Uta Bloody Valentine

Hearken, sweetling. We have a riddle to kill a sphinx. What was three, then one, then three again? She moves as a fever-dream through Kaidan.

She killed her mother in the birthing, but that does not explain it. A disturbed child, unnaturally charged with the supernal, impossibly and intuitively versed in blood magic before she could walk. Her father abandoned her to the wards and asylums as a little girl. The doctors said things like “violent schizophrenic” and “multiple personalities,” and they missed the point. A mind sensitive to the paranormal. Not insanity, but a newly evolving hypersanity for the new age. In new software, glitches are to be expected.

We witnessed all of her impossible escapes, and the supernatural creatures she stalked and killed for fun with every outing. We were not the only ones to notice.

We were there when the Dragon noticed. They medicated her. They trained her, an assassin at fifteen. The Dragon’s Tooth, they called her. We saw her beneath the Noh-mask. Then she vanished.

We were there when the Illuminati noticed. They gave her a penthouse overlooking Roppongi Hills to perch in. She popped antidepressants like jellybeans and “did business.” We saw her beneath the bloodstained pyjamas and Mickey Mouse mask. Then she vanished.

We were there when the Templars noticed. She served as protege to Pit and Pendulum. She enforced Templar interests in Hong Kong. We saw her beneath the sailor suit and usagi-head. Then she vanished.

These things happened all at once. The three factions became confused. They do not know her secret — that she is three. But she does not quite remember her own secret. It is a faded dream, Uta’s memories of the womb. Triplet sisters in a warm embrace. But one grew larger, ate and absorbed her other two siblings.

She does not quite remember when Lilith found her in an asylum. The Mother of Monsters recognized what she saw: three mystically powerful souls raging in one body, splitting one mind. Lilith knew that a burden shared is a burden lessened. She knew how to ease the poor child’s madness. It is a faded dream, Uta’s memories of being taken to the tower, taken to a laboratory.

That is where Lilith split Uta like a flatworm. One. Two. Three.