World Information

The world that Tsubaki lives in is similar to Earth; there are still problems with things like the environment, and social rights, but those are typically considered “human” problems. Monsters do a lot of behind-the-scenes work, and though many of them have “human” personas, it doesn’t necessarily mean they enjoy being around humans. In fact, a lot of them look at humans as food, because they are genetically predisposed to this. There are some exceptions. Vampires who don’t drink blood find they can get their barest nutrients from things like tomato juice and coconut water.

The variety of monsters spans everything from what one might consider a normal “walks through walls” kind of ghost to complex things like the undead in all their various forms to werewolves. Kokoro herself is counted among the yokai (though she herself is not dead) and, yes things like the Gashadokuro do exist. Keeping an entire culture of monsters under the radar is hard work, harder still when monster lineages begin to weaken and new descendants with their ancestors ability hit the stress level needed to complete their monstrous abilities.

Being able to hide the specific hallmarks of each species of monster while in a human guise typically becomes the duty of an elder monster. This is not always available, and young monsters sometimes turn to things like wild makeup and hair dye to cover things like changing skin and hair colors.

Most importantly about Tsubaki’s world is that it acts as if several million shoujo or horror stories are all going off at once, which leads to a high amount of crying school girls, strange workplace romances and mysterious disappearances. But because of all this, there are also societies of human men and women who hunt these monsters just trying to live their lives down and destroy them.

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Tsubaki is the only child of two very busy executives of different branches of the Sunakawa Group's businesses. Her mother, Haruko, oversees the many hospitals that the family owns.

She was born to greatness - her family has a long history of being Japanese youkai hunters, using its daughters to seal the evil by swallowing it whole. Literally. Then they’d lock the unlucky girl in a box and bury her under a mountain. Which lead to more monsters. Which lead to more maidens being sealed in boxes. Which lead to more--


You get the picture.


In the modern era now, and only very few members of the family have any clue as to the secret history of the family. For now, the Sunakawa are a corporation that deals in finance, medicine, and cultural preservation. There's a slightly darker element to the family's business dealings and whispers that they are somehow connected to the yakuza. (They are, but no one in their right mind is going to admit to that.)


For good reason. There’s a whole lot of girls under mountains that need to be taken care of. And the Family posing as a well-meaning culture preservation organization amidst their other dealings means that no one bats an eye when they claim that there are villages in the mountains deserving of preservation.

That being said, Tsubaki is a bit of a disappointment, as she is constantly hungry for a ‘bigger’ meal and cannot quite satisfy herself with regular food. She has the sense to taste for youkai, and a little bit of a vacuum-like suction, but nothing so large eat an entire yokai. (Unless they're very small, that is, though she's never tried, being unaware of this ability).


Her family are quite rich, and intent on keeping her as pure as her name suggests. She is the only child of the heads of one of the Sunakawa businesses, and used to a life of prestige and privilege. Growing up, she took lessons in kyudo, traditional Japanese archery. It seemed like something her family wanted her to do, so she did it. Ikebana seemed like something she ought to be doing, so she did it. Sewing, learning how to make attractive bento, being good at swimming and water polo and regular polo, horseback riding. Tsubaki poured herself into as many things as she could, because it seemed like that would appease her often-absentee parents.


And it seemed like that was working, for a while. But by the time she made it to high school, Tsubaki, while still very dutiful, wanted to be as far away from responsibilities as possible. So she chose Kikuryou Academy, a boarding school in Kanagawa prefecture, deep in the forests and far from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. Her parents were unsure about this decision - especially with the bad press it received the previous year, with a school coach being violently murdered with no witnesses and no sign of a murderer. But Tsubaki was, for once in her very short life, indignant. She would go!


Her parents only relented at last when the head of the family, seeking to expand Sunakawa influence around the school, agreed with Tsubaki. She has three years, and if in that time she cannot perform her duties as a member of the Sunakawa clan, and unlock her ability as a Sin Eater, she will be expelled from her family and
thrown away.


While Tsubaki's parents, mildly negligent as they are, are very aware of this mandate, Tsubaki herself is not. For now, she lives in a happy bubble, unaware of what looms on the horizon.