THE RITUALS THE CRIMSON SACRIFICE RITUAL 赤贄祭 This ritual was performed to appease the Malice flowing out of the gate to the underworld underneath the village. The village was almost completely isolated from the outside world, and had families who produced an unusually high number of twins. Every generation, one pair of twins underwent the ritual to seal the gate. If the ritual failed at any time, there was always another set of twins who could take their place. The Kurosawa family oversaw the ritual, and the head of the house was the Ceremony Master. When the time for the ritual approached, the twins were taken to the joined Kiryuu-Tachibana houses (the "Twin Houses"), where they underwent their ritual purification (possibly aided by the Truth Binder). They could move freely between the two houses using the Heaven Bridge (a skywalk) and the Earth Bridge (an underground passage.) The head of the Kiryuu household, at some time in the past, designed a clockwork-type mechanism to operate the doors leading to the underground ceremony site, using dolls as controls. At the time of the ceremony, the twins are dressed in white (the color of purity and death) and proceed to the Kurosawa house, where they open a set of twin doors that can only be opened when two people step on a floor panel simultaneously. They pass through the doors and follow a passage underground, where they reach a ceremonial site filled with lit candles. As the veiled priests watch (to assist if necessary), the older twin (the twin that was born second, according to the old-fashioned village rules) strangles the younger twin (the twin that was born first) to death with their bare hands. Now, this may not be very obvious, but strangulation is a particularly ugly way to kill someone. When someone strangles with their bare hands, the person dies not so much from their airway being crushed as the fingers digging into the blood vessels in the neck, cutting off the blood supply to the brain and triggering a reflex that stops the heart and breathing. The person's face turns blue, their neck bruises, their tongue sticks out, they struggle and then finally pass out from lack of oxygen in the brain. It would be an extremely traumatizing experience for the older twin, moreso than if they had simply stabbed the other, since the older has to slowly kill with their bare hands and subdue their twin's dying struggles. After the younger twin is dead, the older twin develops a sympathetic bruise on their own throat. (forensic photo of a manual strangulation, non-graphic) The strangulation marks on the dead twin's throat turn into a crimson butterfly, the manifestation of their soul which will communicate with the underworld that the sacrifice was successful. The Mourners, whose eyes have been sewn shut so they cannot see the horrors inside the Abyss, take the dead twin's body down the path to the Abyss and throw it inside. Those who saw inside the Abyss were driven mad or struck blind, and this place was so feared that it was only refered to as "x" in writings about the ritual. The Mourners were tainted from their exposure to the Abyss and were never allowed to return to the surface of the earth after the ritual. The living twin is now known as the 'Remaining,' and was feared and respected. Most of them became recluses or never spoke again, and after they died, their bodies were enshrined under the Old Tree, with pinwheels spinning to appease their souls. There are many obvious similarities to the Strangling Ritual of Fatal Frame 1. Both ceremonies involve isolated families who single out special children to be purified and undergo the ritual to keep the gate to hell closed. Many of the same types of people are involved: the priests, the ceremony master, the truth binder, the burdened man. Both ceremonies involve a slow painful death by strangulation - the more pain that the sacrifice endured, the more powerful the ceremony becomes. The proof of the ceremony's completion - the bloody ropes or dead twin - are presented to the gate of hell at the end of the ceremony. Finally, the bodies of those involved in the ritual (the rope miko or the Remaining) are enshrined to appease their souls (in the Moon Well in FF1 and in the Old Tree in FF2.) The important thing is that the soul of someone who underwent immense pain and suffering was necessary to appease the evil spirits, who probably feed on this negative energy. Also, the pain that the soul endured made them powerful enough to hold back the evil from the Abyss. THE HIDDEN CEREMONY 陰祭 If the Crimson Sacrifice fails at any time, the next set of twins have to begin their ritual purification so they can perform the Sacrifice again. In the meantime, a hidden ceremony is performed by the Ceremony Master to appease the gate of hell until the next ritual can be performed. This ceremony was first performed by a Ceremony Master in the distant past, but since then, only people from outside the village were used. Outsiders who approached the village were kidnapped and imprisoned, leading to rumors that they had been spirited away in the forest. During the hidden ceremony, the sacrifice is tied up above an altar in the Kurosawa house, and is slashed all over by the Ceremony Master. If the sacrifice dies, the ceremony is a failure and a new victim has to be selected. The more pain that the sacrifice can endure without dying, the more powerful the ceremony becomes, as is the case with the Crimson Sacrifice. The victim is known as the "Kusabi" - the Wedge. After the ceremony is over, the victim is taken and thrown into the Abyss, still alive. This ceremony is reminiscent of the Blind Demon Ritual of Fatal Frame 1, a sort of side-sacrifice to provide the gate of hell with even more pain and suffering. [ back ]