Soya Yomotsuki

Soya Yomotsuki
"I must make the true Mask of the Lunar Eclipse with my own hands."
Japanese	四方月 宗也 よもつき そうや
Family	Yomotsuki Family
Occupation	Mask artisan
Cause of Death	Killed by Sakuya Haibara
Date of Death	Day of Tranquility
Encounter	Shugen Temple (Phase XI) Tsukuyomi Lighthouse (Final Phase)
Games	Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse
Notes	"On the Mask of the Lunar Eclipse" Letter From Soya Yomotsuki Soya's Notes Soya's Scribblings
Japanese Voice Actor	Fumihiko Tachiki

Soya Yomotsuki is one of the ghosts encountered in Fatal Frame IV. He is Ruka's father, and a master mask-maker of the Yomotsuki Family. It was Soya's task to make the masks that the Vessel and Organs used in the Rogetsu Kagura.

Past

Concept art of Soya

As a member of the Yomotsuki Family, Soya was taught the craft of mask-making that had been in the family for generations. In the past, the family had made the masks for the ancient Rite of Descent, but that was abandoned after a mask created by Soya's ancestor Soetsu caused the first Day of Tranquility. The Rite of Descent was replaced with a kagura, and another of Soya's ancestors, Sogen, revived the family mask-making tradition.

In the 1970s, Shigeto Haibara, director of Haibara Infirmary and a prominent figure on the island, called on Soya to help him revive the Rite of Descent. Shigeto showed Soya a photograph taken with the Camera Obscura, in which Soetsu's Mask of the Lunar Eclipse appeared. Soya was fascinated by the image of the mask, and believed that he could perfect it and achieve Soetsu's vision. At Shigeto Haibara's request, he researched what had caused the original Day Without Suffering, and concluded that there had been a flaw in the mask which caused the Vessel to blossom, but that the "true" mask would not fail.

With Shigeto's help in recovering documentation about lost mask-making techniques, He spent all his time in his workshop and the Cavern of Meditation below, and was secretive about what he was doing. His wife and daughter were troubled by the change in his behaviour. As his work progressed, Soya started to test his creations on Ruka, who developed Moonlight Syndrome as a result. Finally, the mask was finished and Soya passed it on to Shigeto, saying that he would be praying for the Rite of Descent's success.

The ritual, however, ended in failure, and the mask shattered. The Vessel, Sakuya, was left in a coma-like state between life and death, imprisoned in Rogetsu Hall's basement. After Ruka was rescued from the hospital basement by a detective, Sayaka took her away from the island, away from the Haibaras and Soya. Knowing that the disaster of Soetsu's time was certain to happen again, Soya waited for the end, struggling to understand how his mask could have failed.

Two years after the failed Rite, Sakuya Haibara woke from her sleep and began to make her way across the island, spreading blossoming amongst the islanders. Soya spent his final moments in the Cavern of Meditation, calmly waiting for her to find him.

Fatal Frame IV

As Ruka pursues her lost memories, Soya initially appears as a vanishing ghost, and later becomes a hostile ghost in Phases XI and XII. He then appears in the game's ending, picking up Sakuya's discarded mask and smiling at Ruka before crossing over to the Hallowed Realm through the newly-opened portal in the sea.

Misc. Info

• Soya has two attacks. One involves him sending the mask he carries to chase Ruka (similar to the skull attack of the Veiled Priests from Fatal Frame II); this attack cannot be avoided unless it is cancelled by a Zero Shot before the mask is released. In the other, he flies towards Ruka and attempts to push the mask onto her face.
• Soya is in possession of one of the fragments of the Mask of the Lunar Eclipse - defeating him for a final time in the Cape Tsukiyomi Lighthouse leads him to drop the Forehead piece, thus completing the mask.
• It was Suda Goichi's idea to make Ruka's father the central figure in causing the disaster that destroyed the island, "but he wanted to avoid creating a one-dimensional villain, so Soya was instead designed to be hopelessly driven to a single pursuit."

See Also

• For other members of the Yomotsuki Family, see Yomotsuki Family.
• For other rituals in Fatal Frame IV, see Fatal Frame IV Rituals.
• For other uses of masks in the Fatal Frame Series, see Mask(disambig).
• For images related to Soya, see Images of Soya Yomotsuki.