Chapter 3

A dead silence fell in between them. The girl dropped herself down and crooked her ears sideways, her eyes growing stern.

"Don't you speak English?" she asked.

"Uhm…no…ah, I mean yes! Yes, I do speak English…" Ushiwaka stammered.

She pouted. "Oh, well I'm sorry if I scared you then, I didn't mean to frighten you…" she replied.

Ushiwaka shook his head. "No, not at all." This was getting even more confusing by the minute. It didn't make any sense, it was like a dream. Or a nightmare if he didn't even know it by the time yet.

The girl's ears perked up and she smiled again. Ushiwaka had just noticed the more-sharp-than-usual teeth she had up in her mouth. The girl clapped her hands together and stood up straight. She curled her hand into a fist and held it up in front of her mouth as she pretended to cough.

"Ahem. My name is Amaterasu, the-"

Ushiwaka's eyes popped open as he choked on air.

"Amaterasu, the…the sun goddess? You?" he blurted out almost too loud.

He'd heard stories of how the gods were proud of the goddess's existence. They had been happy ever since, no more conflicts ran about the plains and worlds, since she had them all being taken care of in her hands. Everyone had loved her, she had brought happiness and warmth into the worlds. All except for the Moon Tribe. They never understood her.

"Shush! Yomigami'll hear you!" she barked.

Ushiwaka shut his mouth closed and blushed. "I'm sorry."

How could she be the high and loved goddess?

"No need to be. I love your accent." she giggled. That made Ushiwaka blush even more.

"And your hair…" she leaned closer to him. "I've never seen hair so golden before. So…" she gently slid her thin small fingers through his blonde shoulder-length hair, "so soft and silky."

Ushiwaka felt intense heat rising up through his body.

The girl pushed his bangs out of his silver-blue eyes and gasped. She touched a spot directly below his left eye.

"Your…your eyes are so blue! They're so shiny and…silvery and…wow! I wish I had your eyes, everyone's eyes around here are so dim." she let out a high-pitched squeal that might have made Ushiwaka deaf if she didn't pause any minute.

Suddenly, Ushiwaka violently pushed her hand away and turned around.

"Don't touch me! Just…please…" he snapped at her.

Amaterasu jumped back and crooned her ears forward. She squinted her eyes hard towards him. It took her a minute to realize why he just did that.

"Don't you like me?" she pouted once again. How dumb you look when you make that face, Ushiwaka thought.

"Amaterasu, dear, please leave him alone."

She flinched and quickly spun around, bending her body as if preparing to attack. She then raised her head as if being surprised and straightened herself again.

"Yomigami…" she trailed off. Amaterasu took a quick glance at the door lock. Somehow he'd managed to unlock the thing by itself. This place was getting weirder by the minute.

Yomigami sighed and gently grabbed the girl's shoulders.

"He's had such a hard time, everything to him is completely lost. He's all confused now, it's like his whole life has been taken away. Take it easy, child."

Amaterasu turned to look at the boy with sorry eyes. She saw him struggling to keep from crying in front of them. Closing her eyes, she slowly walked over to the boy and sat next to him. She took his hands away from his face and saw that his deep blue eyes had turned into a glassy silver.

In a softening, warm voice she whispered in his ear, "Don't worry, it's okay to cry. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Go ahead. Cry. Let the sadness seep out of you."

Ushiwaka's eyes widened a bit. That's the same, exact thing his mother always told him. That it's okay to cry.

And so he wept.

The girl gently turned him around to make him look straight at her face and quickly pulled him into a hug. She stroked his soft hair as the boy sobbed silently against her silky, flowery dress.

He could smell the white daisies on her, the swift rhythmic movements of her fingers moving through his hair. The scene reminded Ushiwaka of his mother so much that he couldn't help but stop and cry for a whole ten minutes.

Yomigami smiled and chuckled to himself. What a sappy, yet comforting person Amaterasu was. It made him laugh just at the way she made everyone look like a little baby while they spoke of their problems.

When Ushiwaka had finally stopped sobbing and relaxed a bit, Yomigami led Amaterasu out the door. As she and Yomigami stepped out the door, Ushiwaka took one last look at the girl and smiled. He learned how to love this place just by being with Amaterasu. No wonder everyone loved her. He couldn't bear to think of how the universe would end out being without having Amaterasu. She was simply amazing.

Golden sunlight poured in from the window to the room. The depressing mood in the small, cramped room was slowly being outshined by the little amount of light peeking in through the small, thin window. How could the sun be awake this early? Ushiwaka squinted his eyes, moaned, and dug his head deep inside the covers. He might as well just get used to the differences in the Celestial Plains. Even though he mourned all night to return his way back to the moon, his home, he knew deep inside that there was no way that would actually start to happen.

He pushed himself up slowly and glanced at the door. He heard a pair of little, running feet coming in toward his side of the hallway. He sighed and plopped himself back onto the bed. Just by listening to the pace of the footsteps he could tell it was obviously Amaterasu. Whom else would come running all this way just to see him?

The screen door slid opened and in stepped the little girl. She was still in the same sleeping dress she had on last night, though her hair and the row of little lilac flowers stood unharmed from sleeping. Her white wolf ears stood up straight as if she were eager to make excitement out of something. Her golden orange eyes blinked as she smiled.

Oh, what now?

"Good morning, Ushiwakaaa~!" she sang out heartily. Ushiwaka groaned silently enough as not to make Amaterasu hear. She neared in closer to the bed.

"Oh, wake up already! I need to show you my favorite spot to hang out in! Oh, you need to see it, there's a huge sakura tree by the pond and in the spring all of its petals fly out and makes a pretty scene in the grove! Me, Kabegami, and Yumigami are the only ones who goes into it, because it's actually pretty far from here, so we had to make a promise not to tell anyone about it. Oh I forgot to introduce them to you! Come here you two, he's not dangerous at all!" she took a large gasp of air.

Two other kids walked in the room. Their marks on their faces revealed that they were too, a god and a goddess. Ushiwaka could tell their zodiac animal from their features, the girl a cat, and the boy a rabbit. Bells strung to the girl's clothes made jingling sounds as she skipped to the room joyfully. A long red ribbon was tied to the end of her cat tail and she had incredibly large violet eyes. Being pulled in with her was a skinny, tall boy with short, wing-shaped rabbit ears. His pale gray eyes somewhat hardened when he saw Ushiwaka and for some reason he frowned.

Ignoring that, Amaterasu introduced Ushiwaka to them both. She pointed at him.

"He's the person I was telling you two about! Doesn't he look so different?"

"His hair is soo golden!" screeched the cat girl. "By the way, my name's Kabegami, the goddess of the walls."

"The what?" Ushiwaka asked.

"The boundary between a person and his dreams. He must climb the wall, the obstacles, to get to the other side, his dreams. In other words, she helps inspire people to meet their goals. Isn't it time you already know all of the gods? The people who care for you?" the boy said annoyed.

Amaterasu stamped her foot and poked the boy in the chest. Somehow she poked him so hard, he stumbled off a bit. Her mouth curled up into a snarl.

"Hey! He's had a hard time, you know! He's lost everything, be nice, you heartless fool!" she barked at him. Kabegami and Ushiwaka both flinched at the same time. Her vicious roar must have had awakened the whole eastern part of the Celestial Plains. The boy, though, didn't seem to have any effect at all, he didn't make even a slight movement.

He brushed Amaterasu off him and rolled his eyes.

"Okay, okay, sheesh." he said in a calm tone. "My name, as you should already know, is Yumigami, the god of the moon. As you can see, my zodiac animal is the rabbit." he pointed to Kabegami. "She's the cat, if you weren't smart enough to notice."

Ushiwaka could hear a low growl coming from Amaterasu. He tensed. Here he was, in a room talking with three gods as if it were happening everyday. Somehow now that every time he meets a god, he doesn't really get all that surprised. All his life he thought the gods were tall, fierce, yet kind rulers that weren't meant to be in the presence of an everyday peasant. Yet it seems to him as if they were like an ordinary person, each with his or her own personality and attitude. He didn't even notice that since Yumigami was the moon god, he should have protected the Moon Tribe all these years.

"Nice to meet you, Ushiwaka! We should get going to the sakura grove, come on!" Kabegami said cheerfully.