III
Kaguya stayed behind in the arc as Waka and Amaterasu tumbled out onto the plain and rushed for the Sun Palace. The moon was still out, glorious and full in the dark sky. Waka found he had to abandon traditional running and instead glide over the ground in order to keep up with the wolf. She was sprinting so fast that flowers were blooming at her heels.
Amaterasu stopped abruptly, skidding a little in the soft soil. Waka halted too, and saw a large white rabbit bounding toward them through the tall grass. "Yumigami?" Waka questioned. The rabbit hopped frantically in place in front of Amaterasu. Amaterasu barked and whined, looked at Waka. The rabbit could only be Yumigami, but she no longer looked like the moon goddess. She had lost her divine red markings and appeared to be an ordinary earth rabbit, white as new paper with small black eyes and twitching pink nose. Something was terribly wrong.
Waka and Amaterasu ran to the Sun Palace, Waka taking out his blade on the way. The brush gods were gathered outside the palace. They were all entirely white and were raising quite a din. Rather than speaking, they produced animal sounds. There was the baa of Kasugami, the plaintive meows of Kabegami, the insistent hiss of Nuregami, and trumpeting crow of Meogami.
"Have you all lost your minds?" Waka shouted over the hysterical animals. They didn't appear to hear or care about his presence. They instead crowded around Amaterasu, raising their voices even higher. The wolf flattened her ears and backed away confusedly, and Waka had to fight his way through them to make a path for her. There was a sharp crack of thunder from inside the palace. Waka and the wolf nodded to each other and barreled through the crowd into the long entrance hall.
There, they saw Gekigami, the mighty thunder god in his white tiger form, engaging in battle with an enormous crow demon. The crow's body was fairly transparent and when it opened its wings, they flowed to the floor like an inky black cloak. Gekigami, who still retained his godly markings, used his celestial power to draw a lightning bolt, which sizzled the air along with another deafening crack and tapering rumble of thunder. Lightning passed harmlessly through the crow demon, briefly illuminating and dispelling a good chunk of its body that closed up again as though it was made of shadow. The crow swooped in toward the tiger, but he leapt out its path.
"Mother Amaterasu!" Gekigami roared upon seeing the wolf. Amaterasu ran headlong at the demon and attempted the slash at it with the divine instrument on her back. The instrument passed right through the crow. "No, Mother Amaterasu! You must flee! I will hold it off!" exclaimed Gekigami. Amaterasu just tossed her head gruffly.
Waka jumped into the air, conjuring a blade, and hurled it at the demon, but again, the blade passed right through. Amaterasu retreated some ways to stand between her two comrades.
"This creature feels no pain," said Gekigami. "It has claimed the rest of my siblings. It must not take you, Amaterasu. Run!"
Amaterasu snarled what was most certainly a "no." The demon was swooping in again. Amaterasu coiled and then sprang straight up and attacked the crow's shining black eyes with her claws. The crow screeched and tossed its head, flinging Amaterasu off. She flipped in midair and landing on her feet.
"Brilliant, ma cherie!" Waka shouted, and aimed his next flying sword at the beast's eye. The crow dodged it, then abruptly swooped backwards towards Amaterasu. Gekigami swiftly dived in front of her and was momentarily swallowed up by the blackness. When the crow passed over him, his crimson stripes had darkened to black. He gave a mournful roar. His sacrifice, however, barely slowed the demon.
Amaterasu made a desperate dive for safety before it engulfed the wolf with the tip of its wing and drew her into its belly.
"Amaterasu!" Waka flung several swords at the demon's face at once, and a few of them hit their mark. Screeching shrilly, the crow demon fled with Amaterasu still entwined in its gut, a white, curled shape behind a curtain of shadow. Waka tore after it, with Gekigami's roar of despair in the background.
Waka chased the demon to the edge of the Celestial Plain, desperately flinging blades at its head, but was unable to slow it. It dove off the edge of the plain in the direction of Nippon, and Waka swore because he could not follow it.
That was the day the Sun stopped rising over Nippon.