Yatagarasu Series
Volume 5:
Princess Tamayori
Author: Abe Chisato
Part 4: Verification
“So we’ll stop importing these goods for the time being?”
“Yes. It turns out that I couldn’t do anything for Yamauchi, in the end.”
Junten clicked his tongue in annoyance. It was so difficult to figure out what Nazukihiko was thinking; he was always so dispassionate. He was also uniformly harsh with himself.
They were speaking in a warehouse that was close to the Gate of the Vermilion Bird. The gate was used by Yatagarasu and Tengu for trade. It provided passage from Yamauchi to the human world.
The warehouse was spacious enough to accommodate business negotiations, long meetings, and the appraisal of goods. Large loads came and went from various places; the warehouse was always busy. At first glance, the warehouse appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary. Only the section reserved for Yatagarasu customers was lavishly decorated and furnished.
The antique chairs, table, and plush red carpet weren’t really suited to Nazukihiko’s personality. Junten didn’t really care for them, either. He guessed that one of his predecessors had liked more ostentation.
“You’ll hurt my pride, talking like that,” Junten said. “It’s not like I supplied you with defective goods. I just wasn’t able to procure what you needed. There’s a significant difference.”
Nazukihiko nodded.
Junten was disappointed that he and the Yatagarasu wouldn’t be doing much business in the immediate future. He’d been looking forward to showing Nazukihiko what the automatic shotguns on his display table were capable of.
There was nothing wrong with the firearms that Junten had provided the Yatagarasu; he’d double- and triple-checked his logs and the merchandise itself. A few hours before, the shotguns on his table had shone a shiny black, but now they were covered in rust. Nazukihiko had discovered that bringing guns into Yamauchi ruined them in moments. None of his people had even gotten the chance to fire one.
This was a problem for Junten and Nazukihiko. Nazukihiko had been asking for weapons to use against the Kuisaru for years. For reasons that neither of them understood, firearms were unusable in Yamauchi.
“Could this be because of the barrier that protects Yamauchi?” Junten asked.
“Perhaps,” Nazukihiko said. “Anything that could be a weapon experiences similar changes. We can import butter knives, but not butcher knives—the edges of the latter dull and can’t be sharpened.” He shrugged. “At least we don’t need weapons at the moment. Who knows how long that will last, though.”
Junten nodded thoughtfully.
It had been about three months since Shiho had returned to the mountain god’s realm. The mountain god was now calm and tranquil; he seemed to have no lingering animosity toward the Yatagarasu. As long as Shiho remained near him, the mountain god did not lose himself in anger.
“It’s good to have peace,” Junten ventured.
Nazukihiko nodded. “I hope that the mountain god will remain peaceful. This one, and his successors.”
The mountain god was supposed to have all of his predecessors’ memories, but he didn’t. Like Nazukihiko, the flow of memories from his ancestors had been interrupted by acts of unspeakable violence. The mountain god remembered some things, but not everything.
The mountain god and Nazukihiko shared a problem. Nazukihiko thought that it was his responsibility to solve it.
“Your people seem jumpy,” Junten said, gesturing toward the Gate of the Vermilion Bird. Columns of armed guards stood near it day and night. “For peacetime, I mean.”
The Gate of the Vermilion Bird was usually guarded in some way, but Junten had never seen it have such a heavy and consistent guard presence before. All of the guards on duty were especially vigilant. If one of their fellows started flagging from exhaustion, they closed ranks and dismissed that guard to rest.
Junten understood that the Yatagarasu had many things to fear, including attacks by Kuisaru and the mountain god. This place was under his protection, though, and he’d never dealt falsely with the Yatagarasu. Seeing so many guards here every day made him feel unpleasant. It was hard not to be trusted when you’d always been trustworthy.
Nazukihiko’s gaze swept over the gate. He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “Oh, yes. I’m sorry about all this. My people are concerned for my safety. I can’t always stop them from going overboard. I’ve told them over and over again that the Kuisaru won’t attack here, but they refuse to listen.”
That mollified Junten somewhat. “Sounds like you’re having a bit of a rough time of it. Would you like to visit my place and have tea?”
Nazukihiko tilted his head. They could discuss anything related to business here. For Junten to suggest going somewhere more private meant that he had news for Nazukihiko’s ears alone. Nazukihiko trusted and valued his own people, but they both knew that not all of the Yatagarasu were on his side.
“I think I’ll come and visit, if it’s not too much trouble,” Nazukihiko said.
He followed Junten out of the warehouse.
The Gate of the Vermilion Bird was connected to Junten’s warehouse via a long tunnel. They walked past the tunnel entrance to a garage behind the warehouse. This garage was unassuming on the outside, but it was kitted out like a fortress; Junten conducted all of his most sensitive business here.
This garage used to appear more ominous, threatening, and inorganic—a closed-off office building with key card entry. Not so now; Junten had remodeled it to appear nondescript almost as soon as he became the King of the Tengu. The remodel had the benefit of not drawing much attention to itself. Junten’s general policy of hiding in plain sight among the humans was favored by his people.
It was still early afternoon. Each day, the sun shone longer and was warmer, scorching the ground. The surface of the Dragon Marsh glittered in the summer sunshine.
Nazukihiko said he had already eaten, so Junten set aside his mask and brewed some herbal tea for himself and his guest.
“Please have a seat and relax,” Junten said, offering tea.
“I will accept it with gratitude, but I do not have much time. Could you get to the point?”
Junten sighed internally. He’d hoped to take a bit of a break, himself. But Nazukihiko wasn’t really the type of person to take breaks.
“All right, then. Shiho’s grandmother came to Sannai Village recently.”
“Really?”
“Yes. The villagers wouldn’t talk to her.” Junten picked up a faxed message and slid it across the table to Nazukihiko. “She claimed her granddaughter had been kidnapped by her son, but since even the village policeman is in on the whole thing, she was simply sent away.”
Shiho’s grandmother had inquired with the bus company and confirmed that the driver had seen someone who looked like her granddaughter. However, her uncle testified that he had taken her to the station as soon as Golden Week ended, and the villagers corroborated the story.
Shiho’s wallet wasn’t missing, and she’d left her grandmother a note before leaving. The villagers in Sannai all claimed that she’d said she “didn’t want to go back” after her week with them. Given all that evidence, the police suspected no foul play. Shiho was considered a runaway, but no one except for her grandmother was looking for her.
“Where is Shiho’s grandmother now?”
“It seems she went back to Tokyo, but she’s come out here again. She’s taken lodgings at an inn and is investigating her granddaughter’s disappearance.” Junten looked up from a stack of papers. “So, what should we do? We’re probably better off not telling her.”
Nazukihiko frowned.
“…Right?”
Nazukihiko’s frown grew deeper. “It is true that our circumstances would make telling her Shiho’s whereabouts inconvenient.”
“Exactly. I’ve heard that the mountain god’s realm is a much calmer place now. If we tell Shiho that her grandmother is looking for her, what will happen? Shiho already has great power as the mountain god’s mother. We shouldn’t meddle with that. It’s better for everyone if the mountain god remains stable.”
Nazukihiko leaned forward, rubbing his temples. “I know.”
“I understand why it’s hard to do this,” Junten said soothingly. “It’s impossible to know if we’re doing the right thing, leaving things as we are.”
“Of course you’re not,” a young boy with silver hair said acerbically. His nose twitched.
Junten was so startled that he nearly spilled his tea.
The boy sat on the white leather sofa between Junten and Nazukihiko. He was about twelve or thirteen, wearing a thin silk kimono that looked as if it had been freshly washed. The garment was far too large for him and he was very pale. His eyes were unsteady, glittering things that matched his strange, washed-out hair.
Until he’d spoken, the boy had given no sign of his presence. He was certainly not an ordinary human boy.
“Who are you?” Junten asked.
“I’m not your enemy,” the boy said.
The garage was a disguised fortress. Even a trained human would have trouble getting in undetected. Where on earth had this boy come from?
The boy took in Junten’s wariness and Nazukihiko’s surprise. Then he sighed wearily. “You disappoint me,” he said. “I thought that you two, at least, would try to help that poor girl.”
Nazukihiko spoke cautiously, hand-selecting every word. “We do wish to help Shiho. She is a benefactress to the Yatagarasu, and we are grateful to her. Of course I want to repay her kindness and help her, but she returned to the mountain of her own free will and is raising the mountain god. I do not wish to disregard her wishes.”
“Idiot,” the boy spat. “Do you seriously think Shiho went back to that realm of her own accord, even though she knows she could be killed if things go wrong? Are you thoroughly insane?!” He shook his head. “She was called back by the will of the mountain god, which is in the process of subsuming her own.” He pointed at Sannai Village in the distance—up the mountain. “Don’t you understand what that horrible realm is for? From the very beginning, it’s been like this. There’s a mountain god and a mother. The mountain god always requires a human woman to be his slave.
“Most women fight it, and they’re killed before they become part of that realm. The longer Shiho stays there and fulfills the mountain god’s requirements, the more of herself she loses. It might already be too late. Shiho has lost sight of who she is. She might not even realize it’s happened.”
The boy fixed his eyes on Nazukihiko, burning like embers scattering sparks. “And here you sit prattling on about Shiho’s wishes. Spare me—and her—your condescension. You’re not worried about Shiho. You’re worried about saving your own skin.”
Nazukihiko and Junten exchanged a look. There wasn’t an easy way to answer the boy, but Nazukihiko decided that he would try again, still cautiously. “I do not choose to save myself, but my people. I cannot act in a way that would harm any of my people. If sacrificing her alone could save my people, then no matter how inhuman I know it to be, I have no choice but to abandon Shiho.”
“Then be honest, and save Shiho. If you sacrifice Shiho, your people won’t be saved.”
Nazukihiko’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“If you abandon Shiho here and now, it means you lot will happily be joining the ranks of the monsters.” The boy appeared exasperated. “Think about it. The mountain god isn’t ashamed of eating people, and the villagers also know that he’s a monster. You two serve a monster. What happens to the monsters in all the stories, hm? You don’t want to be wiped out when the heroes of the tale arrive, do you? Right now, you’re complicit in grave crimes.”
Junten swallowed heavily. “What do you believe we should do, then?”
“Wake Shiho up. Make her remember that she’s a human and has her own life. Let her decide what kind of help she wants. One phrase is enough: make her say, ‘Help me.’ I’ll take it from there.”
“By ‘take it from there,’ you mean…”
“I’m saying I will kill the mountain god and Ōzaru.”
The room’s temperature felt like it had dropped several degrees in moments.
“If you do that, Shiho will be saved, and you will live longer,” the boy said solemnly.
There was stunned silence, broken by the barking of a dog outside the window.
The boy glanced out the window, irritated. “Events are already in motion. You don’t have much time. Do your utmost to save Shiho and yourselves—or die with the monster.”
Nazukihiko blinked, and the boy vanished.
“Who was that?” Junten asked.
“I’ve never seen him before, but… I have an idea.” He rubbed his forehead. “The Kuisaru hate the puppy that Shiho brought to the mountain god’s realm. They shun it, in fact. Shiho told me that a boy with silver-blond hair had given it to her. She said the boy tried to stop her from returning to the mountain god’s realm. When she refused, he handed her the puppy.”
“It was probably that guy just now.”
“He appeared in your fortress without warning,” Nazukihiko said. “He might be more powerful than you—and more powerful than the mountain god. But I don’t know who he is.”
Junten’s eyes widened. “I see. So that’s it. A god who appears in a village that has the custom of offering human sacrifices… and accompanied by a dog, huh.”
“You know who that boy is?”
“I do,” Junten said, “and it might be best to do as he says. His name is—”
Before Junten could finish his sentence, someone rang the doorbell.
The two of them turned their eyes toward the intercom. Junten sprang to his feet and headed for the entrance. He checked to make sure that Nazukihiko was well hidden behind a bookshelf. Then he pulled the door open.
“I apologize for my intrusion,” an old woman said. She thrust out a photograph at Junten. “Have you seen this girl? She’s gone missing.”
The photograph was a recent one of Shiho. Junten recognized her instantly.
The old woman’s hair was neatly tied back. She had delicate, refined features, but her expression was exceedingly severe. Her back was perfectly straight. She wore a light cardigan and practical-looking trousers, but if she were dressed in a kimono, she would have had the air of a tea ceremony or flower arrangement artist.
“She is my granddaughter. She visited Sannai Village during Golden Week. No one has seen her since.”
“My goodness,” Junten said.
“Do you recognize her?”
The King of the Tengu hesitated. He cleared his throat.
“You are a Yatagarasu,” the old woman said. “Or a Tengu. Which one?”
Nazukihiko shifted from foot to foot in his hiding place.
Junten tilted his head, feigning ignorance. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know what you’re talking about.”
Shiho’s grandmother did not back down. “A silver-haired boy I met near the village a moment ago told me to come here. He said there are beings called Yatagarasu and Tengu here, and that you would surely be able to help me.”
There was no doubt about it: that boy had led Shiho’s grandmother to this place.
Shiho’s grandmother’s eyes were very like her granddaughter’s.
“I don’t care who or what you are,” Shiho’s grandmother said. “I don’t even care if you’re human or not. If you know something about my granddaughter, I insist that you tell me.”
For a moment, Junten fell silent, deep in thought. Then he said, “Nazukihiko, you should speak as well.”
Nazukihiko stepped out from behind the bookshelf. Junten took a step back and invited Shiho’s grandmother into the house.
“Please come in.”
***
Shiho is alive. Hearing that made Hisano feel like she could breathe for the first time in weeks.
“I see,” Hisano said quietly. “I’m glad she’s safe.”
“She is doing very well,” the young man named Nazukihiko said.
“You don’t seem surprised to learn that Shiho is in the mountain god’s realm,” Mr. Tanimura, the other man, said.
Hisano nodded. Her shoulders slumped. “I knew that there was something monstrous in the mountains, and I had anticipated that she was in an inescapable situation. If she’s alive, then everything else can be managed somehow.”
Mr. Tanimura leaned forward in a naked display of interest. “So you know about Sannai Village’s ritual. When you lived there, the villagers were still practicing it.”
“That’s why I left the village and took my daughter with me,” Hisano said. “That was thirty-seven years ago.”
Hisano had married into Sannai Village when she was nineteen. No one had told her anything about the mountain god or sacrificing women to it before her marriage. She gave birth to a son first, but her husband wasn’t pleased; he kept nagging her to get pregnant again with a daughter. At the time, she’d thought that he just wanted a girl more than a boy.
A few days after the birth of Hisano’s daughter, a white-feathered arrow painted red flew into the doorframe of the neighboring house.
The villagers celebrated an annual festival in May, during which they made offerings to the mountain god at the village shrine. That year, the neighboring family’s daughter was placed into a wooden chest and left in front of the shrine with the rest of the offerings. When Hisano went to check on the girl, she had vanished along with everything else.
“I was shocked when I discovered what the villagers had been doing,” Hisano said. “I asked my husband what had become of the girl that the villagers had placed with the shrine offerings. He didn’t tell me. He said, ‘Our turn is next.’ I thought he meant the role of the shrine keeper. But that wasn’t it. It was our turn to sacrifice a daughter. That was why he’d wanted one so badly.
“My husband said we were simply doing our duty, which was honorable and all for the sake of the village. ‘We are secure,’ he said to me. ‘We will have a daughter to give when our time comes.’ He patted our daughter, Yumiko, on the head like nothing was wrong.
“I learned that some sacrifices fared better than others. A girl who lasted a long time as a sacrifice bought the village time to recover. A girl who didn’t last was bad and didn’t satisfy the mountain god, so a new girl would need to be sacrificed. That terrible man did not cherish Yumiko as his daughter. He raised her to be a good sacrifice for the mountain god.” Hisano frowned bitterly.
“I decided to leave the village with both of my children. Shūichi immediately told his father what I was planning, though. I ran off with Yumiko, who was five at the time. It was the best I could do. I cut off all contact with the village and refused to return.”
Mr. Tanimura nodded. “Shiho said that her uncle kidnapped her because her mother ran away and the village was thrown into chaos.”
“That is indeed what happened,” Nazukihiko said. “Hisano ran off with Yumiko, and the villagers needed to produce a different sacrifice. Naturally, that sacrifice would have had a stronger desire to run away than someone born in the village, so she would have been a bad sacrifice, and she wouldn’t have lasted long.”
Sannai Village was not large. They had few girls of marriageable age available to sacrifice at any given time. With Yumiko gone, they had no choice but to procure a sacrifice from outside the village.
“And so the interval at which the sacrifice is eaten by the mountain god would grow shorter and shorter… No matter how much money they had, procuring a girl in modern Japan who couldn’t be traced would be difficult. They must have come to bear a grudge against Hisano, blaming her out of spite.”
Hisano snorted. “No one’s keeping them in that village. If they want to run, they can—just like I did.”
Mr. Tanimura gave her a wry grin. “I have heard that some villagers have tried this, but it never goes well for them. They’re plagued by bad luck. It could be that you were able to leave without consequences because you weren’t from there to start with.”
“My, my. How troublesome.” Hisano said curtly. She glared in the direction of the village.
“Shiho has no blood relatives other than me. My son probably thinks that I can’t do anything to help Shiho, but I swear I will never give up.”
The expressions on Nazukihiko’s and Mr. Tanimura’s faces were difficult to interpret. Nazukihiko spoke first. “The thing is… Shiho had an opportunity to escape from the mountain god’s sacred realm, but she decided to return of her own volition.”
“What?”
Hisano heard the details from Mr. Tanimura. She shook her head in fond exasperation. Going back was precisely the thing that her soft-hearted granddaughter would do. “That foolish girl.”
“I do not think her foolish,” Mr. Tanimura said cautiously. “She went back for good reasons.”
Hisano shook her head. “No. She’s been like that since she was little. I worried that one day, something like this might happen.
“Shiho is not merely kind-hearted. She is excessively, abnormally kind. She is compassionate to a fault. She will help someone even if it means they will cause harm to her. She was like that even before her parents passed away.
“When she had only just started elementary school, my daughter and son-in-law once came to consult me, at their wits’ end. They said that Shiho had been bullied by older students and injured. They had already talked to the school and held a meeting with the parents of the children who had done it. Hearing that the bullies now regretted what they had done, Hisano could not understand what, exactly, Shiho’s parents were troubled about.
“But Yumiko said the problem was Shiho. I thought that Shiho was having some kind of terrible traumatic response to what had happened to her, but that wasn’t it. Shiho had not realized she was being bullied. Even when the perpetrators apologized, she never understood what they were apologizing for.
“I didn’t really understand what my daughter was saying at the time. I’d noticed a general air of indifference around Shiho, but nothing worse. I didn’t worry about her like her mother did until we started living together. If Shiho wants to be kind, she gives no thought at all to her own well-being.
“Of course, she was taken advantage of—more times than I can count. Classmates or older students exploited her, but she claimed she didn’t suffer. I remembered what my daughter had talked to me about—about the bullying incident—and I was at a loss, just like she was.
“Shiho had said that because the bullies were laughing, she did not realize that she was being bullied.”
Hisano shuddered. “Shiho is empty. She does not value herself in the slightest. She believes what others say without question. She doesn’t make moral judgments of her own. She tries to please people because she thinks that is a good thing.” She clenched her fists. “Excessive kindness isn’t a virtue. It’s a mental illness. Without help and vigilance on the part of those who care for her, she will one day suffer so much that there can be no fixing it, not with apologies or medicine or money.
“I tried telling Shiho that she needed to protect herself more. Shiho never seemed to understand what I meant. She is my beloved granddaughter, a treasure I value more than anything else in this world, and still I could not help her.”
Hisano covered her face with both hands. “I was afraid. I thought that one day Shiho might die for the sake of others. In the end, my fears were justified.” She sat up straight again, hands folded in her lap. “This will not do. Shiho must be free to live her own life.”
Mr. Tanimura and Nazukihiko watched her in silence.
“I’m sorry,” Hisano said. “I said too much, I think.”
“No, good woman,” Nazukihiko said soothingly. “You’re all right.”
“I will be,” Hisano said. “Shiho is alive, so all we need to do is rescue her. I don’t care that we’re dealing with a god. I’ll fight him if I have to.”
Mr. Tanimura appeared troubled. “Shiho might not agree to leave the mountain god’s realm… and that’s not our only problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your granddaughter has already obtained supernatural power as the mother of the mountain god. If she has been absorbed into the mountain god’s realm, it’s possible she can no longer return of her own will.”
Hisano’s brows furrowed together. “She’s just a high school student.”
“That is who she was before she entered the mountain god’s realm,” Mr. Tanimura said.
“There are plenty of examples of people becoming gods, like Emperor Sutoku and Sugawara no Michizane. You’ve heard of them, right?”
Mr. Tanimura watched Hisano’s face carefully. “Those men became vengeful spirits and were enshrined by humans who feared the destruction they could cause. That is how they became gods. Your granddaughter chose to enter the mountain god’s realm and enter his service. By doing so, she has gained some measure of his divine power.”
Hisano stared blankly. “How could something like that happen?”
Mr. Tanimura shifted in his seat. “Listen,” he said. “There are a lot of things that happen that can’t be easily explained. I’m not human, no matter how I look; neither is he. I go for a full medical checkup once a year, you know. I’ve never once been told, ‘You’re not human.’ Even if they were to make use of the most advanced science and technology and examine me thoroughly down to my cells, they wouldn’t be able to find proof that I’m not human.”
He paused. “But I’m not. I am the King of the Tengu.”
Hisano stared at him, searching for the lie. Mr. Tanimura appeared thoroughly human to her.
“I’ll back up a bit to the origin of the Tengu,” Mr. Tanimura said. “The earliest legends I know of place them in China. In China, Tengu are depicted as dogs that run through the heavens. There is a theory that Tengu legends began when meteors trailed across the sky, and someone likened it to a pack of running dogs in the sky.
These legends were transmitted to Japan. In Japan, Tengu aren’t just dogs—they might be crow-shaped, or monkey-shaped, or long-nosed demons.
“The image of the King of the Tengu that ordinary people envision—with a red face and a long nose—is a depiction that took shape after Buddhism, mountain asceticism, and Shintoism all got mixed together.
“No one knows what Tengu really look like—aside from Tengu themselves—and no one knows their true origin, not even me.” He smiled disarmingly and shrugged. “My body is human, but that is not what I am. I like those long-nosed red masks, though; I wear them as often as I can.” He laughed.
“More recently, I’ve heard tales that all of the modern Tengu are human children raised by Tengu to pass on their legacy and power. Some of the stories claim that these children are half-human descendants of the Tengu. Again, I don’t know if these stories are true. I believe they are true based on what I know.
“Modern Tengu blend in—because we can. Most Tengu appear completely human, though we have a tendency to be a bit short. You might know a few Tengu yourself, Miss Hisano. If you have a short friend who has good business acumen and is exceedingly intelligent, that friend just might be a Tengu, or the descendant of one.”
Mr. Tanimura’s gaze sharpened on Hisano. “But descendants of Tengu who have forgotten their heritage are no longer Tengu.”
Hisano had no idea why Mr. Tanimura was telling her these things.
Mr. Tanimura scratched his cheek. “It all sounds like a story, doesn’t it? Tengu don’t seem real to you. I can list some of the powers Tengu are supposed to have. We can create illusory sounds in the mountains to lure people in or chase them away. We can cause a rain of small stones to fall from nowhere. And we can cause localized earthquakes.
“All of these are phenomena that can be explained scientifically. Modern people surmise that people in the past, unfamiliar with science, blamed Tengu in order to explain the inexplicable.” He paused. “I’d like to show you something.”
Before Hisano could ask, “Huh?”, Mr. Tanimura clapped his hands.
A thunderous roar shook the ground, and then the whole house was shaking.
“There. A localized earthquake.”
Next, Mr. Tanimura snapped his fingers.
A sound like gunfire rang out; Hisano ducked her head and covered her ears. Books tumbled from shelves and the light fixture overhead swung precariously.
Hisano clung desperately to the back of the sofa, terrified.
Mr. Tanimura clapped his hands once more. The horrible sound and the shaking stopped dead.
Mr. Tanimura smiled brightly at Hisano. “Now, what do you think? You could argue that all of that was a coincidence. We might have had a brief earthquake, a meteor strike, and a devastating hailstorm at the same time for a few moments. If I were here without any awareness that I was a Tengu, I might insist that what just happened was just bad luck—nothing more than a meteorite, hail, and an earthquake overlapping by chance.”
A touch of fear went through Hisano. Mr. Tanimura seemed like a kind, good-natured man, but there was much more to him than that.
“The only thing that makes me a Tengu is the awareness that I am one.”
Nazukihiko came over to Hisano after pouring water into a cup. He offered the water to the old woman.
Hisano accepted the glass of water without saying a word.
“That was an extreme example,” Mr. Tanimura said. “People of the past blamed gods for illnesses and lightning strikes that were entirely natural. Tengu are what they are because they are self-aware of themselves and their powers. And because others recognize them.”
Nazukihiko nodded. “The Tengu powers he showed you are good examples. You went from seeing him as Mr. Tanimura, a normal man, to Junten, the King of the Tengu, in an instant. If you were standing outside this house, you would blame the earthquake and the sound you heard on natural causes. Do you understand? Mystery does not exist unless someone asks a question first. Nature does not see mysteries in its workings; it understands itself.”
“Similarly, non-human beings cannot exist without humans as contrast,” Mr. Tanimura said. “We must recognize ourselves for what we are, and be recognized by others, in order to exist in our current form. It is the same for gods. If there are no humans, gods cannot exist. On this mountain, that system is especially conspicuous. Japan has plenty of legends about gods and magic, but I would wager that there are vanishingly few villages like Sannai, where magic is manifestly real.”
Mr. Tanimura stood up and gave Nazukihiko’s shoulder a friendly squeeze. “We exist: so much is clear. But we are not easily scientifically comprehensible. Trying to unravel the how and why of it is beyond my pay grade—and, frankly, my level of interest. We are here. The why of it could be interesting, but it all boils down to the question of whether the chicken or the egg came first. For practical purposes, it doesn’t matter. A chicken that lays no eggs has no future, and an egg without parents won’t hatch.
“Shiho didn’t begin her life as the mother of the mountain god, but she has been acknowledged as his mother and views herself that way.”
“Then…” Hisano thought for a moment. “How do we get her back?”
“There is a way. Shiho became the mountain god’s mother through her own free choice. If she changes her mind, she’ll be able to leave the mountain god’s realm. She can live her life as an ordinary person. In short, to get her back, we need to make her want to come back.”
“Make her want to?” Hisano asked.
“I’m sure Shiho wants to see you,” Mr. Tanimura said. “If anyone can make her want to come back to our world, it is you.”
Nazukihiko frowned like thunderclouds. “So you intend to let them meet?”
“Yes. I’ll have Hisano persuade Shiho to return to the human world.”
Nazukihiko’s expression hardened. “Given the current situation in the mountain god’s realm, I hardly think that is a wise course of action.”
“Have you forgotten what you were planning to do just a month ago? Are you being influenced by the mountain, too?” Mr. Tanimura raised an eyebrow. “You were the one who said you’d let Shiho escape and defeat the mountain god and Ōzaru. If you can make Shiho say ‘Help me,’ then that boy will do the rest of the work for you. That’s a point in our favor, don’t you think?” He gave Nazukihiko a nasty grin.
Nazukihiko looked pained. “But we don’t even know what will happen if we kill the mountain god.”
“It’s better to leave it to the boy. He’s better equipped to handle the consequences of that death, I believe.”
Nazukihiko blinked slowly. “Who is that boy, exactly?”
Mr. Tanimura nodded. “That’s right; I was interrupted earlier. In Japan, many monsters are serpent or monkey gods. Most are defeated by a hero, usually a monk or a hunter. A stranger asks them for help, and the hero comes to defeat the monster. One particular hero often brings a dog with him.”
“So the boy is a hero who’s come to defeat the mountain god?” Nazukihiko went pale.
“In stories like this, the hero defeats the monster. If the hero defeats a god, he will often rule as the new god. I think there’s a good possibility that the boy would become the new mountain god.” Mr. Tanimura grinned wryly. “So now you understand. You wouldn’t want Momotarō to show up to the Isle of Demons and find you assisting the monsters, right? You’d be killed alongside the mountain god. So steel yourself. You know what needs to be done.”
Nazukihiko appeared greatly troubled. Mr. Tanimura rubbed his back briefly to soothe him.
***
“Shiho, wait a moment,” Masuho no Susuki said.
Shiho was preparing dinner in the cave they used as a kitchen. She turned around.
“Masuho no Susuki? What is it? What’s wrong?”
Nazukihiko’s cousin had taken it upon herself to look after Shiho’s daily needs. Shiho was grateful for her help, but Masuho no Susuki appeared much more anxious than usual at the moment.
“Please come with me,” Masuho no Susuki said. She tugged at Shiho’s sleeve.
“What do you need Shiho for?” Tsubaki asked as he returned from the pantry carrying vegetables.
Masuho no Susuki looked down.
“Is it a secret?” Shiho asked. “Something only women can share?”
Masuho no Susuki nodded rapidly.
“Understood. Excuse me for just a moment, Tsubaki. Can you keep an eye on the rice and the stew?”
Tsubaki frowned. “If you’re going, I’m going with you.”
“No, you’re not,” Shiho said. “I’ll be right back. Watch the pot so that it doesn’t boil over.”
Shiho pressed the ladle into Tsubaki’s hands. “When it boils, take it off the heat and add the miso, all right?”
Tsubaki accepted the ladle reluctantly.
Masuho no Susuki said, “This way, this way.” She left the cave, walking toward the spring.
Shiho followed her. “What do you want to talk about, Masuho no Susuki?”
They didn’t usually walk together like this. They passed by the spring and came to the tunnel that led to the outside world.
“Masuho no Susuki? Where are we going?” Shiho asked.
Masuho no Susuki quickened her pace.
“Wait!” Shiho could barely keep up; she was tripping over her own feet.
Then Nazukihiko ran at them. It was dark, and Shiho couldn’t quite make out his expression. “Shiho?” he asked, his voice tense.
“What’s wrong?” Shiho asked. “What’s happened?”
“We’ll take charge of holding them back and keeping watch, but we won’t be able to hold out for long. I would have preferred to choose a better time and place, but—” He glanced at his cousin. Then he sighed. “Once you go through, it will be far more difficult to return. Be careful.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ōzaru and the Kuisaru are not to be underestimated.”
Nazukihiko gave Shiho’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Then he ran off again.
Shiho had no idea what was going on. Masuho no Susuki urged her to keep walking, so they did. The tunnel opened out on a small clearing. It looked much larger than Shiho remembered, perhaps because she’d spent so much time confined in caves lately.
The sunset was beautiful. Clouds hung on the horizon line, stained with reds and purples like artfully spilled ink. The shrine gate was illuminated, making it gleam like gold; it shone against the ultramarine sky.
Two people stood under the shrine gate.
“It’s you,” Shiho’s grandma said. She sounded stunned.
“Grandma?”
“Shiho! I’m so glad you’re safe.”
Her grandmother’s eyes brimmed with tears. She looked like she was about to come running toward Shiho, but Mr. Tanimura hurriedly held her back.
“You must not go any farther! If you enter the sacred domain, the mountain god will notice.”
“As if I care about that!” Hisano looked like she was ready to brawl with Mr. Tanimura to reach her granddaughter.
Shiho was confused. “Grandma? Why are you here?”
“To bring you back, of course.”
Shiho felt the blood drain from her face. Here, at the border between the mountain god’s realm and the human world—this was where Eiko and Kanjirō had been killed. Shiho wasn’t relieved or happy to see her grandma again. She was terrified and impatient to get back to Tsubaki.
“Go home.”
“Shiho?”
“Grandma, you mustn’t come here again. You must go home before Tsubaki and the others find you.”
“Don’t you want to go home with me?”
“That’s not something I can do right now. Grandma, please just do as I say.”
“No. I came all this way, and I am taking you back with me. You’re not thinking rationally,” she said in her lecturing voice. “You don’t understand what’s happening to you. I will protect you. You don’t need to worry about anything anymore.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand things, Grandma.” She hated being lectured at; she needed her grandma to do as she said without wasting time. “We can’t be seen together here. If we are, everything I’ve done until now will be for nothing.”
“Shiho, I think you should listen to your grandmother,” Mr. Tanimura said.
Shiho shook her head. “I’ll come home someday. But you need to wait a little longer.”
“I can’t wait. You’re coming home right now.”
“I’m not saying I won’t go home! I’m only asking you to wait! Why aren’t you listening to me?!”
“Because if I don’t take you home right now, you’ll never return. You have school, and you need to grow up. Come with me right now.”
“What I’m doing is more important than school.”
“You’re raising a monster. That’s worth more than your future?”
“Don’t call Tsubaki a monster! He’s my son—”
“What do you mean, your son?! You aren’t in your right mind. You’re coming home with me.”
Hisano had made up her mind and could not be budged. Shiho knew that better than anyone. Normally, she was willing to do whatever her grandma asked of her, but these weren’t ordinary circumstances. Resentment from a childhood full of nothing but obedience welled up within her.
“You never listen,” Shiho said sadly. “I want to do things my way sometimes, but I always have to do them your way—always, always, always! Why? Why can’t you understand what I’m trying to do?”
“Because you are a child, and my responsibility,” Hisano said. “You lost your parents. It is my duty to raise you to adulthood. For your entire life, people have tried to take advantage of you. I need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Shiho pouted. “Mom would have understood me.”
“Yumiko would be furious with you right now.”
“That’s not true.”
Hisano shook her head. “I’m saying this for your own good, Shiho. You must come home with me right now.”
“You can go home whenever you want. I’m not going with you, and I didn’t ask you to worry about me.”
Hisano’s face twisted. “You selfish girl! I’m ashamed of you.”
“You’re ashamed of me? How do you feel about yourself? You abandoned your own son!”
Hisano’s face stiffened.
“Now that I’m raising Tsubaki, I feel how horrible that is even more. I can’t believe you left a ten-year-old boy behind. I would never abandon Tsubaki.”
“You’re playing house, pretending to be the perfect mother. You’re calling a monster your son.”
Shiho looked away. It seemed like they’d never be able to understand one another. That was a difficult realization. Her grandmother had raised her since she was little. She’d always believed that her grandma was a good person. Sometimes she spoke harshly, but Shiho had never doubted that her grandma loved her.
It was important to consider this situation carefully. Shiho couldn’t believe that her grandma was a bad person; the mere idea was absurd. But she did think of Shiho as a child—a foolish, self-destructive child. She didn’t respect Shiho or her choices because of that.
Maybe that was normal. Shiho was, for all intents and purposes, Hisano’s child. Hisano was the closest thing she had to a mother; she could not be an ally and a friend at the same time.
“Shiho?”
Shiho had been quiet for a long while. Hisano didn’t sound angry, only concerned.
“Thank you for raising me.” Shiho bowed her head. “I will return someday to repay your kindness. Until then, think of me as dead if it’s easier for you.”
“What nonsense!” Hisano said.
“Goodbye. Thank you for everything. I won’t come here anymore.” Shiho bowed deeply and then turned on her heel. She returned to the mountain god’s realm at speed and didn’t look back at her grandma even once.
“Shiho, wait!” Mr. Tanimura called out to her.
“Stop!” Hisano called out. “Please, Shiho!”
Shiho didn’t turn around. She heard Mr. Tanimura say, “We should withdraw for now.”
Hisano kept calling for her. “Come back, Shiho. Come back!”
Her cries were heart-rending, but Shiho ignored them. When she emerged from the tunnel, Masuho no Susuki was waiting for her near the spring. Tsubaki was coming closer with Nazukihiko close behind him. They seemed to be having an argument.
Shiho smiled, thinking how glad she was that Tsubaki hadn’t seen her at the shrine gate.
“Tsubaki! Sorry about that. I didn’t expect to be gone for so long.”
Nazukihiko looked over at her, startled. “Shiho? You’re here.”
Tsubaki’s eyes widened.
“Of course I am,” Shiho said. “Did you put in the miso?”
“No, uh, yeah.”
Shiho tilted her head. “What kind of answer is that? Did you put in the miso or not—which is it?”
“Um, I left it there as it was, so I don’t know what happened to it.”
Shiho laughed. “No way! You didn’t even take it off the heat?” We have to hurry back, she thought, and started running. Tsubaki followed her.
“I thought you weren’t coming back,” Tsubaki muttered as he ran.
Shiho gave him a wry grin. “Of course I came back. I’m home, Tsubaki.”
“Yeah.” He chuckled.
Shiho was glad to be home. All thoughts of her grandmother vanished from her mind like so much mist and dream.
***
“Please don’t be discouraged, Miss Hisano,” Junten said.
Hisano said nothing. Junten had half-carried her down the mountain path to his home. She sank wearily into his sofa.
I let my anger get the better of me, Hisano thought. I shouldn’t have done that.
Shiho’s stubbornness was a family trait. Hisano should have known that giving Shiho an order would never work. Still, Shiho should have listened to her. She couldn’t blame only herself for this outcome.”
“I didn’t understand.” Shiho’s behavior wasn’t normal. Was she somehow being held captive by the mountain god?
“I’m sorry. It seems my outlook was too optimistic,” Junten said. He stroked his chin, deep in thought. “Perhaps we were too impatient. I never thought that Shiho would lose sight of herself to such a degree. She’s essentially been brainwashed.”
Hisano looked out through the darkened window. Was Shiho playing at being a family with that monster?
No, Hisano thought. She can’t be. Shiho was a kind, good child who’d lived a mostly ordinary life. If she came home, that life would be waiting for her. Hisano refused to let Shiho throw her life away for a stranger who wasn’t even human.
I cannot forgive this.
Shiho’s kindness had been taken advantage of since childhood. Hisano wouldn’t let her granddaughter be exploited ever again.
Translator's Note
Sugawara no Michizane was a Heian-era lord who is deified as the Japanese god of knowledge, Tenjin. He was originally venerated as a god of natural disasters and strife. Emperor Sutoku died in exile from the imperial court; legends sprang up around him claiming that he became an onryō or vengeful spirit.
Momotarō is a common Japanese children’s story about a boy hero with a dog (and other friendly animals) who sails to the Isle of Demons to defeat monsters.
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