Subject: [FFML] Haha no Ai (A Mother's Love)
From: Shachihoko
Date: 7/26/1999, 7:11 AM
To: ffml@fanfic.com


AUTHOR'S FOREWORD:
        If you wish to contact me by e-mail, my address is:
        trmiller@bcpl.net

        The following story was inspired by a snippet of late-night role-
playing on one of the MUCKs which I frequent nowadays. If you're familiar with
the series, you should be able to guess who's speaking ... n.n

        "Haha no Ai" (A Mother's Love)                  by Tim Miller

        I close my daughter's door and return to my own room; it's late in the
evening, and I was asleep when she finally came home, battered but victorious.
It's been months now since her career began, the career I managed to avoid ...
        I knew when it started, of course - a piece of me, the part of a 
mother that instinctively knows her child's fate as it happens, couldn't help 
but know. The first night she did battle, taking up the sword that fate had 
given her. She was only home briefly that afternoon, and my mother went out 
too; I was alone in the house for the first evening in years.
        Oh, my daughter ... I can't know what you think of me, but I can 
guess; you probably think much the same as your grandmother does, and perhaps 
I can't blame you for that. But I know what it is you face ... I faced the 
same thing myself, before you were born - and I know that you know what I did.
        All I could do was pray, that first night - I've never believed 
strongly in the kami, but there was nowhere else I could put my trust at that 
moment. You were gone, Mother was gone, and none of my friends could have been 
trusted with the burden; all that I could do was wait until you came home, 
bloodied but unbowed, victorious in your first battle. I was so relieved to 
see you alive, my daughter - just as I have been every night since that you've 
returned with the marks of battle still showing on your young body.
        (Thank goodness that you heal so quickly, and without scars! You 
shouldn't have to bear the marks of this while you're looking for a 
boyfriend.)
        But ever since that night, I've been worried: sometimes fretful, 
sometimes terrified. I've known about every battle you've fought, on some 
level, even when I wasn't told that you had to go out and save the world from 
being overrun by demons and hellspawn.
        I even knew when you died, my daughter - a piece of me screamed in 
pain as you were torn from this world, then sobbed in relief when you came 
back, alive by a miracle. I couldn't let it show ... you wouldn't have 
believed me ... but it was there nonetheless.
        Amazing, that we have so much in common ... I wonder, if I had taken 
up the mantle when Mother tried to pass it on to me, would we be able to share
in your burden now? I know that she's helped you fight sometimes, when she had
to aid you ....
        There's no point in thinking about it, though. Unlike you, when I 
found out about my "destiny," the path that Mother was going to hand down to 
me, I fled - into the arms of my first lover. That night was the night in 
which I forsook my destiny, only to receive another ... for that was the night 
when you were conceived, I still know that. I turned from the warrior's path, 
and found myself on the mother's path instead.
        And my own mother hated me for it, even though she still loved me. A 
mother's love is eternal, and can never be broken by any force - not even by 
death itself. I believe that, in a way that I believe little else.
        That is the bond which joins us, my daughter, a bond stronger than the
destiny which you inherited from my mother - the destiny I refused, but you 
accepted, whether you chose deliberately or not. And I am proud of you.
        I am proud of you, my daughter, for taking up the burden I fled from; 
you have taken up the task which I will never know if I could have borne.
        But that doesn't make me fear any less. Your destiny doesn't protect 
you, it puts you at unimaginable risk - I know that someone has to do it, but 
why must it be you?
        And so, every night that you aren't home, I wait in fear and pray for 
you, knowing that you are in battle as the 108th generation Mamono Hunter, as 
I should have been, had my mother had her way ... and I hope, my Yohko-chan, 
that you will come home again, and again, as long as you're still living under
our roof.
        Please don't die, Yohko-chan. I love you too much to lose you.

AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD:
        We don't know a lot about Sayoko; she's Yohko's mother, but all we 
learn about her in the first _Devil Hunter Yohko_ OAV is that she lost her 
virginity before she could become the 108th generation Devil Hunter, forcing 
*her* mother, Madoka, to wait until Yohko had grown up before she could pass 
on the duties and mantle. In fact, it's never made clear whether Sayoko really
knows about the Devil Hunter or not ... but I think she does; it's been a 
family tradition in the Mano line for well over a thousand years, possibly as 
many as two thousand (depending on the length of a generation).
        What little else we learn about Sayoko is through Madoka, and her 
statements are colored by anger at her wayward daughter. Madoka may never have
forgiven Sayoko for turning away from her destiny, but they're still mother 
and daughter - even in the anime, they're living in the same house with Yohko,
occasionally squabbling but family nonetheless. Madoka and Sayoko even go on 
vacation together after Yohko becomes a full-fledged Devil Hunter; of course, 
they're completely off-screen for two full episodes, and things are more or 
less back to normal when they return - less argumentative, although Madoka's 
expressed opinion of Sayoko doesn't change much.
        It was that one brief scene of "spoofing" Sayoko as she undressed her 
sleeping daughter and tucked her in that gave me the first chance to look into
her character. Sayoko *has* to know that Yohko has a duty and a destiny beyond
that of an ordinary teenager; she's out too late and too frequently to be 
spending her time shopping, and sometimes she comes home injured from putting 
the smack down on the latest demon lord to awaken with intent to destroy the 
human world. Besides, Sayoko was nearly the 108th Devil Hunter herself - which
may have been part of the reason why she was encouraging Yohko to find a 
boyfriend she could sleep with ... "before it was too late," as it were.
        Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story. ^_^

Acknowledgements:
        _Mamono Hunter Yohko_ was created by Maruyama Masao and Mutsuki Juzo; 
the original OAVs were produced by MADHOUSE and Toho Co., Ltd. The American 
translation and distribution rights to the _Devil Hunter Yohko_ OAVs are held 
by A.D. Vision. The above-named companies own the respective rights to all of 
the characters depicted in this story.
        This is a work of fan-fiction, written for fun, not for profit. I have
no legal rights to any of the characters mentioned.

                                Tim Miller
                                        trmiller@bcpl.net
        July 24, 1999