A Guest Has Come
Incense rose in a thin thread before the photograph of a solid, dependable man.
Na Wangrang set an apple before it and pressed his palms together.
"Dad. Forgive this sorry son for trying to buy you off with a single apple again today. Prices have climbed so high it's hard just to buy fruit."
The man in the photograph looked back at him with deep-set eyes.
"Still, it's not as if the family is going hungry. Three bowls of rice have become two, but the kids understand how things are. They eat what they can and come home on their own."
Whether that was a lie or the truth, he couldn't have said.
"Mom's having a really hard time. I'm lending a hand where I can, but there are a lot of us, aren't there? They shoot up faster than they grow up."
Aigoo. I have to do better. I'm the eldest son.
"...Dad. A few days ago I had the strangest experience."
Na Wangrang clasped his trembling hands.
"I saw this really terrifying dragon, you know? And it was saying all sorts of things to Chuyeon. I was too scared to catch the details, but it seemed awfully complicated. Yeah."
In truth he had no idea whether it had been complicated or not. The moment the dragon roared, he fainted. He woke in a hospital, where Dan Chuyeon's father, looking thoroughly ashamed, pressed a small fortune into his hand under the name of pocket money and sent him home.
"I think Chuyeon's going through something hard. I couldn't help him at all, and it ate at me..."
When Dan Chuyeon stood square against the dragon, Na Wangrang had been able to do nothing. Instinct screamed at him to run. Fear pickled every feeling he had until his body locked stiff.
"I felt the misery of having no power, right down to the bone..."
Everyone is special in some way. Dan Chuyeon had a gift. Na Wangrang had one too, a gift he had never told his friend about.
But Dan Chuyeon's gift seemed to have found the light, while Na Wangrang's stayed crushed down tight, known to no one but himself.
A gift that amounted, at best, to catching petty thieves.
Dan Chuyeon was his landmark. A light in a worn-out heart, a friend he treasured with everything he had. Could a gift he was unable to use for a friend like that really mean anything?
"Probably not..."
Na Wangrang smiled bitterly.
"Looking at the way the world is turning, I think I need to steel myself too."
Europe was being torn apart by a cult. A volcano had erupted in Hawaii. China was sick with villains. Mad villains had crawled into Korea, and a dragon had burst out of Seoul.
Na Wangrang felt something enormous drawing near. Whether it would come tomorrow or in ten years, he couldn't say, but if it came, he would never be left out of it.
He would be dragged in. There was no other way.
It felt as if that had already been decided.
The incense he had hoarded and burned so sparingly crumbled away to nothing.
From the ash, only a faint wisp of smoke crept out.
"That's enough for today. I should go get some sleep."
Na Wangrang gathered the ash, tipped it into the trash, drank in the photograph one last time, and shut the door.
"It's a full moon tonight..."
His gaze drifted, blank, up to the full moon hanging over the living-room window.
His heart hammered.
The world, which had sat so low in his sight, climbed higher and higher. Na Wangrang squeezed his eyes shut and yanked the curtain closed.
"Hoo. Hoo."
Once the moon was hidden, his vision sank back to where it belonged. Na Wangrang wiped the cold sweat from his face and bit down hard on his lip.
"...Someday, it comes."
The day he would have to throw this ordinary life away.
Na Wangrang prayed that day would never arrive.
The shishi-odoshi rose and fell with a hollow clack. Against the sound of water in the pond, Shrine Priest Tsukumi slurped his tea.
"The tea is excellent. Please, all of you, have a cup."
Before him sat six honored guests brought over from Korea, and one villain who had squeezed himself in for good measure.
"Strange leaves. Did you pick them yourself?"
Pele, who had drunk the tea like water, wiped her lips and asked. The Shrine Priest's eyes brightened as he looked at her.
"Yes. It is tea made from petals gathered in that garden there. The leaves are so full of yin that they cannot even be touched except on a night when the moon is full."
He brushed a leaf clinging to the cup. For something steeping in hot tea, the leaf was impossibly cold.
"On the night of the full moon, when Lord Tsukuyomi's grace is at its height, I brew this as a special treat. Drink it, and the fury packed into one's chest goes quiet. Without it, I would have collapsed long ago from the rage I keep bottled up."
He drank again. The stifling memory of the night before melted softly away.
"As it happened, last night was the full moon, so I gathered some. Is the taste to your liking?"
"To my liking?"
Pele rubbed the tea leaf between her fingers. A thick yin divinity clung to it and tickled her skin. For Pele, goddess of the volcano, it was a power in direct opposition to her own. For an instant the three goddesses of snow, her old nemeses, rose in her mind.
"Well. It's not bad."
She lifted the pot and filled the cup. Tea was set before her in which heat and cold lived side by side.
"I am glad it pleases you."
The Shrine Priest passed a hand over his chest in relief.
"Shrine Priest."
"Yes, Lord Phantom?"
"What is the heir's condition at present?"
"...Mm."
Phantom asked it outright. The Shrine Priest set his cup down with care.
"As I told you in Korea, the condition is critical. Even within the Divine Soil of the Three Noble Gods, there is no sign of improvement."
The Shrine's heir, appointed by the gods, exploited for years by the Great Shrine Maiden while divine power surged back in reverse. Recalling that wretched, horrific day, the Shrine Priest's brow creased, just barely.
"Essence, energy, and spirit keep breaking and mending, over and over. There is no obvious wound on the outside, but the inside is soaked in blood."
"And the cause is still unknown?"
"Yes. It was not like this when I first saw the child. Injured, yes, and raging, but the mind was awake."
"And the gods have said nothing?"
"Nothing."
Phantom pushed his cup aside and laced his fingers.
"Hm..."
He shut his mouth. In the silence that followed, the whole room went quiet.
They waited a long while before Phantom finally spoke.
"Food's here."
"...Ah."
A shrine maiden had come forward on her knees from the corridor.
"Shrine Priest, the meal is prepared."
At the softly spoken notice, the Shrine Priest glanced at Phantom.
Phantom rubbed his stomach.
"Please bring it in."
"Yes."
The maiden gestured behind her, and several more came in to lay the meal.
The table looked expensive even at a glance. Ookami's eyes went perfectly round.
"Ahem."
The Shrine Priest, seizing the chance to clear the air, smiled and indicated the dishes.
"This is the sakizuke our chef has prepared."
"Kaiseki? I've never had it."
Phantom's mask drooled a long, shameless string.
"Haha. If the portions prove insufficient, you have only to say so. Our chef stands ready at all times."
"Oh, then bring more. This is good."
Pele held up her empty bowl and shook it. A shrine maiden ghosted in and took it away.
"Thanks. Oh, and the kid's, while I'm at it."
Pele lifted Hong Yumin's bowl. It was as clean as her own.
Hong Yumin's ears had gone red.
"Please do not eat too much. The sakizuke is only the opening. Nine courses still remain."
"I'm fine."
Pele jerked her chin at San-gun, who was smacking his lips.
"The problem is whether that one causes a scene."
"...Mm."
The Shrine Priest broke into a cold sweat. Would there be ingredients left? They didn't have so many spirit herbs and spirit beasts...
"...Moderation, if you please."
"Grrn."
That was a yes, wasn't it?
The Shrine Priest took up his chopsticks with care, lifted a piece of pickled fish, and put it in his mouth.
When the last of the kaiseki was done, down to the tsukemono, sweets and matcha came out for dessert.
The matcha's particular sweetness, edged with a dry bitterness, ran roughshod over the tongue.
"But, Lord Phantom."
"Yes."
"Is there truly a way to heal my heir?"
"There is. For that child, it will be the better-fitting way."
Phantom rose.
"The meal is finished. Shrine Priest, guide us to the heir. Let's be done with this quickly."
"Yes!"
Color flooded the Shrine Priest's face. This was the moment he had waited for, and waited for again.
"I will guide you to the Divine Soil of the Three Noble Gods."
The Shrine's most secret and most important place.
Divine Soil.
The ground where gods dwell, and where they descend.
Tension set the Shrine Priest's heart hammering.
"And while we're at it, I ought to meet the Three Noble Gods as well."
"...I beg your pardon?"
The Shrine Priest's mind went blank.
"The Three Noble Gods...?"
"You'll understand when we arrive. I imagine they'll come of their own accord."
A puzzling thing to say. The Shrine Priest wanted to ask more, but he held his tongue.
"Let us go."
He would know before the day was out, in any case.
The Shrine Priest walked the garden. The others followed at his back.
"Stay close behind me. Put even one foot wrong, and you will be shut inside a maze."
The garden lay wide and open, yet he crossed it as delicately as if it were a minefield. For several minutes they advanced only by setting their feet where his had been.
And then, between one step and the next, they stood before an enormous torii.
The Shrine Priest passed through in a soft slide and vanished.
"Do not be concerned. Please, come in."
His voice came out of empty air. Phantom looked over the party, then stepped up to the gate.
With a strange lurch in the gut, he arrived in the place called Divine Soil.
"Another god's sanctuary. It's been a while."
Pele brushed her arm. Her skin and the air of the Divine Soil threw off a faint spark.
There was a shrine within the Divine Soil. Unlike the splendid buildings outside, it was modest and plain.
"The child is in here."
The Shrine Priest swallowed hard and opened the door. At once a girl came into view, lying in a bed.
Every kind of machine was lined up at the bedside, and the girl was wrapped tight in bandages from head to toe. She looked as though it would not be strange if she died tomorrow.
But there were others besides her.
A woman whose long black hair was braided and gathered behind her. A broad, imposing man armored head to toe like a warlord of the Warring States. A willowy man in a kimono, his skin pale.
Three in all, and all three of them watched us come in through the door.
The Shrine Priest dropped where he stood.
"Y-you... who are you?"
Shock had taken his legs out from under him. The radiance was so fierce it seemed his eyes might go blind.
"You have come a long road. Thank you for the trouble."
The voice was clear as a jade bead and warm as sunlight.
The black-haired woman inclined her head in a small, silent bow.
"My name is Amaterasu Ōmikami."
"Please, call me simply Amaterasu."
The sun goddess had descended.