KUCHISAKE ONNA

Kuchisake-Onna: The Slit-Mouth Woman

According to Japanese urban legend, the Slit Mouth Woman was once a beautiful woman who was horribly disfigured by her husband, either because of infidelity or because he didn’t like the way that people looked at her. In a fit of madness and jealousy, he slashed her face, giving her the trademark Glasgow smile that gives her the epithet “Kuchisake-Onna”. He told her that no one would ever think she was beautiful again. Afterwards, he either killed her himself or she killed herself out of grief and disgust at what had happened to her.

She then rose as an Onryou, a Japanese spirit that seeks vengeance, and, like many ghosts, often inflicts the damage done to her on others. She appears to young children wearinga trench coat and a hospital mask--a common thing done in Japan and Asian countries to politely keep germs from spreading--and asks "watashi kirei?”, “am I beautiful?”. Answering Yes will make her take off the mask, showing off the hideous scar across her cheeks, and she’ll ask

“what about now?”. Saying no means that she’ll slice you to ribbons, and saying yes means

she’ll use the long pair of scissors she carries and snip your mouth like hers.

As the legend is Japanese, this is of course a bit of a play on words. The term “kirei”, used to mean cute or beautiful, sounds similar to the term “kiru”, which means to cut or slice.

Various takes on the story are different. Sometimes she cuts your mouth if you scream

or say no, other times saying “yes” to both questions means you get a valuable diamond.

Sometimes the correct answer is “you’re average”, or to confuse her with asking if she thinks you are beautiful.

Hitomi Heinrichs: Candle Burned Out

When she was 19, Hitomi was married to a protege of her father’s in something of an

old fashioned arranged marriage. This didn’t really bother her because throughout her

childhood she had been raised to be quite the modern aristocrat. On top of that, she had

actually come to love the man a decade and a half her senior. When her father died, he was

there to comfort her. Unfortunately he also ended up becoming a walking corpse and a 23-year-old Hitomi had to murder him. This was her introduction to the Vigil, and the monsters that resided within it. Throughout the years, she learned more, and how to protect others. She went from the hime girl to quite the badass, joining cell after cell and managing to survive where others didn’t. Unfortunately the Vigil tends to fray at Integrity, and destroy sanity. Hunters don’t often have the benefit of restful sleep, or the ability to turn to counselors.

Always beautiful and proud of her looks, which she had managed to keep even throughout the horrors that threatened her life, the act that began her descent into madnesswas when a horrible sorcerer tortured her, ending in carving her mouth into a wicked smile with a ritual dagger. Unlike a gunshot to the stomach or a knife across the arm, it couldn’t be

covered up, and no healing ritual would fix the supernatural wound.

The incident that finally put Hitomi over the deep end is when she murdered a young

man. She followed him home, stalking him, hating him for the way that he was so goodlooking. She confronted him and asked him if he thought she was beautiful, and when he

reacted negatively, she grabbed a pair of scissors and stabbed him, then in anger she tore into his body. She never told her Cell.

But they noticed after a while that she had started becoming more like the things they

fought. She was stronger, faster, and the way she saw the world had changed. She was no

longer a Hunter, upholding the Vigil. Her candle had begun to sputter wildly as she became

one of the Fallen, a Slasher.After her first murder, she started walking the streets carrying the overlarge scissors

with her, dressed like the woman from the urban legends from the seventies. Twice now she’s confronted attractive teenagers walking alone and asked them the question “am I beautiful?”

and both girls answered “no” when they saw her horrible mouth. Using her supernatural speed, she murdered them, and their bodies were found the next day. Her third victim, a young man, answered her question in the affirmative, but his kindness (or perhaps fondness for cougars with scars) was ill rewarded: Much like the Slit Mouth Woman of legend, she put her scissors in his cheeks and snipped them open.She has also killed one of her cellmates, who stole Quincy Harker’s legendary Hunting journal--a veritable Bible of the Vigil, added to by several hunters --from her and hid it in the Ashcroft Library book return slot in the hopes that Hitomi wouldn’t find it.

When the players find Kuchisake-Onna, her Cell will have found out what she’s become.

She will be surrounded by their dead bodies, and covered in blood, holding her scissors like a weapon. Her mask will still be on, and she’ll be wearing the frayed and ratty grey trench coatand nothing else. She’ll start the scene with 3 Willpower and attempt to conserve it.

Most of her skills are completely unusable in her current mental state, and her sheet is

primarily to show how she’s been holding the Candle most of her life.

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