Pray That It Never Changes
Moonlight lay against the paper screen and cut between the sun goddess and the Phantom, straight down the center. Gray as a river, that light split the worlds of the two beings in two.
Amaterasu's mouth went bone-dry.
Sun goddess. Deity of the land where the sun never set. Ancestress of the imperial house. Daughter of Izanagi and Izanami. Mistress of Takamagahara. Before the one standing in front of her, every one of those splendid titles was a word without worth.
Some corner of her heart refused to admit it. How she had climbed to this seat, what she had lived through to get here—an entire lifetime, collapsing for no reason but that they had been born in different places. Even so, she bore that desire down with a will that surpassed the human. A mere beast knows whom it must not defy. She, of noble divine blood, could not show herself lower than such a beast. She dragged her sweat-slick palms along the waist of her trousers. From this moment on, she was stepping onto the line of death.
"Before I enter. May I settle just one thing?"
"Ask."
The Phantom's mask heaved. It melted like clay and reared up like a waterspout. The two black dots that had been eyes lifted into the empty air, settled again, and crawled like cockroaches. The mouth of the mask tore and tore until it rounded, then punched clean through the paper screen. Grotesque. It was like a programmer's code twisted out of true, like a character in a game riddled with bugs; like a sculpture the maker of the world had dropped, like a work kneaded out of resentment and hate.
Sight. Touch. Smell. Taste. Hearing. Divine sense. Each time she perceived him, the existence before her was defined all over again. The lag was a billionth of a second, and across that billionth Amaterasu processed what he was. Which meant her mind's speed had overloaded. Which meant that even a god's brain could not define him.
Drip. Drip. Blood ran from her nose—the divine blood of the sun. Amaterasu's life was being shaved away in real time, for no reason but that she occupied the same space, and that she had asked one born of the Origin about the Origin. It was a warning. It was also mercy.
Stop here, and I will let you live. Limbs whole. Mind bright and keen. Don't do this. Not here. Go wash your feet and sleep. Wake in the morning. Eat, or look upon someone you love. Live an ordinary, peaceful day. How happy a thing that would be.
Good for you. Good for me. Good for the sister—
"And good for her husband."
Eat the pheasant—
"And the egg."
Dig the ditch—
"And catch the crayfish."
One stone—
"Two birds."
Lady Amaterasu.
"Whatever is the matter?"
I have been waiting.
"I have been waiting for your question."
Was this not your purpose from the very start?
"Surely there is so much you wish to ask me."
You look as though something hurts.
"Wouldn't it be better to go in and sleep?"
A stifled giggle. A bright, cracking cackle. The two dots stamped into the tatami laughed. The mouth peering in from beyond the paper screen laughed.
"Say it~. Say it~."
Amaterasu bit down on the congestion climbing her throat and swallowed it. The corner of her mouth trembled.
"That one…… Have you met him?"
……
The noise that had been laughing and chattering went quiet. The Phantom settled his mask back into place and spoke in a tone as kindly as an insurance agent recommending a useful policy.
"By that one, you mean Another One, I assume?"
"Yes…… That one."
Amaterasu started to shape his name and stopped. More precisely, she could not. What he had permitted her reached only as far as memory. The honor of speaking his name had never been granted.
"I had a bit of business with him before I came to Japan."
"I see. Would it be all right if I heard what that business was?"
"Of course."
The Phantom told her about that one in detail—how they had happened to meet, and what had been done afterward. To Amaterasu, every word was worth a fortune in gold. He was the enemy who had ended the age of myth and killed every god of Japan except the Three Noble Gods. She had not even been able to learn where he was. At last she knew what had become of him. She listened with grave attention. He rattled it off as lightly as a man telling army stories in a bar.
"……I offered information on the Origin as the price of saving the Dan Clan's father and son. Honestly, it was the only weapon I had that could draw him in. Fortunately the fellow took the bait, brought the father and son back by resurrection, and swallowed the information without a fuss. Then, as if he knew how large a thing he'd been given, he threw in a USB as a bonus. Yes—the USB I gave the Shrine Priest. Don't worry. I looked it over beforehand. There was no particular trick in it."
"……"
The story, short and blunt, came to an end.
Curiosity pushed its head in. The Origin. That place. He had heard of it? What had he heard? What had he carried away? She wanted to know. Madly. Dignity was hard to keep. Like a fanatic starving to hear a god's word, Amaterasu wanted to seize the Phantom by the collar and beg. It was instinct—the instinct that comes of learning what would have been better never known. The Origin was a place so bewitching that even her own parents would have lost their reason to it. And so, knowing it was dangerous, Amaterasu set her foot down. In secret from her two younger siblings. Alone.
In truth she had no need of an adventure like this. If she simply did as that being told her, peace and prosperity would follow as if promised. Perhaps, at the very end, some gracious favor might even be waiting. But she was a sovereign god. A representative must not obey like a puppet. That would be a heavy yoke upon everyone who followed her. Even if no one ever knew, she could not bend her pride. That was the weight of a god.
"Is there nothing more you wish to hear?"
The Phantom reached out. Beneath the moonlight, the hand was laid bare. Amaterasu swallowed the scream that had clawed its way up to her teeth.
The hand.
handhandhandhand????
hanhanHAHHE hanjaj han36262 @$^ hanhanaj >?>??!
"Whoops."
The Phantom drew his arm back, playful.
"Hah—?!"
Amaterasu hauled in a ragged breath.
"I nearly made a mistake."
The Phantom's mask put out its tongue.
"I showed you an unsightly thing."
"……"
Amaterasu closed her eyes. She was afraid. The resolve she had gathered until a moment ago meant nothing. An essential terror came down on her.
The Phantom asked it flatly. Can you bear it? You, all alone? With that clumsy cause, that sense of duty—you mean to covet this domain? Give it up. You'll be more comfortable. Not only you. Everyone has been this way. Do not reach for it without permission. Simply because we are close. Because I treated you kindly. Because you are a god. You would take it for nothing?
"Hk— hk—"
She resented the sturdiness of a god's mind. She wanted to faint. To collapse just like this, forget it the way one forgets a dream, and tell herself that it could not be helped—that she had fainted then, but would ask again if the chance came, because it did not yet seem to be the time.
Is that so?
Then the answer rose to meet her. No one who came here could endure it. This was a gate made so that it would not be broken. Break it, and you die. Leave it, and you live. The result was plain. To push any further would only be a loss.
Ask, then. Curiosity, instinct—throw them all away. In keeping with her station. As a god, she would rule her own world and nothing more. If some danger she had never imagined came of that judgment, what of it? It would be her fate.
"Honored guest……"
"Yes. I'm right here."
Toward me, head bowed, the Phantom crawled. He was before the crown of my head. The full moon deepened. It passed through the paper screen and was right beside me. They stared straight at me. My neck would not move. Down. Only the floor. I was allowed to look at nothing else. If I lifted my head here……
"I……"
"I?"
I? I?
"……I."
Lady Amaterasu.
Mom?
"My family……"
Big sister.
"In the Origin. What. Became of them?"
Were they able to be happy?
"You're asking something ordinary?"
A soft tap. A hand settled on her head and moved from side to side, mussing her black hair.
"What sort of place the Origin is. What that place does. Why it exists. What I am. How the Origin differs from this world. What this world's original ending was."
And—
"That you want to study me. That you want to reach the Origin through me. That you want to come into contact with some other being of the Origin."
"You never thought anything of the sort?"
"I did not……!"
I—!
"If only the people I hold dear are well!"
That is enough!
Haah. Haah.
"Lady Amaterasu."
They vanished—the incomprehensible things. The moon was gone and the sun was up. The smell of grass reached her, and insects sang.
"Truly, you are so very 'human.'"
"I didn't even know whether you'd had such thoughts, and I assumed as I pleased. Forgive me. I was discourteous."
"I'll tell you. None of it is particularly a problem."
"It should be enough to satisfy your curiosity, Lady Amaterasu."
"…………"
Amaterasu's gaze lifted. The masked Phantom apologized to her with an expression of genuine regret—an apology so proper one might have called it the model of the form. A courteous apology.
And yet she had seen something else in it.
"……Who are you?"
Mm…… Did I enjoy myself too much?
"Who are you, that you would— the honored guest's body……"
Amaterasu. The mistake from last time—we'll call it settled with this.
"The mistake from last time……? When did I ever……"
That will, overcoming desire. A fine thing to watch.
Tap.
"Huh?"
Amaterasu's forehead was pressed. Her eyes rolled up. He had tucked a little something extra into the touch, complimentary.