前代未聞の祈り
Pai stepped back just in time to avoid crashing into him looking up at Karasatengu with a startled gasp.
She craned her neck quite bit to look at him. He stood at an intimidating height, a wall of muscle and strength that blocked her path, dressed in a dark yukata tied with a thin white obi around his waist. She had to suppress a giggle when the sunlight glinted on his bald head.
Karasatengu reminded her a lot of Saitama from One Punch Man...except he was less oblivious to his own strength. It was adorable watching Karasatengu interact with the kids, so comically gentle and careful with them even when his face remained perfectly blank. It was hard not to take dozens of pictures of them together.
It was mostly Shiori who did that, at least.
Pai nervously tugged on the end of her scarf. "H – hi, Karasatengu-san," she greeted, as innocently as she could.
His arched eyebrow lifted minutely. "Good afternoon, Pai-san." If there was anyone who stuck to the rigidity of honorifics and formal speech more than her, it was Karasatengu. "And where are you going?"
"Out. Walk." She cleared her throat. Speak coherently, you ignorant bushwoman. "I am going out for a walk."
His other eyebrow joined the first arching one. "Kanou-san told you to remain in bed until you are better."
I didn't lose mobility of my legs, thank you very much, she thought haughtily.
"I am only going down to the shrine," she answered. She gestured at the notable lack of a bag on her person. "I am not even carrying a bag with me. I just wanted to go down to the shrine to say a prayer to the Kamigami...for Shin-san."
It wasn't a lie. That was the only reason she even thought about going to the shrine. She'd thought that, maybe, the Kamigami would be kind and listen to her prayer for Shin's safety, since it was not a selfish prayer made for herself, but for someone else. She wasn't exactly counting on an answer since she knew there was no love lost between Ayakashi and Kamigami – but she might as well try. There was nothing more she could do, and she hated that.
Karasatengu's lips thinned at the mention of Shin. She wondered if she didn't make a mistake saying his name. Talking about Shin had become something of a sore topic, almost a taboo. Nobody could speak about him without an air of solemness enveloping the conversation.
She always got tense whenever that happened, her bones crying out in grief for how stiff she became. She always half-expected someone to jump at her, screaming, It's your fault! This is happening to Shin-kun because of you!
No one did that, of course. She didn't stop thinking it would happened someday, though.
Karasatengu sighed heavily. "A prayer to the Kamigami."
She nodded. "It is the least I can do, after everything that has happened." After everything I did wrong that ended up in this mess, she addded silently.
"How are you feeling?"
If she had five yen for every time someone asked her that question, she would be the richest person in the world.
"I will not suddenly collapse on the way," she replied.
After a long moment in which Karasatengu scrutinized her, eyes darting up and down the – admittedly not very long – length of her body as if searching for any visible signs of illness, he nodded reluctantly. He looked like a monk when he did, with such a grave expression on his face. She wasn't sure she had ever seen the man smile properly.
"Make it quick," he said gruffly. "I personally do not understand why you have to be under veritable house arrest, but I am not a healer. Kanou-san will have my hide if he catches you gone."
Her eyebrows shot up. When he saw her expression, he chuckled – and yet, somehow, he still didn't smile.
How is that possible? She thought, baffled. How do you laugh and not smile?
"If you are going, you should go now," he continued, stepping aside.
She allowed a rare smile to curve her lips up. "Thank you very much, Karasatengu-san."
He waved away her thanks as she walked past him. She waited by the gate as Karasatengu went inside the outhouse connected to the boundary wall, and a second later there was a low buzzing before the gate slowly swung inward. She took a few steps back as the gate opened, then quickly shot through before Karasatengu could change his mind.
She walked hurriedly down the wide path, only briefly glancing up at the silent crows around her. She moved her hands deeper in her coat and hunched her shoulders, keeping her gaze focused on her booted feet as she walked. They crunched on the brown, crackling leaves that littered the wide foot-path before her.
She tried not to find anything sinister about the sound that echoed in the silence of the forest around her.
It was too quiet, too still in the forest. It was like everything was alive and watching, but frozen in paralysis. Even the birds were quiet. The only sound was that of her walking and the distant caw and twittering of birds further out from the mountain. She glanced around the bases of the trees and in the branches, looking for any signs of animal life, but found none.
She startled, heart jumping to her throat, when there was a loud flutter of wings and a harsh, loud caw directly overhead as one of the crows landed on a branch. Her hand flew to press against her chest where her heart thumped frantically as she looked up.
She glared at the red-eyed crow that sat there calmly, watching her. Its wings were plain black as the crow tucked them against its sides. In all appearances it looked like an ordinary crow, if not for its abnormally large frame. It could rival an eagle with that size.
She could also just spy the sharp toothpick-like teeth – or were those more like claws? – that lined the ruffled edges of its wings, each tooth honed to a pin-prick point that could easily tear through tough hide.
"I thought you said I could go." She called up reproachfully.
Karasatengu tilted his head to the side, saying without words, Did I say you could go alone? The hooked beak opened and snapped shut around another caw. This time, she was less frightened now that she knew where the sound came from.
She stared at the sharpened teeth on his wings for a moment long before she turned, shoving her hands deeper into her coat pockets and resuming her fast-paced walk down the mountain. She was unnerved by seeing the teeth on his wings. She knew that Karasatengu, when he changed to this Ayakashi form, kept that gruesome and decidedly unsettling aspects of his Ayakashi form hidden from sight normally because he knew how much the sight threw Pai and Shiori off.
Still – it made her wonder what was different about Karasatengu that he looked more like an animal when he changes to his Ayakashi form, while the other Tengu in the house looked like, basically, fallen angels. Were there different sub-types of Hengen, like there were different races of humans?
She made a mental note to ask Daichi about it, and hoped she would actually remember to.
She continued on her way, stomping her feet harder than necessary to keep her blood circulation going in an effort to keep warm. Even then, she felt the familiar biting numbness of the cold getting to her toes. Ten minutes later, she walked around the large tree that the path ended at and came upon the busy, sloping street at the bottom of the small mountain. Down the chock-a-block full road, she could see people walking hurriedly to and fro, rushing to get to where they needed to go, or dropping in on the many shops that lined the street.
Mingling in easily, weaving between the mortal bodies or following them, were the faintly glowing, colourful forms of the Yori Chiisai. There were not as many as she thought there would be in the late afternoon day, when the sun began to set and the mysterious magic that kept most of them at bay during the day weakened. She looked up at the skies but saw no Onmoraki flying about, usually a sure indicator that it was time to get home, somewhere safe. Thankfully it was still too early in the day for them.
Of course it is, she thought, huffing as she glanced at her watch. It's only 3.30. Of course it was too early for them to be up and about.
She ignored the voice in her head reminding her that she was never so viscerally aware of the time before as she was now. Before.
She glanced behind her. Karasatengu was perched on a tree branch, right wing raised and beak snapping at something in the feathers of his wings. Pai watched him silently for a few moments longer before she cleared her throat. Karasatengu lowered his wing and fixed his red eyes on her. They were glowing.
She could only imagine the fright a stranger would have at seeing him in this form. Granted, he cut an imposing figure even in human form.
"Are you going to wait here?" she asked, retreating several steps back into the comparative shade of the tree so that if some passer-by were to look up the street, they wouldn't see a white-haired girl talking to a tree.
Maybe they'd think she was cosplaying.
Karasatengu cocked his head again, and she took it for a yes. She wasn't surprised that he wouldn't follow her in.
"I will not be long," she said.
The sharp beak opened and lets out a harsh caw!
She made a guess. "Twenty minutes. Is that okay?"
He spread his wings and beat them once to signal his agreement. She nodded and turned, walking briskly down the short way of the now paved path, turned right, and made her way up to the torii gates.
The shrine itself was set on a lower stretching hill that was a part of the small mountain Ayashi House stood on, built within a cluster of trees surrounding it. It was a small shrine, as most shrines were, built to be more a part of the surrounding nature rather than to awe and intimidate visitors as cathedrals and other places of worship did.
The building was a collection of wood columns and walls, a thatched roof with chigi horns that stuck out from the top of the roof, gabled ends, short katsuogi logs that laid horizontally across the ridge of the roof, and free-standing columns that supported the ride of roof at the ends. A long flight of stairs led up to the Inari-style torii gates at the top, with stone lanterns lining the path on either side the way.
The torii gate was a simple stone structure of two upright pillars with an additional two crossbeams on the top. Pai had to walk down to the bottom of the street before resuming walking up the long flight of stairs that led up to the torii gates at the top, the entrance to the shrine.
The moment she passed underneath the torii gate, the ever-present cold, creeping touch along her spine vanished. Each step of the stairs was swept clean, and as she walked on she passed a monk with a broom in his hand, sweeping away the few stray leaves that fall from the trees that hadn't yet been shed in time for winter.
Sitting in an alert pose on both sides of the torii gate, inside and mounted on pedestals, was a pair of gold Komainu. The statuesque curls of their manes were full and long, drifting down to solidly rest on their proud chests as they glared out. The Komainu on the right had its mouth closed, long canines poking out. From the curious quirk of its lips, Pai felt as though the Komainu was smirking mockingly at her. His name was Un. The other Komainu had its mouth open, lips pulled back over teeth in a ferocious snarl. His name was A.
The Komainu might be nothing more than statues now, but at night they came alive and prowled the perimeters of the shrine, keeping all Yori Chiisai and anything that meant harm to the Kamigami within the shrine at bay. Though Hengen could easily deal with the Komainu, Pai had noticed several times that the Daitengu tended to keep away from the shrine, as if there was an unspoken pact between them and the Kamigami within to avoid each other.
Pai had been startled awake on more than one occasion at night when she heard furious growling, so loud that she could feel it in her bones, followed by an inhuman screaming, then dead silence.
When she asked Daichi about it the next day, he replied with, Probably some foolish Yori Chiisai trying to get into the shrine. Don't worry about it – Un and A dealt with it. They know what they're doing.
He said it so flippantly, it made her wonder if every Un and A at every temple in Japan were the same.
"Good afternoon, Tsukuda-san," she bowed respectfully to the monk, an old man with grey hair around the bottom of his head, the top completely bald with age. He was clad in tsuneso attire, greeting the smattering of visitors who passed by him to go on to the chozuya, a small pavilion near the main hall where people washed their hands and rinsed their mouths before entering the main building of the shrine to pray.
He returned her bow with a simple inclination of the head. Pai was about to continue on her way when she caught the man's rheumy eyes flick over her hair before settling on her again.
"I see you have been found, child." A network of deeply imprinted wrinkles formed around his eyes as they mooned, Tsukuda smiling at her as he folded his hands neatly in front of him.
Pai's eyebrows creased in confusion even as she kept a friendly smile – now gone a little tight at the corners – plastered on her face. "I am sorry, but I do not understand what you mean."
There was a little glint in Tsukuda's eyes as he continued to smile right back at her. "A while ago, your friend came looking for you. She was very worried. I am glad she found you."
Pai's smile stayed on her face even as her stomach withered. A sour taste coated the back of her throat as she fought to keep the muscles in her face from clenching into a look of revulsion at the mention of what happened.
No one at home talked about it, at least not where she could hear it. She liked it that way. Though she was treated like she would break if mishandled, it was better than having to hear the pity in their voices and see it in their eyes when they spoke about what happened.
Tsukuda watched her for a moment longer before speaking again. "I apologize," he said in his gravelling voice, like an old car sputtering to life. "It seems I have overstepped."
She quickly shook her head. "No, it is not that." She wondered how to tactfully go about allaying him. "I was just...gone for a while, and I did not tell her. It is fine now."
Liar, the insidious voice in her head hissed. It sounds like Midori, for some awful reason. Shin lost his Mask, stolen by an Oni, and you're having nightmares you don't remember.
She smiled reassuring at Tsukuda, no hint of any inner turmoil visible on her face. She had spent the last year perfecting her poker face whenever she was around others, to hide her emotions, her fatigue, the shaking of her hands. She wasn't nearly at Shin's level, but she was good enough, she liked to think.
Tsukuda's face crinkled as he smiled back at her. "That is good, that's good. Have you come to pray?" at her nod, he took a small step back and motioned her on. "I hope you find the guidance you seek, dear child."
She bowed again, then turned on continued on her way. She stopped by the chozuya and filled the ladle with water and washed her hands, wincing at the touch of the cold water.
There were two other people going through the ritualistic purification with her. One, an elderly woman with a kind smile for Pai when the two passed each other. Another, a man with a worried frown on his face as he hurried through the process. Both were clearly occupied with thoughts on their own troubles, but they still cast surprised looks at the shock of white hair on Pai's head.
Pai ignored the pinprick of irritation and the looks, as usual.
She took off her boots and carefully placeed them neatly in one of the slots at the shelves lining the outside of the haiden. She glanced to her right, where the honden was, the main sanctuary of the shrine that was strictly off limits to anyone who wasn't part of the day-to-day functions of maintaining the shrine.
The honden was where people believed the Kamigami resided, granting and ignoring prayers according to the Kamigami's own whims. Pai sometimes wondered if one's prayers had a better chance of being heard if they snuck into the honden and prayed there, rather than where everyone else prayed at the haiden.
She walked to the entrance of the haiden, slipping in a few of the coins she had in her wallet – included a coveted 500 yen coin that she so rarely had – into the small black donation box on a platform that stuck out from the wall that leads to the inside of the shrine. She padded over to stand beneath the shimenawa rope with heavy tassels attached to the ends that hung over the heads of the petitioners. It was easily the most remarkable aspect of the otherwise ordinary and small shrine. Nowhere near as large as Hokkaido Shrine's was, but still impressive.
Pai stood beside the elderly lady she had met at the chozuya. Her grey head was bent down as she made her prayer. Pai wrapped her hand around the white-and-red rope and pulled gently on the gong once, ringing the suzu bell to alert the Kamigami of her presence. Pai bowed deeply twice, clapped her hands twice, bowed her head, and began the prayer the way her mother taught her too, for the times they visited Hokkaido Shrine on New Year's Day.
"As you have blessed the ruler's reign, making it long and enduring," she murmured quietly under her breath. "So I bow down my neck as a cormorant in search of fish to worship you and give you praise through these abundant offerings on his behalf."
She paused, swallowed, and continued to pray silently. She didn't know how to do this more respectfully than this – she didn't visit shrines outside of New Year's Day visits that everyone else did too. She didn't know if her words were flowery enough, or if she was being rude by getting straight to the point and keeping it short. She didn't know if any of that would have an effect on anything.
She didn't know if there was a point in doing any of this.
Kamisama, I've – I have come before you to humbly beg that you help us find Shin.
She cracked an eye open when she heard movement to her left, and closed it again when she realized it was just the old woman leaving. She rubbed her palms together to coax some warmth to them, then focused on finishing her prayer. Despite herself, she felt a bit...foolish, being here, doing this, when she didn't know if the Kamigami that served this shrine was even listening. Or if the Kamigami even cared enough to bother listening at all.
I know that he is Hengen, and Kamigami and Ayakashi aren't on good terms with each other. But he's – he's a good person. That should count for something, regardless of what he is. He would never hurt anyone. He doesn't deserve to have the choice taken from him. He saved my life. Please, help me save his.
She opened her eyes and looked up at the tapestry hanging on the large pillar, deeper within the shrine's enclave. It was a watercolour painting of Konohana Sakuya-Hime, the goddess that served this shrine. The painting must have been done a long time ago and carefully preserved, to be the one hanging inside the shrine rather than any other.
In it, Konohana stood in front of Mount Fuji. On either side of the snow-capped mountain was a circle; one represents the lustrous white of the moon, and the other the orange flare of the sun. Each had a dark cloud wrapped around it.
Konohana herself was bedecked in a beautiful pink-and-white kimono with a magnificent gold headdress inlaid with crystals, gold chains and white feathers, under from which her long black hair falls down her back. Her face was pure white, eyes dark, lips painted red. In her arms was a branch from a cherry tree, and held close to her heart in the other hand was what Pai thought was a peach. She was too far away to tell for sure.
Konohana wasn't smiling in the painting, or frowning. She just had a blank face, like the painter couldn't imagine what a goddess would be thinking about, so they went the safe route and made a blank canvas of the expression on her face.
On the walls on either side were large murals depicting scenes of event that transpired far back in history – the birth of Amaterasu from Izanagi's left eye; the gods trying to convince Amaterasu to leave the cave she hid herself in after her brother, Susanoo, terrified her with his crude prank; Urashima Taro's visit to the Ryugojo, the vase undersea palace of the dragon god Ryujin. Others were taken from stories she wasn't familiar with. She thought she recognized the figure of Oyamazumi, Konohana's father, who stood beside the benevolent, radiant figure of his younger sister Amaterasu.
Pai glanced back at the painting of Konohana, and blinked. Did – did the lips – did that painting just move? She squinted at it for a moment, trying to make out the shape of the lips in the dim lighting of the interior. Did the painting just...smile?
The more Pai stared at it, though, the clearer it was that she just imagined it. The blank expression on Konohana's face hadn't changed.
She bowed her head once more and turned to leave when a small, musical sound of a bell jingling stopped her. She glanced back with a frown of confusion and looked intently into the poorly-lit inner hall of the haiden again. There was nothing there.
Her eyes snapped to the left when she heard the sound again, this time slightly different than before, a little clearer, a little closer.
Is that...a laugh?
It sounded like it – the soft, crystalline sound of a woman's gentle laughter. She kept her eyes intently fixed on the corner of the wall to her left, where she heard the laugh come from; but there was nothing there.
When she heard it again, almost teasing, she immediately rose to her feet, something annoyed and irate prickling at her to find out where that sound was coming from. Pai walked quickly to the corner, putting her hand up against the painted wood of the wall and peering around the corner.
There, she could see a paved path in the grass that led straight to the closed doors of the honden. Faint wisps of smoke curled up from the middle of the roof. A shimenawa rope was strung across two posts right in front of the closed doors, and a tamagaki fence was stuck fast to the ground all around the area the honden stands on.
There wasn't anyone around.
Pai frowned. Where did that laughter come from then? Who was it? And the sound of the bell she heard? It didn't sound like the suzu bell people ring when entering the hall to pray.
"My, my, isn't this interesting."
Eyes wide, Pai twisted around so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. She stared at the shrine hall behind her, but there was no one there. A cold draft rose up from the city below, drifting in and bringing with it the metallic, acrid smell of city life. The exhaust fumes, the food, the smell of thousands of bodies masked in colognes and perfumes flooding overwhelmingly over her.
There was an abrupt drop in pressure, as if she had suddenly gone deaf. All sound was sucked away into a void. For a few brief seconds, the colours of everything around her were too bright – the light from the sky, the glinting gold pieces in the shrine, even the wooden floor was basked in a burnished glow. Her eyes throbbed with pain, her head stuffed with metallic cotton wads and dizzy from the sudden onslaught.
She squeezed her eyes shut and leaned against the wall, groaning as she tried not to pass out, fighting against the tell-tale slip of control she felt over her body, like she could still feel every inch of her body but like it was all at a distance she couldn't cross. The wound on her neck, still oddly not healed entirely, throbbed with a pulse of bone-deep pain.
She made a pained sound, almost a whine, as she put a shaking hand to the wound, wincing at the cold touch of her own fingers as she pushed down on the wound, eyebrows scrunching as she tried to press down on the pain.
She kept her eyes for a few more seconds riding out the ache in her head, holding her breath because she was scared that if she tried to breathe in, she would scream. When the pain finally subsided, she peeled her eyes open warily, just a bit. When she was certain she could without it hurting, she opened her eyes all the way. She sighed in relief when the colours remained as they were supposed to.
She could hear the soft sigh of the wind blowing through the trees and the empty hallways of the shrine, the birds singing as they flew in the sky. It all sounded so close.
She dropped her hand from her neck and pushed off from the wall. She remained standing steady, her knees no longer dangerously wobbling. She looked around herself, frowning as she wondered at what had just happened. Whose voice did she heart? Why had it felt like all her senses were going to burst, split her apart at the seams, like she was going to faint from the pressure of it all?
She swallowed. She needed to go back home before she collapsed, her heart fluttering light and nervous in her chest at the thought. Maybe Kanou was right after all; she should have stayed in bed until he said it was okay to be up and about. She needed to leave, and go back home.
She turned around, and almost walked right through a hazy, flowing figure floating a clear foot above the ground.
Pai jerked back with a blink of shock, a gasp of surprise catching in her throat as she stared up. It was a woman, clad in a white kimono lined with dark red edges. Her long hair was pulled back with the end tied in a white ribbon dangling over her shoulder. She was holding a fan in her hand, a design painted on it that Pai couldn't make out.
The woman wasn't entirely in focus. It was like Pai was looking through her to the opposite end of the shrine rather than directly at her. She tried to focus on the woman's face, but it hurt her eyes, trying to peer through the blurriness that was where the woman's face should be. She couldn't even make out the colour of the woman's eyes.
"They were right. You are a very sensitive one," a soft voice murmured thoughtfully. Even with the shock coursing through her system, it was as though the sound of the woman's voice soothed Pai's frazzled nerves, and despite herself, she started to feel a little calmer. "I didn't believe it at first. Not only can you hear me, but see me as well. Most of you can't even hear me when I'm right behind you."
Pai started to answer, though she didn't know what she was even going to supposed to say. What are you supposed to say when a half-invisible floating woman is in front of you?
And yet, even with that, even with the surreality of this situation...Pai found herself with an odd centre of calm in her chest. Startled, yes, this woman appeared out of nowhere and Pai couldn't even see her face. Afraid? Yes, after what happened with the Onihitokuchi, Pai was jumpier than usual about everything.
But there was a part of her, somewhere deep inside, like a hole sitting right behind her heart, that maintained calm rather than immediately screaming and trying to run like a headless chicken.
No words came out when she tried to speak, though. Her voice was working, she could feel her lips shaping to form the words, but no sound came out. Her limbs grew heavy, weighed down like blocks of cement. Pai wasn't sure she could lift her arm if she tried. Her knees knocked against each other as they shook, straining to remain upright beneath a crushing weight as Pai stared up at the woman with wide eyes, knowing, somehow, that this – whatever this was – was her doing.
The blurred face tilted to the side. "Don't speak. It's a waste of energy to try. For the next little while, I have temporarily disrupted the flow of time. Only those born without the limitations of humanity can speak and move." The face righted itself again. "For now, that still includes you."
Pai focused on the little hole of calm sitting in her chest, trying to enlarge it so it consumed her. This – felt too much like when she was incapacitated by the Onihitokuchi. For a horrible second, she saw a familiar road in front of her, getting closer as the tethers that connected her to her body were severed and she knew she was falling but she couldn't stop it –
She blinked, slowly, heavily, and the road vanished. The woman in front of her held her fan in her right hand, and reached behind her with her left. She pulled something out and held it in her dainty, pale palm in front of Pai. Pai's eyes lingered warily on the indistinct face before they drifted down to look at what the woman was holding out to her.
The air in her lungs choked off when she realized what she was looking at.
Shin's – that was Shin's Mask.
Pai tried to ask, Why do you have it? but still she couldn't speak. She tried hard as she could, until her cheeks ached with the effort of it, but no matter what she did, she couldn't speak a single word. A rolling wave of nausea bubbled in the pit of her stomach. She struggled to contain the tide of panic sweeping through her paralysed body, to quell the fear and hopelessness eating through her mind at finding herself in so vulnerable and weak a position again.
"The little demon that stole this was particularly bothersome," she said, so nonchalantly that it was like they were discussing the weather and not Shin's Mask. "If you had practiced more caution, it would not have been taken in the first place."
Pai's eyes flashed with irritated fury at that. How? How was she supposed to practice more caution when she didn't even know there were any Oni in the city? How was she supposed to 'practice more caution' when she felt like she was dying?
The woman laughed, as if she could see all Pai couldn't say in the anger in her eyes. "Yes, it was a tricky situation, wasn't it?"
You don't fucking say, Pai snarled viciously, incensed that this – this woman, whoever she was, thought she had any right to judge Pai for what happened.
Pai did it enough with herself, she didn't need the extra help.
"My poor son," she continued, sighing dramatically. "Had to possess a fisherman just to find the Amanojaku. It must have been revolting for poor Hoderi, to do that, just to help an Ayakashi."
Pai could only blink stupidly at the hazy, blurred face of the woman for a moment. Hoderi? Hoderi, the Kamigami? But his mother was...
"Just to help an Ayakashi..."
Her eyes snapped wide in shock as the realization of who this was hit her like a truck roaring down icy roads at full throttle.
Pai could hear the smile in the woman's voice as she said, "Are you surprised you're speaking to me in person?" she asked, clearly amused. "After all, Shiori is my vessel, and you are close to her. Is it so shocking that I would choose to appear before you rather than anyone else?"
For an odd moment, Pai waited for...something. She wasn't sure what. She expected to be more shocked than she was, maybe scared, perhaps even excited at the fact that she was in the presence of a Kamigami – that she could actually see one, no matter how unusually. Ayakashi were one thing, but Kamigami were something else entirely. They were seen so rarely as it was, she would have thought that being lucky enough to see one herself would be something...grand.
There was nothing. She felt nothing for it.
Pai had always known that she accepted things quickly, and easily, and that nothing she felt or thought would change the fact of whatever was happening. Her default facial expression when something unexpected happens, she knew, was a blank mask, even if her heart was in turmoil.
But this...this was so out there, so unexpected – this was a god she was standing before...and she felt nothing.
The woman – the Kamigami – Konohana – raised her hand and snapped the fan in it open. On it was painted beautiful cherry flowers on a backdrop of deep red. Konohana waved the fan once, and a faint breeze stirred.
The heavy, leaden weight in Pai's muscles abruptly vanished, and she stumbled, trying to catch her balance, but she still fell to her knees. Her lungs exploded as she dragged in huge pockets of chilly, blessed air, the tight band of panic finally loosening its hold on her heart. Her hands were shaking, but Pai didn't know if it was because of the fear the pervaded her despite her blank face, or because of her own condition.
Konohana floated down until she was a few inches above the ground, kneeling on air in front of Pai. "Do you know why I told my son to retrieve the Ayakashi's Mask, when Kamigami have no obligation to help them?"
Why ask me that, Pai thought, looking up at the woman, muscles slack as she weakly pushed herself back against the wall, instinctively trying to get as far from this inhuman being as she could. When you look like you're going to tell me anyway?
Not to appear rude, Pai nodded anyway. Kamigami, gods of any calibre, were known to be of fickle nature. They were easily offended at imagined slights. Ayakashi were one thing – Kamigami were something else. They each had vast power in their own specific skills and could far outmatch even the strongest Hengen.
There were none stronger than the Kamigami.
Pai knew she should do her best not to do or say anything that could be perceived as an insult by Konohana Sakuya-Hime, who – if the fables weren't highly embellished the way the often were – literally walked into a burning hut to prove to her husband that she was pregnant with his children after he accused her of infidelity.
Something strange happened then. It was like the smoke, or the hazy film that hid Konohana's face, slowly cleared away. Bit by bit, Pai was able to discern her features.
Konohana was beautiful. The painting in the shrine did little justice to the Kamigami herself. Her jet black hair framed a small, heart-shaped face that was a smooth, flawless white. She had a button-nose set over lips that curved up in a provocative smirk that unsettled Pai. Her eyes were red, just as any Ayakashi's.
She was Konohana Sakuya-Hime no Mikoto, the Kamigami who was the reason why Shiori was always going to be in almost constant danger because of the allure of her aura.
"Hayashi Shin is a Daitengu. An achievement like that, at so young an age, is impressive." Konohana's smile softened. She looked sad. "But that is just a formality, merely a title given to the strongest Tengu. Even without being a Daitengu, Shin is an incredibly strong Hengen. This," she raised the white sash in her hand and tapped it with a slender finger. "Keeps his most uncontrollable abilities in check. Those abilities, his innate power, are tied to his Makashi, the core of his soul. Without his Mask, Shin is unable to control his Makashi. If he cannot control it, those abilities are set loose."
Konohana leaned forward and, with the closed edge of the fan, tapped Pai under her chin once. It was like the metal band that kept her throat closed off was suddenly released, and she was left gasping for breath and speaking almost all at once.
"Is..." she coughed, licking her dry lips and clearing her aching throat. "That's a bad thing?"
Konohana nodded. "If he could control them, it wouldn't be a problem. But he can't – not yet. He hasn't been given the chance he needs to learn how to use them properly. Until then, he needs his Mask. If those abilities are not properly tempered, they will destroy him, and those around him will suffer for it."
Pai was stunned.
Objectively, she knew that the Daitengu were powerful Ayakashi, and that they all looked to Shin as their second-in-command not because he was Kouta's best friend, but on his merits and their trust in him. She knew that to have the loyalty of such men as the Daitengu, Shin would have to be strong enough, because the Ayakashi world was far more obviously and intrinsically vicious and domineering than the human.
She knew all that. Objectively.
Being told, point-blank, by a god, that Shin was that strong, enough that he could hurt those around him?
That was something else all together.
But if he was so dangerous, if he was so powerful that a god would call him uncontrollable without his Mask – why did she feel safe when she was with him?
He's more than that, she thought, unable to find the strength to say those words but holding them close to her as Konohana's words attempted to throw her off-balance. He's more than his Makashi alone.
While Pai was prone and unable to properly move, still too dazed and weak, Konohana tied the white sash around her wrist lying limp in her lap. Pai could only watch her without expression, unable to get rid off the odd sense of distance she felt between herself and her own body, even knowing that she was in her body. It was weird, and unsettling, and Pai just wanted this to end.
A fizz of black – black – electricity lit up as Konohana double-knotted the sash. She watched Konohana quickly moved back from her to avoid the black spark from touching her half see-through, mirage-like skin. Pai herself didn't feel anything of that electric charge (why was it black?), only the silken softness of the sash on her wrist.
Pai raised her head and looked up at Konohana. She wore a a puzzled frown on her face as she stared at the tips of her slim fingers. Pai could see a red string tied around Konohana's little finger. The other end of that thread must have been on the god Ninigi, Amaterasu's grandson.
No matter how twisted and tangled it got, it was said that nothing could severe the red thread of fate that connected two souls born to be together – not even the gods, it seemed.
Konohana tipped forward, her crimson eyes glowing as she stared straight into Pai's eyes. She blinked, dizzy, as if the world was tilting all around her and she was slipping, falling. It felt like those moments when she could feel herself mentally drifting off, but far more intense than those times. There was an immense pressure on her brain, as if she was being weighed down under a mountain.
She tried to close her eyes, blearily realizing that Konohana was trying to enthral her – an ability Daichi warned her Hengen and Kamigami used to ensnare unsuspecting humans in their grips – but she couldn't. Her eyes were stuck fast to the Kamigami hovering before her, unable to tear her gaze away for even a moment.
"So much grief," she murmured, as if to herself. "So torn a mind of one so young..."
Finally, just when Pai thought she was going to break and buckle beneath the pressure, secede to every whim the Kamigami commanded of her, it all stopped. The world righted itself with nauseating clarity, and she blinked rapidly as the heaviness on her brain eased away like it never was.
"The others do well to keep away from you. She would tear them apart like so much paper for turning a blind eye to her cries." Konohana whispered. Her eyes were focused on a point of Pai's shoulder. She had a feeling that the Kamigami wasn't speaking to her in this moment. Konohana's eyes snapped back to Pai's with an intensity that frightened her. "I don't even want to think about what she will do if you lose control of her."
Konohana said it directly to her, as if Pai was supposed to understand any of what she was saying, but Pai had a strange gut feeling that Konohana wasn't speaking to her, almost more at her.
But – there was no one else here.
"Your job, Pai," and she absolutely hated how Konohana said her name, like it was some intimate secret between the two of them. "Is to give Shin his Mask. Whatever else happens, you must get Shin and his Mask back together, before it's too late and we have to step in. It will not be easy, mind you."
Pai's eyebrow twitched as she looked up at Konohana's soft, red gaze. "Why? Won't he want it back?"
"Shin will. His Makashi will not." Konohana tilted her head to the side. "Who do you think is in control right now?"
His Makashi.
"You will have to be careful," Konohana continued when she saw the answer on Pai's face. "He is held in the grips of the darkest aspects of what makes him who he is. He could kill you, and not see any fault in doing so."
Pai stared at her. How the hell am I supposed to do it the? "How will I give him his Mask back if his True – if his Makashi doesn't want it?"
Konohana gave her a look like that should already be obvious. "He will fight against it. You will fight back. You will have to force it on him."
Pai immediately recoiled at the thought. She'd have to what?
Konohana smiled like there was anything at all amusing about what she had said. "To do that, you will need to use what no one else knows; his true name. Use it, and you will save him. Is that not what you asked for?"
True name. His true name. Shin's true name.
She doesn't look it, but she is old. Pai reasoned. Maybe she's senile? What was a 'true name'?
Konohana's gaze sharpened on hers, and Pai swallowed nervously. "I'd very much appreciate it if you refrain from having such insulting thoughts about me, thank you very much. I'm not even that old –" You are literally thousands of years old. "Some of the others think I am a baby, compared to everyone else."
Why did that sound like something a refined, sophisticated version of Shiori would say?
"Can you hear my thoughts?" she asked instead.
"Why would I need to do that?" Konohana replied bluntly. Pai noticed she didn't deny that she could. "Your face reveals everything you're thinking. You'd better work on that if you don't want to give away your secrets."
What secrets? Pai didn't have any secrets.
"But I don't know what a true name is," she said instead of entertaining what could very well be the fake proverbial carrot dangled in front of her nose. "You say it like it's something different from an ordinary name."
Konohana looked distinctly miffed that Pai didn't chase after the bait, but continued on. "An Ayakashi's true name is what they are," she replied in a tone that made it sound like the simplest facet of what there was to life. "It is the name that is their very nature. It is their Makashi's name, the source of their power, the essence of their being. Knowing an Ayakashi's true name is owning the leash that controls them, and their power."
No. No.
Something deep in Pai, unnameable and childish and afraid, instantly recoiled at the thought of – of owning Shin. Maybe not in the literal sense of the word, but – wasn't it? If what Konohana said a true name was what Pai's understanding, wasn't that having complete control over someone else?
I don't want it, I don't want it, I don't want it.
Her lips trembled as she shook her head. "I don't want it. I don't want to control him. I just –I just want to help him."
Konohana's smile widened. Pai was struck by how uncannily like Shiori she looked right then. There was the same little tug of the lips, the lower lip sightly fuller than the upper that looked so like Shiori's. If Pai squinted and ignored that Konohana was kneeling a clear foot above the ground, she could almost confuse Konohana for Shiori, or the other way round.
"That is why it must be you. The past influences you where others wouldn't, where others would use him to chase after their own selfish desires, even if it is those closest to him." She laughed, an abrupt sound that startled Pai. It was like the sound of glass shattering, splintering into a thousand different pieces. It scared her; there was something inherently wrong about it. "And look at you. You! You, a human, and you don't want it. You, a human, and you don't want it when others who have known more than you to become what they are would relish in the power of owning someone like Shin."
What? None of that made any sense. Was Konohana being purposefully vague? What for? Why offer her this help and then throw these obscure words at her like she was supposed to know what any of it meant?
"Anyone else would kill for the chance to know an Ayakashi's true name. Many have. Some for good reason, most for not. Which do you think you are?"
Pai hesitated.
She hated it, she hated the thought of using anything against a person to make them do something they didn't want to. The thought of it alone had hives crawling up her skin. But...but if Konohana was right, and Shin's Makashi was ruling him, giving him back his Mask will be giving it back to his Makashi, not Shin.
Shin would want the control the Mask gave, but Pai doubted the same could be said for his Makashi, if he had evaded the Daitengu's search for him for so long.
She might actually have to do this. To help Shin, she...
Pai had the inexplicable urge to cry, then. She didn't even understand it, why she felt the disgust at the thought of controlling Shin – even if it was for his own good – so viscerally, like slime coating her skin. Her throat was tight and her heart weighed down by a house of bricks as she realized she may have to do this, if all else failed.
She didn't want to. She didn't want to.
Konohana smiled at her, sadness tipping it grey. "Sometimes the answers we need are not the ones we look for. You prayed for a way to help Shin. This is it. Will you accept it?"
"But..." she paused, her stomach shrivelling to a tight ball. "I don't – I don't know it. His true name – I don't know it."
Konohana was about to answer, but she stopped herself short, back straightening. She looked up, somewhere above and behind Pai's head, an irate expression twisting her lips into a faint sneer.
Pai was about to turn around to see what had caught Konohana's attention, before the Kamigami looked down at her again. She leaned forward and touched Pai's chin with her fan, tipping her face up to her. This time, instead of releasing invisible binds that stopped her from speaking, they tightened around her, so much so that Pai felt like she was trapped inside the first of a giant hand, unable to move, hardly breathing.
She swallowed a gasp, shocked as Konohana kept the fan pressed firmly up against her chin, those inhuman crimson eyes staring deep into her own. Pain, the likes of which she had never felt before, spread from the tip of her chin and flowed up her jaw and to her head.
And she couldn't even move. Scream, cry, try to kick away from the pain – she couldn't do any of it. She was a prisoner in her own body as the pain of a thousand arrows piercing her body washed over her in relentless droves.
As Pai stared into those eyes, barely able to see past the red haze of pain, a gust of wind blew in from the stairs that led back to the chozuya. With it, the sound of voices breezed in, harried and concerned, confused. Konohana's form was dissolving before her, and Pai knew her time is up.
"You know it. You have noticed it, little one." Pai could barely make out the soft words that drowned in the stinging pain that overwhelmed her, vision dimming as her eyes closed, her brain shutting down. "You, of anyone, know his true name."