Author's Notes
Written for Day 3 of Kagami Appreciation Week: "Friends and Family:" Kagami has a life full of people who are important to her in a number of ways each friend is a new horizon and her family traditions and legacies also make up a big part of who she is.
The initial section of the story is told from a child-Kagami's perspective. The prose is reflective of that fact.
Warnings: Main Character Death; Hurt No Comfort; Angst
"Kagami, finish your work and come here. It's time for a lesson."
Kagami looked up from her shodō,
"Hai, Okaasama," she offered with a nod and half-bow in her seat, setting aside her fude.
As she cleaned her instruments, she thought about her Okaasama's stories. Maybe she shouldn't. Her mother would become colder and angry if she saw Kagami rushing through her tasks, trying to get them done quickly.
The stories were the best things that she learned, outside of sword-fighting, of course. Her okaasama often told her stories. Kagami understood that they were important. They told you about your past and where you were from. You had to take pride in your line and your legends and the bygone ages that were more noble than this one, and Kagami did.
She liked the stories about dragons the most. The most interesting one was about Susanoo-no-Mikoto slaying Yamata no Orochi, even though she kind of wanted the dragon to win and was angry when he died. It wasn't fair that Susanoo-no-Mikoto got the dragon's eight heads to drink rice wine and then fall asleep just to cut them off. If you weren't strong enough to fight, you shouldn't get to win.
But the sword he took from Orochi's tail was incredible. The best part of the story, even though Kusanagi no Tsurugi was a silly name. No one wanted a grass-cutting sword instead of a "Heavenly Sword of Gathering Clouds," the Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi. Who wouldn't want to bring a thunderstorm every time you drew your sword? To control it.
Her cleaning done, she returned to the living room to kneel on the floor with her mother so that she could listen to the next story.
"You recall the story of Susanoo, yes?"
"Yes, Okaasama." Her Okaasama didn't like it when she answered in anything more than yes or no, so she didn't say that she liked Susanoo, even if he was a cheat. He was wild. Free, but powerful. He got to go off and fight dragons and wander the world.
Of course, Kagami was sensible enough to know that dragons did not actually exist, but it was a joy to imagine that you could slay them, provided that you did it fairly.
"Good. It is important that you remember. Our stories are what make us. We are all part of the longer story that is still being written. If you do not know the story of your past, you cannot learn who you are and who you should be. They give us life, keep our ancestors alive, and will allow us to live long after we are gone."
Kagami nodded as if she understood, keeping focus on maintaining her posture.
"This is a story of Susanoo's parents: Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto."
Kagami smiled, showing off the gaps where she was missing a pair of baby teeth, but her mother shook her head to tell her to stop.
That was fair. She knew that she had an ugly smile, and shouldn't have tried. Smiling was hard. Harder than fencing. Harder than kendo or meditation, which was very hard because she didn't want to sit still. When she met the other children at a party that she had to go to at her Okaasama's company, one of them had laughed at her when she smiled, trying to copy what all the other children were doing. The little boy had said that she smiled like a blow-fish and a shark, puffed up and gulping and filled with misshapen teeth.
He made a face.
Kagami punched him in it.
She knew that she wasn't supposed to; to show any "unseemly" emotion was an embarrassment. Her Okaasama would be angry. Even though she knew that, she couldn't help herself. It was a little frightening. That kind of anger made her feel about herself the way she felt about her Okaasama sometimes.
She thought that he would fight back. After all, they were both small, and she was ready to tear up the clothing that she had worn that night. Instead, he dropped, crying while sitting on his butt, the palm of his hand to his drippy, bloody nose.
Kagami never cried like that. It made her feel embarrassed and hot like she had a fever, but she wasn't sick, was she?
"It is also the story of Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto, their work, their love, and their fate," her Okaasama continued as she set an illustrated text depicting the two creator deities before Kagami. The slow movement was almost reverent and gentle, allowing Kagami to shuffle away on her knees to keep distance between them.
The drab colours and calm passivity of the two rather dull-looking kami – who didn't even have swords – as they simply stood on a bridge did not make it seem like this story was going to be very interesting. There was no way that Kagami could show her disappointment to her mother.
"Izanagi and Izanami were brother and sister who appeared after chaos spawned the Takama no Hara and the earth. They stood on Ama-no-uki-hashi, the bridge between heaven and the mortal realm, and reached down into the ocean to stir the waters from which our islands formed. Together in marriage, they gave life to many islands and many children, but when Izanami was in labour with Ho-Musubi, the causer of fire, she died from the flames."
That sounded like a terrible way to die. If Kagami was going to die, she didn't want it to be because she was having children of her own. What a horrible thing: for a child to consume your life. She would never have children of her own. She'd rather be like Susanoo and fight dragons, but do it fairly. If she fought fairly and died, her mother wouldn't be disappointed, and if she was, at least Kagami couldn't see it or feel it.
"In rage, Izanagi slew the newborn and more gods emerged from his shed blood. He pursued his dead wife to Yomi, the land of the dead, and found her in the darkness, hidden from his sight. Though he tried to convince her to return to the living, she told him that she had already eaten the fruit of Yomi and demanded that he avert his eyes."
Now Kagami struggled to hold herself stiff, her tucked-up legs tingling, to avoid inciting her mother. She was being drawn into the older woman's presence by the stories that always caused her to lose herself in dreams of the past. It was like she wasn't even here any more. Not in the moment.
Stories were useful when you didn't want to be somewhere. You could just let your mind wander and imagine that you were Yamata no Orochi with a sword hidden in your tail and this time you were wise enough not to drink the rice wine.
Or maybe you were Susanoo and you could kill the dragon if only you were smart enough, even though you were feeble. Even though you deserved to lose and be torn up because you were weak.
This story – a story that might be about a duel in hell! – was exciting, though, and she had to stop herself from leaning in. Her mother hated it when her posture faltered.
Perhaps she had misjudged Izanagi. One had to be brave to willingly enter hell. Izanagi must have loved Izanami a great deal.
"Nonetheless, he looked, and when he did, he saw that she was a maggot-infested corpse. Ashamed and filled with loathing, Izanami assailed her former brother-husband and chased him from the underworld, which he sealed with a great stone. In revenge, she swore to kill a thousand people each day, and Izanagi boasted that he would father fifteen-hundred more."
More children. Painful, but maybe her Okaasan would start to talk about Susanoo now.
And she did.
Her Okaasan told her of Susanoo's birth from the river after Izanagi bathed, seeking to cleanse himself from the taint of Yomi after his failure to rescue Izanami. Susanoo's siblings, Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi emerged when Izanagi rinsed his left eye and then his right eye, cleansed from the stinging miasma of hell. Susanoo came from his nose, and thus lacked the far-sight and stability of his siblings.
No. Instead, Susanoo wailed for his mother, ignoring his responsibility to rule the seas. The mountains and rivers where he roamed all died. In rage, his father exiled him. Okaasama said that was a punishment, but it didn't seem so sad, really, if he could go off and fight dragons. If he could be free.
"Do you have any questions, Kagami?"
"Okaasama, what am I supposed to learn from this story?" Her mother might be upset if she didn't ask. She might be upset if she asked, too. Her cool face always made Kagami uncertain. What was the right question? What was the right answer? Don't let your posture falter.
She didn't say that the story was confusing and complex and disappointing. There wasn't very much about Susanoo here, but that was kind of how births worked, she supposed. You didn't really do anything, even if it was the most important day of your life.
"We learn many things from our stories, Kagami," her okaasama replied as she eased the book shut, the little clap had Kagami swallowing. Tomoe rose to place it in the bookshelf, thumbing over the spines.
"Izanagi's love died when he saw the maggots. That is how love often works. Susanoo's lament for his mother, whom he never knew, a thing that he never had, led him to act irrationally and suffer. And if we strive like Izanagi, we can outpace death in this world."
She knelt on the floor and massaged her eyes. They looked red and old.
"Now go get your kendo equipment ready. I will join you shortly."
Izanagi killed the good things that were left in a rage over what he could no longer have – murdered an infant in his crib, metaphorically, the last thing that Izanami had left behind. What she had died to create.
Izanagi had to see the maggots before he knew his loved one was dead, but eventually he, as everyone must, realized when he had to let go of that which was gone, even if it was chasing you down, trying to destroy you out of self-loathing shame.
It was, among other things, the "just-so" story for divorce.
"You cannot leave."
"Mother, I've already gone."
Years later, Kagami returned home to find her wife fretting as she often did when overwhelmed in personal situations. She maintained reserve and was brilliant in every way imaginable, a red sun rising over the horizon, blinding, brilliant warmth that eclipsed every other light, but she never quite got over her anxiety.
"What's wrong?"
"He got into a fight at school."
"Why?"
"They don't know, and he won't say anything."
It was not unusual for him to hide things from his mother, as he sensed her pain and fear because he loved her, though she saw a glimmer of herself in him. He would struggle understanding such things as she had.
Fortunately, experience had taught him that he had no reason to fear hurting her.
She kissed her wife as she had at their wedding, short and soft because that said everything that she had wanted to say. She wasn't needy and while she desired her, that was not why they were marrying.
Marinette smiled.
It was the one she'd been giving her wife for the last year; the one that allowed Kagami to understand how unsettling she had been as a child and a teen. Marinette's corpse-smile was full of broken teeth and maggots; flesh cut open and peeled back to reveal bone and slick, glistening lines of fat as she clutched at the wound.
It was the smile of someone who had forgotten how to smile and felt she had a responsibility to remember.
Marinette sat down and continued to worry her hands.
In their son's bedroom, which she only entered when he admitted her, Kagami settled on his bed.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, okaa-san." Head bowed, he was looking at his new Ladybug and Ryuuko comforter.
"Your mother is worried for you."
"I didn't mean to worry her."
"Will you tell me what happened?"
"They were talking about Grandfather-Gabriel. I just got angry. I'm sorry, okaa-san. I know that I shouldn't get angry."
"Anger can be a good thing. You remember when Ladybug saw your school attacked by Hawkmoth's akuma and she was enraged? She struck in anger, but not unrighteously. You have a right to be angry. It is in action that were are good or bad; not our motivations."
"Then... then I was still wrong. They were just words."
That hushed acknowledgement made her inestimably proud. Even many adults failed to show the wisdom and self-perception necessary to admit fault.
She tucked him in and, as was their custom for the last year, told him a bedtime story. This time, she spoke of Izanagi and Izanami and their son, Susanoo.
"Why did Susanoo miss his mother so much when he never even knew her?"
Why indeed.
"I can tell you what I think, but that doesn't mean that it is what you have to believe."
"You don't know, okaa-san?"
"Stories are wonderful things, but when we listen to them, we must struggle to understand them. There is what they are trying to say, and there are the lessons we take from them."
"I- I'm not sure what the story means, okaa-san. I'm sorry."
"There's no need to apologize. You can simply think of it as a bedtime story. Oftentimes, we have to learn what the story means. That takes time for all of us, but that doesn't mean that we can't just enjoy them as stories."
"Izanagi was very brave to fight his way through Yomi," the little boy offered, very much a child looking for approval.
"Yes. And Susanoo had to be strong to live without his mother, but still act rightly and be brave and adventurous."
The boy thought about this as she took his hand and fingered the split knuckles that Marinette had covered in gauze and ointment, desperate to heal and protect him.
Finally, he spoke. "I love you, ka-san."
"And I love you, Ryu-Bō."
"Mom," he whined, all that reserve, learned from her, and puffed-up masculine pride, an affectation that was the lingering spirit of his father, falling away.
"Alright, alright. Ryu-kun?" She smiled and kissed his forehead, the flesh under her lips a few shades lighter than her own. "Is that less patronizing?"
"It sounds better, I guess." His little face and petulant pout made her think of a sulking kitten.
Smoothing his wild black mop of hair, a style on which Adrien had insisted years ago, her thumb paused at the bruise over his eye. Though the rage boiled, her touch remained soft as she traced the line of flesh and the arching pattern of stitches that would probably leave a scar.
"Good night, my little dragon."
She got up, turned off the light, and went to hold her wife.
She only wished that Adrien was still here to do the same.