yuka 0.3

The Kawaguchi family has an ancient duty, a duty which named their line and marks them still. It is a duty almost forgotten, in modern times -- a duty most try to forget, replaced by a modern life.

Yuka Kawaguchi, the younger daughter, knew little of that duty. Preceded by her elder sister Yasu, her childhood years involved little talk of spirits or balance. She was a mother's girl from a young age, fascinated by her coding home business and by her handiwork hobby, and her father encouraged her to follow her mother's example. While he might go camping on the weekend, taking Yasu with him, he didn't think it appropriate for his younger daughter to come along.

His eldest girl, after all, was being groomed for a purpose his younger was not. This generation, after all, was the generation in which a successor would be selected. But he didn't want his family to be consumed by the duty, and so, Yuka was sheltered from the truth. It was unfortunate, because the more they evaded her questions, the more she became uncertain of herself, and the dynamics of their family life led her to develop a nervous disposition.

Still, for the first few years, it was just a disposition. And as she followed in her mother's example, and Yasu followed what her father had to teach her, they grew apart.

She did not learn how to light a fire with sticks; instead, she learned how to knit with needles.
She did not learn how to make water safe to drink; instead, she learned how to sew flowing fabric with deft stitches.
She did not learn how to trap animals which had wandered into civilisation, or how to let them go; instead, she learned how to fetch variables with her code.

She was a creative little girl, in both her codework and her handiwork. Though she feared showing her work, she enjoyed /making/ it, and by the time she was eight she was an enthusiastic creator. Her mother ensured that she had appropriate reading materials - Python for children, blunt knitting needles - and didn't think too much on the way Yuka preferred those solo activities to socialising with other children. They thought her skittish nature strange, after all, and laughed at the way she sometimes saw things no one else saw.

Yuka tried to reach out to her older sister, despite the infinite gulf of two years which separated them. And Yasu tried to reach back, but they found it difficult to connect with each other. Yuka was uncomfortable outside of the city; Yasu felt uncomfortable inside of it. Yuka was technologically-inclined; Yasu knew how to use her phone, but had been discouraged from learning the intricacies. And -- of course -- the secrets, always the secrets, driving in the wedge.

Finally the day came, when Yasu was twelve, when their great-grandmother would visit them. To Yuka, it was just a family visit; for Yasu and her father, it was the day she would be judged worthy of bearing the lotus seal. She was named for peace; Yuka was named one who must not be bound. The choice had been made.

And when their great-grandmother arrived, hunched and shuffling and powerful in an old and terrifying way, she called them all into the living room and looked at them.

She looked at Yasu, who was named and trained and prepared for the sacrifice.
And she looked at Yuka, small and scared and creative and so very, very human.
And she decided that Yasu was unsuitable, and Yuka would bear the seal.

They were both shocked. Yasu could not believe that all of this work had been for nothing, and Yuka -- Yuka couldn't believe her ears. A family legacy? An ancient duty?

Was this what they hid from her?

Her father protested, but his grandmother would hear none of it. Yasu protested upon deaf ears as well. Yuka was too frightened to protest, and so she found herself taken by a relative she didn't know to an ancient shrine at the mouth of a river.

Her great-grandmother told her that the river had a spirit, and many centuries ago, that spirit was driven mad by overfishing. He rampaged in a blind rage until their ancestor sealed him inside herself using a lotus seal, and prayed with a pure heart until he was able to think clearly once more. Together, the river dragon and the woman went back to the village and set things right -- and even after the dispute had been settled, the kami stayed with her, meditating to cleanse his spirit of hatred.

After centuries of contemplation, the kami of the river decided to stay with the family who was now called Kawaguchi, so that together they might reach out to other suffering spirits.

And Yuka's great-grandmother pointed at her and declared that even though she was suffering, her heart was still pure, and her worries made her a more conscientious host than her sister could be.