A/N: Guys. I'm so excited to have finally written this chapter. When I was done, I literally got up from my computer and started dork-ing out because it's the first major plot point of the story (with more to come!). Hopefully it's good/makes sense. I put a lot of work into the mythology part to combine. If you'd like, I could post up links to the original Shinto stories if you want more info (though I try and give you the need-to-know stuff in the story). Comment if you want it! And, as always, thanks for reading up to this point! I hope you enjoy!

The Sapling, I gaped. It's not just a shintai. It's the kami. The Kami of the shrine. I should've realized it sooner. The signs had been so obvious, so glaring. The reverence all the kamigami had held for it. The way the musubi gathered around it, channeled through it. How could I be so dumb?

I felt something solidify within me, around me, and I knew the Kami had not only heard me but was agreeing with me. I bristled, understanding that privacy did not exist now as this entity weaved itself into my very being. Slowly, I could feel the barrier between us melting down, disappearing as my thoughts became Its, and Its became mine.

The Sapling? It spoke. Do you even forget my true name? The density melted and began churning, like the rapids in the river which thrashed the water into a spinning vortex. The writhing deepened within me – anger or laughter I wasn't sure, but it exploded outward with a force that filled me with a strange sense of vertigo.

Focusing on my hand, watching the pulsing grip of Its tendrils of musubi, I managed to keep myself steady. The less your name is evoked, the better, I answered.

The churning deepened. Anger or laughter I was still unsure.

Memories of the night of the Kagura – of my near-death experience – came floating to the forefront of my mind. And I saw them again. Saw them all. Saw Utau, Ashi, Hana, the unborn pups, Teru, Akio. All those that had been hurt by It, by me. Then the others, still living yet in danger because of what I had done surfaced as well.

Why? I plead, knowing that It had relived it all with me, hoping that It could understand me even though I could barely comprehend It. Is there even any point to any of this? Unable to hold back the rage, hurt, and confusion any longer, I balled them up into words and spat, Why did you hurt them?

The Kami didn't speak. Instead, visions filled me. Visions that dispersed and coalesced, bursting into fragments before reforming, their edges lacing together to create a new image. It took me a few minutes to pin the pieces together. To realize what was happening. To experience the amalgam of sensations that comprised Its thoughts, Its memories.

The first felt like it rose up from within my own depths – like recalling a childhood tune I had long since forgotten the lyrics too. But there was another tinge to it. Something unnatural. Something alien. But just like some old tune, no vision came to greet me. At least, nothing I would say I could see. I could only recognize it as when I reached into the musubi – when I recognized and played with the threads of existence – but this was so much more. This was everything. This was a glimpse into the truth, into Takamagahara itself.

Then suddenly, bounds were created, limits were fixed. What once knew everything suddenly found Itself in a form that comprehended nothing. That's when sight – something I could barely recognize in the aftershocks of Its revelation – manifested itself in strange blotches of color and shadow before It cast these alien, useless pupils around. But the Kami didn't need them. It could feel them. Sense them. It knew the life forms surrounding It, gazing at It: humans always tended to do that.

But, seated here, watching this memory play out around me, these sensations fill me, I had my own thoughts, my own realizations. I didn't see the people gathered in front of the Kami as strangers. No. Understanding filled me as I recognized the people. Recognized where I was and when it was. Akio, Yori, Master Yūta, and Azūmi all stood there, all staring at me in mixtures of horror and fascination.

It's that night, I knew. The night of the Kagura. When the Kami took me as Its vessel. When the Kami manifested Itself on earth.

The vision shifted as the Kami looked down at familiar tan and scratched hands. My hands. The Kami stretched out the fingers, feeling wrong somehow, too warped, too contained. There was a prickling at the edge of consciousness – a prickling that the Kami hadn't recognized. But I did: it was pain. I recognized it in the Kami's memory just before my outermost flesh began to turn ashen as the Kami's musubi seared it from beneath, too powerful to be contained in something so weak. Smoking, the skin began to blister and burn off, falling like disintegrating snow to the floor beneath.

The Kami's musubi poured out of my human flesh, washing the haiden in pure energy in a muffled roar. Some of this reality began to break under the pressure, be flung away by the force of the rolling explosion. But the world erupting around the Kami failed to even earn Its attention.

With a consciousness far larger than I could fathom even within these memories, the Kami sensed something beyond the walls of the haiden. Beyond the reaches of the forest. To the village that lay at the base of these mountains. The Kami snapped its eyes towards where the town lay, the entirety of its focus through the entangled mass of the livings' essences, bearing down on a single, yet overwhelming, individual's substance.

The Kami's hatred made reality quake.

Unable to know what It was thinking, I found myself surprised that I recognized that essence as well. That unique writhing mass of energy was something I would never forget. That putrid, revolting musubi was as familiar to me as Teru's, and it belonged to only one person.

Habu, I recognized within the Kami's memories, my own revulsion mimicking Its. Death.

The images stopped, and I could see my hand bracing against the Sapling once more. There was a strange sensation flowing from the Kami as the whirlpool slowed to a stop, the rapids being replaced by a steady creek. One that ran deeper than I could fathom.

What? I flared, incredulous. You're a kami. Why do you care about her that much?

The creek slowed, the surface looking flat and still, but its depths kept barreling past, their strength pushing boulders along in their wake. And I realized it then. This creek wasn't below me. It was above me, around me, drowning me, carrying me. For there really wasn't a creek and me. It was just the creek, and I was just another droplet in the stream.

Suddenly new sensations, new visions began to bubble up along the surface. But this time the image was one of my own memories. Master Yūta's office came into focus around me – a younger me – as I nestled in my usual chair. The fire bathed the room in a soft light, its light tinting the priest orange.

"Mira," Master Yūta announced, leaning forward with a scroll in his hand. "I want you to read this tonight."

"What is it?" I mumbled, the voice of my younger self tinny, the words slow and somewhat slurred. I took the paper from his hand and eyed Master Yūta's careful handwriting.

"The story of creation," he answered. "How everything came into being. The tale of Izanagi and Izanami. I've taken this section from the Nihongi text, the more detailed but younger version of the Kojiki. I've written out a summary here for you with easier words, but I expect you to be reading the original version within a month."

I glanced down at the paper and paled. The text was long especially in relation to the stubby fingers of my youth. I remember reading the first two sentences for ten minutes, sounding the words aloud. Then I began to read, haltingly, stopping to ask for many clarifications.

"When heaven and earth began," I stumbled out, "three deities came into being: Amenominakanushi, Takamimusubi, and Kamimusubi. The heavens and musubi followed their wake, the rest of existence forming behind them. These three deities are the highest of the divine and are known as the Kotoamatsukami. Their very existences form the foundations of reality."

The younger me took a deep breath, still not in the habit of breathing after the end of every sentence. Then I continued, "The world was young and chaotic then. Land and water tore at each other, unmixed and floating like two oils. The Kotoamatsukami only tended to two things there – two reeds. From these reeds, the Izanagi and Izanami sprouted, Lord and Lady of Creation. Before vanishing, the Kotoamatsukami gave the young pair a jeweled spear to organize the chaos of earth and water, giving them dominion over the world.

"Izanagi and Izanami, standing on the starlit bridge between the heavens and the world, dipped their spear into the ocean brine and stirred. When they pulled out the spear, the salt that dripped off of it formed the earth, and they descended to the land to be joined in marriage. This was the golden age of the earth, and all were happy."

That's when the sensations began to bubble up from the depths – the Kami's perception rising to intermix with my own shallow memories along the surface. No images came then, but the emotions did. At first, I thought it was a renewed burst of my own manic giddiness, but this delight was deep, steady. It was like the pure bliss I felt when I returned to the Ancient Woods and saw Mother waiting for me, her tail flicking in welcome. But I knew that happiness wasn't in this memory of mine where I was reading: the only thing I had felt then was frustration. No. This euphoria was coming from another origin. From It. And I realized then that the kamigami and humans at least share one thing: joy.

"Their bliss only multiplied," my tinny voice continued, "as they had children who grew to become the deities which inhabit the earth, the sea, and the heavens. Born amongst these deities was the seemingly weak, mortal race of man. But they were the favored children of Izanagi and Izanami as, despite their short, tempestuous lives, they possessed their parents' powers of creation."

Then the joy vanished.

"Yet," my child-self spoke, "as with all things, this happiness was not to last. This Golden Age came to end when Izanami gave birthed the fire deity, Kagutsuchi, whose violent flames consumed Izanami, and the great goddess lost her life."

Agony. Sorrow. Helplessness. They filled me as the inhuman screams of nightmares burst through me, tearing me apart in stride with their master. In the end, I didn't know if the heartbreak aching within my being was my own or the Kami's.

"Izanagi grieved over Izanami, his most cherished companion. Succumbing to insanity as he buried his wife, he turned and beheaded his own child, Kagutsuchi, who split into multiple deities."

I couldn't see it exactly. Couldn't see what had been wrought. These alien memories were still too transcendent for me to grasp. But I could guess what I was seeing: brilliant, blinding flames which just now were dying to a simmer. As I looked at those flickering flames, I was filled with the Kami's deep loathing – a hatred which echoed my own.

"Still deeply in love," my words rolled on, "Izanagi longed for Izanami, knowing he was unable to exist without her. In his devotion, the Great Lord went to the underworld, the Yomi, in search of her. He sought her relentlessly, the ages passing until he found her in the darkness. Heart full, he called to her and asked her to come back to the land of the living with him. Izanami, tears of both pain and joy on her cheeks, knew it was impossible for she had eaten the fruit of the Yomi and was forever trapped. Yet, the Great Lady promised him that she would go speak with the kamigami of the underworld, but she begged him to not look at her as she did so. However, his love was so great, he could not bear another moment without setting eyes on her, and he summoned a light and saw her face."

Flesh that must have been whiter and more pristine than freshly fallen snow had mottled to shades of death and rot. Bubbled and blistered, the festering skin was marbled with nauseous green, putrid black, curdled purples and blues, and feverish scarlets – all visible beneath a sheen of a disgusting white slime. The flesh had puffed out, swollen with a sludge-like concoction of blood and fat so rotten it had become an ink-colored sludge that oozed out of her orifices and open sores. The mouth was open – the lips falling from the teeth like strips of decaying meat - revealing a set of too white teeth upon which maggot-like creatures scurried away from the light. Other foul things, basking in her ooze, slithered from her face to hide in the blood- and gore-matted and burnt hair. But her eyes. Those pallid orbs belonged to Death.

Then the skull began to scream.

"Ashamed to be seen in this condition, Izanami was filled with hatred, and she chased Izanagi out of the underworld, Fleeing the Yomi at last, Izanagi grasped a huge rock and closed the passage to the underworld. Enraged, Izanami shouted through this barrier that she would strangle one thousand humans each day. Izanagi responded that if she did so, he would each day cause fifteen hundred people to be born. And so love dissolved to an eternal hatred, and their eternal strife was born."

Then, a white wolf filled my vision.

"Distraught, Izanagi found himself without purpose, questioning what he had done. Then Kukuri-hime – a kami – approached him and spoke. Her words have been lost to time, but she soothed his pain with her wisdom."

The tendrils of musubi danced upon the wolf – searing flames of the deepest scarlets and the richest golds which created constantly shifting patterns. Her fur was constantly in motion, appearing more like white, roiling clouds that barely masked a raging sun. Her eyes were a scorching amber that pierced even the Kami.

Mother.

My childish voice resumed, its pace slow, tired, bored. "Izanagi returned to Takama-ga-hara and bathed to purify himself of the Yomi. Cleansing himself, the deities Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo were born, and Izanagi gave them dominion over the earth before he departed."

The Kami's vision took shape around me, wrapping me in the vortex of strange unfathomable energy, of what felt like the very core of the universe. I couldn't face the light directly, not even in this faded form of memory. But I could sense it. Sense it splitting the Kami, creating three more entities aside from its innermost core. These entities burst into being but before I could make them out, the vision collapsed.

I returned to the memory of my younger self, the faded essence of simple, naïve confusion washing over me like an ablution. The younger me lifted my eyes from the text to look at Master Yūta, a frown marring my lips. "Where'd Izanagi go?" I had yipped.

Master Yūta tilted his head, his glasses blinding me momentarily as they caught the light of the fire. "That's the last time he's mentioned," he answered in that soft tone of his. "No one knows."

But that wasn't true. At least, not anymore. The memories and visions which had washed over me made it abundantly clear. I knew to where Izanagi had vanished. And I knew who was his miko. Yet all I could think was, Wolves do not show fear.

My childhood memory kept playing around me as Master Yūta cocked his head at me and tested, "So what happened to Izanami?"

I felt a bitter taste spread along my tongue and angry little shivers race up my arms. "Yomi," I spat. "Deserved it."

Master Yūta tutted me and my harsh conclusion. "Now, these are just stories written by priests much after the fact. We don't know what truly happened. In fact, we may never know." He adjusted his glasses on his nose and stated, "The Kojiki says that Izanami transferred her soul to either a human or animal at her death, but this isn't found in the Nihongi." The corners of his lips lifted as he gave a little shrug. "Maybe she still walks among us."

He was right, Izanagi-no-Okami spoke.

Another vision appeared, shimmering before me. The Kotoamatsukami had called it a reed: humans would never dare to name it such. Just by looking at it, I was humbled with an awe only rivaled by that I felt when looking at its twin – what I had always called the Sapling. For I knew what it was the same thing the Sapling was: the birthplace of a kami of creation. And its name was the only logical title to award it, the name that humans had been calling it since the dawn of time.

Shinju, I murmured.

Though the two trees appeared nearly identical, there was no possible way to confuse them. While the Sapling was a subdued puppeteer of musubi, this other tree felt tainted, rotten. I instinctively felt myself pulling away, trying to avoid the putrid musubi which dwelled within and oozed from it. I recognized it as the same filth which had oozed from Izanami: the taint of the Yomi.

The world, poisoned by its existence, began to grow dark around it – filled with smoke and cries of pain and grief. Of war. From this nightmare, a fruit began to form, gently weighing down one of the edges of the tree's great branches. As the smoke and anguish grew thicker, the fruit grew fatter until it eventually fell. It splattered onto the earth, bursting open and staining the ground with scarlet gore. But in the center of the mess, covered in the polluted guts, lay a wailing child: a girl.

A girl whose bone-white skin looked sickly beneath the even paler hair. A girl who clasped at the two faint horns at either side of her skull. A girl whose eyes held no pupils, looking empty beneath a red, bulging orb dotting her forehead above two faintly glowing scars. A girl who pulsed with that putrid power.

I watched her as she grew older, as she became a woman whose sheer power put an end to the wars around her. With the power of Izanami-no-Okami, so polluted and corrupted, her very existence threatened the end of humanity. That was until she was stopped by her own two sons who divided her power, fracturing her very spirit along the seams of mitama into nine, weaker entities. Entities which still wreaked havoc and destruction on whatever land they touched. Entities in the shape of fantastical creatures simmering with the dark musubi. The six-tailed one – one of marked by the same oozing, deathly pale of Izanami – shifted into a human shape which shared those same pallid eyes of Izanami. And of-

Death, I hissed in recognition.

So there is some part of you that understands, that remembers, Izanagi spoke.

So Habu, I stabbed, is Izanami?

A piece, the Kami answered, sending a prickling along my spine at my honorific. Humans have learned to manipulate these weaker portions of her, yet most become consumed by the taint of the Yomi and the corruption of Izanami. They are no better than her. The kami fixed Habu before me – replaying the memory of her snapping my ankle into a useless wreck – his message clear: As you have seen.

Anger writhed within me, fanned by the kami's own revulsion. I stared down at my hand, saw my nails snapping as they dug into the bark. Why? I snarled, indignation falling from the flames of my anger like ash. Why didn't Mother or any of the other kamigami tell me any of this?

It is not the place of lesser kamigami to interfere, he answered. The memory of Mother's words echoed behind his message: There are many things I have not been able to tell you, things that cannot be uttered in these woods. Things you will learn when you are ready. Things only mortals can truly understand.

I frowned at the last of Mother's words, wondering how a mortal could possibly comprehend this, any of this. These were the works of kamigami – the kamigami – the greatest of all only after the Kotoamatsukami who had disappeared long ago. Even now I was reeling, turning numb from all this information, able only to process the concepts now and not the ramifications. All I could do was clutch at the core of my being and hope that would be enough.

But the Kami knew where my thoughts were heading, and it felt like ice was cracking deep within me. Kukurihime? he spoke, gorges opening, cliffs collapsing. Her interference before has been forgiven, but she would be foolish to return and face my wrath. She should stay with the rest of the kamigami who have fled the approach of Izanami.

What? Discomfort prickled along my consciousness as I felt his anger widening. Interference? What're you talking about?

He needed nothing more than an image to answer. An image of a town engulfed in smoke and fire. A town whose people screamed into the night only to gag on the ash. A town who served as the only suitable backdrop for the omen of death that was Habu. Her fetid musubi leaked visibly around her, forming a shadow of that slug-like beast, but even as the Izanagi's power lashed out chaotically from my flesh, the difference in power was clear. That was until the scarred man appeared, the divine beads in his hand just as-

Mother pulled me back, I murmured.

Izanagi-no-Okami quelled his shattering anger, dulling it to a low rumbling. Once that amatsukami understood the gravity of this war. Now, she believes another task more important. There was a final quake as he uttered, Just another traitor.

The musubi of the Izanagi-no-Okami tightened its coil on me, the great Kami focusing more of his consciousness upon me. It was strangling, and I gasped, but Izanagi-no-Okami didn't release his grip. I scrambled against his strength, writhing free just enough to be able to think just clearly enough to hear his words.

Untrained. Weak. Barely able to survive even this, he spoke – the words not of criticism but of truth. If you could fully wield my power, you would crush the piece of Izanami who threatens you now. While you have the will, you lack the strength.

I felt Izanagi's life force pulse around me then as if he was extending some invisible hand. And I felt the dark reaching out to me, calling to me. Just as it had the night of the kagura.

I flinched. No! The word shot out, piercing the darkness gathering around me. What happened that night can't happen again! I steeled myself – a small, frail girl before the kami of creation. I won't let it.

I could hear the screams of metal then, the snarls of wolves and the cries and shouts of man. I could see the shrine, drenched in searing flames, billowing their tears of smoke. Azūmi threw open the door, her face as sallow as the ash floating by her. Terror pinched her face, making her tears fall in strange rivulets down her worn cheeks. Face aghast, she reached back through the door and yanked out Yori who stumbled and fell into the dirt. Yori clutched at his chest, eyes turning red as he hacked and coughed out streams of spittle, his frail lungs beginning to fail him.

Goggles leapt into view, latching his arms around Yori's shoulders and shoving him to his feet. He grabbed onto Azūmi's hand and began to drag the both of them away just as a shower of kunai rained from their left. Akio leapt between them, smacking the kunai from the air but missing one which sliced her shoulder and sailed past, heading straight for Yori. Goggles leapt forward, snatching the kunai from the air, twisted, and flung it back in the direction it had come from. He turned to Akio who commanded that he keep moving, so he did.

The boy grabbed onto the priests once again and yanked them towards the trees and away from the shrine that collapsed behind them with a final creak of its old, tired bones. Azūmi turned and shrieked "Master Yūta!" at the flames devouring from the shrine's wooden skeleton. Obito kept them running until they reached the forest's edge, grinding to a halt next to tree embedded with a marked kunai.

In a flash, Yellow Hair landed beside them, Master Yūta weakly clinging to his back, as if out of thin air. The man knelt down, maneuvering Master Yūta gently to the overgrown grass amongst the roots of the trees. With one glance at the old man's white lips and quivering chest, he shouted, "Rin! Get here now!"

The kunoichi, fighting beside Akio, flung another kunai before sprinting back to the trees. Goggles stared at Master Yūta, his eyes obviously wide even behind the orange tint, as he panted, "He's-"

Yellow Hair cut him off with a sharp hand movement and the shinobi refocused himself, spun on his heel, and took off running, giving a last glance at Rin before taking her position. The kunoichi slid to a stop on her knees beside Master Yūta and placed her hands over his chest, the glow already beginning along her fingertips. But Master Yūta's own essence barely responded, his own light dim and flickering.

Azūmi crawled over to him, sobs wracking her chest as she touched his paling cheeks. Yori, still clutching at his chest, looked in shock as he watched the gūji's chest give its last flutter before resting forever. Rin bowed her head, her teeth gritting as Yellow Hair leaned forward and closed those emerald eyes forever. The jōnin reached over and grabbed the forearm of the girl, giving sharp orders in a low voice, "Guard these two and try to move them towards the rendezvous point. I'll support Obito and we'll give you an opening."

She gave a sharp nod and grabbed onto Azūmi, trying to tear the old woman away from Master Yūta's prone form. Yori just sat there, shaking and silent as his gaze swept over the embers of the shrine onto Master Yūta. Yellow Hair dropped to a knee beside him, clenched his shoulder and met his frightened eyes. "You need to get moving," he spoke, never breaking his gaze.

Yori struggled to gain his feet, still in a trance but at least mobile.

Minato gave an approving nod at him, glanced to Rin who had gotten Azūmi to her feet, and leapt into the battle.

I jerked away from the nightmare. Only stymied, the pulsing of dark musubi simply deepened around me, pooling at the edges of my consciousness in wait. The Pitch had returned.

If you do nothing, Izanagi replied, something like curiosity in his voice, they will all be slaughtered.

Th-that wasn't a memory? I trembled, the details hardening around me. My thoughts defined themselves against the kami's, and I realized the truth. Izanagi didn't need to say anything more as I dived into my own recollections, fitting pieces of the past together. Kizuato's call, the one that Teru had heard, hadn't been for us: it had been the signal, the warning that the Mist shinobi were attacking. That's what Grey Hair had been listening to in his receiver – the alert given by one of his comrades. And Izanagi, connected to his shrine, was able to glimpse the onslaught of the Mist before his sanctuary succumbed to flames: the Amatsukami was showing me what was happening at the shrine.

My grip went slack, and my fingers slid down bark formed only by the immaterial tendrils of the universal fabric. The musubi that formed my blood dripped from my broken nails, making a trail of stars on the shimmering bark. I watched it sprinkle from my hand, falling like shooting stars that burst upon the huge gnarled root on which I stood.

But as I stared at it – stared at the blood – I only wanted to see more of it. See more of it dripping from me. See it swelling around me, threatening to drown me. But not mine. No. Not only mine. Theirs. I wanted – needed – to see the corpses of the Mist shinobi, needed to see life leave them as they writhed at my feet. But most of all, I craved her's. Habu's. Death's.

Izanami's, the Kami spoke, his rage swelling, crackling beside my own, enveloping it, enveloping me. For the first time in my existence, my mind was cleared of all thought. My consciousness was reduced to the basest of urges, the most primitive form of survival. I was something less than human, less than animal. A primordial being ruled by bloodthirst. Just like the amatsukami before me.

So tell me miko, Izanagi-no-Okami spoke, what is your duty?

To kill Izanami, I answered, the words comfortable as they left me as if I was singing the most ancient of lullabies. To kill her and condemn her again to the Yomi.

I dipped my head, allowing the Kami's musubi to engulf me, the black surround me. I dipped my head and accepted my role as the vessel of Izanagi-no-Okami. The Pitch vibrated with power, echoing with the kami's words: Now you understand, my miko.