The following document contains translations of material from the Clock Tower: Ghost Head Official Guide Book [sic]: running commentary from Yuu, Shou, and other characters as events unfold that accompanies the guide's walkthrough, plus three in-universe essays, written by original Frank Schubert-style characters exclusive to the guide, that shed light on various unexplained aspects of the story.
There are two versions of this document: the one you're reading, using the Japanese names, and this one, which uses the U.S. names. Ghost Head got a "shut up and eat your geitost" treatment when it was localized to Clock Tower: The Struggle Within, but there are many aspects of the game that are so obviously Japanese that many fans of the Clock Tower series use the Japanese names when referring to the characters. For someone who's not a die-hard fan, this can be hard to handle. Hence, two versions; choose the names with which you're more comfortable. Just keep in mind that this was originally a very Japanese story and that there are certain aspects of this backstory material that make more sense when talking about the Saidou family in Japan than the Maxwells in Salinas, California.
Translation by R. Capowski, 8/3/23. This translation is not authorized by Human, Capcom, Sunsoft, or anyone involved with the Clock Tower series.
Spring, 1999.
I am Yuu Midoushima, a 17-year-old high-school student.
The day it happened, I had been invited by my father's friend, Uncle Hajime, to come stay at his home. He lived in the town of Benten - home to Benten Pharmaceutical Institute, where my father once worked and which Uncle Hajime now headed.
I took a glance at the amulet I held in my hand - my Mikoshi-sama. I've had it so long that I don't even remember when I got it. My father tells me he bought it for me at a festival when I was a little child.
I'd only ever thought of it as just a good luck charm. But now...I can never let go of it. Never - not ever...
It happened a month ago. To this day, I don't understand what happened. Even right after the incident, I had no idea.
I remember that I was surrounded by my friends - jeering. And then it happened - in an instant, everything went blank. When I came to, I was gripping a bloody knife in my hands. A sea of blood was pooled at my feet...and my friends lay there as well.
At that time, my name was "Shou." I was another me - a self completely unknown to me.
My eyes fall once again upon Mikoshi-sama. I didn't have it then. If only I had...
I couldn't attend my school anymore. So it was decided that I would stay with Uncle Hajime - to begin a new life. I had Mikoshi-sama, I thought. So I knew - it could never happen again...
Until I stepped through Uncle Hajime's door...
A 16-year-old in her first year of high school. Her father, Takashi Midoushima, works as the head of a large Tokyo hospital. Yuu's parents divorced when she was young; she has no memory of her mother, and her father is frequently absent. Perhaps due to the great deal of time she's consequently spent alone, Yuu has grown up to be a reserved and quiet girl, with a great affinity for the spiritual and supernatural*. One day, in a state of mental incapacitation, she committed an incident of violence than resulted in bodily harm. The incident led to the surfacing of "Shou" - a personality that had lain dormant within Yuu. She is fated to become embroiled in further incidents of bizarre cruelty.
*U.S. materials seem to translate this term ("reikan no tsuyoi") into the heroine being superstitious, which is not exactly what it means.
A separate, male personality that lies dormant within Yuu Midoushima. The polar opposite of the kind, gentle Yuu, he has a cruel, aggressive nature. He does, however, demonstrate a certain type of consideration for Yuu, the dominant personality. Shou surfaced in the incident that occurred immediately before the events of the story. Normally buried deep within Yuu's consciousness, he surfaces when Yuu, the dominant personality, is beset by danger - whether Yuu desires it or not. He cannot, however, appear when Yuu is wearing her amulet, Mikoshi-sama.
They all were supposed to have been waiting for me to arrive...
My father's old friend, Uncle Hajime. His sweet & kind wife, Aunt Yayoi. Masaharu and Akiyo, too...
I remember last spring - Chinatsu had just started elementary school! At first, she was kind of quiet, but it wasn't long before she was calling me her "big sis"!...
I wondered: Who would be the first to meet me at the door? ...And how would they act toward me when I arrived?
Before I knew it, I felt my heart pounding.
But when I opened the door, no one was there. The house was deathly still.
...And then I heard a sudden sound!
I had just opened the front door - and now, it wouldn't open again. ...Why!?
Was this a prank? ...I can't say the thought didn't cross my mind.
But then...a human corpse - green, covered in yellow blood. In pieces.
It seemed incredible, inhuman...but it couldn't have been anything else.
What happened here?
What was going on?
And where did everybody go?!
The phone was ringing, even though the cord had been cut.
The piano was playing, even though no fingers were touching the keys.
And then there was that piercing laughter that echoed throughout the house...
The final piece of the butchered corpse rolled into my field of vision.
I just couldn't believe my eyes. But... But... It...was real!?
I couldn't process the sight before me. It was too terrifying.
It was then that I felt something surge to the surface - well up from within me.
Something I had tried to forget but couldn't. Something trying to split my soul in two, raging to get out. --Him!
Stop!! Don't--don't...come...out!!
And then, faintly, from afar, a long-forgotten voice echoed through my mind:
Don't be afraid, Yuu...
Who was it?
Not me. But I could swear the words came from my own lips.
I felt my body take a confident step forward.
Never mind this house - what was happening inside me?
What's with this place?
The little shit walking around like she owns the joint, cackling to herself with her tiny shiv.
The old lady she's chasing around, screaming her lungs out.
Is that all anyone can do here? Run around squealing like a stuck pig?
Heh - you take me to the most fascinating places, Yuu.
But at least there's never a dull moment.
And it's not like I'm wrapped up in that golden statue business, anyway.
Tuh - that brat's getting on my nerves, though.
What is she, possessed?
No way a little shit like you's going to take me out.
I can handle myself just fine.
...Don't you worry, Yuu. I've got your back.
Little Chinatsu - chasing me around with a knife.
And no one can give me any answers - not Uncle Hajime. Not Aunt Yayoi.
I don't understand a single thing that's happened...
There was also a letter from my father.
Does what's happening here have something to do with my father - with me?
The "Saidou clan" - I've never heard of them.
And the "Saidou curse" - what is it?
Could...could it be responsible for Shou, too?
Chinatsu's green skin looks just like that of the corpses. Is there some sort of connection?
And what is that golden statue? It gives me the creeps.
Everything is just one big question mark.
To this house, however, I seem to be an undesired guest.
As Uncle Hajime began talking about the curse...his hands started to tighten around my throat...
...What did I do?
What is happening to me?
After school, or on my days off, I would talk with my friends about tales of the supernatural - scary stories, charms and curses.
It was all just for fun - nothing serious! Nothing that could ever happen...
But the stories were true.
The statue has been what's making everyone go crazy.
Uncle Hajime, Aunt Yayoi, Akiyo, Chinatsu...
I have to burn the statue. It's up to me...
I headed for the fireplace in the living room.
I could burn the statue there.
I took a lighter to light the fire - and a can of kerosene, to make sure the statue would burn up.
And Mikoshi-sama was protecting me, too, I hoped.
All I had to do was to throw the statue in the fireplace and burn it...
Chinatsu, no! Don't get in the way!
Once I get rid of this statue, you'll be yourself again!
Everything will be back to normal!
(Like hell it will.)
...That's not true!
I have to burn the statue this instant...I have to free everyone from the curse!!
When I came to, I found myself in an unfamiliar bed.
The scent of disinfectant flooded my nostrils.
There was a detective standing by the bed, trying to talk to me. Ishizue was his name.
He received a report... He found me lying on the floor... He brought me here...
My head is swimming, but things clear up quickly.
All the horrible events at Uncle Hajime's house come flooding back to me.
But...where's Chinatsu!?
According to the detective, we're at Benten Hospital, and Chinatsu is fine.
Even though she was in quite a state... I'm so sorry, Chinatsu...
But...I saw an evil spirit or something exorcised from her body...
Shouldn't that have broken the curse?
Once again, my mind is flooded with question marks.
And...what about Uncle Hajime? Aunt Yayoi? Masaharu?
I wonder what's happened to them all.
And...what about Akiyo? How did she end up like that?
And then it happened - as the detective was interrogating me.
A strange voice. Echoing through my mind. As if to block out the sound of the detective.
I should have realized it then -
I was caught up in something far, far greater than I imagined - far greater than myself.
It was several weeks ago that I heard the bizarre rumors: "Patients and staff at Benten Hospital are disappearing, one after another - for organ trafficking and living test subjects for new pharmaceuticals." On their own, they amounted to nothing more than baseless accusations, but some poking around revealed several individuals who actually had gone missing.
They were all patients who were supposed to be hospitalized short-term. When their families came to pick them up on their scheduled discharge dates, however, they were told, "They've already been discharged." The families never saw their loved ones again. A single missing person could be chalked up to a voluntary disappearance; after several, however, suspicion inevitably falls upon the hospital.
When I asked Benten for an interview, the director turned me down - claimed he was too busy. The chief nurse strongly denied the allegations: "According to our documentation, all discharge procedures were properly followed, and the patients were released without incident. I was not present at each individual discharge; you'd have to speak to the attending nurse. The patients in question were being treated for minor illnesses, so not even a medical error could have possibly resulted in death." She stumbled and hesitated frequently during our interview, however; at points, even she didn't seem to believe what she was saying.
I made up my mind to break into the hospital - even though I knew I'd be breaking the law. My investigation had only deepened my convictions. And what I've witnessed at this hospital...has gone far beyond anything I could have imagined. Patients, their skin an unnatural color, wandering - prowling - the hospital, attacking anyone who comes near. Something unimaginable has happened here.
Despite it all, I must obtain further evidence. My investigation continues...
*Note: Goumoto's manner of speaking is rather rough (friendly, but rough and kinda dunderheaded) in-game; oddly, though, there's little indication of that here. I've translated the material in the tone in which it's been written, despite it being a bit inconsistent with Goumoto's character in-game.
No doubt about it: the man was a genius.
HU599.
It incubates in the host and induces brain death.
What's more, this particular bacteria functions as another "brain."
It alters the nature of the hosts' flesh itself, turning the
skin green and blood yellow.
By the standards of the human organism, the body is also completely dead.
However, it still continues to function.
The parasitic brain created by HU599 and the nervous system that unfolds from it continue to "live."
It is life beyond death - what we all have dreamed of but none have been able to attain.
And none but a genius could achieve it.
When he approached me with the plan, I couldn't approve it quickly enough.
To trespass in the realm of the divine...the mere thought made me giddy.
But, seeing what it has wrought...
...The man truly is a genius of terrifying talent.
Surely, all must be proceeding according to his plan, hm?
My research, my reputation, my position...
Now, it seems that it will all be consumed by those monsters he created.
But I will survive...no matter who must be sacrificed in the process.
I will survive.
...I will survive. I will survive I will survive I will...
The nightmare isn't over.
Far from it. It just keeps getting more and more horrible...
Those walking corpses with the green skin keep appearing, one after another...
I realize...they're the same color as Akiyo's body...Akiyo - cut up, ripped limb from limb...
Uncle Hajime spoke of the "golden statue's curse."
But if that was true...I burned the statue. Why won't the nightmare end?
And then there was what Ishizue said.
"I have my suspicions about Takano."*
That newspaper reporter said the same thing.
"Takano's lab is at the heart of this mess."
My father once worked there.
Does that mean...he's caught up in this, too?
Somehow, I have to make it through this.
Even if it means calling upon...his help.
The other soul within me..."Shou."
I can't die. Not before I find out the truth.
*Yuu, as she frequently but not exclusively does in this feature, quotes part of a game line here: "Takano(-san) ga ayashii," from "Ore wa ne, doumo Takano-san ga ayashii to nirande ru n da." The Struggle Within is in general faithfully-translated, and so I usually use the equivalent lines from the translation, but the U.S. version's equivalent ("Tate's the guy who did it," from "I still think Tate's the guy who did it") isn't exactly the same.
Something about this case was off right from the start.
I arrived on the scene to respond to a report about the Takano place. The first thing I saw was the Takanos' youngest, seriously wounded by a bladed weapon, and a high-school girl - Yuu Midoushima - collapsed beside her. Finding those two together? That's suspicious enough. But there was more. Like the corpse hacked to bits on the scene.
The corpse was green. The blood was yellow.
Can't ignore that, can I.
Call it a detective's hunch - and maybe there wasn't any more to it at that point. But the sight that greeted me at Benten Hospital was a nightmare beyond imagination. Green-skinned zombies, one after another - an unending, marauding battalion. Combine it with the butchered corpse at the Takanos', and ideas start forming.
By the time we escaped the hospital and slipped into Benten Pharmaceutical Institute, I knew the cases were connected. And the common denominator...was none other than Hajime Takano. He'd already fled the scene by the time I arrived at his house.
I slipped up by bringing Yuu Midoushima to this place. As long as she sits quiet in the basement, though, she should be unharmed.
Now...to fulfill my duty as an officer of the law...
They just kept coming, one after another - pouring out of the back entrance to the hospital. An endless parade of those...people and their ghastly faces.
My memory cuts out after that.
Ishizue says that "Benten Pharmaceutical Institute is the key to this case."
He told me to "stay here." But I can't do that.
That won't settle a single thing.
So I've been exploring the lab, attempting to conduct my own investigation.
The same zombies from the hospital infest this place.
I didn't want to believe it...but could it be like Det. Ishizue says? Could Uncle Hajime be involved?
And I met her again...that mysterious woman - Fujika.
She helped me at the hospital, I thought...but now, she seems to want me to die.
And that man in the hannya mask, covered in blood...
Hurling curses at me. Stalking me. As if obsessed.
But I can't run away. Not any more. I know what I have to do.
I'm facing my fate - of my own free will.
"You...weren't supposed to have been born..."
I know that's what he said - the man in the hannya mask.
But...I don't know you.
How is it that you know me?
And to run across my father in this place...handcuffed?
Seeing that alone was a shock...
But then...
How could he speak to the man in the mask so calmly!?
"Something happened between us"...? What?
And why does that man keep trying to kill me!?
In the end, Father didn't tell me anything.
But...I think I'm somehow starting to piece it together.
Well, it's not so much deduction as it is...intuition.
I'm connected with what's going on here.
...On the deepest level.
*I'm using the English text where I can because it for the most part is a direct translation, but there's a bit in Saidou's line in Japanese ("Omae wa...kono yo ni...umarete kite wa naranai...musume...") that doesn't come across in translation. One of the words Saidou uses to refer to Yuu, "musume," translates to "girl" in the general sense, but it can also mean "daughter." Yuu and the player initially think Saidou means the first sense. He actually means the second.
Benten "Pharmaceutical" Institute. Heh...in name only, maybe.
Is this research or vivisection? Either way, it's strictly amateur hour.
But, Yuu...you're finally waking up, aren't you? To what's really going on around here.
But Takashi's pretty lucky himself.
If I had you alone in a situation like that...well. We have Yuu to thank for that one.
But what's your connection with the fucker in the mask? "Something happened between us"? That doesn't explain shit!
That "curse" old man Takano was babbling about - and that golden statue. There's a connection.
That medical record we found in hospital - the one with "Rin Saidou" on it.
The guy in the mask waving around the hatchet...he was going on about "Saidou," wasn't he?
Old man Takano, Takashi, Fujika, and Saidou...they're all connected.
Put what scraps we have together, and it all comes into focus...mostly.
Though Yuu probably doesn't realize it.
But I do...
Heh... Pretty clever.
Ohh, but this is no time to admire fine art.
We've made it this far. I've got to do what I can to get us out of here.
For Yuu and me both - "both" - to survive...
I found Uncle Hajime collapsed in the graveyard.
Before he passed away, he said "it was all his plan" - my father's plan... What did he mean by that?
That Fujika woman - she called me that "accursed wench."
Before she could confirm my suspicions, she took her own life.
My father - he's the one with all the answers here. I just know it.
...And I'm his daughter.
The reporter, Ishizue - they both told me that we've got to get out of here, immediately.
But there's no turning back for me.
I don't know what truth is waiting for me up ahead.
But I have to know - everything.
As Takashi Midoushima's daughter.
As the one who set all this into motion.
(Mikoshi-sama, protect me... Right to the bitter end...)
And so, I opened the door to the chapel...
And so it all ended - in jealousy, hatred, and revenge, all mixed together.
The flames I see before me - how could they possibly be enough to cleanse all this?
So many have died. That fact is undeniable.
That...and the fact that I was at the center of it all.
(Don't blame yourself. They did it to themselves.)
I lost my father.
In more ways than one.
Forever.
The truth was in me all along. And I never knew it.
The real me - hidden from me...for so, so long.
But this truth was paid for with so much death.
...Can I live with that?
Who am I?
Who should I live as from now on?
It's ironic. Now that I know my true self, I've lost sight of who I am.
Just thinking about it makes me wish I knew nothing again.
(Is that what you really think?)
I should have died back there - not everyone else!
How can I go on?...
(I won't die.
Yuu...can you hear my voice?
I am you...and you're me.
You might be confused right now...
But I won't die...
and I won't let you die, either.)
Another soul lies within Yuu - one named "Shou."
Normally, this soul is hidden, but it suddenly emerges when Yuu is in danger. This alternative personality, "Shou," was born to compensate for the timid, "honor student" Yuu personality. It is thought that Shou normally lies dormant but emerges unconsciously, in times of crisis, in order to preserve the vessel that houses Yuu and Shou. This could be called a textbook case of a multiple personality - but there are aspects of this case that such a theory cannot explain.
The protective Shou personality cannot surface when Yuu has a charm she called "Mikoshi-sama." This particular "Mikoshi-sama" item prevents Shou from manifesting. This is an uncommon phenomenon among standard cases of multiple personality disorder. Yuu says that she's had the "Mikoshi-sama" charm ever since she can remember. She supposedly got it from her father when she was a little girl, but other than a curt reply from her father that "it's just a charm; I bought it when she was little at a local shrine," there are utterly no clues as to the nature of the charm.
Yuu says that she somehow feels at ease when she has this charm - for the same reason, perhaps, that a small child never lets go of a favorite stuffed animal from infancy. The sense of reassurance imparts upon Yuu psychological stability and prevents expressions of her unconscious - in other words, the manifestation of the Shou personality. However, this does not seem to be the only reason why this amulet prevents Shou from manifesting.
The amulet's nickname, "Mikoshi," is taken from mikoshiro, meaning "in place of a child" - in other words, a stand-in, a scapegoat, a sacrifice. In ancient Japan, soon after birth, the eldest child was customarily thrown in a river; only children who survived this trial would be raised. Eventually, this practice was replaced with the nagashibina folk custom, where a doll was floated downriver in place of the actual child - which evolved further into the hinamatsuri festival, where the dolls serve a merely decorative function. Originally, the hinaningyou dolls displayed during hinamatsuri were created as katashiro - dolls used to house the souls of children who were supposed to have been buried.
In the modern day, this custom of murdering infants has near-completely vanished, and even the significance of the hinaningyou themselves has been forgotten. However, there are records of child-abandoning folk traditions persisting up until very recently in shaman (jujushi) families. In one such family, the buried children would become patron gods of the family; however, the reason for the family's devotion to this tradition is unclear. Some say it is to preserve the family's spiritual power as witch doctors; others say it is to resolve "karma" (hereditary issues playing out through the generations). An alternative explanation is that it is the strengthen the secret practices handed down through the families. To these individuals, "Mikoshi-sama" would be the soul of the once-buried child itself. A Mikoshi-sama would be created as a memento to seal away the buried child's soul, which the parent or head of the family would habitually wear close to them. This spiritual power then would be wielded at times of crisis for the family, with a tamashizume ritual conducted for the peace of the departed soul.* A "Mikoshi-sama" would be a charm that holds this strong spiritual power.
*Note: It's not clear if the tamashizume ritual is being conducted for the peace of the buried child's soul or of other, unspecified souls threatening the safety of the family and precipitating these crises. I've gone with the former, but I may be wrong.
From here, the obvious conjectures can be made - that Yuu's "Mikoshi-sama" is the repository for the spirit of Shou, buried shortly after birth.
Yuu and Shou were given life and meant to exist at the same time. At the same time Yuu was born, her counterpart personality "Shou" was also born. Whether Shou was actually given life, or was buried before that point, or was born merely symbolically - this is all irrelevant. What matters is that under some manner of circumstance, Shou's life ended shortly after birth, and Mikoshi-sama was created as his migawari, his substitute or stand-in - as a repository for his soul. This spiritual power of Mikoshi-sama/Shou is very strong. Shou's soul desires to be at the forefront. Shou is constantly trying to slip through the cracks in Yuu's consciousness to surface. However: as long as Yuu is wearing Mikoshi-sama, his katashiro, Shou is with Yuu and therefore "complete." However, the moment Mikoshi-sama parts from Yuu's body, this state of completion is shattered, and Shou is able to surface.
However, one question remains: how did such a charm make its way into Yuu's possession? That she obtained it from her father, Takashi Midoushima, seems certain...but whether this was wrought by human hands, or a greater power at work - perhaps fate itself - remains unclear.
HU599 is a bacterium used to create human weapons. It incubates in its human host, ultimately inducing brain death. The bacteria subsequently begin to function as a "parasitic brain" in place of the original brain, freely controlling the host. In this incident, the subjects afflicted with HU599 took the form of "zombies" (let's use that term, as unfortunate as it is) with greenish skin and yellow blood.
This agent was developed by a gifted scientist who appears later in this volume, one Fushito Saidou. Here, in this part of the report, I'd like to present a fragment of his research, as represented in the voluminous files on HU599 Saidou left behind.
When Saidou started work on HU599, he was still a medical student - albeit one hailed as a "genius." What allowed him to complete his work, however, was family tradition. The Saidou family was a clan of toraijin immigrants from the Chinese/Korean mainland renowned as fui witch doctors - those practicing both the spiritual and medical arts. They were a well-born family whose heritage as witch doctors dated back 1300 years. Fushito was the current head of the family. (For more details, see Takashi Asakawa's investigative report on the Saidou family.)
Four secret arts were passed down within the Saidou clan:
1) The ability to induce a trance state to commune with the dead
2) The ability to induce an out-of-body experience (OBE)
3) The ability to take over the body of another and control it as their own
4) The ability to raise and control the dead
The practice of these four arts ceased before the modern age, though details remain in old texts. Fushito, however, added modern medical knowledge to these arts, reviving them as something more...exquisite.
The drugs involved with 1) primarily consisted of natural substances such as peyote handed down within the Saidou family, but Fushito developed a synthetic substance with a chemical formula similar to that of LSD, suggesting that it had potential as a schizophrenia medication. As for 2), the out-of-body experiences, a method of breathing that induced temporal lobe epilepsy was taught from generation to generation within the family. Through a friendship with Dr. Karl L. R. Jansen* of Denmark Hill, London, Fushito devised a technique using a blend of ketamine and PCP to obtain the same results. His colleague Hajime Takano at Benten Pharmaceuticals inherited the results of his research and was in the process of commercializing the drug as a treatment for depression that acted even more quickly than Prozac.
*Note: Karl L. R. Jansen is a doctor who wrote a 1997 paper on a chemical mechanism by which ketamine can supposedly induce a state that simulates near-death experiences (plus responses to medical commentary on the paper). At the time of writing the paper, Jansen was stationed at Maudsley Hospital, a psychiatric treatment center that is indeed in Denmark Hill. No word on Jansen's thoughts on his colleague's controversial hatchet-based treatment methods.
Both 3) and 4) stem from the same procedure - that also serves at the source of the subject at hand, HU599. To assist the exchange of souls and bodily possession, the Saidou family archives detail how to compound and use hangontan, a "soul-recalling medication" made from a poisonous mixture of fugu ovaries, the Japanese common toad, sea worms, and human brain material, among other ingredients. In other words, this hangontan poison was capable of placing a person in a suspended, near-death state; their chi (soul) was extracted, and they were temporarily buried in the earth. Then, after three days, the person would be unearthed; the components of the soil would have neutralized the effect of the poison, and the person would be resurrected as a soulless servant. (The child-burying ritual passed down within the Saidou clan was symbolic of this.) This ritual was used to raise the dead.
But burial has its hazards, and the resurrection did not have a 100% success rate. So Fushito abandoned the burial custom. Proceeding from the premise that the "soul" was in essence an activity unique to the brain, Saidou mixed hangontan with the aforementioned synthetic drugs such as ketamine that agonize the PCP receptors in the brain - thereby perfecting HU599.
Saidou's insight was indeed genius. However, even though he avoided the risks of burial with the use of chemical substances, another issue remained: when a foreign substance such as HU599 begins to act as a parasitic brain, the immune system rejects it, and the organism is rendered dead. This is a standard mechanism programmed into the organism's body. In this incident, the organisms dosed with HU599 were indeed in a near-death state, but they continued to survive. Whatever mechanism that made this possible is unable to be found even in Saidou's files.
I believe that dissection of the zombified bodies will provide a hint to resolving this question, but demands for this continue to be denied by the government. Even I cannot deny that the resolution of this question represents forbidden research that might give rise to "a second Fushito Saidou." However, this research has the potential to increase dramatically the survival rate when it comes to organ transplants. I strongly urge the police to submit their own requests for access to the government, so that permission for dissection may be obtained.
What follows is an investigative report on the folklore surrounding the family of Fushito Saidou, the preeminent figure in the recent series of events.
The Saidou clan was a family of toraijin - ancient emigres to Japan from the Chinese/Korean mainland. They were fui witch doctors who worshipped oni demons as their ancestor gods. Fushito was their descendant. We know this from archives and family trees passed down in the Saidou family; it is also apparent from, among other things, the hannya mask worn by Fushito, as well as from the architectural style of his laboratory, transformed into a place of worship.
As is common knowledge, the hannya mask is used in Noh theatre. Zeami [Motokiyo, a famed Noh actor and playwright in the 12th and 13th centuries] and Kan'ami [Kiyotsugi, his father and fellow actor], considered to be the progenitors of Noh theatre, were, like the Saidous, known to be part of an oni family. To this day, many performers and fortunetellers number among the descendants of oni families. However, the oni clans that continued to pass down the fui witch doctor knowledge as the Saidous did were thought to have gone extinct in the transition from the medieval period to modern times; the survival of these practices, as brought to light by this incident, could be deemed a discovery of utmost importance for us folklorists.
So, then: what was the nature of these "oni clans"? The matter is discussed below.
"Oni" is a corruption of "onu"/"on," or "hidden"; the term "oni clan" therefore properly refers to "those who live in hiding." These people are feared (or, sometimes, held in awe) by ordinary folk for their distinctive characteristics, and they are therefore forced into hiding. So, what are these "distinctive characteristics"? The answer lies in the hannya mask Fushito wore.
In Noh, the character of Lady Aoi is famed for wearing a hannya. The shite (the lead actor in Noh) plays the widow Lady Rokujo no Miyasudokoro, famed as a "living wraith": unbeknownst to Rokujo herself, her vengeful spirit would leave her body and attempt to kill Lady Aoi, the legitimate wife of her lover Hikaru Genji. In modern parlance, we would term this "living wraith" phenomenon an out-of-body experience or an instance of a doppelgänger.
Through esoteric rituals passed down through the family, members of the Saidou clan were able to place themselves in suspended animation, having out-of-body and near-death experiences at will. In this limnal state, they were able to commune with those in the realm of the dead - their ancestor gods. No wonder, then, that Noh contains many stories where the characters converse with the dead, as the creators of Noh were of an oni clan themselves.
However, these clans would not be so feared if their powers were limited solely to communing with the divine and the dead. The true reason oni clans were so feared was that the esoteric rituals for communing with the dead, if taken further, were alleged to have—and passed down as having—the potential to draw out the souls of the living from their bodies and to resurrect the dead. They were passed down by the oni clans as the rituals Izanagi used to pursue Izanami to Yomi, the realm of the dead. And, as the symbolism of the hannya mask - which represents a female - would suggest, these abilities manifest with particular strength in the women of the clan.
The secrets of these rituals were passed down from parent to child - to only one child - within the Saidou clan. Upon her birth, the eldest daughter, the child set to inherit this knowledge, was ritualistically buried, then unearthed three days later in a resurrection. This ritual was not solely symbolic; it was necessary to awaken the girl's powers. This custom among the oni clans was described in the Kojiki as the "child abandonment myth", where Hiruko was set adrift in a reed boat. Commonly, however, such events are related in oral tradition as kishu ryuuritan, or "the wandering of those of noble birth" - folk stories where a young god or hero of higher origins wanders a foreign land and overcomes various trials. Popular examples include fairy tales such as the legend of Princess Kaguya, where the child is abandoned in a bamboo thicket, or the tale of Momotaro, where the child is found floating down a river. In classical literature, out-of-body experiences are revered as the spiritual province of nobility.
However, a girl with this disposition would also manifest doppelgangers, second selves, split personalities - phenomena that in later generations would be attributed to "mental disorders." Therefore, starting in medieval times, as the witch doctor families died out and went into hiding, this living burial seems to have been evolved into burial in earnest—into a method of murder, out of fear of the Saidou clan's secrets being exposed. This custom seems to have precipitated the current tragedy.
BONUS!! Assorted isolated revelations from the guide:
- "Uncle Philip" is not related by blood to Alyssa's (adoptive) dad.
- The "golden" statue is "gold in color," resolving the nagging issue of how a metal statue could be burnt.
- The toxin in the statue is not the HU599 "parasitic brain" bacteria but rather a "hallucinogen."
- "Rin," Yuu's birth name, means "piercing cold." I thought I had made a big discovery here, but evidently someone who contributed to Alyssa's article in the wiki made it, too, so I'll let them take over: "All of Alyssa's cousins in the Japanese version have a kanji for each season of the year in their names [Masa(haru) = spring; Chi(natsu) = summer; (Aki)yo = autumn] except for winter, so having Alyssa's real name have the kanji of "cold" could be a reference to winter and therefore to her cousins and how she is part of the family, even if not by blood."