[Senkumo Saga: Book of Blossoming]: Hell Unleashed

Tsukiakari, the hallowed princess of Heaven, sat cross-legged on a raised dais, her long, raven hair unbound and her scarlet eyes beaming forward. An audience of dozens of gods sat before her on the reflective, wooden floors of the dining room, each one paying the little girl their full attention. Many of them tucked their hands inside of the sleeves of their white kimonos, their red bead necklaces dangling over their exposed chests. The rising aroma of incense burning off to the sides of the dais helped Tsukiakari calm her thundering heart and ease the tremors in her small, frail hands.

“There is no force in this universe more powerful than the concept of a nation," Tsukiakari began, her voice squeaking across the room. “When a nation is born, the individual becomes part of a greater collective, the flames of conflict are extinguished, and the neighbor becomes the countryman. It is society that imbues its government with the authority to rule over its subjects, and in doing so, the two parties form a contract to cooperate and coexist for the good of the nation.”

Tsukiakari’s gaze drifted from the center of her audience to the far left corner of the room, towards two women watching her with unyielding attention. The first woman leaned her back against the smooth, wooden wall behind her, a thin, white veil obscuring her face. Tsukiakari knew exactly who it was from the gold trim around the gaping sleeves of her white robes and overcoat. It was her mother, the queen of the Shinto pantheon, Amaterasu.

Fidgeting beside Amaterasu was Tsukiakari’s grandmother, Izanami, the goddess of death and one of the oldest gods alive. While Amaterasu stuck out from the crowd with her gold-trimmed robes, Izanami was impossible to miss due to her pallid skin and deep, sable eyes with blood-red irises. Her voluminous, black hair covered her ears and shoulders, reaching down to the white, floral obi of her robes.

Tsukiakari smiled as she caught Izanami waving to her, a bright grin radiating from her pale face. Izanami gave Tsukiakari a thumbs-up of encouragement before shielding her quivering lips with her right hand.

Amaterasu leaned in towards Izanami. “You’re embarrassing her, you know.”

“Don’t care!” Izanami whispered. “I’m so proud of her! I can’t believe she remembered the speech!”

“Of course she did. It’s my daughter we’re talking about here.”

Comforted by the support of her mother and grandmother, Tsukiakari swallowed the lump in her throat and continued speaking. “The good of one’s nation supersedes our individual wants and feelings, and it is our common vision of the future that unites us all. I am proud to call myself the daughter of Amaterasu Ōkami and the princess of a syncretic pantheon comprised of Shinto gods and our new, Buddhist allies. All of you are here because you too have come to the realization that the nation transcends even the wants of a god. You’ve become more than just individuals. You’ve become part of this great project.”

Izanami looked around before leaning in towards Amaterasu. “Hey, where’s Tsukuyomi?”

Amaterasu’s eyes widened in shock as she realized her husband was nowhere to be found. “That bastard. He’s missing her first speech.”

Izanami sighed. “I’ll go look for him.”

“Thank you.”

Izanami quietly slipped out of the room and into the reflective, marble halls of the palace. The vibrant, undying sunlight of Heaven splashed through the row of rectangular windows across from her. She looked to her left, then to her right, but saw only a few idle gods conversing across the hall. The first place Izanami thought to look for Tsukuyomi was War Council room, the meeting place for Amaterasu and her generals.

Her temple throbbing in anger, Izanami stomped her way down the hall in search of him. She thought up an entire rant to spew at Tsukuyomi once she found him, one laden with expletives and lecture about parenthood, politics, and optics. His daughter was delivering her first speech to a room full of Buddhist deities, and he was nowhere to be found. Every second he was absent was further disgrace to the Shinto pantheon.

Izanami stopped in front of two goddesses chatting in the hall. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt. Have you seen Tsukuyomi anywhere? He’s supposed to be attending Tsukiakari’s speech.”

In mere seconds, the young, raven-haired goddesses melted in Izanami’s presence. Their mood went from jovial to terrified, and the mortified expressions on their pale faces betrayed their revulsion to Izanami.

“Y-yeah, we saw him turn that way, towards the dining hall. He looked kind of angry,” one of the goddesses muttered, pointing to the right.

Izanami bowed her head. “Thank you.”

As soon as Izanami turned the corner, the two goddess fled the other way as if she were the plague. Their thinly veiled horror didn’t surprise or bother Izanami in the slightest. She had long since grown accustomed to seeing the smiles of her fellow gods turn into scowls in her presence. She pushed onward, focusing only on finding Tsukuyomi.

Marching down the hall, Izanami was suddenly bumped into by another god. She immediately recognized the head of medium length, blonde hair and the blue eyes hiding beneath it.

“What the hell are you doing here,” the young, blonde god asked.

Izanami’s eyes narrowed as she stole a quick, disapproving glance at his brown, bear fur coat and white bead necklace. “It’s good to see you, too, Oyamatsumi. I’m not hurt, by the way. Thank you for asking.”

“I thought you weren’t allowed to come to Heaven,” Oyamatsumi groaned.

“Not without your sister’s permission, but today is a special day. I’m here to see Gekko give her first speech.”

“Really? Because the room is the other way.”

“I’m looking for Tsukuyomi. He didn’t show up for the speech at all. Have you seen him?”

Oyamatsumi’s eyes drifted towards the ceiling as he recalled the last time he saw his brother. “Actually, I think I did see him walking towards the dining hall. He wasn’t in a very good mood. I think something happened between him and Uke.”

Izanami’s shoulder’s dropped as she sighed in frustration. “Come on. I can’t let them do this on Gekko’s special day! They’re going to ruin everything!”

“You being here already ruins everything, Izanami.”

“Don’t start. Not today. I’m going to go find your brother.”

Knowing that both Tsukuyomi and Uke Mochi were gone, Izanami’s frustration turned into worry. She raced down the hall, stopping before the double door of the dining area. The doors were supposed to be closed until after Tsukiakari’s speech, but the left door was just slightly ajar. Izanami pressed her fingers against the door and took a step forward, her sandal splashing in a small pool of liquid.

Izanami looked down at her foot, her eyes widening in horror as she realized she stepped in blood. She quickly flung open the door to the dining area, a massive, square room fitted with over two dozen round tables and six, golden chandeliers hanging from the high, vaulted ceilings above. On any other day, Izanami would’ve remarked on how beautiful and spacious the dining hall was, and how the Buddhist deities would be impressed by the splendor and taste of the Shinto pantheon.

In that moment, however, Izanami was overcome by shock and terror. Drops of blood staining the marble floors guided her eyes to the corpse of a young goddess with short, brown hair. Tsukuyomi stood beside the body, both of his hands stained with blood. His long, black mane of hair was frizzled and dry, the top section tied into a bun. He turned his head, his sapphire-blue eyes gleaming in the sunlight.

A chill shot down Izanami’s spine. It was a sensation she felt every time someone died, but it was especially strong when a god passed away.

“What have you done,” Izanami screamed.

Izanami ran over to the girl’s corpse, soon realizing that the body belonged to Uke Mochi, one of her daughters. Izanami cradled Uke’s lifeless body, her screams of grief thundering out of the dining area and spilling into the halls of the palace.

Tsukuyomi sat down at a nearby table, his eyes empty and dark. He remained unnervingly calm. “I had to do it. I had to. It’s all her fault we have to reincarnate. It’s her fault the others are gone and can’t come back. She’s replacing us with the Buddhist gods! I had to do this. It was the only way. I had to.”

Tsukuyomi held his hand to his aching head as he tried to convince himself that what he had done was right. His voice grew quieter with each sentence, until his lips mouthed the words in silence. It was then that Amaterasu stepped through the door and was petrified by the grisly scene.

Tsukuyomi stood from his chair upon seeing his wife. “You did this! You lied to us all! Reincarnation is a curse! You were planning this from the very beginning! You won’t stop until all of the old gods are dead!”

Amaterasu’s initial shock quickly died away as hatred and anger settled on her face. “Is that what this is about? You murdered our sister to get back at me for that?”

“An eye for an eye. You didn’t shed a tear for Susanō,” Tsukuyomi growled. “Maybe you’ll realize what you’ve done now that Uke is gone and can’t reincarnate! You’ve doomed us, Amaterasu.”

Unaware of the murder within the very walls of the palace, Tsukiakari stood on her dais as she wrapped up her speech to the enthralled Buddhist gods.

“Let us all discard the phantom glory of our past selves and witness the rebirth of a stronger nation, a more powerful league of gods. May we all live and rule forevermore, side by side, shoulder to shoulder. We are far more powerful together than we are alone.”

The gods stood and drowned the room in thunderous applause. Tsukiakari took a bow and illuminated the room with her radiant smile, completely unaware that her aunt had just been brutally murdered by her father.

What should have been the proudest day of her life was turned into a living nightmare. Never before had a murder been committed within Heaven’s palace, and never during such a politically sensitive time. If only Tsukuyomi had known the chain of events that would follow.

If only he could foresee the tragedy, brutality, and suffering he had just put into motion with his single act of hatred. Perhaps if he could’ve seen the future and witnessed for himself what would become of his daughter, he never would’ve killed Uke Mochi, and the long chain of loss and misery that followed could’ve been prevented.

“Can you believe it? Tsukuyomi was banished from Heaven,” a handmaid whispered as she huddled with other servants in Heaven’s white palace.

“For murdering Uke Mochi, the goddess of food, I presume,” replied a second handmaid.

A third handmaid gasped, covering her mouth. “A murder? Here, in Heaven? I thought only mortals committed murder!”

Sitting nearby, Tsukiakari was forced to overhear the callous whispers of the handmaids. In the days since her father’s trial, she had become accustomed to the speculation. She had tucked herself behind the fluted, marble columns lining the spacious halls of the palace. Though it wasn't their place to gossip about the gods they served, the news of Tsukuyomi's crime was far too grave for people to ignore.

“I heard Lady Amaterasu's daughter took Tsukuyomi's side and pleaded for him to be shown mercy at his trial. They got into a pretty rough fight after that, but you can’t fault her for defending her own father.” a fourth servant chimed.

“Dear...poor girl...this must be so traumatizing for her.” the first servant proclaimed, as the group continued to gossip, unaware of Tsukiakari’s presence.

For Tsukiakari, her father’s crime cast her under a dark cloud. She was raised with very little knowledge of mortals, so she didn’t know what murder was, or why everyone seemed so upset. However, she felt the gravity of the crime forced upon her by the ceaseless gossip and disdainful stares of her servants. The only thing Tsukiakari knew how to do back then was to love, unconditionally.

The breathtaking size and splendor of Amaterasu’s towering, white palace did little to soothe the feeling of entrapment for Tsukiakari. Its reflective, marble floors, high ceilings, and vibrant gardens of aromatic flowers offered no anodyne for the heartbreak of losing her aunt and her father. Not even her mother sought to soothe the void left by Tsukuyomi’s imprisonment. The sun goddess’s heart had turned cold, like a lonely, dwarf star lost in the darkness of space.

That night, when all of the gods and servants retreated into their quarters and warm, lofty beds, Amaterasu committed herself to her final duty of the day. After thoroughly brushing through her voluminous hair, she carried a lit candle by its plate into the darkened halls of the palace, sauntering over to Tsukiakari’s room. Her fierce, golden eyes seemed to glow on their own as the candle’s flickering glare bounced against her porcelain skin. She wasn’t the type to knock, so she walked right into her daughter’s room.

There, she saw Tsukiarkari brushing her own hair while sitting in front of her vanity mirror. Tsukiakari kicked her feet back and forth as she sat on her stool, not yet tall enough for her feet to touch the floor.

“Mama!” exclaimed the startled Tsukiakari.

“Ready for bed, yet,” Amaterasu asked in a soft tone.

“Mhmm!”

As Tsukiakari climbed into her bed, Amaterasu blew out all but one of the candles in her room. Then, she sat at her daughter’s bedside, charmed by neither her scarlet eyes, nor Tsukiakari’s resemblance to herself, and tucked her in for the night.

“Mom, will Dad ever come back," Tsukiakari asked, her mouth covered by blankets.

“Gekko, I’ve already explained this to you. Your father hurt another god. He killed her. Do you know what that means,” Amaterasu replied while stroking strands of hair away from Tsukiakari’s face. Gekko was the nickname Amaterasu gave to Tsukiakari after she was born. Both names mean the same thing, but Gekko was used in more casual and personal settings.

“No," Tsukiakari nodded. “Is it really that bad?”

“To kill someone is to hurt them so much that they cease to live. One god should never kill another. It is the vilest and most heartbreaking thing you could ever do. Committing such an act makes him a lesser being than even most mortals.”

“Why did Dad kill Auntie Uke," she asked, far too young to understand it all.

“Your father was a jealous and small-minded man. He didn’t understand Uke at all. He thought killing her would be some sort of justice. His intentions don’t matter, Gekko. What’s important is that you never, ever kill someone –– god nor mortal.”

“Mom…”

“What is it, Gekko," Amaterasu sighed, slightly annoyed.

“Don’t you miss him," Tsukiakari asked, sniffling slightly through her petite nose.

“No, I doesn’t miss him one bit. You shouldn’t either. I know you love your father, but never forget that you are still the princess of Heaven. One day, this pantheon and its subjects will be yours to rule.”

Though the concept of ruling Heaven was still alien to her, Tsukiakari at least understood that her beloved father wouldn’t be back any time soon.

“When I become a queen, can I free Dad," Tsukiakari asked, innocently.

“That’s still a long ways away, dear. You’ll have plenty of time to think of all of the wonderful things you want to do when you take my place. Don’t rush it. Being a queen is not easy.”

“Mom…”

Amaterasu chuckled, amused by the never-ending stream of questions. “Yes, Gekko?”

“Are you scared of Dad?”

A gust of rage blew away her amusement, like a violent wind ripping the petals off of a flower. The question made Amaterasu’s blood bite at her veins and flesh to an infuriating degree. Her heart raced and thundered beneath her white nightgown. Tsukiakari could feel the disturbed aura coming off of her mother, giving her delicate skin goosebumps.

Fearing she may have saddened her mother, Tsukiakari sat up, gladly opening her arms, and invited her mother in for a hug. But, instead, Amaterasu furiously pushed Tsukiakari back down onto the pillow, her hands tightly wrapped around her daughter’s neck. Confused and horrified, Tsukiakari gasped for air.

“Ma…ma!” she sputtered, unable to breathe.

Amaterasu’s grip grew tighter as she ignored her daughter’s desperate fingers clawing at her mother’s hands, summoning tears from Tsukiakari’s bloodshot eyes. Amaterasu’s soft voice grew loud, panicked, and shaken as she struggled to maintain the sobs locked within her chest.

“Am I scared? I fear no one! I am the living glory of Heaven, the light of its divine skies!”

Tsukiakari tried to pry her mother’s hands from around her neck, but found it impossible to match Amaterasu’s strength. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. And as her eyes widened in horror, Tsukiakari was forced to stare into her mother’s rage-filled face.

“I’m not scared of you or your evil, Tsukuyomi!” Amaterasu screamed with boiling rage.

“Lady Amaterasu! What are you doing?”

Lady Uzume, the goddess of fertility, drawn by the screaming, appeared suddenly in the doorway and was mortified to witness the horrific scene. She immediately attempted to pull Amaterasu off of Tsukiakari.

“Lady Amaterasu, please control yourself! You’re going to kill her!”

In that moment, Amaterasu snapped out of her delusional rage, releasing her daughter’s throat. Uzume helped Tsukiakari to sit up as the princess coughed and wheezed air back into her lungs, crying all the while. Amaterasu’s vision blurred and then cleared as she came to. Once she saw Uzume’s long, black hair and the small beauty mark under her rosy lips, she recognized her and began to calm down.

“Come with me, Gekko. We’re going to the infirmary!” Uzume urged.

Neither of them looked at Amaterasu as she sat on the bed, her mind blanked by rage. She gazed at her trembling hands as Tsukiakari’s sobs disappeared down the hall. Covering her face, she laughed ever so softly. Flashes of her own childhood memories surfaced behind her eyes like hazy hallucinations. She had never spoken to anyone about what happened between Izanami and Izanagi, except for Uzume.

Though all the other gods knew for a fact that Amaterasu and her former husband were born from Izanagi alone, Uzume knew why. She knew why her queen wasn’t born from both Izanami and Izanagi. She knew that the story of the seventh generation was a tale that began as a fable of love, but ended as a blood-soaked tragedy.

Most importantly, Uzume was the only person who knew what Amaterasu was truly preparing Tsukiakari for. Simply becoming the next queen of Heaven was the least of it all. Just as Tsukiakari’s grandfather had gone mad, so too did her mother. History was repeating itself for a second time. Uzume could only pray that such an innocent young girl would never meet the same fate.

Heaven betrayed its name. There was nothing heavenly about it, no paradise within its towering palace Tsukiakari could call home. Even the other gods themselves were more like demons to her. There was no longer a place for her in Heaven. Everywhere she went, she was looked upon with either pity or contempt. And now, her mother had lost both her heart and her mind. So, weary of Heaven’s profound madness, Tsukiakari ran away, far away –– to the world of mortals.