww dude…it’s all over.  We’re gonna die, and it’s pretty much your fault.”

“Don’t be like that” growled Seriy.  “If you knew about her, then surely you must know how to stop her.  Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

“Well” pondered Allen.  “I might know of something…There’s this ancient weapon, you see.  A sort of primitive gun made around 1100 A.D.  In fact…oh man, the gun shop downtown has it!  Dude the odds of this happening are like…why am I even talking about it?  We gotta get that thing before that woman of yours finds us and eats us or something.  Let’s go!”  With that, they made their way towards the burning city.

All around him, Seriy was surrounded by great piles of rubble and steadily rising columns of dense black smoke.  The roads were all torn apart, burnt out husks of cars were strewn about, and screams and gunfire could be heard far off in the distance.  Every few minutes, the ground would rumble and a terrible explosion could be heard.  This all reminded him of a nightmare he had a long time ago.  “Just a few more blocks…I think” said Allen.  “I can’t even tell, this place is so messed up.  Let’s see, that used to be the deli, over there I think is the remains of that Mexican tattoo parlor…Ah, there it is!”  Allen pointed to a building that, for some reason, was still standing amongst all the devastation.  A sign above the big glass doors read “Larry Luger’s Finest Firearms Dept.”  The two friends hesitated for a moment, then entered the store.

Behind the counter stood a large, muscle-bound man wearing a cowboy hat and reflective aviator sunglasses.  He had 5-o’clock shadow all over his chin, and a tattoo of a revolver on his shoulder.  “Evenin’ gentlemen” said the man in a gruff southern drawl.  “Name’s Larry Luger, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now.  Anything I can help you kids with?”

“Actually, yes” said the exasperated Russian.  “My friend here has informed me that you carry a very rare weapon that is capable of hurting demons.”  Larry stared at them for a moment, or at least Seriy thought he was because he couldn’t see the man’s eyes.  The ground rumbled and a terrific boom could be heard outside.  Larry paid no mind to this.  He stroked the bristles on his chin and observed the two men for a moment longer.

“Well, your friend here happens to be correct.  If you two will please follow me into the back room…”  Part of the counter slid into the wall, and part of the wall slid into itself.  This confused the duo very much, but they went ahead and followed Larry into the back room.

All around the room, there was an assortment of strange and amazing weapons hung upon the walls, or sitting on counters and covered with glass cases.  There were incredibly complex rifles and pistols that Seriy had never seen anything like before.  There were strange, almost alien devices that resembled crab claws but had a barrel protruding from them.  The heavyset southerner unlocked a cupboard and pulled out an old wooden chest.  He set it on a table and opened it up.

Inside the chest was a very large pistol.  The entire thing was rendered in brilliant polished gold, and the handle was authentic pearl.  Seriy could see his reflection quite clearly in the flat parts of the weapon.  Etched into the side of the gun was the words “Desert Eagle .50 cal”

“Now this beauty that you see right here was made during the worst part of the European dark ages.  Which is kind of funny, because the Desert Eagle wasn’t invented until 1979.  Only 666 bullets were ever manufactured for it, one for each demon known to exist…and only 659 have ever been used.  The magazine that comes with this baby contains the last cartridges that will ever exist for this wonderful weapon.  Now, normally I’d charge you a whole lotta greenbacks for this kind of firepower…but I can see that you’re in a pretty desperate situation here, so I’ll just let you borrow it as long as you promise to wipe your fingerprints off of it and return it to me along with any bullets you don’t use.  Capiche, padre?”

“Um…yes.  Thank you very much, Mr. Luger.”  Seriy picked up the weapon.  It was quite heavy, but it felt comfortable in his hand.  “I can’t believe I am about to shoot poor Misha with a .50 caliber pistol” Seriy lamented.  “But if I don’t do it, I don’t think anybody will.”

Seriy stood in the middle of an intersection, the great golden hand cannon resting comfortably in its leather holster at his waist.  The sky above him was a violent red color, and ashes were falling from the sky like little grey snowflakes.  “Misha!” he yelled.  “Misha, come out and face me!”  Right after he said this, the street in front of him burst open and the woman who had so nonchalantly betrayed the hapless young immigrant now stood before him.  She looked very different from the pretty Japanese girl that he once knew.  Her skin had taken on a blue shade, her feet had been replaced with hooves, two little horns stuck out of her hair, and she had a big pair of leathery bat wings.

“You called, sweetheart?” she said mockingly.  “You know, I never really thanked you properly for getting me to where I am today.  I mean, without that soul of yours I would probably still be suckering dumb American boys into buying me ice cream.”

“Misha,” said Seriy as calmly as he could.  “You’ve ruined my city.  Thrashed this wonderful land of opportunity.  You set fire to my place of business and destroyed my favorite delicatessen.  But worst of all, Misha, you broke my heart.  Now it is time for you to learn your lesson.”  His voice was cracking.  He was trying to hold back his tears.

Misha rose into the air, hovering in front of him.  “Uh huh.  What do you think you’re going to do to me, kid?  I could tear you apart atom by atom and scatter you into the wind if I wanted.  The only reason I didn’t do just that when I finally got my body back is because of all that free ice cream you gave me.  Not to mention the fact that you gave up your soul to me so eagerly.  That was so sweet.  Now go home kid, and I’ll consider maybe letting you live.”

A tear dripped down the weary Russain’s face.  He clenched his teeth.  “MIIIIISHAAAAA!” he yelled, and drew the pistol.  Without hesitating, he lined her up in the sights.  Time slowed to a crawl.  He aimed directly at her heart, and pulled the trigger.  The gun barked and jumped up in his hand so hard it nearly struck him in the face.  The bullet cleaved through the air like a great silver lance, leaving a trail of brilliant white light behind it as it went.  He saw it strike her directly in the center of the chest and punch right through her.  The bullet flew off into the sky, where it would continue on to galaxies unknown.

Misha clutched the gaping hole in her chest.  She fell back to the ground, and her demonic features started to fade.  The horns receded into her head, and her skin turned pink again, then to white as the crimson blood poured from her heart.  She collapsed to her knees, and then fell on her back.  She looked at Seriy, his mighty silhouette standing above her.  A pool of blood was collecting underneath her.  “Seriy…” she said.  “Seriy…why did you do this to me?  I…I thought you loved me, Seriy.”

Seriy glanced at her, a pained look in his eyes.  Tears were welling up.  “Yeah…” he said.  “I thought I did too.”  He turned around and walked away from her.  It took every ounce of strength he had to prevent himself from crying.

Seriy was depressed for a few weeks after the incident.  Just like he promised, he wiped his fingerprints off of the golden pistol and returned it to Larry Luger along with the 6 bullets he didn’t use.  He spent a lot of time at Allen’s house while his boss, Barry, rebuilt his beachfront store.  He and Allen would talk a lot, but whenever Misha was brought up Seriy would just trail off and stare at his feet.  After a few weeks, he was mostly over it and his workplace had been rebuilt and renovated.  It was now a proper building instead of a shack, and it had nice new conveniences such as air conditioning for particularly sweltering days.  Barry promoted him to manager for his display of bravery in defeating the Great Beast of Osaka.  The girls loved his new suit that he wore for the job.  The world was back to normal and Seriy was happy again.  But he would never forget about Misha, the girl who broke his heart and nearly broke America too.  And one thing was still bugging him…What were those last 6 bullets for?

THE END…?