Only the Gods Would Know
Amaterasu.
Sun goddess of Japan.
The deity who ruled Takamagahara, the heavenly country and the realm of souls.
And the elder sister of Susanoo and Tsukuyomi.
"A guest of rare honor has come."
"I rather think you have that the wrong way around."
Amaterasu folded her hands with modest grace and smiled.
"This is our house. If anyone here is the honored guest, it is you."
The sun goddess's smile. It was bright and lavish, as if the sun itself hung just before one's face, and with it came the impulse to lay down even one's life for the sake of that smile.
She was a perfect stranger, and yet she felt more like a mother than one's own mother. She seemed as though she would take in every wrong I had ever done. I did not want to do her wrong...
Clap.
"Now, now. Come back to yourselves. This is no time to go vacant over a woman's beauty."
The clap called the room back. Light returned to a few pairs of eyes whose pupils had gone dull.
"To weather our sister's smile... You really are one of the folk from over there."
"...Susanoo, be quiet. They can hear every word."
Tsukuyomi took him to task in a low voice. Susanoo pushed his lips out in a pout.
"It was finished the moment it was spoken aloud. What use is the size of a voice against one such as her? You are as stifling as ever, brother."
"...I heard you. Be quiet."
Beneath Tsukuyomi's cutting look, Susanoo pressed his mouth into a flat line.
"...Ahem."
Amaterasu cleared her throat.
"You are welcome. Our child has brought all of you here safely."
Her warm gaze turned upon the Shrine Priest. His face hovered on the verge of tears.
"A-are you t-truly Lady Amaterasu?"
"I cradled you and cherished you, and still you do not know this mother?"
Amaterasu drew the Shrine Priest into a gentle embrace. His hair came loose beneath her hand.
"You have suffered much."
"Ah..."
Words no one had ever given him. For more than ten years the Shrine Priest had endured with no one to look after him. Without a family name, without a name of his own, he had defined himself by the title bestowed on him and worked like a machine. No one acknowledged him. No one understood him. He had no companion for the road of a life. He had been bleak, and lonely.
And now that loneliness was repaid, by the god he had believed in and followed. What greater blessing could a believer receive?
"Th-thank you."
The Shrine Priest bit his lip and swallowed the grief surging up in him. He wanted nothing more than to bury his face against her and weep without restraint, but too many eyes were watching. The crying could wait until he was alone.
Amaterasu patted the backside of the child who had long since grown up.
"I shall come to you later."
"...Yes?!"
The Shrine Priest's cheeks flushed like those of a green youth who had just caught a whisper from the woman he loved. Amaterasu tapped his forehead, playful as anything. He looked ready to die of joy.
While the two of them earnestly filmed a romance, the wits that had fled the rest of the party came wandering home.
"Myaaaaaow..."
San-gun had gone liquid, belly to the floor, utterly limp. True to the title of Heavenly Tiger, he seemed especially helpless before a sun goddess bound so closely to heaven.
"Mm..."
Hong Yumin was no exception. The flesh of her cheeks had set hard, as if she were thoroughly displeased with the state of her own mind.
Pele, being a goddess, was of course untouched. The rest came around well enough on their own.
Kana's eyes were a dangerous thing. It would not have been strange if she bit through her tongue and died on the spot.
"So. You finished everything you had to do?"
Pele's voice was thoroughly unimpressed.
"Thank you for waiting. It has been a long time since I looked upon the child with my own two eyes."
"It happens. Looking after your kid first is what matters."
Perhaps because she herself was the chief goddess of a mythology, and a mother. Pele did not mind.
"But why come all the way out here? I can see the kid is special. Special enough for all three of you?"
The corner of Amaterasu's mouth lifted, ever so slightly.
"Would you not know that better than I, goddess of the volcano?"
"Tch. Why do these people know so much about things even I don't?"
Pele shot me a glance.
"Pele. You're not the outcast among the gods, are you?"
"Shut up!"
Thud!
I sucked in a breath. My backside smarted. Had I poked a sore memory?
Amaterasu covered her mouth and laughed softly.
"Hehe. Of course there is the matter of that one as well, but we siblings came for another reason."
She took a single step aside, and there upon the bed lay the successor.
"Because you will need us, if that child is to be healed."
"...What do you mean?"
The Shrine Priest shot to his feet.
"I know you are curious. But will you not wait a little?"
Having checked him, Amaterasu let her eyes droop. Something ached in a corner of my chest.
She's getting under my skin, and she doesn't even mean to.
It was a dignity that came out of her with no awareness of itself, so there was nothing one could rightly protest. A god's majesty was a great thing. For a human, to revere and to serve was only natural. She was a sun goddess, besides — worship engraved into people since antiquity.
And it was not only Amaterasu. Tsukuyomi, Susanoo, and Pele were the same. It was fortunate that Pele was merely a Divine avatar. Had she stood here in her true body, as they did, she would have been no different from them.
Amaterasu stroked the girl's hair. Between the sleek strands a modest horn showed, and a gaunt face.
"This child was wounded by children we failed. She should never have had to live a life like this."
Tsukuyomi's face hardened, and so did Susanoo's. They seemed to be remembering the Great Shrine Maiden they themselves had chosen.
"But the thing has happened, and we bear the responsibility for the countless lives that departed because of our choice."
"And the first step of that is this child?"
"Yes. She was the only child to survive that hell, and the child in whom an ancient ancestor's blood came into bloom."
The horn grown upon the child's brow. That was blood brought to flower by the Great Shrine Maiden's experiments.
I spoke the origin of that blood.
"Oni. The bloodline of Shuten-doji, one of the Three Great Evil Oni of Japan."
......!
"That's impossible!"
The Shrine Priest was aghast.
"Shuten-doji?! Is that true?! Weren't the oni wiped out?!"
"They were not wiped out. They only sleep within human blood. The name of the oni has gone on being passed down, unknown even to those who carry it."
Susanoo's hand closed around the hilt at his waist.
It was Amenohabakiri, the sword that had severed the neck of Yamata no Orochi.
"Give them only a cause, and they may bloom at any time, just as this child has."
"...Then why make a bloodline of Shuten-doji into the successor of the Shrine?"
"Child."
Tsukuyomi's cold, yin-dark presence stirred.
"Do you imagine that bearing our will is a privilege reserved for humankind? Oni or monkey, whoever possesses a righteous heart and a will that does not break may become Shrine Priest. Have you forgotten why we set you in that seat when you were not yet even weaned!"
At that cold roar, the Shrine Priest shrank like a child scolded by a parent.
"I-I'm sorry..."
"Kind does not matter. What matters is only whether one is worthy. In that regard, this child's worth is more than enough."
Tsukuyomi swept out a hand. The girl's body shone in a host of colors.
"Well, now..."
A low sound escaped Pele.
"Your divine power is lodged in her all at once. Along with the oni's blood."
"So it is."
The reason the girl had yet to wake. The divine power of the Three Noble Gods and the blood-qi of the oni could not share one body.
"Wretched children, calling it an experiment, poured our power into her. By rights she ought to have failed to endure, and died. But the oni king's blood let her overcome death. A misfortune, and a blessing."
"For this child, it was a road through hell toward a still greater pain."
Amaterasu composed the portion of her own divine power dwelling in the girl.
The girl's complexion eased.
"The oni king's blood stands as our opposite. That she did not die — that she merely lives — was already a miracle. Had we not given her our blessing in time, she would not have lived much longer."
"Even so, that was no solution."
I drew closer to the girl. If she was to live, the powers lodged in her body would have to come into harmony at last.
It was already too late to draw out the power of the Three Noble Gods. It was tangled too thoroughly with the oni's blood; pull it free, and the girl would die. Her present state was nothing but a stubborn life spliced together by force. Given time, it would snap.
"The only way to save her is to grow the oni's power."
Shuten-doji's blood was mighty, but not mighty enough to drive out the Three Noble Gods. A greater power than that was needed.
"The origin of Shuten-doji."
I looked at Susanoo's Amenohabakiri.
"It will have to be something on the order of Yamata no Orochi."
"Put it like that, and do we not come off looking lesser than that thing?"
Susanoo gave a bitter smile.
"If one means to stand against a god, then it only makes sense that a god should be the one to come."
"Not a wrong thing to say."
Susanoo drew the sword sheathed opposite Amenohabakiri and held it out.
"That's...!"
I lifted the serpent's tail.
One of the Three Imperial Regalia of Japan
The tail of Yamata no Orochi
And I declared it.
The sword's lingering will would try to take the girl of its own bloodline as its host.
"Help her overcome that, and bring it into harmony with the divine power of the Three Noble Gods."
"Then the girl can live."
The Shrine Priest wiped cold sweat from his brow.
"And the odds of success...?"
"Well..."
As for that.