The War God Rested

Hikari slept deeply, curled against Shion's chest. Her tiny fingers clutched the fabric of Shion's shirt as if her entire world might dissolve without something to hold onto. Shion, exhausted by the day's events, had curled protectively around the child and slept serenely, her breath steady and measured. Her features were delicate and calm.

A little apart from them, Yahata was resting as he had promised to do. He lay beneath the skeletal remains of a cedar tree. Even in his sleep, his body was taut and his features were grim. There was nothing peaceful about his rest because beneath closed eyes, shadows of the past danced. As slumber claimed him, Yahata glimpsed flames licking the edges of his memory. Ghostly embers from the long-buried village fire flared briefly, scorching his consciousness and casting stark shadows of destruction. It was a memory laden with guilt, buried deep and kept dormant for centuries, like dried leaves smoldering beneath ash. And for the first time in his long life, Yahata was dreaming.

. . .

Shouts rose like thunder. Shields and blades crashed in a rhythmic symphony. His own voice rang out raw and merciless, roaring commands that tore across the field, sharp as steel.

“Advance!” “Crush them!” “Strike!”

The mortals had adored him back then. Not for a kindness like Mizuchi – not for wisdom like Shosei – but for the victories that he brought them. The way his voice could raise armies, could topple kingdoms, and could promise glory, those were the things he was worshipped for. But not all who heard his voice found salvation in it.

. . .

There it was again. Yahata had tried countless times to erase the memory from his mind, hoping that each attempt might weaken its grip on him, but it lingered like a shadow. The careless demolition of a small village nestled deep in the hills was one such shadow, a specter of guilt that haunted him in the silent hours. Its houses, constructed from clay and pale reeds, had been innocent in his warpath. His soldiers, blinded by victory and the thrill of conquest, set fire to it as if the smoke rising was a tribute to his once-celebrated guidance. But these people, they were not enemies. 

They were the peaceful followers of Shijima no Kami, the God of Stillness. The silent ones, those who had no voice but spoke with gestures and existed on the edge of the world, far from the conflict. As the fire consumed their homes, lives, and the last vestiges of their wordless language, something precious was lost forever.

When the smoke cleared, only one remained alive, a young woman, frail as a half-crushed reed. She clung to life with trembling fingers beneath the wreckage. Her presence was a testament to his failure to protect innocence, and in that moment, Yahata felt the weight of his choices bearing down on him. It was an image that burned itself into his conscience, a reminder of the havoc his power could wreak, a stark reflection of the darkness he had wielded in the name of glory. It was the first time that he had ever shed a tear for mortals; he thought the day would never come.

He begged forgiveness of Shijima, swearing it was never his intention and that he would never lead his followers to do such a horrendous thing. In his guilt, he decided that he would care for the woman himself, binding her wounds with calloused hands and carrying her until she could stand again.

Her name was Miori. . . . Dream-shadows shifted once more. Miori’s smile was faint but radiant. The brush of her fingertips against his knuckles and the scrape of charcoal across paper as she wrote to communicate were slowly becoming staples in his world.

Though she never spoke, she laughed softly, and when she did, the sound was thin but melodic. She communicated with her eyes and with small gestures. She was a presence that somehow eased the roaring in his blood.

And Yahata, the triumphant God of War, found himself confessing in halting whispers that he wished he could abandon conquest. He wished he could lay down his weapons and remain with her for an eternity.

. . . ​The mosaic changed images once more.

Miori’s hand trembled atop her stomach, a faint curve indicating what she could not say with her words. She was carrying his child; he hadn’t thought it possible. Joy, terror, guilt. He felt he did not deserve such a gift.

And then her body began to falter once more beneath the weight of new life and old scars. In desperation, Yahata called out to Chishan to examine the fate of his beloved and their child. Chishan's face in the dream was shadowed, his gaze sharp, and his voice heavy with grief as he gazed upon the woman's fate.

“Brother,” Chishan lamented with disappointment in his voice, “what have you done?”

“I have found love, a purpose – you of all of us should understand,” the War God replied sharply.

“Yahata…you know what you have done. And you know what you must do,” he said harshly. “You have committed the ultimate taboo.”

The words, centuries old, still scraped raw the wounds of the god’s heart.

“It is her child,” Yahata growled, refusing to harm Miori or the child growing inside her.


“Then protect it,” Chishan answered, softer this time. “But know this, I cannot weave her thread any longer. You will lose her.”

“You’ve done it before! Do it again!” Yahata demanded, grabbing Chishan by the collar of his robes. The God of Fate’s expression remained still.

“Her body is far too weak. I am sorry,” he said, shrugging out of the other’s grasp. “All I can offer you now is my silence.

Chishan had promised silence, and he had kept that promise. Yahata had once defended his forbidden act of elevating a mortal into godhood. So the two gods carried each other’s secrets in uneasy trust.

. . .

The dream took a darker turn then.

The moon was bright in the sky, watching it all.

Miori’s hair was plastered to her brow from sweat, her breathing was shallow as she gripped his hand so tightly that her nails cut into immortal flesh.

With their child’s first cry came her final sigh.

Before the light left her eyes, Miori traced a single word on his arm with her finger, her touch fleeting but searing:Hikari.

And then she was gone – just as quickly and quietly as she had entered his life, she left it. He knew the day would come, but he never expected it to be so soon. . . .

A scream tore from his chest like a thunderclap, a sound so violent that the earth trembled and the trees recoiled. His voice burned out with that cry, shredded into centuries of silence.When the echoes of his voice died, he was left crouched in the ruins of his temporarily peaceful life. In his arms, he cradles a squalling infant, tucking her close against his blood-stained clothes. He carried the child to a nearby village and left her at the foot of the shrine, placing her on the step of the one he knew could care for the child the most. In shaking script, he wrote her story in the book that Miori had been writing for the child to read later in life and learn about herself. At the start of the book, he wrote the child’s name and tucked it under her head. After wrapping her a bit tighter in her blanket, he began to trudge toward his own shrine. Where his heart had once resided, there was only an empty pit.

It was within his own shrine that he felt it – the shudder through the world as Shijima no Kami, mourning their final follower, was split asunder in despair. From the silent god rose the Wordless One, cast and uncontained, its darkness unraveling into the world like thick, black billows of smoke.

And Yahata, with burning lungs and a bleeding throat, could only watch as all he knew was devoured. The Wordless One was punishing the other gods for the destructive nature of their power.

. . .

The War God woke with a start, his breath ragged and his skin clammy. His hand gripped the dirt below him hard until his knuckles cracked softly. For a moment too long, the dream still hung in the air around him, pressing down on him with the echoes of that night burned into his memory. Across the fire, Shosei sat awake, his legs crossed as he watched. 

His glasses caught the faint light of their sleepy fire; his expression was unreadable, though unease flickered in his gaze for just a moment. His blue eyes drifted toward the demigod child – sleeping peacefully in Shion’s arms. And then he glanced back at Yahata, struggling for breath. He closed his eyes to think and to appear as though he was asleep.

The pieces aligned far too neatly. Chishan’s unfinished words in the woods have been, “I thought I told you–” when the threads of fate had quivered violently around Hikari. And now, Yahata seemed to have had a nightmare.

Suspicion coiled in Shosei’s chest like smoke. He adjusted his body some, masking the weight of his realization. But his thoughts remained on the War God longer than before, the distance between knowledge and confirmation growing thinner with each passing breath.