Yowatume Iyasime has always hated her name. That single fact is the only thing that makes her different to anyone else.
She is not special. She has no prestigious ancestor. No great talents or respectable individuals have been born with the same blood that flows through her veins. No Sorcerer has been born with her family name.
She was never surprised by that. She hates her name too much to avoid seeing the connection it has to her own insignificance.
She is nobody, and only that one fact makes her special in any way.
She was always known as 'the girl who scowls hearing her own name' and nothing more, for there has never been anything else about her that stood out.
It's such a small thing. Such a minor detail to base one's identity upon.
It isn't as if she is frothing at the mouth with rage at her name either. She simply dislikes it as a personal preference.
Her name is outdated. Give to her by a mother who still tries to pretend the Nara period never happened. If it were just that, she could have bore it. But how could she possibly not hate her mother for giving her a name that directly identifies her as weak and lowly?
It is insulting, no matter how true.
So she has always hated her mother just a little bit for that, and she has always despised her name.
In her unremarkable life, this small grievance always seemed so large, simply because there was never anything to compare it to.
She is now beginning to understand exactly how insignificant it is, however.
At first it was only a small thing. A simple thing.
Her mother had come home with a kifuda tied around her wrist and a story that Iyasime still isn't sure she really believes.
She might not know all that much about how her betters live—or about much of anything really—but one thing she does know is that a Himejima does not bow to anything but a Kami or the Emperor himself.
Her mother always has her stories, so Iyasime took her words with a grain of salt. However, no amount of apprehension on her part could have stopped her mother from energetically ensuring everyone in the family was prepared to receive an honoured guest at any time.
It was exhausting, and greatly annoying for all of them. Only Iyasime's daughter seemed taken at all by her mother's words. She can understand that, she thinks. If she were told when she were her daughter's age that a handsome, kind and unmarried man of high birth was going to have a meal with her, she likely would have fallen for that fantasy just as easily.
Alas, men like that do not exist in their world. The world of their betters is nothing more than a distant fantasy for those as lowly as her family. Men like that marry Princesses and Aristocrats.
Still, she could not bring herself to crush her child's foolish dream of storied romance.
High-born like them and low-born like her live in different worlds. Those stories of lowly women like her being chanced upon by such a man are just that; stories.
But Iyasime is not her mother to push her own views onto her daughter so thoroughly. So she said none of this, and merely allowed her child this brief flight of fantasy, knowing that her girl will grow out of it as she matures to the realities of life.
Still, all of that was just a blip. A small pebble of change tossed into the still pond that was her life.
A change, yes. Something out of the ordinary, yes. But it was only a small thing; not nearly large enough to overshadow her dislike of her own name in the category of things that stand out in her life as unique or special.
She never actually expected her life would change, after all.
It was just another moment of her mother's stubbornness dragging the entire family along. It would pass and her life would return to the mediocracy that is inherent to those born outside of the silk curtains and colourful garments of their betters.
And then the world exploded and hellfire blotted out the sky.
It really was a case of one moment and then the next. There was no warning or build-up.
One moment she was sitting outside repairing one of her husband's garments while watching over her daughter as she did the same for her brother.
In the next moment, the earth began shaking as if some unfathomably large Yōkai was crawling underground. A sound that Iyasime could not begin to explain thundered over her with so much force she could only assume it to be the screaming wrath of an Ōkami.
She will not pretend that she was brave, in that moment. She cried out like any other and trembled as any would under the weight of the Divine.
But she at least dove for her daughter. If there is nothing else that Iyasime can do, she will always protect her children, with everything she has.
So she dove, and she held her daughter close as they both trembled and desperately prayed to every Kami they knew for protection; for salvation.
She had hope that the Onmyōji would protect them. The Emperor naturally comes first, and the rest of the highborn second. Even then, there are too many lowly men and women like herself in the city to count, she an her family is but a drop in the ocean.
Yet still, she held on to hope and she prayed.
And then the Imperial Palace erupted into fire.
She was a much younger girl when the Imperial Palace last burned, but this was nothing like that horrid memory of hers. This time, it was a pillar of fire that rose so high as to touch the Heavens.
She didn't know what was happening. She could not know; it was so far beyond her. For all she knew, this fire was the staircase of Amaterasu-sama's descent.
She just did not know.
So she didn't even try to think about it. She just held her sobbing daughter close to her bosom and tried to drag them both inside as the world continued to tremble.
She doesn't honestly recall much of the mad scramble that followed. The panicked rush that left her with all the women of her family and the youngest boy all kneeling before their household shrine, praying to Inari-Ōkami for safety.
She doesn't know how long they prayed, but the shaking never stopped once. It only grew worse and worse until their prayer was interrupted as half of her home disappeared.
She screamed. Her daughter screamed.
They all did. What else could they do?
Her home was removed by half. By the time she had the presence of mind to even turn around, all she saw was that half of her home had disappeared as if the sky became a sword and plunged through it all.
And all she could do was pray her gratitude to Inari-Ōkami that her family were not in that half of the home.
A Sorcerer came next. She does not know what sort of Sorcerer he was, nor does she really know how to tell the difference anyway.
He moved with blistering speed and spoke no words. In mere moments he had her family gathered together with a Shimenawa circled around them all, and then in the next moment the world around them changed again and she was standing elsewhere.
So much was happening. Everywhere she turned was more chaos. Her ears constantly assaulted by noise she could not define.
All she could do was try her best to suppress her own terror in some vain attempt to sooth her family's.
At some point, she grew used to the terror enough to actually try and understand what was happening. She did not succeed in that front.
She saw bird the size of a building made out of fire that burned blue and red. It moved with such speed that she only caught a brief glimpse of it. Outside of that moment, she saw little more than a red-blue line erratically shooting through the sky like a falling star.
She didn't know what was happening. She couldn't see it, couldn't hear anything over the din of great battle. But she could feel it.
By Kami could she feel it.
Like a man was pressing down on her shoulders with all his strength, pushing her down to the earth and then even more. As if Izanami-sama herself had reached her hand up and into their world just to personally drag Iyasime's Soul down to Yomi.
That weight upon her body was a blanket that suffocated her and filled her mind with terror and her body with sweat. It made every movement a chore, every breathe a challenge. If her family were not so close, she is sure she would not have managed any number of steps to close any distance between them.
She doesn't know how long it lasted, but she could not mistake the moment it ended.
She doubts anyone will forget it.
The sound was as if lightning had punctured straight through her skull and filled her mind with endless throes of thunder, but the sight of it...
It was as if a great wall of lightning, darker than night, had appeared within the Imperial Palace, spreading all the way to the horizon, blocking even the passage of Kami with its height.
If that alone were not enough to instil an eternal terror within her, what immediately followed would have been.
She cannot explain why, but in that moment, after that brief wall of incomprehensible power split the sky, she knew that a Monster was born.
She could not explain where this feeling, this certainty came from, but she knew it.
It felt as if some great, Evil, beast had crawled out of the Imperial Palace. So large and unfathomable that its jaws crested the horizon and circled the world. Crushing and grinding against her Soul.
Even the Sorcerers stilled around them all, and she saw the same fear within her echoed on their faces as well.
She felt her skin burn as if hot ashes were prickling at her, and though she knew that night had not fallen, she felt as though it had. As if the sky was tainted red and black like dark blood filling the air and drowning her.
Even the eruption of hellfire that immediately followed could not compare to that feeling. Like a Dragon is sitting a hair's breadth behind her, its snarling maw wide open to swallow her whole should she ever dare to turn her head.
She was so scared that she felt as if she were a child once more, and no amount of tears would make the fear go away and there was no one to run to. She could barely even think of her children, yet it was only doing so that allowed her to keep her mind from shattering under that stress.
She didn't even know why any of this was happening.
Even Tenjin-sama only struck the Imperial Palace with his wrath at how his mortal form was treated. Iyasime could not fathom what insult must have been laid upon the Ōkami to provoke this.
She struggles to accept that such immense power could be the result of anything but the Divine, but perhaps an Ōkami had been corrupted to Evil. She does not know, but she also struggles to accept that any Kami could feel anything like this... this thing.
Even an Oni could not feel so cruel, surely? Is this even real? She just doesn't know.
As with all things of such significance, it is not under her purview to know what happened, nor why. Those considerations are for men of higher birth. Her place is with her family and her only duty is to them.
So she tries not to think about the roiling terror in her gut making her sick or the burning anxiety in her skin pricking at her mind and continue to console her children.
She doesn't know if she makes any difference. She hardly knows how many of her family she even holds. She doesn't know if her eyes are working or if she is already dead or if her children can even hear her.
At some point, men—Sorcerers—come about and call for order and calm. They say that the danger has passed and begin handing out basic provisions. Cloths and food and water and little else.
The city is gone. Most of it, anyway. Of what remains, homes are given to those closest to the Emperor while she and everyone else is left to pitch tents with the provided cloth and whatever pieces of wood can be found.
She struggles to listen.
The words they yell fill her skull but quickly tumble out. Like trying to hold two too many pear fruits for her arms and constantly having to catch them as they fell.
She doesn't know how long it took her to understand the words, but by the time she does, she is jolted out of her reverie by another Sorcerer speaking to her.
The words don't reach, dulled out by an incessant buzzing in her mind, but she reflexively accepts the offered bucket of supplies that appears from nothing in his hands. Sorcery, no doubt.
She notices his tenseness as he thrusts the relief into her arms, constantly twitching to look over his shoulder.
Iyasime is much the same, only she does not dare to even look. Every movement of hers is halting. An inch of movement leading to a minute of eyes-clenched stillness where she dares not even breathe, terrified beyond belief that moving at all would insult whatever beast had been awoken and lead her to doom.
An inch, a minute.
An inch. A minute.
An inch.
A Minute.
One step at a time.
An inch is as far as she can bring herself to move before terror roots her in place.
A minute is as fast as she can hesitate before moving again.
Eventually, eventually, she reaches her children. She does not remember getting there.
Eventually, she takes up the cloth and drapes it over her daughters and son, and a spike of panic shoots through her spine when she does not see all of her sons in her arms.
It takes time to remember that they were working the fields. She can only pray that they still live, but she cannot help but assume the worst.
In her mind, she cannot imagine anyone or anything surviving whatever Monster had awoken. Anything that she cannot directly see with her own eyes may as well be dead to her, because nothing can survive this. Nothing. She can only accept otherwise by seeing it herself.
In looking, however, Iyasime notes her mother. Standing and trembling like all others.
In her clasped hands, a kifuda dedicated to Amaterasu-Ōmikami.
Iyasime may have issues with her mother, but the woman is her mother. She loves her dearly, and she cannot deny the relief that floods her at the sight of her. Because every time she turns her head, she finds herself surprised that anything at all still lives.
The relief does not last long, as ever-present dread rapidly drowns it out. But that relief provides enough reprieve for her to attempt to call her mother closer, because damn it all, she just wants her mother to hug her and tell her everything will be okay, even though she knows she should be doing exactly that for her own children.
Unfortunately, her fractional reprieve is quickly replaced once more by heart-pounding dread as she sees her mother's shadow begin to writhe.
For a moment, her heart stops as she believes that the Monster saw her move and had come to punish her for it.
Then, as if she had not suffered enough whiplash already, a collective gasp leaves everyone as that terrible, horrible weight cloying around their skin like the stinking teeth of Death just... disappears.
Instantly.
Breathe fills her lungs as she desperately sucks air in a moment of pure reaction without thought. Her everything feels so light without that weight that she feels as if she will take off into the sky, and that only causes her to stumble and trip onto her bottom in disorientation.
She feels warm.
The acid that was burning against her skin replaced by a gentle warmth that brings to mind memories of being swaddled up in blankets against a warm fire as her father told her stories, his eyes crinkling at the edges with a joy that she once felt was only for her.
The cloying weight pressing down on her replaced by a buoyant, effervescent goodness, though the word alone is not nearly enough to explain its intensity. A feeling so light, so happy that she feels it lifting her up instead of weighing her down. That same feeling she has felt every time each of her children took their first steps or first said 'Mama'.
The certainty of death coiling around her Soul replaced by the certainty of safety.
The fear does not disappear, but it becomes intellectual. She knows that the monster is scary. A terrifying thing that causes her to shiver merely thinking about it.
That knowledge simply no longer holds the same authority over her mind, because she is protected now. She feels safe.
She feels Loved.
"Yo! I just had the weirdest feeling in my head, did you pray to me, Ouba?"
Iyasime's eyes follow the noise to a man.
She doesn't know how to describe him.
Handsome. Strong. Typical colourings, expensive robes. A single kifuda hanging from an ear.
It feels wrong, somehow. To describe him so simply; as if he is just a man.
Because he isn't.
Just the same as Iyasime knew that some Monster had awoken, she knows it.
She cries again.
But this time, the tears are not of fear or terror or mind-blanking panic.
She cries because when this man's eyes passed over her—actually stopping to meet every pair of eyes he crosses instead of brushing over them all as any other man dressed as such would—she knew that he loves her.
Not in a sexual manner, nor romantic or even familial. He just loves her. As genuinely as she loves her own children.
She knows that he would protect her without question, without reward, without even needing to be asked. He simply would, and he wouldn't hesitate for a single second.
So yes, Iyasime cries again.
She cries tears of relief, because in him, she sees hope.
Because with his arrival, the sickening hue of the world disappears in place of saturated colours that remind her of her childhood.
"N-Narauko-sama!" Her mother exclaims, dropping to her knees a moment later seemingly without thought. Iyasime distantly notes everyone else doing the same, those that still stood upon his arrival anyway.
"Ouba-sama!" Narauko immediately responds, matching her energy perfectly and dropping straight to his own knees. "Everyone is kneeling around me," he stage-whispers to Iyasime's mother. "What's going..."
He trails off slowly, turning to look into the distance as if only now noticing something.
Once again, Iyasime is out of her depth as she watches his face and struggles to define the expression.
It is a smile, yet there is a grief to it that makes it seem like a frown at the same time, somehow. The eyes glow with some incomprehensible mixture of pride and disappointment and sadness with genuine joy, but Iyasime cannot see any of that, for it is all too much for her eyes to decipher.
"Ah. I see."
Those simple words seem to contain so much more, but again, Iyasime does not understand. Because he speaks as though he fully understands even the cause of all of this, when all he can see is but a small fraction of it.
But she knows that her eyes cannot compare to what a Kami can see. She is only human.
She watches him stand and turn his head, a Kami surveying the devout and judging if they are worthy of its protection.
Somehow, she does not feel even an ounce of doubt on how he would judge them.
"It is okay now," he beings, smiling a sad smile to them all. "You are safe now. Be not afraid." He continues to speak, but she only sees his lips move and does not catch the final muttered words of, "I'm so gonna get glared at for using that line."
The man closes his eyes and a crown of antlers grows around his head.
Iyasime immediately feels perfect.
Not just good, but perfect. As if every ache and pain minor and major was washed away like leaves against the tide.
The man turns to the distance again and takes half a step before freezing as the Monster abruptly appears.
Iyasime doesn't know how. The appearance is so sudden that she almost convinces herself that it was always there and she simply did not notice.
It doesn't matter to her much either, because the Monster is there.
Her breath catches in her throat as she freezes so thoroughly that even her heart does not beat, and she does not have the presence of mind to ask why her blood continues to pump regardless.
The scene that should have been oh so simple, two men a short distance apart meeting eyes, appears as anything but.
Because beyond that human façades the Monster and Kami wear, Iyasime can feel the truth underneath their skin.
As if two towering monoliths, she feels as their presence violently crashes against one another.
A beast, a Monster on one side. Wreathed in claws and teeth and pain and Hate. A cruel, snarling thing gnashing and howling and desperate to rend the world. It growls and prowls like a predator behind bars, glaring in all directions with eyes that only know to Hate, just waiting for the chance to spill blood that it may further grow the thick coat of cruel red it wears like a trophy.
Against it stands a spirit. A guardian. Decorated by moss and leaves and warm fur and gentle eyes. A kind, patient, supportive being. One that does not snarl or lunge or snap, but that sits and curls and protects. A being that surrounds her in its own warmth so that it may shield her from all worldly burdens as she drowns in its soft fuzz and embraces the contentment it offers.
These two abstracts seem to battle in the sky above, leaving half the world tainted in the blood-red of murder and the other aglow with the warm saturated hues of life. All the while the rainclouds above split and flee, as if even the sky is insignificant to them.
Iyasime does not breathe, and she has no presence of mind to recognise the same reaction in all other humans around her as they watch these two unfathomable beings converse.
The Kami speaks first with a nod, a brief greeting. She is half surprised to understand the language they speak.
"Sukuna."
The Monster replies with that same cordial tone, almost casual were it not for the tense undertone.
"Narauko."
Narauko, she echoes in her mind, only now recognising the name of this Kami.
The air feels electric between them as their presences only grow. Bouncing off of one another and growing larger each time, shooting higher every second until the ground begins to vibrate. Softly, nothing like before, but incessant enough for small stones to being bouncing and clattering down the road.
Every second that passes, she feels herself growing more and more certain that violence is only a hair away. That tension that comes before a fist is swung becomes more and more taut to the point that she begins flinching as her hindbrain continues to tell her that no tension can grow so strained without certainly snapping.
And yet it never does.
Even as they both clench their fists. Even as they both grin violent smiles with teeth that audibly grind in restraint. Even as their every muscle pops with strain, as if trying with all their might to move but held back by some invisible force.
Neither of them moves to fight, even though she can taste their matching desire to do exactly that.
No human could feel emotions so intense and not act upon them without breaking.
It feels as though the world would end if they fought.
"Why?" Narauko-sama eventually asks, though through the strain, it sounds almost as if he already knows the answer, somehow.
The Monster—Sukuna, she distantly remembers—twists with a sense of cruel satisfaction.
"Don't you know? This was kindness. Your kindness. Tamamo is safe and alive. It is your kindness that saved her."
Its words hit almost like a physical blow, making Narauko stumble and lift a hand to his chest as if wounded. His expression shifting into something that Iyasime could not describe in any way that would be honest.
It is a smile, but one containing an unfathomable sadness shadowed by an equal amount of adoration. It is contradictory and makes no sense and almost hurts to try and understand.
"Why?" Narauko-sama repeats, his voice not wavering despite the tears that begin to trail from his compassionate eyes.
"I felt you needed a reminder of who I am," Sukuna replies, expression twisted into one of scorn and distain. "I am not you, no matter how you try to Curse me."
Narauko-sama chuckles. Only once, but it surprises her nonetheless.
"Dumbass," Narauko-sama whispers, sad but fond. "This could have been an email."
Sukuna doesn't respond, but then, she doesn't know what those words mean either so she feels no surprise at that.
Narauko-sama speaks again, filling the tense silence once more with contradictory whisper.
"Will you not allow me even the delusion that I will not have to kill you?"
For some reason, Sukuna actually reacts to those words. Its brows furrowing briefly and frown twitching further down as if insulted as it turns away from Narauko-sama's eyes.
Another tense silence follows before the Monster lets out a resigned sigh and along with it, much of the tension in its frame, though not nearly all of it.
"It's better this way," Sukuna says, his voice not quite a whisper, but not as clear as his earlier words. The tone doesn't last, as the following words regain that confidence along with its scorn. "There was never any doubt that I would kill you."
Narauko-sama exhales another breath of amusement. "I disagree on anything about this," he gestures broadly around them, "Being 'better' than anything else."
"And here I thought you'd enjoy a—what did you call them?" Sukuna asks, tone so incredibly sarcastic that the deceit could not be more obvious. "A birthday present?"
"I think today is literally as far as you could have gotten from my birthday." Narauko-sama replies, voice bland and expression failing to be the same. "We haven't even known one another for a full year in the first place."
"As if I would know the date you were born."
A brow on Narauko's face twitches.
"We have the same birthday, Dickhead."
Sukuna raises a brow.
"Your point?"
Narauko sighs and shakes his head.
Iyasime...
She doesn't understand.
She is only human. Only mortal. She knows that there is much that she does not know—could not know.
But...
This feels wrong. Somehow.
She does not know why nor how, but some part of her, suffocating under the weight of the unfathomable beings beside her, simply does not understand.
Is this not... casual?
She will not claim to understand a fraction of how beings so far above her may live, but should there not be... something?
Anything?
They are just... talking?
Yowatume Iyasime has always hated her name. In all her years, that has remained the single most 'special' thing about her.
So she knows that she has no place to deign upon the actions of those greater than her.
But even then...
It feels wrong.
///
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
With this chapter, I hereby declare Act 1 of this book to be complete!!! :3
450k words is a reasonable amount for the first act, right?
Now we enter into Act 2, the Halcyon Days!! :D
Also! This is an incredibly long extended a/n that I wrote while suuper sleep deprived. I'd like you to read it, even though I haven't edited it and it's also a little bit embarrassing to be posting this, but eh. You don't have to read it, I get that it's a lot of sleep deprived rambling, but hey, why not, right?
I wasn't really too into this chapter at some parts, but honestly? the ending really sold me on it and now I love this chapter, because goddamn did it all tie together at the end there holy moly.
The idea of this chapter was that I've always known how easy it is to forget the scale of things. Take JJK canon for instance. I feel that the fandom has an inflated idea of how strong the average Sorcerer is. Because JJK doesn't focus on worldbuilding, it focuses on cool fights between the greatest in the field.
So you gotta keep in mind, there is only one Gojo Satoru, yes. But thinking like that is a trap, because you also have to remember that there are only like thirty-ish Nanami Kentos. That's basically nothing population wise.
If you wanna illustrate this point really well, you can do what I did to show this point to my own mother. Go rewatch the Sukuna x Mahoraga fight, and then go to exactly 10 minutes into episode 12 of season 2 where nobara fights that miracle guy with the living hand-sword.
That, is a fight between 2 average Sorcerers. They're barely stronger than a normal human. Only strong enough that a normal human wouldn't stand a chance, but little more than that.
So I wanted this chapter to be a little reminder of sorts, that you should take a moment every now and then to consider how what you are reading is being filtered through the narrative of men and women that stand at or near the top of the metaphoical food chain.
This is something that I like to do in my writing, consistently too cuz I did it a lot in my Jester fic. I like to write narratives that are bias but bias in a way that is supposed to be too subtle to be noticed. Because that is the point.
Some of the nuance I add to my stories isn't supposed to be just noticed. I leave a lot of shit in here that you will not notice, not unless you're way smarter than me I guess.
The point is that you can only see these things if you actively choose to stop and think and analyse without being prompted to. These are things that you aren't supposed to notice in reading, but things that you should be able to notice in studying.
Idk, maybe I'm talking out of my ass or maybe I'm entirely wrong about this or not explaining it right.
It's just to fit my style of reading you know? When I'm reading something, I usually do it in fits and bursts where I take a moment to sit back and think through what I just read and consider how the scene would appear if it was written from a different perspective, y'know?
Idk, I'm rambling. The point is that this chapter was supposed to shove all of this in your face in the hope that it will sort of condition you(sorry for being a manipulative author :( ) into having that moment of thought on perspective later on in the story.
99% of all humans are more like Iyasime than anyone else I've written so far. Granted, she is more special than she thinks, but only in the sense that all humans are special. Unfortunately, like all humans, Iyasime fails to realise that even the little things make her special, those tiny preferences in taste, how one holds a cup in a specific way without realising, the way we react nicking our fingers by mistake with something sharp.
Nothing singular makes a person special. For most, anyway. Some do have that major thing, like Armstrong being an astronaut. But even then, that is not what makes him special, that is what makes him remembered, and that is a difference. It is never one single thing that makes a person special. It is everything. All those little things compounding together with the bigger things, like spices on a slab of steak. Only when everything is taken into consideration together, does it become so obvious what makes a person special.
Whether any of this will stick with you or not, I do not know. But it truly is my earnest hope that my writing be not only enjoyable to read, but that it might teach you something or broaden your perspective even just the tiniest amount.
I have personally experienced how much a person can grow merely by reading silly stories online, and maybe it's selfish of me, but I really want to give you that same chance to grow, because if there is one thing I have learned, it is that we can always be a better version of ourselves, and we will always be happier for it. I hope you can trust me on that.
Anyways!!
Holy fuck what the fuck is happening to my sleep schedule?!? I stayed up for like 30 hours for no reason at all and then slept for 13 hours and now it's 8am again and I am still awake wtf??!! Sleep deprivation is probably why I just rambled my ass off too!!!! :3