The Twelve Kingdoms: Shadow of the Moon

guards only gave Youko a pair of fierce looks and said nothing.
    It was almost more cruel this way. It was better when something--anything--was happening. Several times, she determined to speak to the guards, but could not find the courage to speak.
    The hours dragged on. It was enough to make her want to scream. After the sun set, and the cell had sunken into blackness, three women arrived.
    The white-haired lady at the head of the three wore the kind of outfit Youko had seen in old historical dramas about China. It was a tremendous relief to finally meet someone, and a woman at that, not one of those grim-faced men.
    The old lady said to the two who had accompanied her, "You can leave now." They deposited the articles they were carrying on the bed, and, bowing deeply, exited the jail cell. After they had gone the old lady pulled the table next to the bed. She placed the lamp on the table. The lamp resembled a candlestick of sorts. Next to it she put a bucket of water.
    "Well, then, you'd better wash up."
    Youko answered with a nod. Slowly she washed her face and hands and feet. Her filthy, blackened, reddened hands soon regained their normal color.
    By this point, Youko began to notice how hard it was to move her limbs. This was no doubt because of Jouyuu. Over and over he had forced her body to do things it was hardly capable of, and now her muscles were torn and stiff.
    As best she could she washed her hands and feet. The water soaked into the fine lacerations. She went to comb her hair, undoing the three braids gathered at the back. That was when she became aware of something truly strange.
    "What . . . what is this?"
    Undone from the braid her hair spilled down like a wave. She stared. She knew she had red hair, a red that faded at the ends, almost as if bleached. But not this! Where did this bizarre color come from?
    It was red, a red steeped in blood, a red changed to a deep, dark crimson. To be called a redhead was one thing, but this was not that! She could not think of what to call it, this impossible, freakish hue. A shudder ran through her. It was the same red color as the coat of the creature in her nightmares.
    "What's the matter?" the old lady asked. When Youko indicated her hair, she tilted her head to the side. "Why worry yourself so? There's nothing strange about it. A tad unusual, perhaps, but pretty enough."
    Youko shook her head, searched in the pocket of her uniform and brought out a small hand mirror. No doubt about it, those scarlet locks were hers alone.
    But who was this person peering back at her? For a moment it didn't make any sense. She timidly lifted her hand and touched her face. So did the stranger in the reflection. It was her, she realized in amazement.
    This is not my face!
    Even accounting for the effect that her hair might have on her appearance, this was somebody else's countenance. Its attractiveness was not the problem. The problem was plainly that this face--with its sun-bronzed skin, its deep emerald eyes--was the face of a stranger.
    Youko cried out in great alarm. "This isn't me!"
    The old lady turned to her with a dubious expression. "What isn't?"
    "This! This is not who I am!"

Chapter 12
    T he old lady took the mirror from Youko's distracted grasp and calmly examined it. "Nothing wrong with the mirror from what I can tell." She handed it back to Youko.
    Now that Youko thought about it, her voice sounded different, too. She had become a completely different person. Not a beast or a monster, but....
    "Well, then, so you don't look exactly like you used to."
    The laughter in the old lady's voice made Youko look at her. "But why?" she asked. She again peered at herself in the mirror. It gave her a strange sensation, seeing that stranger in place of herself.
    "Why, indeed. Not something I'm bound to know."
    With that, she took hold of Youko's hand and with a wetted cloth dabbed at the many small wounds.
    When Youko looked more closely at the her inside the mirror, she could begin to tease out the vestiges of herself that seemed familiar. But they were very faint.
    Youko put down the mirror, resolved not to pick it up again. As long as she didn't look it wouldn't matter what she looked like. True, mirror or not, she couldn't very well ignore her hair, but if she pretended it was dyed she could put up with it. That didn't mean she was resigned to every other aspect of her appearance, but at this point she didn't have the courage to take an unvarnished look at herself.
    The