Aya Tsukimori

Media Mix Character Aya Tsukimori Kanji/Kana 月守アヤ Alias N/A Actor Ayami Nakajo (teenager) Mai Kikuchi (child) Status Alive Occupation Student Appears in Fatal Frame: A Curse Affecting Only Girls Fatal Frame: The Movie

Aya Tsukimori is the main character in Fatal Frame: A Curse Affecting Only Girls and Fatal Frame: The Movie.

A Curse Affecting Only Girls

Aya is a student in her final year at Saint Loudun's Academy for Girls. She is the most beautiful girl in the class, and the other students have admired her beauty since their induction into the school six years ago, but she has always been set apart from the others. Despite rules prohibiting jewellery, she wears a hair accessory in the shape of a white camellia, and this special treatment leads people to speculate that she is related to the Headmistress. She completed her entrance exams for a Tokyo science university early, and is ready for graduation.

In February, Aya has a dream about a ghost who looks exactly like her. The ghost girl kisses her, and then tells Aya that the kiss is a curse. Afterwards, Aya senses the girl following her everywhere. For the first time since she arrived at the school, she goes to confession, but the nun drugs her and leaves her sleeping in a high room in a tower near the chapel.

Aya is kept isolated in the room for over a week, and during her absence, students begin to disappear. Rumours fly that Aya herself is responsible for the disappearances. Finally, Kuro Karatsu finds her in the hidden room and wakes her up. When she learns what has been happening, Aya feels bound to try and find out what is really behind the curse.

Following a lead from Mary, Aya goes with Michi and Risa to investigate a shrine built near the school. In the shrine's hidden basement, they find an old photo album, full of pictures of girls dating back many years.

Back at the dorm, Aya and Michi study the album more closely. On the very first page are two photos, one of a pretty girl with a ribbon in her hair, the other of a more serious, brooding girl, rumoured to be the Headmistress. The photo of the girl with the ribbon appears again and again in the book, beside a different picture every time. Finally, it appears alongside a picture of a little girl, and after that, the only picture to recur is that of the girl that looks like Aya.

Meanwhile, a mob gathers outside. They start to throw rocks through the window, and attack Aya when she emerges, believing that she is cursed and her kiss killed Kasumi and Itsuki. To prove that Aya is not the one responsible, Michi kisses Aya herself, and defuses the situation.

The next day, by chance, Aya and Michi meet Kuro Karatsu and Keiko Makino. Karatsu, a spirit medium, suggests they try to communicate with the ghost that looks like Aya. When she becomes one with the ghost, Aya remembers that she had a twin sister, Maya. The two were orphans, and the Headmistress of Saint Loudun's took them in when they were five. One day, she took them to the bridge near the shrine, and gave them a choice. One girl would live at the academy, attend university in Tokyo and grow up to a bright future - on the condition that the other would die. Maya, the elder, decided to sacrifice herself for Aya's sake. She gave Aya the camellia hair ornament they inherited from their mother, and allowed the Headmistress to push her into the river, where she drowned. Aya was traumatised and suppressed the memory.

This, combined with what Mary told them, leads the group to go and investigate the Headmistress's office. They find that the painting of Ophelia conceals a hidden door in the wall. They enter the hidden room beyond, and the true history of the curse is revealed by Karatsu. The girl with the ribbon from the Ophelia Album, Mio Takaishi, was the Headmistress's lover long ago, but the Headmistress betrayed her. As revenge, Mio cursed her to live forever, and sacrifice a girl every three years. Karatsu says that the curse affecting the Headmistress is tangled together with the one affecting Aya and Maya, and in order to stop the current series of disappearances, the two curses will have to be separated.

On his advice, Aya and Michi return to the shrine the next day, and Aya curses herself. She is spirited away at once, and reappears floating in the river, where Takashi finds her. He takes her to a water storage tank deep in the forest, where Maya's body lies submerged, and pushes her in so that she and Maya can be together. When Michi arrives, she finds Aya and Maya floating together in the water tank, but Mio, possessing Maya, tries to thwart her and prevent her from breaking the curse. Michi realises that the hair ornament is the key to breaking the curse. She tells Aya to cast it off. Aya is hesitant to do so and leave Maya behind, but Michi tells her not to look back, and pulls her out of the water.

Aya passes out, and has a dream in which she and Maya are together in a forest. Maya says she never cursed Aya, and wants her to go on living. She takes out the hair ornament and drops it on the ground, at which point her body begins to decay, and sends Aya back to the world of the living.

At the end of the novel, Aya, Michi and Risa say goodbye, and Aya goes on to university and adulthood, resolving to enjoy every season Maya did not get to see.

Fatal Frame: The Movie

Orphaned at the age of seven, Aya is adopted by the academy, and grows up there. As she gets older, other girls at the school begin to fall in love with her, but Aya hates the attention and prefers to be alone. When her classmates nominate her to sing the solo in Ophelia's Song at their graduation, Aya refuses.

One night, Aya has a dream about a girl floating underwater. The girl stretches out her hand and whispers, "Break my curse." Aya is distressed by the dream and, unable to forget the girl's voice, she shuts herself in her room and refuses to come out.

While she is shut away, a strange curse begins to spread amongst the students, centred on a photograph that appears to be of Aya. People who see it are haunted by a girl resembling Aya, and find themselves about to kiss the photo at midnight. The girls who do kiss the photo are spirited away, and later turn up drowned in the river. People begin to suspect that Aya is the one cursing people. When Aya realises that people are dying and that she is thought to be responsible, she finally emerges from her room, in time to stop Michi from kissing the cursed photo. She insists that the photo is not of her and she hasn't done anything, and asks Michi to help her uncover the truth.

The two go to visit Mary, who is reputed to know about the curse that only affects girls. They show Mary the photo, but it is her son, Susumu, who recognises it. He tells Aya that it is a picture of a ghost he saw near a bridge, on what used to be the shore of a deep lake. When Aya and Michi visit the bridge, Aya suddenly remembers that there was another girl with her when she was taken in as a child. The girl drowned, and Aya was unable to save her, but that is all she can remember.

With no other leads, Michi forms a plan. She kisses the cursed photo herself, and ties herself to Aya with a red cord, so that when she is summoned to join the ghost, Aya will be able to follow her.

Sure enough, in the middle of the night, Michi wanders into the forest as if in a trance. Aya keeps hold of the red cord for a while, but a sudden earthquake causes it to snap, and when it passes, Michi has disappeared. Instead, Aya finds herself face to face with Takashi Asou, the school gardener. He attacks without warning, and carries the unconscious Aya to a water tank deep in the forest. He throws her into the water, hurls a handful of flowers in after her, and flees, shutting the door behind him.

Alone in the dark, Aya begins to thrash and scream for help. Nobody comes, but she hears bubbles rising behind her. When her eyes adjust, she makes out someone floating underwater, and hears a voice whispering her name. All at once, her memories return: the girl in the water was her twin sister, Maya. Aya and Maya came to the school at the same time, but Maya drowned in the tank. Surrounded by the memories of all the girls who had died in that place when it was a lake, Maya effects a curse that will continue until Aya should return to her.

Aya embraces her sister and apologises for being to frightened to remember her. She promises that this time she will stay and they will be together. Maya, however, refuses to let her. As her body begins to decay and fall apart, she tells Aya to live on for her sake, and with that, the curse is broken. A few minutes later, Michi makes her way to the tank and pulls Aya from the water.

At their graduation, Aya performs the solo as her classmates wished. Afterwards, she and Michi climb the hill overlooking the town to see the flowers blooming, and discuss the future. Michi is leaving to study in Tokyo, but Aya has decided to stay in the town. Michi asks to take a picture of her, and Aya agrees, but looking through the viewfinder, Michi has a change of heart. With tears in her eyes, she says she will go and study photography, and take the picture when she returns. Aya agrees to wait until then. She and Michi seem about to share a kiss, but after a moment's hesitation, Michi draws back. In a voiceover, they say that they have become adults, but will always remember the time when they fell under the curse that only affects girls.

Misc. Info

• Aya's surname uses the same kanji as the Tsukimori Shrine Maidens, but currently there is nothing else to suggest a connection.