Rivers Keep Flowing
Chapter 48: Battle of the Heart
By: LadyRainStarDragon
Fandom: Miyazaki's Spirited Away
Ownership: Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, etc., NOT me.
A man with long silver hair and flowing silver robes paused his stride beside his younger and stockier brother. Susanowo's beard had grown in fierce and black during the past several days in contrast to his older brother's smoot face. The visitor to the Hall of the Sun had only recently arrived from his exile from the land he had once called home. Hollowly, the newcomer spoke to his brother.
"Susanowo, he's here."
"Thank you Tsuki-yomi. Let's hurry to our sister."
"Yes little brother."
The pair raced down the halls to their sister, who had returned home only an hour ago. Whereas Amaterasu had inherited a fine structure from her august father Izanagi, so too had her brother Tsuki-yomi, lord of the moon, night, and sea. His silver robes flashed palely in the light of day, his softer light easily overcome in the perpetual noon. Susanowo easily burst through the doors of the Hall of the Loom, causing Amaterasu's spindle to fly through the air in her surprise.
"Susanowo! I swear one of these days I'm going to drive an arrow through your heart. Oh, Tsuki-yomi, what are you doing here?" Amaterasu's voice fell flat as she addressed her other brother.
Tsuki-yomi replied. "I missed you too. I see you are still cold."
"And you still have not repented of your murder of my friend and sister, who produced delicacies for you of her own body."
"I still say the manner in which she produced them was distasteful, sister."
Tsuki-yomi glared at the memory as his sister addressed their brother.
"Susanowo, why have you brought such a cruel Kami as my brother to my work hall my brother?"
Amaterasu stood and removed herself to the other side of the hall, resolutely turning her face away from the moon. Shaking hands reached out to caress the bow she had held so long ago when Susanowo had stormed her lands, prepared against her other brother.
"My lady sister, must I produce children with you as my brother did to show my heart as red and pledge my good faith? I came from the night because I must protect my sister now that Amatsu Mikaboshi has penetrated to our Sky Realm."
Amaterasu turned her face to her brother the moon. "How is it he has come?"
"Through the blood of the child we have seen give herself so fully to her lord."
"You mean that you have seen do so brother. Her first offering was done beneath your frank gaze."
"Even so my sister."
Amaterasu began to twist her hair into bunches again, winding long strings of the claw shaped magatama stones into them to hold them in place.
"Then there is nothing that we may do to change it. Station guards around her body, wherever she has spirited herself to. If he wins her body, then we must kill her and take out her child."
"Sister?"
"Yes?"
Both men looked at each other, and then Tsuki-yomi ventured the rest of his question. "What happens to you if the Darkened star spirit wins?"
"Then I will descend to Yomi as has our august mother Izanami and dwell in Susanowo's house. I have never seen her, but as he will wish my death, I can only willing go if he wins."
The males groaned, remembering the tales of their parent's divorce fight and knowing well their antics that kept Izanami and Izanagi bound in their eternal dance of Life and Death.
"That must surely be kept from happening." Susanowo grumbled at the thought of sharing his home with his bright sister.
Twin clouds of miasma issued from the dread mirror, the atmosphere at once warming and cooling as they came out upon the Crystal Sea.
"As you will. We will stand aside from the battle."
"What is this?"
Mikaboshi narrowed his eyes at the unformed being separating his prey from him. A high tone rang out upon the waters of the firmament, as if a plethora of bells of myriad sizes had all been set to ring at once and the choirs of the Christian Heaven sang with them. An orb of light, supremely bright and unbearable to gaze upon formed itself, issuing the same cool voice that was neither male nor female, yet both.
"I am known as Creator, Mother, Father, Ometeotl, God, and many other names. You will show me respect, for I hold the book of you life in my hands, and I will write the ending if it so pleases me. Champion of Darkness, is it still your wish to subdue the Sun?"
"Yes, it is."
The form turned toward Chihiro, though how she knew it did she did not know.
"Champion of Light, is it your wish to defend the Sun?"
"Yes."
Haku's presence had dimmed, as the Great One had forced the dragon back to his body to watch from the gazing pool. The child she carried had also returned to her body, and she was alone before the Ultimate.
"Then let the contest begin. Children, stop glaring at each other and step aside so that the contest may begin."
A chorus of "Yes Mother" and "Yes Father" broke into flight as the sixteen original Forces cleared the field for the battle, yin and yang separated and watching with varied emotion. The bell-voice spoke again.
"Begin."
Amatsu Mikaboshi flashed forward, hoping to take advantage of the confusion he had produced by revealing some of the dragon's most hidden secrets. Her long training by her grandfather paid its due to her though, and she sidestepped his charge as Haku's staff answered the call of her soul.
"Married to a murderer, yet you still rely on him like those before you that he tricked." Mikaboshi spat.
He spun around, a sword of darkness lashing out at her, and once more the priestess dodged.
"He may be a killer, but he is no murderer. Whatever he does, there is a reason for."
"Is that something your grandfather had drilled into your mind?"
"NO."
Her staff glowed, deflecting another lick of the sharp and hungry tongue screaming for the substance of her soul, but sacrificing itself.
"Well, it seems that at the end, you are alone. What happened to his oath to protect you and yours?"
His sword lashed at her legs, her feet jumping to avoid the dread blade but slipping when they made contact with the ground again. Plunging to the ground, she prepared herself for the blow aimed for her chest.
"I love you Haku, no matter what. Take care of our baby."
Pearl light shone forth from her soul, illuminating the gathering darkness with its purity, forming a barrier between the evil blade and her beating heart. Below on earth, rays of sunlight broke through baleful storm clouds, freeing the areas and people that they struck from Mikaboshi's dark spells.
Mikaboshi screamed.
"No! I will be supreme! Amaterasu will no longer reign in the Sky Lands."
Chihiro regained her feet behind the shield, the Living Pearl gazing sadly at her attacker.
"Susanowo's main reason for his anger was outrage over the fate of his mother Izanami, divorced after Izanagi became horrified at her rotting corpse as she labored toward rebirth and her rage for his looking into the birthing and death hut, a forbidden act for men. What is your reason for torturing my parents and declaring war against Amaterasu?"
Rage washed his face like the rains of spring, the great storms manifesting themselves in his booming voice.
"I am the Morning and Evening Star, the August Star of Heaven. The last of the Star Children born and the first of the Star Children to set out on my path every night. Yet both Amaterasu and Tsuki-yomi rule day and night, rule the Heavens though they have not had marital discourse for eons and so should forfeit their land. Amaterasu casts no favorable eye on me, though I courted her for thousands of years and had only wished to help her. When she rejected me, the one who shadowed her steps as far as I could, I was filled with rage against her, for all that I had given up for her gaze!"
Chihiro blinked behind her barrier, surprised that such a reason was what had blackened his heart.
"For the reason that Amaterasu spurned your affections you would plunge the Lands into darkness?"
"Yes. All should be as miserable as I am!"
"I can't allow you to hurt anyone else."
Chihiro reached down into the depths of her heart, feeling sorrow for the task she had to do. The love she felt for the world manifested itself as a bow and quiver of hamaya, and behind her shield she drew her arrow.
Chihiro prayed. "Please let this work."
The wails of the world filled her ears as she let go, and her heart filled with compassion, and the either powers of creation filled her arrow as it sped from her breast into her attacker, piercing his blackened heart and ending the battle.
Around the Earth in the worlds of man and spirit the clouds of evil dissolved, and the purifying lights of sun and moon cleansed the world in due course.
"Well done Nigihayami Chihiro. Return to you husband and raise your child well when the time comes. Return to your home soon. It is not fitting that a child of the earth be born in the sky."
Her strength left her then, and Chihiro fell into sleep as her weapons dissolved. As the Lady faded back to her body, the Light rested upon the Sea, eyeing their eldest children as the sixteen waited for the questions they knew would come.
"Well, I'm listening children."
The perpetual light fell into the room through the windows onto a sleeping midnight river of scales and flames of fur forming a mane, surrounded by several women and one male absorbed deeply in a text book.
"Ryu, wake up. You'd better not be hibernating. Come one you scaly coyote!"
"Unh. Sleepin'. Go eat s'm chk'lat n leave m' be."
Jewel blinked her blue eyes beside BlowingWind as they attempted to pick him up and get him moving.
"Wow cousin. He's really out of it if he's actually telling you to eat chocolate."
BlowingWind nodded at her cousin as her mother watched and a little green dragon played in her hair.
"Ryu! Get up! Something bad is happening."
"Mm? K. 'M up. Did Cat find the catnip and rip up the tatami again?"
The dragon awoke from his slumber, rising from the arms of sleep to rub her sands from his eyes with one paw as the other instinctively reached to defend his nose.
BlowingWind smacked her forehead. "We haven't been at the shrine for a long time Ryu. Something's here. Let's go check on Chi."
"Why didn't you wake me up sooner then?" Ryu snorted, then glared at his mate.
BlowingWind glared right back at him as Jewel and Marie stifled laughter at the dragon that looked more like a lost pup as he got to his feet.
"I told you last night you should have taken your nourishment in me. If this keeps up, I'll be dead by the time you wake up again."
Ryu looked at her with wide eyes as he spoke.
"Woman, make up your mind. Now, let's go."
He took back his human form on the way out the door, but no one missed the sunrise that had tinted his cheeks pink as he stalked by following the scents of his friends and the high pitched keen only other dragons would hear. Leaving the wonders of the Halls of the Sun, the scent led as expected, to the border where dwelt the gazing pool. Coiled there was a young water master, clutching his bride as if he would devour anything that came near.
"Oh my God! Chihiro! Haku! What happened?"
BlowingWind raced up to where she assumed Haku had tucked his head, paying no attention to Ryu's shouts of warning nor Haku's own hiss.
"Don't give me that. Is she okay? Haku we can't help her if you won't let us see her."
BlowingWind gently laid her hands on his scales, stroking them the way she had seen Chihiro do with his mysterious goshintai, dropping her voice low like when Ryu soothed her fears. Haku responded, hissing as he drew his coils back enough for the shaman to examine her friend as he glowered toward the pool.
"He pulled my mate out to a place where the ground was polished crystal, and showed her things I have tried to forget. Though I was able to show the reasons for my actions, the truth still wounded my mate's soul. His tactics were pronounced unfair by a great Light, and two demons were pulled from his mirror to join others that had separated the field."
Haku growled and hissed, but then calmed himself enough to finish his story.
"I was forced back into my body, where I could only watch as he attacked my mate."
BlowingWind continued to stroke him placatingly as she spoke.
"But she's here now Haku. She's inside her body."
Haku nodded his head in acknowledgment. "Yes, and Gawakusa is safe as well. My mate fought with all her Heart, but I am worried such a battle will prove too much for her to recover from."
"Did she win?"
"Hai Wind, she won."
Ryu stirred in his place respectfully out of the other dragon's range of strike, moving gently as Hawaiian lava until Haku's gaze fell on him.
"If she won, this war is over Haku. We need to take all of the living humans back home before they permanently become a part of our world. A child was born in the deeps, and another in the heavens. Now yours must be born on earth."
Haku nodded again.
"Gather the others then Ryu. We are going home."
