Tale of the death comb

The demon comb once belonged to a young girl who lived in a seaside village. An uncle who had left the village to become a monk had given the half-moon shaped comb to her as a parting gift. The young girl, named Aiko, loved her comb. She combed her hair with it twice a day. Once when she woke up, once when she went to sleep. Aiko also used it to groom the fur of her beloved kitten, Shippuu.

One day, while Aiko was combing Shippuu's short black fur, a village boy stepping on her tail suddenly startled the cat. Shippuu's claws raked Aiko's wrist, leaving a deep gash that wouldn't heal. The sand turned red as she bled to death. Aiko's mother saw her falling. She called the village healer, but it was to late.

Before the child's cremation, her mother dressed Aiko's body in the child's finest kimono and brushed Aiko's hair with the beautiful comb the girl loved so much. As her mother folded the body's hands, she tucked the comb between them, thinking it was only right that a girl taken so young should be burned with her favourite possession.

A monk who had come to the village on a journey agreed to perform Aiko's final rights. As he laid the young girl's body on the pile of wood, he couldn't help but think that the comb was too lovely to be burned. Quickly, he took the comb and hid it in the folds of his robes. He stepped back, lit the wood beneath the small body, and prayed that Aiko's spirit would not come back to haunt the world of the living and find peace in the afterlife.

When the monk continued on his journey, he kept the comb with him. As he wandered from village to village, he used the comb on the hair of the dead and the dying.

Eventually, the comb's coloring of coral pink deepened to a blood-red color.

When the monk returned to the temple where he had been apprenticed, he was an old man, quickly approaching his death. He enshrined the comb at the temple, and told the temple monks that it was to be used to comb the hair of the dead only. The temple's people found this an odd request, but obeyed. The old monk died a few days later.

Over time, the comb gained demonic powers through its connections with the dead. The monks remained unaware as the wards around the temple and the comb's shrine clouded it. While the humans were unable to sense it, demons did. They flocked to the temple, all of them seeking the power-enhancing comb held within. The monks noticed the dramatic increase in the population of demons surrounding the temple, but thought nothing of it and continued to slay the youkai one by one, until a young demon named Yura came to call.

Yura was the daughter of a youkai chief, and terrifyingly powerful for her age.

Around the same time the demon child was looking for a weapon that suited her, she heard a rumour on the wind that a human temple had a comb of great power hidden behind its wooden walls. Immediately, she set out for it alone, as the laws of her demon tribe forbade her to take a companion along while searching for a weapon.

When she had found the temple, she mercilessly slaughtered everyone in it. She found the comb and broke through the wards surrounding it with ease. The moment she picked up the scarlet comb, she knew that it was the right weapon for her.

For Yura, the comb unlocked a whole knew realm of possible powers, ones concerning the hair of both humans and demon. Because of the comb, Yura killed with and for hair. From the moment she discovered her powers over the hair of the dead, she was known as Yura of the Hair.

And the comb, which had started out as a gift to a pure-hearted young girl, became the crucible for her tainted soul.