It was raining; the darkness of the evergreens shrouded the estate in mystery and the perfect setting for a vile of cruel punishments.

"Get on your knees! God save your soul, Hatori..! Christ in Heaven, save this child!"

A sharp scream emitted mercilessly from Yuri's lips; her wrists were burning as Akiko Yakimura anointed her with the sacred oils of the church. Winter had gone; Yuri was a young woman of sixteen, kneeling her barren knees against the floorboards of the upper room in the house in Kyoto. The walls were painted the same color as the liquid seeping from the slits indented deep into her arms, marking herself a sin and an item to be discarded. There was a fireplace blowing fragments of ashes into the room, kissing Yuri with a taste of death. The blood on her hands brought her back to that day; Chikai was found hung on a fire escape in the back alley where she had left Yuri Hatori to die.

An investigation was launched, and, as one might expect, resulted in nowhere. A funeral was given the first day after Christmas, the twenty-sixth of December for the girl. Even as Yuri screamed aloud in pain from the brutal force of a crop digging its nails into her back, the pain compared nothing to the trauma she felt that night in December. She bit her lips, digging through the scarring tissue with her teeth. It separated pain and humanity from itself, and gave her a sense of blissful dreaming.

"M-mama..!" Yuri's voice gasped out, her skin tearing, submitting to Yamasaki's beating and Yakamura's intent to rid her of her demons.

"Christ Jesus, we implore thou, oh Lord Jesus, save this soul, rid her of the devil and all of his damned fiends."

The oil and blood drizzled down Yuri's fingertips, and another lash from Yamasaki. It took her breath away, quite frankly, far worse than the humid September air. Yuri had fallen into a deep depressive state; the time in which Chikai and Yuzuru intended on defiling her of the last sacred possession she held dear had both scarred her and traumatized her abundantly. She could no longer sleep, no longer eat, and found herself desiring death far more than food or rest. It haunted her to the point of madness, and this night marked its intermission.

Yakimura continued on, and Yuri found herself screaming as crucifixes seemed to ridicule her from the wall. "Depart, then, transgressor. Depart, seducer, full of lies and cunning, foe of virtue, persecutor of the innocent. Give place, abominable creature, give way, you monster, give way to Christ, in whom you found none of your works,"

The rain poured itself down from the windows in a way as though the wrath of God had heard Yakimura's pleas. Yuri spat blood from the depths of her soul in a loud cry for help, a desperate slur of pleas for her to be released.

"G-God help me..!" Yuri's voice cracked and wailed at the scream, bowing her head as though she were the victim of crucifixion. All she could feel were the stinging sensations of the oil meeting her skin, infecting the wounds engraved into her arms. Yuri's plea was much more than just a cry for an entity she wasn't sure existed or not; it was a cry for her faith in that man, whom she had seen nothing of since that night. The only way he manifested himself was in the form of a bird, who watched her through the window as she did her daily chores and duties.

"For he has already stripped you of your powers and laid waste your kingdom, bound you prisoner and plundered your weapons," Yakimura continued on, Yuri feeling herself drifting into oblivion. Her thoughts were anything but sweet, for she longed to die and reunite with the woman from her childhood. She felt sad, betrayed, and hurt. Yuri regretted the night in the snow, for had she not made a pact with Karlheinz, she could die.

"He has cast you forth into the outer darkness, where everlasting ruin awaits you and your abettors."

The basement was cold; Yuri was sent back into the room she had stayed in when she first arrived, after all, Yakimura thought of her as unclean, and an unclean mongrel deserved dingy conditions. There was a growing amount of paintings on the wall in which the woman had added for the sake of Yuri. Many were of the Madonna and her child, though some pictured a crucified Lord hanging from a cross. There were crosses, rosaries, and statues on the bookcase set in the corner of the room. This would only be the beginning, for things would grow worse.

Yakimura was sitting in her office, scanning documents sitting in her filing cabinet. Loire and Yamasaki accompanied her, the mustached man seated at her desk smoking a cigarette as he scanned the papers.

"There's absolutely nothing on her. No will, no power of attorney, no inheritance, it was all seized in the foreclosure of her home. Dammit," The man puffed to his leisure, dipping some of the ash into the tray with a frown.

"What the hell did she leave behind then? Son of a bitch is living here for free, that's what it is." Yamasaki too was puffing a cigarette, though he reclined against a wall, spectating the two desperate caretakers.

"Many of the girls here are orphans off the street, the police don't know what to do with them when they ransack stores for food or clothes, so they bring them here," Yakimura blew the strands of greying hair from her eyes, narrowing them as she scanned on. "But Hatori, she's different. She's trouble. The power of Satan runs through her veins, the way she screamed and twisted into those positions...only someone possessed by him can do those things. Christ Jesus, I will not have that entity of evil in my house."

Loire puffed out bits of the ash, dipping it into the tray. "Aye, pawn that son of a bitch off to someone else. If another murder happens here, those government officials will shut us down." 

The rain began to pour by about midnight, and, as Yakimura leaned back in her chair towards the warmth of the fireplace, she sighed a little. "Government officials aside, that child is stained with sin. I don't know what to do with her."

Yamasaki laughed a bit, sitting on the edge of the desk and crossing his legs in an elegant manner. "There are plenty of places I can drop her! Perhaps I could sell her to those pimps hanging around the bar on eighth street, maybe someone will suspect her for a Korean, eh?"

Yakimura sighed, rubbing her temples. The room was full of smoke from the cigarettes, and it added a sense of mystery to the wallpaper and the religious artifacts on the bookcase. "She is dirty...she couldn't possible be a human at this rate. Her soul is gone.."

Yamasaki puffed out the rest of the cig, tapping it onto a paper before putting it out. "Alright then, I'll figure it out. She'll make a good prostitute, a cheap slut to lay."

Loire shook his head, reclining in the chair with his hands behind his hair. "A lot of journalists are raving on about this place in the city. There are conspiracies going around in the papers, you bet your sweet ass if one of those is proven to be true, we'll be seeing jail-time."

Yamasaki laughed allowed, shaking his head a bit. "You honestly believe those hierarchy assholes will give two shits about what a bunch of journalists publish in those things?"

"If we let Hatori out on the street, fifty bucks she'll sell her stories to them! She'll get radio appearances too, one popular host asks her on, and she's set for life," Yakimura ignored the two men, who continued to fight and bicker over the situation. The woman lit herself up a cigarette now, as the stress was far too much for her.

"Yeah, some kid, right? People are bound to believe her, someone caught lying in the past. Hah, bitch'll start up a whole court case over it. I'll admit we can take things too far, child abuse even, but that's what awaits them in the real world."

Yakimura was about to reply with a bold, fuming answer to their petty argument, but the sounds of a car approaching distracted her. Its windshield wipers were moving hastily when she looked out the window, brushing the curtains aside. "Lord in Heaven, at this hour?"

Loire raised his eyebrow; he leaned forward to inspect the situation. "What is it? The laundry isn't supposed to be here until the morning."

A man emerged from the frontseat, dressed solely in black as he approached the back door to the vehicle, holding an umbrella firmly in his hands. After a moment, a tall man stepped out from the backseat, a hat covering his shrouded face and lightly tinted cinnamon hair. He held a briefcase firmly in his hand and, dressed in a quite lavishly fashioned suit, he seized the umbrella and gazed up at the house.

A bolt of lightning crackled through the sky; it illuminated off his face, and, though it burned too bright for them to make out the expression, he began approaching the entrance and steps. Yakimura froze up slightly at the ringing of the doorbell, and the three adults met each other's eyes inimitably.

It rung again, and, after a moment, Yamasaki rose to his feet, cigarette in hand and left the office. The thunder rung off in the distance as he approached the door where the bell rang once more, and, after a moment, he opened it.

"Hello there," the man bowed, Yamasaki beginning to let him in. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Togo Sakamaki, a politician and advocate for the well fare of children throughout Kyoto," Yamasaki almost dropped his cigarette; Togo removed his hat, shutting the door behind him as he gazed up at the architecture affectionately. Yamasaki grit his teeth a bit, pulling the cigarette from his lips and sighing sharply.

"Ah, one of those guys. Must've read the report in the paper, huh?" He replied, motioning Togo to follow as he began the walk into Yakimura's office.

"Yes, though I think you're going to enjoy this." When Togo arrived, he was taken aback by the religious imagery spread throughout the room; it repulsed him a bit, but he was able to contain himself enough to relax in the seat inside her office.

Loire was against the wall, Yakimura seated in her usual spot. They almost sank to the floor when Togo appeared, as they recognized his picture from the paper. "Akiko Yakimura, the woman herself, I must admit you're older than I expected. With age comes grace," he chuckled lightly.

Yakimura sighed sharply at this, an uncanny vibe coming from this man. "With someone of your reputation, I'm eager to know why you're here so late in the night," she cleared her throat.

"Lighten up, Akiko; look, Sakamaki, have yourself a cigarette and make yourself at home," Loire stated, holding a pack of twelve out to the man. Togo obliged, lighting one up and reclining into the seat with a smirk across his face.

"I understand you're undergoing a lack of government funding right now. Those regulations are a bitch," Togo chuckled, suckling the cigarette. "All those rumors flooding the papers..this place hit the front page twice,"

Yamasaki chuckled lightly. "Yes, of course. Those sons of bitches don't give a shit about anything that won't benefit their damn wallets. It'd take a miracle from God for me to change my mind about that."

Togo puffed his cigarette, chuckling beneath his breath. "They aren't interested in funding controversial orphanages, it makes them look bad. In fact, I'll be damned if I didn't hear the board of affairs say he had twelve people lined up for your jobs,"

Loire gritted his teeth a bit, Yakimura and Yamasaki's reactions were just as panicked. "Terrible time to be out of work, huh?"

Yakimura swallowed the lump in her throat; her eyes widened slightly as she shot up and slammed her fists on the table. "So what the hell are you here for? To shut a business my family has spent the past sixty years working their asses off for?" Her tone had shifted dramatically; there was a sense of anxiety in the air now that the three of them were aware their doings weren't especially secret.

"I'm here for something in particular, under the table dealings. You musn't put this on record,"

Yamasaki stomped his foot, laughing a bit. "You politicians have your heads so far up your ass you aren't afraid to do dirty dealing. Hah.."

Togo raised his eyebrows and smirked ever so faintly in return. "I suppose I'll put in a good word for you to the board underneath a condition," Loire watched him lean back into his chair, puffing the smoke around the room.

"You must turn over a girl to me. Yuri Hatori, is her name. However, the exchange must be strictly confidential and unrecorded. Perhaps if you don't, then all of the girls Mr. Yamasaki over there has had sex with will appear in the papers, Miss Yakimura will be trialed for the abuse of children, and as for Mr. Loire, he too will be confined for illegal, underage actions with the children here."

Yakimura shot a glance Yamasaki's way, the rain pouring outside the same way as their hearts sank to their feet. "...You will keep our business safe? And our jobs, too?"

Togo nodded, reaching in his briefcase. "Yes, the report I write up will be strictly positive in contrast to the reputation you hold. In exchange, Hatori will be handed over to me at a confidential address tomorrow evening. This entire transaction must be kept under the table. Do you understand?"

Loire, Yamasaki, and Yakimura looked at one another. Within the following fifteen seconds or so, the woman sat down in her chair and lifted a pen from her drawer. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "...What is the address?" The woman said.

Togo began handed her a folder for all of Yuri's documents, and Loire began to lay out each in a neat way, though in a hasty manner. Togo trailed off and gave her the address and very obscure directions to a location lingering off the mountains of Kyoto.

"Tomorrow evening, seven o'clock." Togo stated as he rose and collected the files asserting Yuri's existence as though she wouldn't exist after this evening. Mr. Sakamaki headed for the door, collecting his coat and hat before departing.