Maria's New Diary

Wednesday, April 14

I've decided to start writing a new diary, the one I had before ended last week but I can't stop writing now that crazy things happen almost every day. This way I can go back to remember things that will probably be important in the future, or maybe I can sell them as a fantasy book, after all, I don't think anyone believes the things I put here anyway.

Last weekend my brother went "ghost hunting" with Haru, according to what he told me it seems that the ghost was real, with the help of Tamamo I managed to send him to the other world where it seems that he could rest in peace. After what happened, I think I should be grateful to know that my father did not end the same way and to know with complete certainty that he is in a better place.

Trying to come back to earth with her mundane things, today I think I managed to make my first friend, her name is Asuka, she lives in a neighborhood of Setagaya and her parents take care of a shrine, so she says that you have been a Miko to help. But despite the tradition of her family she likes to try new things, I think that's the main reason she started talking to me in the first place. Despite the fact that I try to bear it, the Japanese are people... I would not like to call them racists, but they are people who are very wary of foreigners, there are obviously exceptions, Tamamo is the representation of Japanese tradition and folklore but she does not care about it what we do differently and even participates in it, but generally people are suspicious of what I do, At least once a day they ask me when I'm leaving the country, what am I doing here, and they're surprised that I can speak Japanese, I have almost 7 years living here damn it! And even so, I do not want to imagine how many things Cesar will have to endure. Asuka, on the other hand, has at least treated me like someone more or less normal, that is, if she is interested that I am not from here, but her questions are more about what the world is like outside of here, what it is like to live in a country where snow falls, how is it possible to visit a beach in mid-January, things more understandable. He also invited me to visit a cafeteria, and although I'm bored of them at this point, I still accepted to try to establish a better friendship. In the end, she even wanted to visit my house because by mistake I told her that it was near another coffee shop, I refused completely, what happens inside this house could turn the world upside down.

And the truth is that so many things happen here that I am beginning to understand why my brother is not surprised by almost anything at this point. This morning when I got up I went to use the bathroom, and while I was sitting Lisa appeared from a shadow on the wall to brush her teeth, while her bottom was still inside the wall, she was between sleeping and awake, so that she did not realize that I was there until later, she apologized later but it is not the first time that something similar has happened.

This afternoon Cesar began to exercise, it seems to be the first time he has done it in a long time since he is usually in the middle of the action where he normally runs for his life and not for his health. To be honest for the amount of physical effort that he usually takes, it is surprising that his body still does not develop muscles, I say for the amount that I have seen him run, he should have footballer's legs, could it be that it is some property of Nanami's body? I imagine so because it seems that he himself seems to recognize this. His training is not at all what I had in mind that he would do, first, he began to dance with music using his feet a lot, it seemed that he was doing break dancing, but as he explained to me, it was really capoeira, more or less, it was An Atlantean fighting style that emphasized fighting using mainly kicks, was practiced by some Nanami guards as a means of defense, fighting without weapons. My brother explained to me that since his legs "have more mass" than his arms, then it can cause more impact. Later he was practicing with a broomstick, it seems that it was something that they also did in that place because it seemed more like watching a kung fu montage, and finally, he started to jump rope, quickly while going up and down the stairs of the house, Mom scolded him thinking that he was going to kill himself if he tripped, my brother was so upset that he continued anyway, but now on the roof.

His daughters, the androids, well, no one in this house considers them as such anymore. In reality, despite the fact that they have their peculiarities such as the fact that they almost never show emotions, it does not mean that they do not have them, you can see that they are happy when they start to talk faster and give information about the topic, like when they wanted to eat ice cream and they started talking about how important it was and how it was discovered. On the other hand, if they don't answer or ignore something, it's because they don't consider it necessary, like when my mom scolded them for messing up the clothes, they stayed in the same place motionless saying nothing until she calmed down. They eat and also use the bathroom, the same food is where they get energy, they can get wet, they sleep, and they get excited. If you forget the fact that they are made of metal I think if you can ignore that they are robots, but then you see them in the living room watching the TERMINATOR movie and you see them happy every time the muscular guy appears, and it makes you think, I hope they are supporting humans and not Skynet.

Regarding Tifa, she has shown a lot of progress compared to when she arrived for the first time, now she talks a little with the others, not much but it is already a step. Normally in the morning she gets up and starts to water the plants, she also has a mini notebook where I think she writes down what she is discovering, she looks quite serious when investigating and taking care of the plants, I'm sure she would love to talk to my grandmother because although they are from different races and worlds they share the same hobby. At noon she usually goes to the kitchen to help my mother cook, she helps her by bringing ingredients or utensils, if she is at work she is helping the person in charge of heating the food. In the afternoon she is usually in the same room as Cesar if he is in the house, otherwise, she is resting in her room, which is a doll's house that is on the shelf in my brother's room. When my mom gets home from work Tifa helps her with whatever she has to do, and I think she's glad to have a second secretary at home. She doesn't like to be near the demon but at least she tries to tolerate her, especially after one day a stray black cat was watching her through the bedroom window, Lisa from the shadow took him by the paw and bathed him twice with cold water until it is almost white, that cat never came back.

Lisa, on the other hand, is quite a case but after living with her for a while I think I'm beginning to see that it's not as serious as I thought she would be. I mean, yes,  she's crazy, a lot of times she has weird attacks of her own, but I've noticed that she's actually holding back quite a bit, and usually, she doesn't really try to hurt anyone. It's just that their way of doing things is what leads to the problems in the first place, one day when we were starving and mom didn't come she wanted to cook for us, the problem was that she brought live pigeons because according to her they were cheap. Another time we bought her a phone so she could make calls, and she was so excited about the gift that she called everyone at 3 in the morning so she could listen to the other phones. One time my mom was going to the bathroom at night but she started screaming for help, my brother even got up with the gun in hand, it seemed that she had seen a ghost from the exorcist movie in the dark hallway, it turned out to be Lisa who she said was protecting the house from burglars, acting like a demon from a horror movie. One day my brother brought a cake just for her because he thought he was leaving her aside a lot, it's still in the fridge because she didn't want to eat it because she was sorry to spend it. In fact, now that I think about it, it's even surprising that knowing how she is, she is actually the one who holds back the most, she herself says that she prefers to be the last in line, even though it is clear that she wants to have my brother all to herself. She does her best not to argue with the others, in her own way of course, she now even respects Momo who at the beginning was her sworn enemy or protects Tifa who doesn't talk to her yet. I think I misjudged her the first time I came here, but she's not one to do much to prove otherwise.

Finally, Tamamo was today trying to kill us all. Well, not directly but I can't think of anything else she was aiming for. As I said before, she is a very traditional girl with Japanese traditions, whether she has lived more than a thousand years ago and because she is the goddess of the Moon here, she is almost always wearing a kimono, it is almost her sign of identity at this point. And she, as always, also has traditional Japanese shoes, although of course made for the gods in the first place, so her sandals look more like works of art than things that one would wear on her feet. Well, the sandals that she wears with huge pieces of wood, are big and heavy, although she wears them only when she leaves the house, it is impossible not to notice that she wears them because of how big they are and the characteristics noise they make. Well, she thought it was a good idea for my mother to learn to use them too, so she lent them to her so she could practice walking with them. It was like watching a general watch the feature demo of a new secret weapon. She asked dark things like effective range and aerodynamics, when she lifted one with her hand to measure the weights he smiled at it, nothing good could come of it. The demon and the angel were hidden behind the couch, along with my brother and me. I am sure that there is a law in Geneva that prohibits Latin mothers from having access to weapons with a high level of mass destruction and high ballistic penetration.

Lisa was the most afraid, as she was the most likely to be the test subject. But to be honest, I don't know why she cares so much. After all, she has her own special edition of hers that she earned with so much hard work and effort.  Forged by a blacksmith from a technique known as welding, using the fire of the damned in hell.

But still, no one knew the true terror, at least not until today. When a messenger arrived at night to deliver mail. This time no one had asked for anything, but even so, we received a letter and a medium box. When we saw the letter on the letter we immediately recognized its origin. It was a letter written by hand and with a pen, the pages were from a common notebook, surely the same one that students use, but the distinctive thing was the message, written in Spanish. The letter was from my grandmother, in it she greeted my mother and me, she told us how much she loved us and missed us. But as my mother read it out loud we all knew there was something strange, it sounded more and more like a threat. Continuing with the message, she said how next week was Easter, which was very important for my grandmother, because for her it was time to be with her family, in other words, she was telling us inaccurately in a very direct way that she wanted us to return home to no later than Thursday of next week to spend it with her. My grandmother is a very religious person, so not being with her is almost saying that you are her enemy, normally on Good Friday my brothers and cousins go to a procession while she cooks the lunch for when we get back. That was what she liked most in the year, along with Christmas dinner.  The letter ended with a clear clarification of intent when she wrote that she "mistakenly put something in the box by mistake and wanted us to return it to her, or she would come and claim it personally". My mother opens the box with great delicacy, she saw its content and almost fainted, my brother too, then it was my turn. 

It was my grandmother's chancla, a chancla built to rule them all. The sandal capable of altering reality and the individual. It is said that she could alter his victim's perception of time, making a minute feel like a day. It had the power to break wills, the ability to be anywhere she needed to be. It could unleash intelligence even from inert objects and could even hurt the inside of a person's soul, it could turn anyone to ashes. It was easy to measure the level of power that we were witnessing, Lisa, a demon, was afraid of my mother's sandals. My mother is afraid of my grandmother's sandals. She was able to easily demonstrate that my mother had a long way to go in the way of the chancla. One that she learned from her mother, and her mother's mother, and her mother's mother, to something that perhaps went back to the first flip flop that existed.

It was clear what would happen, it was written in stone. Tomorrow my mother and I will return home to spend Holy Week there. We will try to hide the existence of my brother until another more convenient day. We would take the first plane of the day back to Los Angeles, where we would meet Leon and together with him we would return home, where we would later visit my grandmother. Only we would go, we would not know how to explain Tamamo to my grandmother and if she sees Momo she would be inclined to pray to her. And as religious as she is, I wouldn't be surprised if she could feel Lisa's presence even if she was hiding in a shadow. May God our Lord and Savior protect us.