Four-thirty in the afternoon has arrived and it's time to begin my walk to the coffee shop. The whole walk there I'm trying to prepare myself for what needs to be done. Part of me wants to just call it all off and try and just make it through the week. Another part of me wants to just tell everything I have been through to the authorities and my superiors and just go home, but then this other half of me wants to fight and build a life with Giulia afterward. Sadly, I didn't have much more time to debate on choices, because the walk to the coffee shop wasn't long at all. I knew once I stepped into the coffee shop there wasn't any turning back. I was hesitant walking in, but I had to come and accept the realization that this weight would never be lifted, I wouldn't be able to continue to go on and keep living if I didn't do this. So, I walked in, and there Giulia was.
" Hey," Giulia says.
" Hey," I say back.
" You ready for this? "
" No, are you?"
" No"
" Yea, same."
That's how the beginning of our conversation went, until we walked up to her car, got in, and drove off to the supply shop to get our fighting gear. We bought a couple of matches, lighters, gasoline, and blades. Giulia already had a registered pistol and was " proficient" at using it as she claimed. Now after getting our supplies and having everything we need to fight Yukai Rokurokubi, we go off to the demon's home herself.
" Do you think this makes us murders too for doing what we are about to do?" I ask Giulia.
" Well, sometimes it comes down to the lesser of two evils. What we are doing is very bad but if WE don't do something bad then worse things will continue to happen to others." Giulia responds.
" I just never would have thought I would have to commit a murder, and I just wish I wouldn't have fallen in love so easy," I tell Giulia.
" So are you still in love with this girl?" Giulia asks.
" I think love is a strong word for it, but I shared personal stuff with this girl, I made love to this girl..well monster. I spent weeks every night until eleven at night, with this girl just talking, drinking, laughing, even sometimes crying. It's just unbelievable to accept that she's a monster, it's like I don't want to believe she's a monster but the evidence was right in front of my eyes, but I guess it's the same way I felt about my ex too." I explained to Giulia.
" I definitely understand what you mean, and the craziest part is that it's not even just like that with boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, it's even like that with family in general. I think one of the hardest things the human heart can suffer from is realizing garbage, horrible, and an unworthy person we care about can be. We tell ourselves our lovers, families, friends aren't garbage because we don't want to lose attachment to them, we don't always want to accept the possibility that to move forward in life, we have to let that person go, for the sake of ourselves or even for the other person themself." Giulia preached.
I couldn't deny that everything Giulia said was the truth because it was the exact emotions that I suffered from Ayesha as well. It got so bad that I allowed myself to become emotionally frozen for a long time, and when I did open back up with Yuka I allowed someone in so easily without even really thinking it through because it felt " convenient" and there was that void that needed to be filled.
" I used to have a close relationship with my brother. We were always so different, but I always loved him and would give my last dollar to him. A lot of my other family, including my parents, saw the bullshit in him a long time ago, but I kept defending, forgiving, giving until I couldn't anymore and I had to realize that he was a lost cause a long time ago and I was being used. It led to me hating and despising him so much that just being around him started to piss me off, and it might sound like I willingly chose to allow myself to feel that way, but it wasn't easy. Inside I was hurting from starting to hate him but that's just what it was." Giulia revealed to me.
" Did you guys ever talk again?" I asked Giulia.
" No, we haven't spoken in five years, and I like to think he's out there doing better for himself," Giulia explains, as tears start slowly rolling down her face. Tears started rolling down my face because I knew how those exact emotions felt.
" Well, it looks like this is it!" Giulia exclaims as she starts wiping the tears from her face.
" Yeah, " I say to Giulia as we both start grabbing the gear. I grabbed Giulia's hand before we exited the car and leaned in to kiss her on the lips. She was surprised at first but ended up embracing it.
" Let's finish this, and let's live on with each other. Let's repair each other's broken hearts." I say to Giulia. She smiled happily and looked like she wanted to burst into tears again. We exit the car and the gate automatically opens for us to go into Yuka's home as if she was already watching us. We walk up the beautiful wooden steps to get to the front door of the beautiful home of the demon. The moonlight starts to shine in the sky as darkness starts to set in.
We walk through the front door, and it's like pure nostalgia walking through the halls of the house. Seeing the same portraits and all. Together we enter the main living room area where we see our favorite antagonist Yuka sitting in a chair, with a beautiful, traditional purple robe on. She has her hair in a bun tonight, reminiscent of the style Japanese women used to wear back in the day.
" Well you didn't tell me you were bringing a guest tonight, let alone another girl," Yuka says sarcastically.
" Well, you also didn't tell me you murdered people and were a monster yokai." I sarcastically remark back.
" Oh well does she also know that we are already together, and we had sex" Yuka remarks with a sly grin on her face.
" I do actually, and you don't own him, and whatever it is you are trying to do here it's not gonna work. It's time you paid for the crimes you've committed " Giulia remarks to Yuka.
"It's actually funny you say that, because does anyone ever take the time to think about me?. You're so busy calling me a monster, and talking about the crimes I committed, when I have had crimes done to me without anyone protecting me."
" What are you getting at ?" I ask Yuka.
" Do you two even know how a female becomes a rokurokubi?. It happens when a woman gets cursed, cursed for things such as crimes against the gods and sins, especially unfaithfulness to their husband, and a lot of the times it was the husband that committed the crime, but it's the woman that has to suffer and become a " monster". That's what happened to my great-grandmother, she suffered from constant lies and cheating from that bastard of a great grandfather. She finally got fed up and tried to stick up for herself, so she killed him. My grandmother did nothing wrong, she only did what she thought was right, but life isn't fair and somehow she was cursed. Usually, the curse goes from generation to generation of the females, but it skipped my grandmother and mother and went to me. I didn't have a choice in the matter, it was a crime for me to become a rokurokubi, a curse, and it all started from my great grandad. I decided I would take advantage of this curse, make it my gift. So every male that ever cheated on me lied on me, walked away from me because of what I was born with I made them suffer by hands, or should I say neck." Yuka starts smirking as she smiles psychotically.
" But Alex, I found you different, it was so easy discarding the other garbage, but you are different. I'm in love with, I want you, and I want you all to myself. You are mine and mine only." Yuka reveals cheerfully.
" And if anybody gets in the way of what we have, they have to be annihilated. I mean can't you see I did this all for you!!" Yuka exclaims intensely.
" No you didn't you did this for yourself, you didn't give me a choice. Just like you didn't give all those other males a choice when you finished them!!" I exclaim back to Yuka.
" He's right and the time for talking is done, you are done!" Giulia exclaims as she points her pistol to Yuka. Yuka begins manically laughing and her neck starts to twist like a pretzel, and it gets taller, and taller, and taller until it's at the ceiling point. Just then Giulia makes her first shot to which Yuka quickly evades, I then run in as Giulia is distracting her with her shooting to try and go for her body but she dodges like a snake into the tall ceiling. Giulia reloads quickly and starts shooting towards the ceiling, while she's doing that I run back quickly near the front door where I left the gasoline canister, and I start dumping the gasoline all over the place, not even really aiming. I save just enough gasoline to throw on the curtains, so the fire can spread high quickly. As I go to try and reach the other side of the large living room, Yuka grabs me and swoops me high in the air with her neck.
" I will never let you get away from me, you are mine until the end, we belong together. You love me, you will love me." Yuka screams manically.
" No I don't, and I never will, but I do love someone and she's fighting beside me and giving me a choice. She's my light!" I scream at Yuka, as she looks absolutely irate after what I said, and with the little bit of arms length I have, I reach for my water gun I filled with gasoline earlier before we got here to spray Yuka in her eyes and face. She screams and drops me to the floor, which was a pretty hard fall, but I manage to brush it off and get back up in time to take the rest of the canister and dump it on Yuka's body. Giulia then takes a match, lights it, and throws it at Yuka's body.
Yuka's body then starts to catch on fire in a vertical-like manner from her body to her head.
" Aggggghhhhhh!!!!!" Yuka screams, as Giulia and I watch the flames spread through her body like a tree in a wildfire. Yuka's body then falls to the ground, and the fire starts to officially spread through the house.
" We did it!!" Giulia screams excitedly and runs to hug and kiss me. I kiss her back but we soon realize that the house won't hold much longer and we have to hurry and get out of the house. Together she and I rush to the front door together, it feels as if I am practically dragging her with me. As we almost make it to the front door back to look at Giulia and see her beautiful tired but happy face feeling like we just eliminated the enemy. Out of the corner though I see her.....I see her body rise. Yuka stands up, limping and already half-crisped up, her neck starts flying over so fast. Her neck flew in so fast, that it felt like everything started going in slow motion. Before I know it, Giu....lia... Giulia's head was relentlessly torn off her body clean as if someone had just taken a chainsaw and swung it towards her neck. Giulia's headless body continued to stand and twitch for a few seconds, as blood spurted everywhere and onto me. The body fell, and what was once Giulia holding my hand fell to the ground. Giulia's head flung all the way to the opposite end of the room and into the flames. I set off another match before running out the front door.
" Burn in hell!!!" I yelled off to Yukawa, as I slammed the door shut for the sea of flames to finish her off. I just barely made it to the gate of the home when the house exploded. Thick black smoke filled the air, debris of what was once the home spread all over the land floor. People started coming out of their homes, recording everything with their phones, and before I knew it the ambulance and police cars started pouring out onto the streets.
I wanted to feel like I had won, I wanted to feel like I finally lifted this weight off my shoulders but all I could think of was Giulia. I cried and fell to my knees continuously repeating her name, continuing to see the image of her head being taken off before my eyes. I just cried, and cried, and cried.
" GIULIAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" I screamed out and cried simultaneously.