The Stone Flower

The Witch's Banquet

Transcriber: closesttopurple

Writer: Sawako Natori
Concept by cavia/YOKO TARO
Translator: CaseyLoe

Fear and revile the Shade-claimed husk.
Extol and revere the fusion of contrary forces.

I first heard the rumors about her at a cliffside village I visited near the end of my journey.

As this village was separated from the sun by a thick layer of white mist, Shades menaced it regularly. The people there lived in homes shaped like water tanks, nestled among the cliffs like eggs laid by a cowardly insect. As with other areas I'd visited, I gathered the most promising young residents and preached to them of equality. At the end of my sermon, I thanked the young people for their courage in facing the terror of the Shades on a daily basis.

At that point, a young man named Dimo arose and curled his lips into a crooked sneer. "Guess you haven't heard it isn't Shades we hate. Our village is cursed by a far more vile creature: a person possessed by a Shade."

The young people broke out in a series of gasps and shudders. Perplexed, I stared at Dimo, which only caused his sardonic smile to widen. "Are you also prepared to treat that thing witheguality, O Great and Benevolent Sage?"

As someone blessed with both beauty and unusually deep insight, I had grown used to being regarded with certain preconceived notions, and knew well the equality I preached was hard for those lacking in education and refinement to accept. Alas, in their ignorance, the unenlightened had already sought to disparage and mock me several times on my journey. These actions never failed to bring a smile to my face; I felt no hatred toward people for their naive beliefs, nor did I feel fear. My capacity to forgive such poor souls was infinite, and that included Dimo.

"I have heard," I began, "that to have a Shade inhabit one's flesh is a torment akin to glimpsing death itself. And while I have never met a person in such a state, it brings tears to my eyes to imagine their suffering. This is why I struggle to understand how you could dismiss this poor soul as a 'vile creature.'"

As I finished, I looked out and saw only the blank and empty gazes of the villagers staring back at me.

Having found the two words at the root of the discrimination eating away at this village to be "Shade possession," I went from house to house trying to gather what information I could about the unfortunate young woman. Some mouths clamped shut the moment I broached this most taboo of subjects, but others were happy to share gossip and disdain in equal measure. The stories they told suggested she had become possessed the moment her grandmother-her sole living relative-died. Driven mad by grief and loneliness, she made fellowship with a Shade, grant- ing the entire left side of her body inhuman form. She was now said to indiscriminately kill humans and Shades alike, feasting upon the flesh of her victims. And on days where she refrained from murder, she sought out men for ... other purposes. Such stories, clearly a mishmash of falsehood and truth, only deep- ened the interest and empathy I held for the girl, and my heart stirred anew with a desire to save her from the prejudices of her fellow villagers.

When I mentioned wanting to speak with the girl, the villag- ers eyed me like some manner of shady swindler. Undeterred, I asked Dimo to take me to her, offering a substantial reward for his troubles.

"Willing to pay for a ticket to the freak show, eh?" Dimo sneered when I finished my request. "Figured you were too high- and-mighty for sick shit like that."

Ah, but I was far beyond being affected by such sarcasm. Instead, I was filled with exaltation at the chance to save this sad, pathetic young woman.

Dimo and I finally emerged in a small clearing. Though the fog was so thick I could not see the houses lining the cliff walls back in the village, I could make out one of the tanks lying on its side. Its walls were red with rust, the floor and ceiling peppered with various cracks and holes.

"That's where the freak lives," said Dimo. The house seemed so woefully vulnerable I didn't believe him at first, but I made my way to what passed for the entrance and called out to the owner. Receiving no response, I was ready to turn back when I noticed a lovely floral decoration, as well as a colorful drawing. Heartened, I turned to Dimo and called him over.

"Behold,"I said. "This creature still possesses a soul capable of appreciating beauty. She is a human being, no different from you or I."

Just then, heavy footsteps rang out from within the mist, and the air around me turned stifling and heavy. "Look out!" cried Dimo as the blood ran from his face. "The Shades are-"

Before he could finish his sentence, there was a swoosh of wind. A geyser of blood shot from his shoulder, covering me head to foot in crimson mist. Moments later, a Shade burst from a thicket of trees, its body seemingly wrapped in golden bandages. Had I not already been in shock from having been drenched in Dimo's blood, I surely would have screamed at the grotesqueness of its form.

In a heartbeat, it was joined by a number of companions, and I soon found myself surrounded. With each step the Shades took, their footfalls splatted sick- eningly upon the earth. The mist yellowed as they drew closer, the pungent stench of rotting viscera assaulting my senses. With what little wits remained to me, I wondered if I would be torn apart by the Shades or suffocate on their fouled air first. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a glimmering light. This was followed by something whizzing through the air, then sounds I can only liken to the tearing apart of soft meat.

The slaughter was over in an instant. In the time it took me to rub my eyes, the Shades had been shredded, their lingering screams vanishing in the breeze as their remains thudded to the ground. Straining my eyes, I perceived a young woman swinging two huge swords amid the carnage. She was clad in a garment so provocatively thin it barely covered her ample breasts and buttocks, as well as a grin so wide I thought it might split her face ear to ear.

"Back to hell where you belong, shitsacks!" she cried in a voice cold as a winter's wind. "I'm gonna tear out your spines and use 'em to fuck your skulls!"

She continued in this vein for a while, spouting words so vulgar that it would physically pain me to repeat them. Her eyes burned red, while a thick coating of Shade blood gave her skin an eerie pallor. Could this be the "pitiful" Shade-possessed human I had come to see? Momentarily forgetting the grave danger to my own life, I stared, transfixed, at the woman who had so thoroughly defied my expectations.

The Shades passed on to the next world having been chopped so fine they dissolved into dust. As the mist returned to its original white hue, my ears finally registered Dimo's pained moans, and I quickly rushed to his side.

"You saw it, right?" he spit. "You saw how disgusting it is. It's a Shade that kills other Shades and enjoys it! It gets off on killing its own friends! Only a matter of time before it starts turning those swords on human beings, so you better get on that high horse of yours and ride the hell out of here."

Despite his wound, Dimo managed to struggle to his feet, seemingly determined to take his own advice. "Stop,"I told him. "Do you not understand that woman just saved your life? She killed those Shades to protect you, so enough of your discrimina- tion! That young woman is a good and righteous human being!"

Dimo gave me a peculiar look. The usual animosity and snideness faded from his gaze, replaced by a deep, hollow empti- ness. "Can you seriously not see the difference between a human and that? None of this is discrimination! It's just being able to tell one thing from the other."

With that, he wobbled away, moving across the glade with surprising speed considering the severity of his wound. Once he was away, I gathered myself and approached the young woman, who was close enough to have heard our conversation, yet said nothing.

"Are you hurt?" I asked. She neither answered me nor met my gaze, but I noticed a stripe of blood running down her inner thigh and tore a strip from my scarf to stanch the wound. It was far from sterile, spattered as it was with Dimo's blood, but it would be better than nothing. I told her I was going to bandage her, and she simply stood there, making no indication she was opposed. I wrapped the strip around her leg. I could feel her body stiffen each time my hand brushed against the flesh of her thigh-a reaction that was not merely human, but positively maidenly-and found myself unable to suppress a smile.

"Might you be willing to speak with me about a few matters?" I asked when I finished. "I believe I may prove a welcome ally to you."

When she didn't respond, I took the liberty of following her into her hovel. Rather forward of me, I know, but as I was dealing with a young woman unaccustomed to forging human relationships, I had suspected a measure of presumption on my part would prove necessary. After gingerly taking a seat on her rainwater-rotted floor, I launched into my usual sermon about the importance of acknowledging the equality of all mankind. The words were largely unchanged from the usual presentation I'd given at so many other stops on my journey, but in the pres- ence of one as persecuted as she, I felt I was delivering them with unusual fervor.

So absorbed was I in my preaching that I barely noticed the light of day dwindling away. When I finally finished, I looked up to find her sound asleep, her back turned to me. What courage she must possess, I thought, to sleep so soundly in her ramshackle home after being set upon by Shades! As my own eyelids grew thick and heavy with sleep, I wondered idly if the bleeding at her thigh had stopped.

I shivered awake as a blast of cold air stabbed my skin. I had no idea how long I'd been asleep, but the hour of night remained dark and quiet. My companion was nowhere to be seen, and when I discovered a trail of blood on the floor leading outside, I burst out the door in pursuit.

It was hard to make out much through the heavy white mist, but as I pushed forward, I began to perceive the shape of a person in a clump of brush ahead. It was only when I opened my mouth to call out to her that I realized I had not yet learned her name. As I pondered this, the misty silence of night was abruptly shattered by a pained, raspy grunt I immediately recognized as belonging to the young woman. As I listened, the grunt quickly turned to a series of low, fervent moans.

Had her wound reopened? Or had she been enduring pains far deeper than she had let on? Unable to restrain myself, I ran immediately to her side. "Are you well?" I cried. "Give me your wound and I shall redress your ... "

As the mist parted and her full, naked body snapped into view, my voice caught in my throat. She was indeed half-Shade; the entire left side of her body pulsed with an almost indescribable blackness. Strange lumps swelled and throbbed within the dark flesh, giving that side of her the appearance of a different creature entirely.

Knowing she could surely see me, I desperately tried to pretend all was well, silently chanting the words "all mankind is one" as I forced my mouth into a smile. But she quickly looked down, and as my gaze fell with hers, my eyes were immediately drawn to the thing clutched in her left Shade hand. It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing, but when realization finally dawned, goose bumps erupted across my body.

The thing in her hand, swollen and stiff, was a phallus—herphallus. Numerous blood veins were visible, undulating along the dark shaft. In addition to a Shade, it seemed this young woman's body possessed male genitalia as well.

Staring at me through the mist, she uttered the first words she'd ever spoken to me. "Night after I kill a bunch of Shades, I just can't help myself."

Her eyes narrowed and her thin lips parted slightly. Then, with eyes still fixed squarely upon me, she began vigorously jerk- ing her left hand. Her breathing grew ragged, her eyes losing focus and rolling upward.

"Stop that!" I cried, averting my eyes and drawing back before she could finish. "Stay away from me! You're disgusting!"

I nearly tripped in my haste to escape the depraved moans that seemed to pursue me. Her voice was high and loud- somewhere between laughing and crying-and hearing it made me terrified. Terrified. Absolutely terrified. And disgusted. Revolted! I hated her. Hated, hated, hated! So disgusting. Revolt- ing! I couldn't understand—didn't want to understand. I was simply disgusted and scared.

Awful, ugly emotions were gushing out from within me, emotions I thought I'd long since purged myself of. When I came to, I was crying so hard my throat had gone hoarse, and I instantly threw up everything that remained in my stomach.

That is all I have to say about the woman.

But putrid emotions continue to pour forth from within me as if some screw upon my soul was knocked loose during the night I spent in her presence, and I continue to feel hatred for her. Hatred. Fear. Revulsion. Hatred. And fear. So much fear.

Oh, but do not misunderstand! This is not discrimination! It is merely being able to tell one thing from the other. That was not a human being, but a monster possessed of a form so vile it disgusts me to think upon it. It was not one of us.

Surely it is only right and natural for humans to shun such monsters and wish them dead. Am I wrong? Can you honestly tell me I'm wrong? Can you? I'm not wrong, am I? I'm not a horrible person, right? I'm not the one's who's despicable, right? I'm a righteous person. Am I wrong? Am I wrong? I couldn't possibly be wrong, could I?