Utsushiyo Monogatari: Crimson Shadow

Chapter Sixteen: Forgotten

Futsunushi watched the thick clouds gather quickly above as the darkness crept in. The wind picked up quickly, as the humid smell of wood and soil wafted across the garden of Isonokami shrine, blowing his neatly tied waist length silvery white hair. A loud roar of thunder with bright bolts of lighting running across the thick gray clouds and a appeared, only to have a hood occluding his face and clothing. His two neatly tied long black hair fringes could be seen. He was in an ancient Yamato combat gear with an unbearable dominating presence. The two most trusted priests in the off-limit inner garden trembled as they remained prostrated, face down. If there was one thing they knew, Takemikazuchi hated to interact with mortals or to even have one look at his face. Their job was to keep any human or yōkai out of the area. 

"Brother," Futsunushi greeted the hooded man.

"This better be good,"  Takemikazuchi muttered monotonously, pulling off his hood. Immediately, he transformation into an expressionless young man in a priestly garb. 

"Always...you may be interested in something," Futsunushi politely invited him into the inner shrine with a gesture. 

"Your pets are here...," Takemikazuchi wrinkled his nose. "The stench remains."

Every Kami knew that Takemikazuchi was very bored, especially Futsunushi. Even Onigami allowed the Emishi to run wild in his region for the volatile yet powerful Kami to be mildly entertained.  Long gone were the days where mass chaos ruled. Worse, the humans had released white deer on his land and called him some peaceful thing of the new religion. That annoyed him to no extent. Only for his amusement, he taught the deers to bite and kick. Ryujin was the worst of the spoil sports in the plains of Musashi - always whining in his shrine about Namazu. So what about human lives? All humans will die sooner or later. Takemikazuchi had not obliged with pinning the yokai catfish down again. Complaints from Ame ,and Yomi on his grandmother's side, bothered him more so than a whiny dragon. He himself is a lightning dragon. Ryujin assumed too much kinship. The higher powers needed a balance of life and death in Utsushiyo. 

"An curious artefact - a sword from Kure," Futsunushi replied as he politely followed his silent older brother. 

Suddenly before the doorway, Takemikazuchi turned around and narrowed his eyes at him. "I smell..."

Futsunushi  opened the door with a wide smile as he caught the glee flashing across Takemikazuchi's eyes. 

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Corpses of farming peasants and their children laid splayed on the vast burning battlefield with their cold dead eyes staring at the gloomy skies. A mother and child in their final embrace. Dead soldiers were propped by spears and broken swords, impaled with heads seemingly bowed in defeat. Broken arrows protruded out of horse carcasses. The people who worshipped them were now gone. Tattered flags of a former kingdom laid scattered on the grounds, as the large vultures fought among themselves, trampling on the torn symbol of a crimson bird on a flag. Burning structures could be seen miles away. None were spared. A blackish aura surrounded the blood soaked fields as the spirits of the dead lingered over their corpses. Passing them, the deities of their slaughtered clans loitered and mourned as one by one started vanishing into the earth suddenly, forgotten forever in perpetuity. 

In one hand, she held the beheaded Chiyou and in the other, her  sword dripping with his blood. She had fulfilled the heavenly mandate issued to all Kure gods. Full extermination of Chiyou's clan. No child, woman or men were spared.  Looking on unsympathetically at the dead, she turned to the far away roaring sounds of a fierce battle and the booming sounds of the cannons. The third Lotus prince was in control. Rivers of blood flowed alongside her as she walked across the fields. The guardians of the Kure underworld only begun to rise up from the scorched earth to gather the spirits. All bowed to her as they herded the lost souls.