Shi No Tenshi, “Angel of Death”
Growing up in Japan, the elders would tell us stories of Shi No Tenshi. So we would behave. They said she arrived at midnight once a year on the Harvest Moon. While we celebrated our harvest, she began hers.
They say she wears a scarlet kimono, with a black bow ‘round her waist. She has wings like a bat, and the teeth to match. You never saw her, for she moved in the shadows. And those who did, never lived to tell. But we never thought her to be real, until the day she came for us.
The legends were true about her appearance. But what they didn’t say was her face. It was white as snow. Her mouth stretched across her face, open wide. Her fangs baring out as us. They were dripping with blood from her last kill. And her almond eyes were black as a pit, no color to be found in them. The hem of her dress seemed to fade to smoke, As floated above the ground. Her wings flapping silently. The ax in her hand and the blood on her dress signaled it was the end.
But she would not get us tonight.
As I lunged in the air, she flew towards me too. Her ax and my sword made the sound of clashing metal. She barred her teeth and whipped out her tail. Put she couldn’t take me down. No, my strength was too much for the old, lowly demon. And finally, with sweat pouring down my face, I sent my sword through her unholy chest and she fell to the ground in a pile of ashes.
The last part of the legend, tells what happened that night. After the demon was vanquished and vanished. But what would happen next would remain a mystery, until the next Harvest Moon. When a girl in a scarlet kimono came walking down the street, with a bloody ax in her hand, and the face of a demon…