(If you're an artist who's interested in this, e-mail me for a more complete outline.)

Okay. Our Heroine, Miyume Tomada, is a young woman who's just started high school. One day, while walking the new route home from school, she sees a shaded lane branching off the road she's on. She sees some old, traditional houses there, and decides to investigate (she's always loved old houses). Wandering down the lane, she comes to a house that has a sign marking it as a museum. She goes in.

After getting the bejeezus scared out of her by a suit of samurai armour right by the front door, she meets 'Obaasan', who owns/lives in the house and runs the little museum. They hit it off fairly well, and Obaasan gives her a little tour before going into the kitchen to make tea. The last thing Obaasan showed her was a naginata lying in a glass case, something of a showpiece, with the explanation that she'd just gotten the case made. While Obaasan is in the kitchen, Miyume is admiring the naginata, when there's a small earthquake (there've been little shocks all day). Most of the displays are secure, but the naginata's case hadn't been secured yet, so it falls over. There's a lot of broken glass. Miyume, after calling to make sure Obaasan is okay, bends down to pick the naginata up.

She cuts her hand on a piece of glass, and a few drops of blood fall on the blade. Suddenly, Miyume is overcome by a compulsion to pick up the naginata. She does so, and blanks out--when she comes to, she is still standing and holding the naginata, while Obaasan is bandaging her hand. Miyume is confused, and asks Obaasan if she was talking to her, because Miyume is convinced she was just having a conversation with someone. Obaasan looks at her a bit oddly, and says no. Over tea, she explains some of the naginata's history to Miyume.

Over the next couple of weeks, Miyume is careful to walk a new way home from school. But she starts having some odd dreams, things that seem to be historical from the way people are dressed. She starts unconsciously expecting the naginata to be near her; at one point, when she gets angry at a boy in her class, she finds herself trying to reach for it. Finally, one day while walking home, she finds herself on that road with the lane...with a deep sigh, she goes back to the museum and tells Obaasan what's been happening. Obaasan nods, and tells her it's just going to get worse. The naginata can be very persistent.

So Miyume sighs. "But how am I supposed to carry around an eight-foot-long weapon?!" Obaasan grins, and goes to get the naginata. She explains that in the Meiji Period, when weapons were banned for the samurai class and below, the clan had the same problem. She starts unscrewing a section of the handle; in a few minutes, she has the whole thing broken down into five sections of handle, and the blade. She ties a bamboo baffle to the blade and wraps it in cloth, and tells Miyume that as long as she always carries the blade with her, it'll be okay.

Basically, Obaasan tells Miyume she'll teach her what she can about the naginata, but that she may find the naginata has some lessons of its own. So for the next six weeks or so, Miyume trains, both with Obaasan on the museum grounds, or in her room (always with the blade baffled, after an incident early on in which she knocks herself out with the handle). She also has dreams about learning how to use the weapon, from other teachers (again, traditional settings and dress). One of her earliest lessons is in meditation, while holding the naginata. Pretty soon, she has something akin to very simplistic telepathy with the blade, thanks to the meditation and the blood-bond formed that first day.

Shortly after Obaasan declares Miyume relatively...competent with the naginata, Miyume encounters a ghost while going home late from school. It looks like a samurai, and acts like it knows her. She tries to blow it off, but it pulls out its katana and cuts her. At which point, pissed, she assembles the naginata (being samurai, it waits) and fights it. At different times during the fight, Miyume feels the naginata sort of take over, almost acting on its own when her own reflexes and skills aren't quite enough. Not without some serious effort and a bit more blood loss, she wins, cutting off the ghost's head. The next day she goes to Obaasan and tells her the story.

Obaasan nods, and tells her this is why Miyume has been training. Now that the naginata is 'awake', these ghosts are going to be coming after her; they're somehow tied to it. Over the next several weeks, there are some more encounters. The ghosts act more and more like they know Miyume, and start talking about 'the General', who is going to be coming. They taunt her with this, but don't tell her more than that. She asks Obaasan, who dances around the subject. She even asks the naginata, but it makes it quite clear it's not giving her any info.

Not too long after this, another ghost appears, this time in Obaasan's house, and it's the meanest, baddest mother of them all. Obaasan is wounded pretty badly before Miyume gets there and takes out the ghost. Miyume calls an ambulance and gets Obaasan to the hospital, but Obaasan dies not too long after.

Miyume is pretty upset...to help her deal with her grief, she tries to clean up Obaasan's house while her parents try to decide what to do, as Obaasan has no relatives anyone knows of. While cleaning, Miyume finds an old scroll; looking at it, she realizes it's a family tree. She recognizes some of the names from Obaasan's story about the naginata's history, and finds not only Obaasan's name, but her own family. She discovers Obaasan was her own great-aunt, and has descendants, and they're all descended from the clan that Obaasan said the naginata was traditionally bound to. She takes the scroll home, and she and her parents hunt down the other family.

Miyume and her parents go visit the other family, the Hijikawas, to tell them about Obaasan's death, and Miyume meets her distant cousin, the handsome but quiet Shinobu. Shinobu's family takes the death pretty well, but are regretful; apparently Obaasan rather abruptly cut off contact with them a few years ago (which in Japan is pretty unusual). Shinobu takes the news hardest of all, and Miyume feels a lot of sympathy for him.

A little while after, Shinobu's parents call and talk to Miyume. Shinobu is her age, and has also just started high school, but he seems to have very few friends and to be very lonely, and to be having some trouble with bullies, so they ask what she would think if Shinobu transferred to her high school, and she helped him adjust. She's fine with this. Soon after, she encounters another ghost--but this one doesn't threaten or try to fight her. It just talks about 'the General' a bit more, saying he's almost here, and that he's going to kill Miyume, and things along those lines. Miyume's so shaken by this she forgets her conversation with Shinobu's parents, so is very startled when he shows up at her school.

Shinobu is polite, but cold to her both at school and out of it. This really upsets her, so after a week or so she confronts him about it. After a bit of arguing, he finally admits he's jealous of her relationship with Obaasan, his grandmother. Apparently right after he was born and during his childhood, she tried to get his parents to send him away; when that didn't work, she bugged them to send him to boarding schools, that sort of thing. He spent the first couple years of junior high away from his family, but was incredibly unhappy and did badly, so his parents brought him back to go to school and live with them. This was when his grandmother left. He says that ever since he found out when he was a boy about her attempts to get her sent away, he's thought she hated him. It was easier for him to believe that she was just a mean old woman, but from her relationship with Miyume, he thinks maybe it really was something about him that she couldn't stand.

By this point, Miyume feels really bad for him; without realizing it, she's holding him, trying to give some comfort. When he finishes, she tells him how sorry she is that he had to go through that, but that she doesn't think his grandmother hated him. She says that the whole time she knew Obaasan, the older woman always seemed a little sad, even when she was happy, but that Miyume could never figure out why. And now Miyume thinks it may have been grief over leaving her family like that, but that she may not have known how to go back, or something kept her that she could never tell anyone. Miyume is, by this point, crying, both for Shinobu and for Obaasan.

Shinobu has been listening to her, and finally realizes she's crying. This snaps him out of his own anger and hurt, and he turns to her. She's wiping her eyes on her fuku sleeve; he laughs softly, and pulls out a hankerchief, teasing her about being such a tomboy (which she is). She looks at him, startled, and he takes the kerchief and dries her cheeks with it. She takes it from him, blushing and saying she can take care of herself. He just chuckles; there's a little more repartee, and he suddenly bends close, mouth just centimeters away from her ear. "Domo arigato, Miyume," he says softly, and kisses her cheek. While she sits, stunned and blushing fiercely, he gets up and says he'll see her later, and goes home.

Most of the action for a while after this involves the budding romance between Miyume and Shinobu. One of the things they both say early on is that it feels as if they've known each other for a really long time, but they can't figure out where that comes from. When she's not mooning over Shinobu, Miyume is worrying about this General character, and wondering when he'll show up. A couple of times, she wonders if it has something to do with Shinobu, because of the timing, but decides she's just being silly.

Their first official date is going to be a festival. One of the things Miyume's been thinking about is whether or not to tell him about the naginata. She finally decides to tell him the night of the festival. When he comes to get her, she's dressed in traditional clothing, but with a bit of a twist. She doesn't realize it, but she's dressed much like her warrior ancestresses did. She takes him into her room, and has him close his eyes while she reaches under the bed and gets the naginata and assembles it (which she can do pretty quickly now). She tells him to open his eyes, and he sees her standing there with the naginata.

He's pretty stunned, basically because he's just gotten a big deja vu two-by-four to the back of the head. She asks him what's wrong, but he just shakes his head to clear it and says he's fine, just startled. He, naturally enough, asks her what the hell she's doing with an eight-foot museum-piece polearm, and she tells him about it. He's more and more amazed as she talks--again, lots of deja vu. Finally, she asks him if he wants to hold it, as a legacy from his grandmother. Both of them are starting to get headaches, which they comment on but think of as nothing. After some hemming and hawing, he agrees, and reaches for the handle; at that moment, Miyume gets an incredibly sharp pain in her head, that 'railroad spike through the eyesocket' kind of headache, and with a yelp drops the naginata.

He's startled, but inexplicably relieved. He suggests that maybe something in the air is bothering them both, and that perhaps going outside would help. She agrees, and puts away the naginata without his having ever touched it. They go to the festival, and soon pretty much forget the incident and have a fun, romantic evening. Shinobu sees her home, and goes home to his own bed. It takes him a while to fall asleep--once he does, he has some disturbing dreams. She has a couple too, but not as bad; whereas he has a sense of being directly involved, she feels more like she's just a spectator.

For the next several weeks, Shinobu keeps having nightmares, and they're getting worse. He realizes that in them he's doing various very nasty things to a woman he recognizes somehow as Miyume. At one point he even rapes her while she's tied up. This of course begins to affect him while he's awake--he's out of it most of the time, and avoiding Miyume like the plague because he's ashamed. And to be honest, after a while he's not sure he wouldn't do something like that to her. The boundary between reality and dream is starting to get pretty blurred.

Miyume, meanwhile, is getting more and more upset as she realizes that Shinobu is seriously avoiding her. She finally confronts him at home, and he screams at her to leave him alone, he doesn't want to hurt her. She gets angry, and not being the shy type, grabs his arm and gets in close, in an attempt to make him face her. He panicks, and strikes out, hitting her pretty hard across the face. She's startled, but he's freaked. He's doing it, he's starting to hurt her...he apologizes hugely, and fakes being mentally together long enough to convince her to leave. Once she does that, he goes about making arrangements to kill himself (which he's been thinking about for a while; his hitting Miyume is the last straw, and has convinced him he's losing his mind).

He goes out and...I don't know yet how he plans to off himself. But he doesn't succeed, because something sorta takes over his body. A voice in his head tells him no, he can't do that yet. That comes after. After the voice speaks, he basically becomes a prisoner in his own body.

A few days later, Miyume gets a note from Shinobu, telling her to meet him after school. She goes, of course, and meets him...but after the first embrace, she realizes something's wrong. He suddenly becomes more physically aggressive, pinning her against the wall as he starts kissing her and pulling at her blouse. She starts screaming and fighting him off. She dives for her bag and starts putting together the naginata, as he pulls out a sword which he'd had hidden. They fight each other to a standstill; he finally backs down, laughing, and leaves with the promise that he'll see her again.

She goes home, seriously freaked. After recovering some, she sits down with the naginata, and basically has a battle of wills with it, demanding to know what the hell is going on. Finally, she gets the story (which Shinobu may have gotten pieces of when he was possessed)...

<--------Dramatic Revelation--------->

The possessed general captured his lover, and basically tortured her for a while, then raped her. Shortly after, she managed to escape, and hid out long enough to have the premature child of that coupling. Leaving the infant with a family in her clan's village and seeing them safely out, she went back to the warlord's castle to fight the general.

The general was still possessed, and an even nastier fighter by this point. In the ensuing battle, he killed her. With her dying breath, she said she still loved him, and that someday she would free him. This shocked him enough to bring him to his own senses for a moment. Fighting the demon for control of his own body, he managed to throw himself on his sword and died alongside his lover.

Miyume is the descendant and reincarnation of the female warrior, who carried the same naginata she bears; Shinobu is the descendant and reincarnation of the General (both are descended from that child sent away just before the final battle). The demon has been tied to the General's soul all these centuries; once Shinobu's will was sufficiently weakened by the nightmares and weeks of bad sleep, it took over, and is acting out the order it still remembers: kill the bearer of the naginata.

<--------Final Battle--------->

Now there's a 'power-up' of sorts that she has with the naginata, which we've seen in the earlier fights with the ghosts. It basically invokes the 'soul' of the naginata, making it a spirit-weapon as much as a weapon of steel and wood. She calls on this while fighting the demon, and eventually kills/banishes it. Running to Shinobu's body, she drops the naginata and rips off her sleeves, trying to staunch the blood. But it's been too long, and he's dying. He talks to her a little, telling her how sorry he is, that he couldn't do anything, didn't have control over his body, that he doesn't blame her. She's trying to see through her tears to heal him, to stop his slow death.

There's a voice behind her, and she turns in surprise to see a glowing, ghostly figure of a woman standing where she dropped the naginata. She's seen this woman before, in several of her dreams. The woman names herself as the naginata's spirit, and moves to kneel beside Shinobu. She lays her hands over his wound as she talks to them both. She says she's been waiting for hundreds of years for this battle, quietly nursing her hate and vengance. But they have reminded her about the love that bound them together, and she says that for once she wants to bind, not cleave. But she says that it might take all of her energy, and leave the naginata empty. To do that, she needs her master's permission--which would be Miyume. Miyume says yes, please. So the naginata's spirit puts itself into healing Shinobu, at least to where he'll live. Once that's done, the spirit bends to kiss him on the forehead, and stands. She suddenly becomes the naginata, which is glowing and ghost-like. Miyume, surprised, reaches out for it; it shimmers, then seems to vanish into her hand.

Miyume blinks at this for a moment, then turns to Shinobu, who is looking at her with tears in his eyes; all he can do is say "I'm sorry" over and over, until she leans down and kisses him softly. Startled, he listens quietly as she tells him that she forgives him, that she has always forgiven him. She helps him carefully to his feet, and they slowly make their way home, both bruised and battered, but alive, and happy. (maybe some more conversation here, but not a whole lot)

There is then a brief epilogue, which might have more impact in a visual adaptation. Miyume talks in a 'voiceover' of sorts, telling about her and Shinobu's lives since the fight. It's been several months, and they are still in love. She says they have promised each other to not try to remember or dwell on the past (either the fight or their past lives), to let it lie and to live in the present. "We are just two everyday students, a boy and a girl in love...and we are happy together, as we have always wanted to be." In the visual version in my head, this last line would come with a full-page image of the two of them under a tree, kissing; on the facing page would be a similar picture of their past selves, the general and the warrior (need names for them), kissing.