Faiz 6

Yuka Osada had been alone ever since she was born.

By the time her mother learned that she was pregnant with her, she had already broken away from the father. 

Yuka’s mother had no intention of giving birth to her. 

But in the end, she gave birth to her anyway purely out of the fear of abortion. 

When Yuka’s mother gave birth in the hospital room, she let out a horrible otherworldly cry. It wasn’t because of the pain from giving birth. 

She simply could not bear the reality that a baby had emerged from her body. 

A squirming mass covered in blood and amniotic fluid. A disgusting creature. 

It was like it was a monster that had been living within her body. 

Yuka’s mother screamed with fear. The bloodcurdling shriek seemed to reverberate throughout the entire hospital. 

The psychological stress then led her already weak heart to fail, causing the mother to pass away while still on the bed. 

Needlessly to say, the very first sound Yuka heard when she entered this world was her mother’s screaming. 

That scream had since been engraved into her subconscious. Even after growing up, that scream would still reverberate deep within her heart like a faraway echo.  

She normally never noticed that scream, however. 

 

Yuka was immediately passed along to her relatives after her mother’s death. 

Her relatives didn’t take her in due to sympathetic reasons exactly. 

It was just that they were after the money that her mother had been steadily saving up. 

 

Yuka lived with her uncle and his only daughter, Michiko. 

For as long as she could remember, Yuka was told that she had no parents. 

Her uncle would tell her, Michiko is my daughter, but you aren’t. He would never allow her to call him her father. 

There was clear discrimination. 

Michiko was of the same age as Yuka and attended elementary school. Yuka was denied that privilege, however, with the uncle claiming that paying for her classes would be a waste of money. 

Yuka’s uncle would follow up every little slip of the tongue she made with yelling or even physical abuse. 

Michiko soon began to follow his example. 

Because of that, Yuka gradually grew to be quiet, and ultimately became mute by the very end. 

Even so, Yuka still desperately wanted her uncle and Michiko to like her. If she were to be kicked out of this house, she wouldn’t be able to survive anymore… That was the kind of thinking that was driven into her head by her uncle. 

That was why she always kept her mouth shut and did what she was told. 

Whenever Michiko ran out of things to do, she would occasionally play house with Yuka. Yuka would often be forced to eat the sand rice and mud miso soup Michiko made. Despite that, Yuka still enjoyed playing house with Michiko. Just knowing that Michiko found use of her was enough to make her happy. 

Whenever there were guests, Yuka would be locked up in the basement. It’d be a bad look for the family to have a child who didn’t even attend elementary school wander around the house. 

But Yuka didn’t dislike the basement. 

At the very least, she wouldn’t be yelled at there. Nor would she be hit. 

Yuka would often be left alone in the basement for hours on end without food. During times like those, Yuka would often eat the ants that crawled about the place. 

As she ate the ants, she would look up at the basement window and think of her mother. 

Children normally had something known as mothers. She learned that from watching television. 

To Yuka, mothers were like windows. 

Something that shone light into one’s heart. 

The television during mealtime was her only connection to the outside world. 

Even when Michiko went out to play, Yuka was forced to stay at home. 

She had to help her uncle with his work. 

 

Her uncle was a glassmaker.

He made cups, vases, paperweights, chopstick rests, and whatever else the orders that came in asked of him. 

First he’d put glass powder in a pot and heat it up in a furnace burning at 1300 to 1500 degrees. 

He’d then pick up the melted syrup-like glass with a pipe and quickly modified its shape before it cooled down. After letting it cool in a slow cooling furnace, the product would be complete. 

At first, Yuka only helped with setting up the workplace or cleaning up, but as time passed, she was assigned some of the simpler tasks in the process, and eventually, she even made some products in her uncle’s place. 

Her uncle’s training was strict. If she made even the slightest of mistakes, he’d bring dripping molten glass close to her face, at times even pushing it against her hands or legs. 

With Yuka having abandoned her voice, she wouldn’t even scream. 

Yuka had awoken in her sleep from nightmares multiple times. 

Nightmares of her body being covered by melted glass. Her body would instantly turn into ash within that glass, leaving behind only a glass doll in the shape of Yuka. 

Yuka still enjoyed blowing glass, however. 

She was fond of the fragile material known as glass, and windows were made of glass, too. 

Windows reminded her of her mother. 

Yuka would slowly collect just enough glass so that she wouldn’t get caught and made her own creations with it. 

It took months and years before she was able to skillfully create bugs or animals. Yuka would diligently watch the birds and cats in the yard and observe the cicadas and crickets. Eventually, she was able to create works that looked just like the real thing. 

One day, her uncle caught her blowing glass behind his back and brutally beat her. But upon noticing the glass cat she made, his attitude changed. He made a slightly wounded face and left the workplace without saying anything. 

Now that she had confidence in her skill, Yuka began work on what would be her most difficult piece of art yet. 

A statue of her mother. 

After much trial and error, she successfully created a bust with the most beautiful face a woman could possibly have within the limits of her imagination. 

As she grew up, her own face would began to resemble the face on that bust, but she never realized that. 

She never showed the bust she created in secret to her uncle or Michiko. She hid it deep within a drawer in her room and would take it out to sleep with it in her arms during the night. Before she fell asleep, Yuka would silently share her dreams with her mother. 

They were dreams that she wished for with all her heart, such as wanting to go to school. 

By the time she was in her mid-teens, she was extremely envious of Michiko’s school uniform. She had always watched Michiko come home from school with all her friends from her room’s window. They would all be wearing the same school uniform. To Yuka, the school uniform was like a certificate that proved your status as a decent human being. She wanted to be like them. 

One day Yuka sneaked into Michiko’s room and looked through her textbooks. She was able to read hiragana at the very least. 

It was because Michiko often played school with her when they were little. Although, it was more like Michiko’s way of bullying her. She would pretend to be the teacher and made Yuka write words. 

If Yuka ever made a mistake, Michiko would violently slap her hands or butt with a tree branch. 

But even though she could read hiragana, at least half of the textbook was incomprehensible to her. 

Yuka felt like she was left alone in the darkest corner of the world and embraced the bust of her mother in tears. 

She decided to tell her uncle her true feelings. She wrote a letter saying that she wanted to go to school and handed it to her uncle, but her uncle didn’t give thought to the notion even one bit. 

Yuka then showed resistance towards her uncle for the very first time. She stopped helping him with his work. 

Even after being punched and kicked, Yuka wouldn’t yield in her strike. 

Eventually, Yuka was confined in the basement for three days straight. She ate ants in order to stave off the hunger. 

 

In the end, it was the uncle that broke. 

Being that Yuka’s glass works were quite popular, her uncle needed her skill. 

Her uncle handed over Michiko’s old school uniform and bag to Yuka and allowed her to go to school. 

That night, Yuka was so excited that she couldn’t sleep. She spent the whole night talking to the bust of her mother about her dreams.  

The next morning, Yuka put on her first-ever school uniform and headed to school. 

She was together with Michiko. 

I can change myself now. Yuka shook with joy with that thought in mind. 

Upon reaching the classroom, Michiko, who had been acting surprisingly nice that day, suddenly completely changed her attitude.  

Honestly, what were you even thinking? Michiko’s friends followed up her remark by pointing at Yuka while cackling. 

There’s no way someone like you who didn’t even go to elementary school could attend high school. You didn’t even take the entrance exam. 

Yuka didn’t understand what she was talking about, but she was shocked from realizing that she had been deceived. 

Under Michiko’s orders, her friends attacked Yuka. 

They pinned her arms and legs to the floor and ripped apart her sailor uniform. After taking off her socks and shoes, Michiko and her friends abused Yuka’s half-naked body with red chalk. 

Being mute, Yuka was unable to call for help. She couldn’t do anything but continuously scream within her heart. It was a scream that seemed to eject her very own existence. 

At that time, Yuka began to hear another scream coming from deep within her consciousness. 

It was the scream that her mother had let out right after she was born. 

The scream that had been engraved into her subconsciousness came back to life and resonated with her own cries.  

Yuka could now clearly make out her mother’s horrible screaming voice.  

She then realized that her own mother had rejected her. 

Ever since she was born. 

 

The half-naked Yuka returned home barefoot. 

She went into her room, took out the bust of her mother, and smashed it into pieces against the ground. 

She then tied her long hair that she had never cut even once in her life to the ceiling and hung her neck using that very same hair. 

During the brief moments before her death, Yuka didn’t think of anything, nor did she see anything. 

She simply hung there while a paint-like darkness smeared her consciousness until it was pitch-black. 

 

On their way back home, Michiko and her friends laughed amongst each other while thinking back on the sight of that half-naked Yuka. 

It had been a while since they had so much fun. 

That’s why when the wobbling Yuka appeared in front of them right then and there, they clapped with glee. 

They’d be able to bully her again. They could be even crueler this time. 

But that glee only lasted up to the point when Yuka transformed into an Orphnoch. 

When the huge wings spread open from her Orphnoch form, Michiko and her friends couldn’t comprehend what was happening. They simply stood still in a daze. 

Yuka’s first strike as an Orphnoch ripped Michiko’s friends into pieces, sending their blood spraying. They didn’t have the chance to raise even a single cry.  

Michiko could do nothing but stand there with her eyes wide open as their blood showered her. 

The very last thing Michiko saw was her own body. 

Her headless body spurting out enormous quantities of blood like a water fountain. 

Her head that had fallen onto the floor was looking up at her own body while being covered with her own blood. 

A single white feather from the Orphnoch’s wings floated down onto her face, covering her eyes.  

 

Yuka was sitting on the stone steps in front of a shrine with her crying face pressed against her thighs. 

After undoing her transformation, Yuka’s torn-up school uniform was barely managing to stay on her. 

She couldn’t make sense of anything anymore. 

What in the world did she just do? What in the world happened to her body? 

She was sure that she had died, however… 

It was then that a hand gently rested onto Yuka’s shoulder. 

Upon looking up, she was greeted with the kind-looking face of a young man. 

That was the first time Yuka and Yuuji met each other. 

As someone who had already become an Orphnoch, Yuuji had sensed the presence of a new Orphnoch and came rushing to the source. 

Yuuji believed in Yuka’s tears. It was proof that her human heart was still intact. 

 

“I’m a friend,” Yuuji said.

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