[The End of Osamu Ashikaga]: Torn Asunder

Though she had always hoped things would change, a part of Izanami always knew this day would come, that she would stare down the entire Shinto pantheon in a fierce death match. Hundreds of Shinto gods hovered above the neighborhood as the wind flowed through their white cloaks and veils. The gods stood like wintry ghosts in the dark, their beloved country benighted by the eldritch, lunar eclipse.

Takemikazuchi turned his gaze to the eclipse with his gleaming katana in hand. “Why isn’t Amaterasu doing anything? Does she not see what’s happening?”

Omoikane crossed his arms, focusing entirely on Izanami. “It isn’t ignorance. It’s apathy. Perhaps Amaterasu supports this genocide as well. The alternative is she fights against her son-in-law for a pantheon that had been actively conspiring against her. This is her reset.”

“Then it truly is up to us!” Takeminakata shouted. “We’re saving this world, here and now!”

Takemikazuchi raised his right hand and let out a lion-like roar. “Ready!”

Each and every god raised their right hands in unison. Sparks of golden light danced above their palms like fireflies. Those sparks ignited into brilliant, golden flames, and the flames intensified further into wild balefires. The united balefire of the gods dawned in the sky like a second sun.

“Stop this!” Izanami screamed, her veins bulging in her neck as sweat dripped down her forehead. “Osamu is tricking you all!”

The sheer scale of Osamu’s catastrophic plan forced the Shinto pantheon into a knee-jerk reaction. Izanami’s cries fell on deaf ears sat between fear-addled minds. No one would listen to her, and so Izanami had no choice but to act. She leapt into the air and slashed one of the veiled goddesses in her stomach, staining her robes red with blood.

Izanami’s speed was so tremendous that no one noticed she was among them until after the goddess screamed in pain. The gods were forced to scatter and break formation. Instead of launching one, big attack, they each fired off their own flames towards Izanami. She spun her scythe in her hands in an attempt to block it, but the overwhelming barrage of golden flame sent her flying across the sky and crashing down the street.

Her impact cracked the concrete and broke her right arm, shoulder, and several ribs. She lied in the crated concrete with her eyes shut, gnashing her teeth in agony as her skin bubbled and blistered from the heat of the balefire. Before she could even open her eyes, Omoikane came crashing down upon her. He wrapped his wright hand around her face, grunting as he squeezed with all of his might.

Izanami’s head popped inside of Omoikane’s vice grip, her eyeballs drooping out of their sockets and onto the ground. Her brain seeped out like a fetid, bloody stew, with some pieces flying onto Omoikane’s arms and cheek. Izanami’s head and face were reduced to concave mess that hardly resembled anything close to a human visage.

Izanami’s arms flopped onto the ground and her entire body went limp. Just as Omoikane let his guard down, Izanami suddenly grabbed hold of his right arm. The veins beneath his skin turned black as Izanami’s grip tightened. Panicked, Omoikane stomped on Izanami’s arm to free himself and leapt back into the air by Takeminakata’s side.

Omoikane screamed wildly as his veins continued to blacken. “It hurts! What is this?!”

“Black veins and pale skin…” Takeminakata murmured. “Is this plague?”

Just as they expected, an attack that would’ve killed any other god had no effect on Izanami. She stood up on her own two feet as the massive chunk of missing skull and brain slowly regenerated. Bone, flesh, and tissue all fastened themselves anew until Izanami’s head was back to normal again.

Omononushi raised his right hand, signaling the battalion of veiled gods behind him to move to the front and hold their spears at the ready. They formed a defensive spear wall as the other sections of gods returned to formation. Izanami’s irises darted back and forth as she carefully watched their movement.

She knew all too well that only a few of the gods among them were suited for real combat, but with their combined numbers, they formed an extremely capable army. Omonunushi led a defensive unit meant to deter and repel head-on attacks. That much was obvious by the veiled spearmen under his command.

As for Takemikazuchi, she surmised his unit was meant to attack at range, capable of either preparing large, wide-scale blasts or a swarm of smaller barrages designed for manifold attacks. Omoikane was meant to use his speed and strength to close in on her, but it wasn’t clear to Izanami if he was also leading his own unit. Takeminakata’s role in it all was yet to be seen.

Izanami possessed more than enough battle experience to know that her number one priority was to shatter their formation. She turned her gaze towards Omoikane, noting that his entire arm had turned black from plague. He was far too reckless in his rush to take lordship of the Underworld away from Izanami.

Suddenly, Takeminakata’s unit flew over Omononushi’s line of spears, then arched downwards towards Izanami. She jumped backwards as hundreds of gods came crashing down upon the street with flaming, leather whips in their hands. Dozens of the veiled gods unfurled their whips, reeled back their arms, and tried to lacerate Izanami. Their whips reached for her like flaming tendrils as she jumped back further out of their range.

But Takeminakata’s unit gave chase. They kept on her even as she leapt back into the air. Unable to stay on the defensive any longer, Izanami readied her scythe. When the gods lunged their whips towards her, she slashed her black scythe horizontally, cutting their length nearly by half.

The front line of gods fell back so the next could advance in their place. Unable to recover from her swing in time, Izanami was scorched by thirty-six flaming whips. They slammed against her right cheek, her arms, and her right ankle, scorching her skin.

Izanami unleashed a hellish scream of agony and anger. She aimed her left hand at Takeminakata’s unit. White ice crystals formed on her skin as she gathered divine frost in her hand.

“It’s an ice blast!” Screamed one of the veiled gods a she recoiled away from Izanami.

A wintry gust of frost spewed forth from Izanami’s palm. Nearly half of Takeminakata’s unit was caught in the blast. They were instantly frozen solid, petrified by ice. Nearly one hundred gods fell from the sky and shattered like porcelain when they hit the ground. With every impact, Izanami’s spine was rocked by tingling sensations. She felt the death of every god she slew. She saw flashes of their final moments in her mind, their perspective of the fight.

Goosebumps formed on her skin as she felt the fear and anguish in their final moments as though it were her own. The gods were scared, not only of the world ending, but of Izanami herself. They all knew they were going against an invincible monsters whose reputation alone was worth more than an army of gods.

Izanami heard the final thoughts of the men and women she killed in that instant. She felt the burning lumps in their throats and their quickening heartbeats. She witnessed the last things they saw through their eyes before their deaths.

It was pure, emotional hell. Izanami clutched her chest as she fell to her knees. Her shoulders slumped downwards and her chest rose and fell beneath her black tank-top. She fought hard to smother her sobs, but they forced their way out of her chest and past her lips.

“Izanami, this is foolish!” Takemikazuchi shouted from the sky. “Why do you fight for the man who murdered your granddaughter’s child? Why this blind loyalty? Enough is enough! You already committed one genocide in the past, and now you’re co-conspirator to another!

“Your love for Osamu is strong, but even you can see the mass murdering madman he’s become! No human being that possesses anything they could call a soul would ever be capable of doing something like this!”

Her hands coiled tightly around the pole of her scythe as she stood up again. As sorry as she felt, she was given no choice but to fight. She opened her eyes again, spotting Omoikane clutching his blackened arm behind Omononushi’s line of spear-wielding gods.

“Why don’t you help us end this before humanity is made extinct?” Takemikazuchi questioned. “Yet again, you’ve let your hatred for the pantheon spill over onto the human race! I thought your decision to live here on earth was to amend that mistake! Wasn’t it?

Izanami held up her left hand and erected her index and middle fingers, keeping her thumb and pink folded with her thumb held over them. It was only a partial hand sign, but it was all she needed to put her plan into play.

Takemikazuchi raised his right hand to signal his unit to attack, but he stopped when Omoikane screamed in agony. The muscles in Omoikane’s muscles spasmed uncontrollably, the black veins bulging beneath his skin growing hot as if his blood had turned into venom. His fingernails fell from his right hand and blood leaked from his nail beds.

“It hurts! Takemikazuchi, cut it off!” Omoikane screamed. “Don’t let her take me! Cut my arm off!”

“You’re too late!” Izanami shouted.

Omoikane’s arm exploded, spraying a mist of black, infected blood all around. The blast ruptured Omoikane’s internal organs, killing him instantly before he crashed into the street below. The gods recoiled and panicked in fear. The black mist had gotten into their mouths and eyes, staining their white robes and tainting their skin.

Just as Izanami wanted, the blast broke their formation and loosened their lines. She dashed into the air with her scythe in hand and wasted no time slashing her fellow gods. Her scythe ripped through cloth and flesh with ease, drawing pained, terrified screams from the inside of their veils.

The gods that remained from Takeminakata’s unit swept in to try and intercept her from behind, but Izanami quickly turned around and showered them with another blast of frost. With Izanami up close again, the gods were at a distinct disadvantage.

She was able to use large, powerful attacks to kill as many targets as possible. On the other hand, if any of the gods tried the same thing, they’d only end up killing their surrounding comrades, all so Izanami could heal her wounds again.

Instead, the units swarmed her like an agitated hive of hornets, attacking her from all sides with their whips, swords, spears, and hammers. Surrounded by enemies, Izanami was stabbed, whipped and bludgeoned from all sides. Her skin and flesh were sliced and lacerated open, revealing layers of muscle and fat all soaked in blood.

She needed to get the swarm off of her. She impaled a veiled goddess with the blade of her scythe, channeling flame energy through the blade’s edge and into the goddess’s abdomen. Izanami then kicked the goddess away from herself and into Takemikazuchi’s unit.

A young, male god caught her in his arms. “She’s hit! We need help!”

“It burns! It burns so much!” screamed the goddess.

The entry wound where Izanami stabbed her glowed bright orange and sparks began to flow out from her flesh. In an instant, the sparks ignited into a full-blown conflagration, immolating dozens of gods around her, including Takeminakata. Screaming in agony, the gods fell from the sky and crashed into houses and sidewalks as they burned to their deaths.

With every kill, Izanami was able to see her victim’s final moments through their eyes. She used that to her advantage to get a snapshot of where the other gods around her were positioned and to warn her if they were preparing to attack. Her strategy had already proven itself to be devastatingly effective.

“Charge in!” Takemikazuchi commanded, his teeth chattering in fear. “We need to overwhelm her!”

One of Takemikazuchi’s troops crashed down upon Izanami from above, striking the top of her skull with his hammer. The hit to her head instantly stunned her. Her vision went dark and was riddled with disorienting afterimages. The crowd of hundreds of gods suddenly looked like tens of thousands to her.

Blood leaked from Izanami’s nose and her eyes were dyed red by the blood vessels that popped as a result of the hit. The gods swarmed her while she was dazed, stabbing her body with almost a dozen swords and a dozen more knives. Izanami blindly swung her scythe in retaliation, killing no one.

Takemikazuchi and Omononushi flew towards from opposite sides. Omononushi lopped off Izanami’s right leg with his blade, while Takemikazuchi’s sword sliced through and dismembered her left arm. Takemikazuchi then kicked Izanami back down to the ground, where she crashed into a black SUV, completely flattening it. Filled with gas, the SUV bursted into flames.

The fire ate through Izanami’s flesh and singed off some of the hair on her head. She fell face-down on the street, her body still engulfed in flames. She screamed and flailed on the street as her flesh continued to roast and bubble against her blackening bones.

Omononushi turned to his fellow gods. “Anyone who even suspects they ingested her curse, scatter now! Fall back!”

Thousands of gods had thinned into hundreds, and those that remained retreated from the field of battle for fear of Izanami’s curse. Those who ingested it were all but guaranteed to die painfully and slowly over the next few days, that is, unless Izanami got the chance to get up and accelerate the curse’s effect herself. Since she was severely wounded, they were spared a quicker and much more violent death.

“Her power is even more fearsome than her reputation…” Omononushi remarked, catching his breath. “I can’t believe she took out so many of us by herself.”

“Now’s our chance.” Takemikazuchi said. “Let’s avenge Omoikane and Takeminakata.”

Takemikazuchi slowly descended upon the residential street, shivering at the sight before him. Hundreds upon hundreds of charred, mangled, and frozen corpses littered the neighborhood. The streets were a mess of frozen fingers and limbs on top of a layer of debris and soot.

He pressed on towards Izanami, who lied on her back as her limbs and flesh slowly regenerated. For now, all she could do was lie there and wait to heal. Most of her hair had been burned off her scalp and her dozens of stab wounds allowed her blood to pool all around her.

Takemikazuchi kept his right hand on the hilt of his katana as he approached her. He recognized she was still a threat, even if she was severely wounded.

“It’s over, Izanami. I’m taking the Underworld’s crown from you.” Takemikazuchi said.

Izanami’s lips motioned to speak, but with her vocal cords burnt out, she couldn’t utter any words. Takemikazuchi wrapped his right hand around her face before closing his eyes and whispering a silent prayer. Tears rolled out of Izanami’s eyes and dripped onto Takemikazuchi’s hands. She kept trying to speak, but her vocal cords were healing too slowly.

The flaming, phantom crown of the Underworld formed around Izanami’s head before levitating away from her and towards Takemikazuchi. He looked back towards the gods floating in the air above the neighborhood, then surveyed the streets around him.

“So many dead…” Takemikazuchi murmured. “But pyrrhic victory is still a victory. We gambled everything to stop you and save the world. It looks like it paid off. We’ll end this nightmare once and for all.”

The Underworld’s crown sat on Takemikazuchi’s head, transferring all control of the Underworld to him. He released an enormous sigh of relief before he leapt into the air and returned to Omononushi’s side.

“It will take generations for our pantheon to recover from this, but we finally have the crown.” Takemikazuchi said. “They started this mess in Fukuoka. I’ll head there now before the region is completely destroyed. Take our wounded back to Heaven and isolate the infected.”

Omononushi nodded. “I can do that. But what about Izanami?”

“Leave her. We can’t exactly kill her, anyway.”

“Okay. Be careful over there.”

Takeminakata clasped his hands together, disappearing from Kyoto in an instant. In Fukuoka, Hima and Osamu stood their ground against Tsukiakari. The clouds gathering above the city gave way to light rain, though the fiery eclipse was still visible on the horizon. Its ghostly veil of orange light wrapped around the land and casted deep, black shadows wherever it couldn’t reach.

Tsukiakari’s lightning dragon reared back its head and lunged towards the rooftop where Osamu and Hima both stood wounded. She anticipated Hima and Osamu would separate, making it easier for her to capture him. However, before her dragon even came close to the rooftop, its head was repelled by a wall of blue moonlight that acted as a force field.

Hima clasped her hands as the force field was reduced to star dust. She gathered up whatever energy she could muster and summoned an arsenal of four-hundred moonlight swords. The blue blades of light levitated around herself and Osamu, half of them staying behind to protect them both. Hima sent the other half flying towards Tsukiakari, peppering the lightning dragon with blades from its tail all the way up to its head.

Some of the blades that pieced the dragon’s head came dangerously close impaling Tsukiakari herself. One of them just narrowly missed her and sliced open the right shoulder her black haori.

“Shit!” Tsukiakari exclaimed, sucking in air through her teeth.

All two-hundred of the blades impaling the lightning dragon exploded, putting in a bombastic light show of blue flames and twinkling stardust. Hima smiled with glee as the lightning dragon faded into a shower of sparks fanning out across the ruined city. Tsukiakari herself was ejected out of the dragon’s head by the explosion, though she managed to fall onto the rooftop on her feet.

Tsukiakari flicked her sword forward, sending the sparking remnants of her lightning dragon towards the two-hundred swords guarding Hima and Osamu. The blades evaporated into colorful clouds of stardust without any explosions. Defenseless, Osamu clasped his hands together. Tsukiakari suddenly noticed rumbling beneath her feet. Something was crashing through the interior of the skyscraper and rapidly climbing towards the roof.

The concrete at Tsukiakari’s feet exploded as a Jikininki came crashing through the upper floors, grabbing her by the throat with its long, muscular arms. It slammed her down on the roof repeatedly, smashing the back of her head against the concrete.

The Jikininki tightened its grip around Tsukiakari’s throat, drawing tears from her burning eyes. It sniffed around her face and growled at her with its lion-like teeth and wide gash of a mouth, its breath reeking of rot and decomposing flesh.

Hima leaped into the air and summoned a moonlight spear into her right hand. She jumped onto the Jikininki’s back and stabbed her spear through it, impaling both the Jikininki and Tsukiakari. Hima’s spear pierced Tsukiakari’s stomach and lodged itself into her small intestine, drawing an irate and agonized scream from her. In response, she stabbed her sword through the Jikininki’s chest. The blade just barely touched Hima’s nose before she leapt away and returned to Osamu’s side.

“That ought to keep her still for now.” Hima said. “And see? I did it without killing her.”

“Thank you, Hima.”

“Damn you!” Tsukiakari raged. “What kind of man are you? What kind of human being are you? To think you murdered our daughter and maimed the rest of our children, then lied right to our faces about your end goal…”

“Everything I said to you guys when we arrived in Wales was true.” Osamu said. “It just wasn’t all of the truth.”

“I can’t believed I loved you!” Tsukiakari screamed, tears rolling down her face. “I can’t believe I loved someone so monstrous!”

“I could say the same to you.” Osamu retorted, a slight smile on his face. “You all had seven years to come up with a better solution. You tried your best. Now lie down and let me handle the rest. You can’t bring eternal peace to this world. Izanami can’t do it. Not even Taeko can do it, as capable as she is. But I can.”

“Does this look like peace to you, you maniac?” Tsukiakari grunted, the pain in her stomach growing sharper.

“You’re all trying to salvage something that was designed to fail.” Osamu argued. “Civilization as it is now can never achieve world peace. I won’t allow you all to keep trying to find a rational solution to a completely irrational problem. The surest and most effective way to change this world is to destroy it. You won’t change my mind on this.”

“This is genocide!” Tsukiakari shouted.

Osamu crossed his arms. “Yeah. And?”

Tsukiakari’s blade gleamed with blue light. The sky flashed with a similar blue light in response, striking the concrete with an explosive bolt of lightning that sent both Hima and Osamu flying off the rooftop. Hima sprouted her wings and swept in to recover Osamu from his free-fall. She flew him over to a neighboring rooftop and set him down, realizing her left arm had been scorched by the lightning strike.

The strike left a scar up the length of her arm that resembled long, twisting branches of a dead tree. Still hot, the scar glowed with a flickering, orange light. She clutched her arm as she winced in pain, then turned her gaze over to Osamu.

“Are you okay?” Hima asked.

Osamu held his hand over the bleeding gash in the right side of his belly. The lightning strike itself didn’t hurt him, but some of the shrapnel from the blast cut into his stomach. Hima knelt by his side and lifted his black shirt to examine the wound.

“Looks like a fragment from a twisted rod. It must’ve flown out from beneath the concrete and struck you.” Hima said. “You’ll be fine. I won’t let you die here. We’ve come too far.”

Tsukiakari managed to pull the moonlight spear out of her stomach and get the dying Jikininki off of her. Wounded, she slowly got back onto her feet and limped her way over to the edge of the roof, where she had a good view of Osamu and Hima across from her.

“Don’t be scared, Gekko.” Tsukiakari whispered to herself. “You have to end this. Even if it’s Osamu…”

Tsukiakari raised her sword again. She had the energy to call forth another lightning strike, but she had yet to separate Osamu from Hima. It was maddening. Hima knew exactly what Tsukiakari was trying to do, and she simply wouldn’t it.

Just as Tsukiakari was about to prepare another attack, a voice boomed from the sky.

“Osamu! Osamu Ashikaga!”

Takemikazuchi emerged from the clouds with the phantom crown of the Underworld around his head. His sudden appearance stole everyone’s attention and momentarily stopped the fight.

“It’s over, Osamu! I have the crown! The Underworld obeys me now!” Takemikazuchi proclaimed.

Hima helped Osamu sit up straight. She sprouted her wings from her back and was ready to take Osamu with her if either Takemikazuchi or Tsukiakari tried to attack.

“I hate to say this, but in our state, I don’t think we can fight them both at once…” Hima said.

“Looks like it’s done…” Osamu said to himself.

Takemikazuchi looked around at the chaos, death, and destruction around him. He had never seen anything like it in his life. It truly was hell on earth. But at that moment, he had the power to end it all. He would become the savior of the human race, of the Shinto pantheon, and of the whole world.

“What? He has the crown?” Tsukiakari asked. “Then…what did he do to Izanami?!”

“First I’ll save this world. Then I’m killing you, Osamu!” Takemikazuchi declared, raising his hands towards the sky. “Demons of the Underworld! Hear me now! I demand you stop! Cease this slaughter at once and return to your dark abode!”

“Osamu! We have to stop him!” Hima urged, only for Osamu to snatch her wrist.

“Don’t do anything yet.” Osamu said.

Hima’s brows scrunched together in confusion. Takemikazuchi was about to end the very plan he had worked so hard to put together. Why was Osamu in no rush to stop it?

The crown burned bright as it received the command of its lord and transmitted it to every being of the Underworld across the earth. Every single monstrosity Osamu had unleashed upon the world, from the winged Shikome flocking together in the sky to the colossal skeletons roaming across the ocean on their way to the continent, stopped in their tracks as they all heard their lord’s command echo in their heads.

Osamu’s Dark Dawn was brought to a screeching halt. It was as though the world itself stopped turning. Osamu simply watched what happened next. Instead of obeying Takemikazuchi’s command, the beings of the Underworld went right back to spreading out across the world, hellbent on wiping humanity off the face of the earth.

Up until that very moment, Takemikazuchi was certain he had just saved mankind. The confusion and fear in his eyes was like fine art to Osamu. Everything had gone exactly as he planned.

“What are you doing?!” Takemikazuchi screamed. “I said stop! Stop this! Stop killing them now!”

No matter how many times he repeated his order, the demons wouldn’t listen to him. He couldn’t understand why. The crown did indeed belong to him, so as far as he knew, he should’ve been in control.

Amused by it all, Osamu couldn’t help but chuckle. He smiled as he pressed his hand over his bleeding gut, his wet, raven hair covering his left eye. Both Tsukiakari and Takemikazuchi stared at Osamu with bloodshot eyes and shrunken irises. They both realized, in that very moment, that Osamu had tricked them yet again.

What they felt in that moment wasn’t anger. It was abject fear. To them, Osamu wore the appearance of a human being, but possessed the unholy aura of a devil. He had become wickedness and deceit incarnate. 

Takemikazuchi especially realized that what he thought was a man desperately committing acts of terror to escape his enemies was actually a brutally calculating mastermind of a plan more catastrophic than he realized.

“Takemikazuchi, is it? You did very well.” Osamu said, a proud smile on his face. “When you heard I’d launch an attack on Fukuoka, you gathered everyone you could and anticipated a large-scale battle. You may not have expected Dark Dawn to happen, but at your most crucial moment, you managed to rally the entire Shinto pantheon and stand united against me.

“You knew that in order to stop the demons we set free, you had to take lordship of the Underworld. It was a fight against Izanami herself. You needed all the manpower you could get. I’m sure it was a risky move, but if you could take the crown and stop the massacre, it would all be worth it. Any bold leader would’ve made the same decision you guys made.

“However…there were two key pieces of information you didn’t have when you went after Izanami. First, you didn’t know that I was already capable of using Bloodcraft on a massive scale.”

Takemikazuchi had the air sucked out of his lungs. That revelation alone spelled disaster for the pantheon and the entire world. “You…what?”

“Second…” Osamu began. “Bloodcraft is powerful enough to completely override the command of the Underworld’s lord, no matter who it is. That’s why the demons didn’t listen to you. The crown was effectively useless from the start.”

“Then why did you bother making Izanami take it? What was all of that for if the crown was useless from the start?” Tsukiakari shouted.

“Because I knew that as soon as my plan came to fruition, the world would throw everything at me to stop it. Hima and I would’ve never survived this if we had to fight against the Exorcist Program, the world’s armies, and the full force of the Shinto pantheon all at once. Had they been able to combine their forces, it would’ve all been over.

“Having Izanami take the crown, using Anne to tip you off about the attack so you’d concentrate half your forces here while the other half remained in Kyoto, it was all to split you up.”

“Divide and conquer…” Hima said, realizing what Osamu had done. “Simple, basic strategy!”

“I set it all up so that you’d split your forces in half.” Osamu began. “The exorcists and allied army would be left to Hima and I, and the pantheon would fight a costly battle against Izanami. I had her take the crown to set her up as the decoy for this attack, and you all fell for it. You played the game quite well, but you couldn’t have known what I was capable of, nor could you have known about Bloodcraft’s priority over the crown.

“If you did, you wouldn’t have sent so many of your fellow gods to their deaths in the fight against her. You wouldn’t have been able to save the world, but you definitely would’ve been able to protect Japan from Dark Dawn. But now you’ve wasted your most valuable fighting force on a decoy, and you don’t have the exorcists nor the armies you would need to stop this. Now that you’ve all been weakened, all you can do is wait to die.”

Everything went red for Takemikazuchi as his hands balled into fists of rage. Osamu’s deceit ensured the pantheon would fumble their only opportunity to save the world. It wasn’t just humiliating, it was a death sentence.

Takemikazuchi’s katana glowed with a deep, red light. He raised his sword skyward and let out a vicious scream. “You bastard! I’ll end you!”

“No, stop! You can’t kill him!” Tsukiakari shouted, dashing into the air.

Takemikazuchi caught Tsukiakari approaching him from the corner of his eye. He turned his blade to its flat side and blocked the swing of her sword. Metallic whirring echoed through the air after their blades slammed into each other.

“I shouldn’t be surprised you’re coming to his defense!” Takemikazuchi said.

“You’ll never be able to stop this if you kill him!” Tsukiakari warned.

Takemikazuchi pushed his blade against Tsukiakari, slowly pushing her away from him. “We can’t stop him now either! This is all your fault! All because you spent seven years protecting him!”

“None of us knew what he was planning!” Tsukiakari said.

Suddenly, a moonlight arrow tore through the air and flew into Takemikazuchi’s right shoulder. Tsukiakari leapt out of the line of fire as Takemikazuchi descended into the city, using the rubble and ruins to hide from Hima.

The moonlight bow in Hima’s hands faded into a cloud of stardust as she knelt by Osamu’s side and threw his arm across her shoulders. “Come on, we’ve still got some fight in us! Takemikazuchi is a troublesome enemy. We should take him out while he’s blinded by rage.”

Osamu nodded. “I have something in mind. Help me get close to him.”

“And what about Gekko?” Hima asked, walking Osamu over to the edge of the rooftop.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

Hima leapt off the rooftop with Osamu, fanning her wings out to slow their descent into the ruined city. They passed through a murky cloud of ash and smoke on their way down and landed in a pile of concrete rubble. The ash and dust in the air clouded everything like a thick fog.

The houses in the area were flattened by the prior blasts, while all that remained of office buildings and shops were their broken facades and twisted, steel skeletons. Broken sections of the highway lied on the ground, surrounded by burnt out cars stuffed with charred bodies. Every step Osamu took along the barren street was met with the crunch of glass and rubble.

Beneath it all were the bodies of those killed in the massacre, their dust-caked faces poking out from underneath the debris. Gravel and dirt filled their eyes and sat beneath their blackened fingernails. Osamu looked down at the carnage beneath his feet with beaming, awestruck eyes.

He turned his head in every direction, looking around to find the same scenes plastered all across the ruined city; bodies and rubble sprawled across the area. He stopped in his tracks after stepping on the face of a dead, young boy. Surprised, Osamu pulled his foot away and gazed into the young boy’s eyes. He couldn’t have been older than ten years old.

Dried blood stained his face and short, black hair as two flies crawled around his slightly parted lips. The boy died in ripped sweatpants and a red, Kamen Rider t-shirt soaked in his own blood. 

Noticing his attire, Osamu imagined what the boy’s final moments must’ve been like. He tried to imagine himself as a ten year old boy hearing bombs go off in his neighborhood, hearing his neighbors scream as they’re torn apart by monsters.

For a while, he felt the boy’s fear and agony as his own. The morning started like any other Sunday. There was no school. He had plenty of time to sleep in, plenty of time to catch up on his favorite anime with his mother and father beside him. It all came to a violent and abrupt end. He must’ve known he and his parents were going to die, crushed by the rubble of their own home.

And yet, Osamu felt no guilt at all. This enormous loss of life, this unparalleled scale of human suffering, was all worth it to him. It was all to actualize his vision for a peaceful world. This would be the war to end all wars and the genocide to end all genocides. War ravaged the world like a raging fire, and humanity’s strategy for putting it out was to constantly blow on it.

Dark Dawn was the explosion that would snuff the flames in the most violent, but most assured way possible. And so, instead of horror or guilt, Osamu’s eyes reflected a boyish sense of wonder. He was getting ever closer to his goal. He would be the man to bring peace to the world.

It only served to rev him up for the fight to come.

“Takemikazuchi!” Hima hollered. “Come on out! Come out and watch your nation fall to its knees! Watch us wipe your race off the face of this planet! Watch us rip your heroes out from their graves! I want you and your ilk to witness it all!”

Suddenly, Takemikazuchi’s voice thundered from down the street. “Burn!”

A bright, red light illuminated the fog of smoke and dust as Takemikazuchi sent forth a scorching fireball. Osamu and Hima ran in opposite directions, taking cover behind ruined buildings as the fireball shot past them and struck an apartment building. The apartment was instantly engulfed in a ball of flames. Sparks and embers flew out of the windows as the flames crackled like electricity, shining like a setting sun in the darkness.

Tsukiakari’s voice raged from the distance. “Stop it! Use your damned head!”

Takemikazuchi turned and blindly shot another fireball into a tree before running and vanishing into the fog. Osamu and Hima exchanged glances from opposite sides of the street, staying behind cover the whole time.

“You ready, Osamu?” Hima asked

Hellbent on seeing his plan through, Osamu gave Hima a confident nod.

“Yeah. Let’s do this!”