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There is something about you that makes you not quite human, and at first you don’t understand it.
Katsuragi clasps your shoulder and you tremble so violently at the touch that he flinches away in surprise. A kind lady hands you a bowl of warm broth and you stare at it, uncomprehending. You don’t even know what to do with a cup of tea.
You’ve lost your memories, Katsuragi explains, but that’s not true. You remember all of it. You remember maple leaves and unlit lanterns and the endlessly twisting corridors of the pavillion.
That’s okay, Katsuragi says, we’ll help you, say the people of Tatarasuna. And they do. You learn from them.
You learn to appreciate how tea feels in your mouth. You help out at the furnace. You observe the many shapes kindness takes.
You are valued at the forge, useful, because despite you small stature, you can lift their heaviest hammers and you don’t tire easily. You don’t tire at all, but you don’t tell them that. You’re afraid of them finding out and so you observe when others take breaks and follow their example.
You realize that you are not quite like them despite your best efforts when the dark clouds first begin to gather over Tatarasuna. What replaces the sky is something violet and angry. Poisonous.
The people of Tatarasuna start to worry, for themselves, about each other. You can understand why they fear for themselves, even if you yourself are in no danger. You could walk into the flames of the forge, grip the red-hot steel with bare hands, and walk away unharmed. But you are afraid—terrified, of them finding out, of them knowing you’re unlike them, and so you don’t, even when the flames call to you.
The second sentiment, you don’t understand at all.
“Poor thing,” a group of women murmur one morning, eating breakfast together under the violet sky. You sit close to them, close enough to be a part of their group, but you’re not. Even when you’re in the middle of a crowd, waiting in line with everyone else for a bowl of rice for supper, you’re not with them. You’re an empty space; a rock in a stream, obstructing the flow of water.
“Poor thing,” the women say, faces drawn and expressions grave, talking about one of the forge workers who had fallen ill.
“I’m worried what might happen if our herbs don’t work,” one of them says, wringing her hands.
“We might have to send someone for medicine down to Narukami,” another muses, concern in her voice.
You listen, and you sit with them, and you break your fast with them, but you’re not one of them. You don’t share their concern, you don’t share their fears. You think of the ill youth and you feel nothing. You think of the Naku weeds sprouting around the area, purple leaves pressed against a sweating forehead, against flushed cheeks. You think of death. You don’t feel anything.
Some of the women look scared. Not just at the prospect of falling ill themselves, but at the possibility of the forge worker passing away.
You wish you felt that fear, too. You wish you could fear for your existence, cradle it in your palms like the flame of a candle. You wish you could fear for others.
Maybe then you’d be one of them.
When the Daitatara Nagamasa is at last forged, it is a cause for great joy and celebration. Lord Nagamasa is in high spirits at the prospect of restoring honor to his family name, and the good mood spreads over the Mikage Furnace like a comforting blanket.
The nagamaki is a beautiful triumph of jade steel. Along with everyone else who lays eyes upon it, you find yourself bewitched by its cold, lethal beauty. That evening, while one of the forge workers paints the product of their labours by the fire, Katsuragi shares his intent to perform a sword dance to celebrate and pay his respects.
Curious, so curious. You follow Katsuragi to his training spot of choice, down by the water, knee high grass easily cut away, a practice sword clutched in a steady hand. He goes through the sword forms slowly, awakening memories he had perhaps not thought of in a long time, moving precise and controlled through the night, practice sword parting the air. You sit in the grass, bright robes making you seem like a ghost, as Katsuragi fondly informs you, and you watch. You absorb his movements, the precise slices of his sword, the position of his hands on the handle.
The next evening, as he prepares for the performance again, you join him.
The sword dance begins with Katsuragi slowly unsheathing the nagamaki, something almost ceremonial about the gentle movement of his hands. Facing the gathered workers, Lord Nagamasa at the forefront, watching the sword proudly and almost hungrily, Katsuragi reaches behind him, holding out the sheath for you to hold.
Your hands curl around polished lacquer. This is your part to play for the first act of the sword dance; the yoriki’s shadow. In front of you, Katsuragi demonstrates the blade’s abilities. You hold the sheath like he’d shown you, imagine it as an extension of your arm, and the two of you begin to circle each other.
The sword slices through the air, graceful and sharp enough to part wind currents, ghosting over Katsuragi’s collarbones, his limbs. And you mirror him, the sheath nowhere near as chillingly dangerous, but a beautiful sight nonetheless.
You come close together, and he draws you into the nagamaki’s orbit, ghosting over you like it had ghosted over him. It is an expression of trust, allowing the sharp steel so close to one’s throat, one’s skin. Or it would be, if this blade was capable of doing you harm.
It is in Katsuragi’s case. He regards the nagamaki as a revered object, something to be celebrated as well as respected and even feared.The blade never comes into contact with skin, but you think it’d make for an unforgettable performance, the newly forged sword parting skin and flesh, crimson dripping from its newborn steel.
The two of you dance away from each other, putting distance between the sword and its sheath. You imagine ocean currents pulling you away for this part, enjoying the freedom the distance allows you. You spin away from the audience with the sheath held out on your outstretched arm. Then the ocean currents change, pulling you together again; it is time for the second part of the performance.
You hold out the sheath, Katsuragi the handle, and in the blink of an eye, in a move you didn’t practice enough, as Katsuragi had said and worried, but a move you had complete confidence in pulling off, your left hand grabs the sword as his grabs the sheath, and you continue in opposite directions, the sword and sheath separated once again.
You change your grip, two hands, fall into the proper stance and slice, a fluid downwards sweep before you bring it up over your head, your robes whirling around you, still too bright and too fine to fit in among the people of Tatarasuna.
You cut yourself just then, as you bring the sword up, perhaps without really thinking about it, perhaps subconsciously longing to create the sort of fnale you imagined before, the sort of finale the Daitatara Nagamasa deserves, bloody and gory, horrible and terrifying, but nobody notices. The movement was too subtle, and your body does not bleed. The nagamaki remains pristine.
The failure to achieve the climax you wished for stings, sharply, unlike the insignificant cut. With sudden panic, you think of turning the blade against Katsuragi, staining the brilliant metal with his blood, carving his flesh with the object of his reverent admiration. A perfect finale, a sacrifice for the hungry audience and the starving blade, but before you can move to carry out the act, Katsuragi brings the performance to a close. He reaches with his arm so that your limbs are intertwined, the nagamaki and its sheath crossed over each other, reunited at last.
The gathered crowd begins to cheer, satisfied with the performance despite your perceived failure. Next to you, Katsuragi is breathing a little heavier with exertion. He disengages your limbs and takes the sheath from you, safely storing the Daitatara Nagamasa back inside, before bowing and holding it out for his Lord to take.
Later, when you learn of the fate of Katsuragikiri Nagamasa, you will think, that blade cut me first.
“How horrible,” the women mutter. The clouds overhead are particularly dark today, dark and broiling, the very air feeling like a fight is about to break out.
“How horrible,” the women say, talking about a tragedy that has struck in a village nearby. Two men had gotten into a nasty brawl, and one of them had lost more than the fight.
“He’s lost his mind,” one of the women says, shaking her head, regret and just a tinge of disbelief in her voice. Her hands shake where they’re wrapped around a clay cup.
The man had gone after his opponent’s family in retaliation; killed his wife and both his children.
“How despicable,” another one spits. “He’s lower than a human being——he’s a beast! ”
Something zaps through you at her words, like lightning shooting down your spine.
Oh.
There is something about you that makes you not quite human, and that makes you worse. That makes you less.
On a quiet day, you and Niwa discover a fox den while patrolling the area.
The kind armory officer always allows you to accompany him on his walks around the Mikage Furnace. He has never refused you when you first arrived, always had a quick smile and a story to share, insects and birds and plants to point out as the two of you walked, and he does not refuse you now that his patrols grow more frequent. The dark clouds and stifling air worry him. This way, he gets to keep a vigilant eye out on potential danger, potential misfortune, and the occassional potential medicinal herb to bring back with him.
On a quiet day, so quiet that you think the sky is about to finally swallow you all, Niwa’s sharp eyes notice a fox den, hidden among tree roots.
He pauses on the path, gaze glued to a spot further up the hillside, and while you follow the line of his sight, you do not see what has caught his attention. You don’t understand when he abandons the path and makes his way up the slope.
The entrance is well obscured. The only reason he had noticed, Niwa tells you later, is because a young fox was curiously looking around, its fur bright and eyecatching against the dark grass and darker bushes. But you don’t notice it from where you’re standing.
He makes a gesture that you know by now to mean, come, join me, his eyes sparkling like they always do when he wants to show you something. A lizard, a garishly colored bug, a plant endemic to the Tatarasuna area. You clamber after him, the steep slope and your own voluminous robes making the process perilous and awkward.
Niwa notices you struggling, as he always does, and he extends a hand from where he’s crouching further up. He pulls you closer to him, tugs you so you stay close to the ground. Unobtrusive. You wait as he holds a finger to his mouth, a reminder to both of you to be quiet, before he points out whatever it is he saw, and you’re rewarded when he directs your eyes to the gnarled tree a few paces above you.
A small, brightly colored animal head peeks out from beneath the tree’s elaborate roots. You’re drawn to it at once, the drop of color amidst all that gloom that’s been blanketing Tatarasuna lately.
Next to you, Niwa whispers, “Hello, little friend.” And then, to you: “A fox den.”
You file that knowledge away. Fox den. Foxes. Tiny animals, dwelling under tree roots, their fur too shiny to allow them to blend in. Unlike, say, some of the lizards Niwa has shown you over the months, who excel at inconspicuous coloring. He seems to have a special sense for locating them, spotting even the best camouflaged ones where they’re clinging to tree bark.
The fox sniffs, tilts its head to the side. Another head peeks out from behind it, astoundingly similar to the first one.
Niwa breaks into a smile, the curve of his mouth so much rarer nowadays when he’s at the furnace, but always coming freely when he’s out here, patrolling with you. You begin to suspect this might be the reason he comes out here so often lately—not just to check for potential danger, but also to escape from the stifling, oppressive atmosphere, and to delight in seeing signs of life around Tatarasuna. In spite of the quiet and in spite of the stormclouds.
The tiny foxes haven’t noticed you yet, but Niwa strikes up a conversation anyway, like they’re good friends already. “Is your mom out gathering food for you?”
The foxes don’t reply, but the question makes you pause. Now that you think about it—the foxes certainly seem too small, too young to find food on their own, and it suddenly seems exceedingly important you feed them. “Can we bring them with us?” you whisper.
Niwa’s mouth parts in surprise, before he laughs, very quietly as to not disturb the cubs. You stare. You want to crawl past his teeth, down his throat, sink your hands and feet into the soft tissue, down into his chest, curl up behind his ribs, safe in his lungs, in his heart. “No,” he says. “We shouldn’t.”
You frown at that. “Why not?” They’re so small, so alone. Together you can help them. You tell him as much. “We could give them food.”
“No, no,” Niwa shakes his head, eyes crinkling. “Their mom will come back soon. She would never abandon her young.”
Your frown deepens at that answer.
He continues. “Imagine if she came back and found the den empty. We shouldn’t take them from her.”
Still, the next time the two of you go out on patrol, he brings lavender melons and leaves them by the tree.
You remember the conversation at the fox den often, Niwa’s words weighting you down like stones. It isn’t the first time you think of your past with resentment, but it is the first time that resentment is directed towards your creator rather than yourself.
The sky over Tatarasuna bubbles and boils.
The peaceful atmosphere you had so foolishly gotten used to is broken into shards. It feels as though you had unknowingly stepped into a mirrored world. Fights and brawls break out among the forge workers, arguments where there had once been amicable conversation between friends. The poisonous clouds choke the recent harvest, leaving people quarreling over food, bowls held protectively close, no thoughts given to sharing. Breakfast and supper, before so ripe with gossip and conversation, become stiflingly silent. Illness runs rampant. Folk remedies do not work.
There is evil brewing. Unease pervades the air, and fear is spreading.
And no matter how many people leave to look for help, it does not arrive.
Your turn now: you climb the steps of the Tenshukaku, your golden feather not a proof or humanity, but a proof of something, at least.
You are denied an audience.
Driven by something you cannot name, your steps lead you to the Grand Shrine, and here, the head shrine maiden agrees to see you.
Resentment is something you have begun to feel more often lately, and it swirls in your core and tightens around your throat as you notice her eyes lingering on your feather. You do what you were instructed to do; you request Narukami’s aid, and she gives you her word. You have yet to learn that this, too, will blossom into another one of Eternity’s betrayals.
She says something else before you turn back to your furnace, something that makes you pause and something that makes you freeze.
“Ah, I do wonder why you’d choose to help them.”
Something in that sentence roots you to the spot. You’ve been caught, you’ve been recognized, as something other. She saw through you.
And then she leaves you there, as if unaware of the effect her words had on you, rendering you immobile under the sweeping branches of the sakura tree, petals snagging in your hair, shrine maidens and visitors milling about you, avoiding you as an obstacle in their path. A rock in a stream, obstructing the flow of water; not aware, perhaps, that the current is wearing down its sides.
You are here because you want to bring aid to Tatarasuna. But are you here because you want to help people, or because of something else?
Wanting to help people and wanting to be the one helping them. One of these puts you first, over the people you’re helping. Does that make you selfish? Does that make your help worth less?
You’re here because you wish for their gratitude.
That is why you crossed the water and that is why you climbed to the top of the shrine, that is why you wield your golden feather like a weapon. It was not worry or concern driving you forward, it was your desire to be the one to bring aid.
And is it not enough? Is it not enough to do the right things? Do the reasons have to be right, too?
The sharp wind that blows at the peak swirls the fallen petals, and it stings your cheeks.
Is that how a god feels, looking down at shrines overflowing with offerings from grateful followers? Is that why you’re chasing that feeling so?
But you know by now that gods don’t deserve their thanks. You wonder if you do.
You return from Narukami only to find Niwa has fled, leaving the people of Tatarasuna behind.
Leaving you behind.
He has abandoned you all.
Katsuragi is grievously injured, one of the workers dies from the burn wounds, and Nagamasa has gone mad with rage.
And the shrine maiden’s promised help does not come.
You don’t know how to deal with your grief. You don’t know if what you’re feeling is grief in the first place.
Can you mourn someone who isn’t dead? Is it grief if they left you of their own volition? Would it hurt less or more if they were dead?
(It will take some time before you learn that what you feel when you think of Katsuragi and the people of Tatarasuna is indeed grief. And longer still to identify that what you feel when you think of Niwa is anger.)
And it is anger you will feel when you open the door of your little cottage on that unfortunate day.
The lavender melons you had carefully sought out, collected and brought back with you, just like you did every day, tumble to the ground at the sight of the crumpled body in front of you, and it is anger you will feel, yes, but first, it is disbelief.
Disbelief that you would be left behind again—that you allowed for it to happen. The air inside the cottage, no longer anyone’s home, tastes of failure.
This is what your existence amounts to: wanting and trying and failing. Always chasing, never catching up, perpetually tossed aside. Unable to resemble the mortal and unable to compare to the divine.
You stand in the doorway, still, unmoving, a breeze pushing its way inside. One of the purple melons bumps into the threshold, rolls back slowly towards you, stops against your foot. You glance at it, focus shifting, disbelief dispersing and cold fury solidifying.
No. You did everything right. You brought him a basket of fruit every day. You kept your word.
It was him, it is always them who are at fault, who betray and lie and leave others behind, who lay traps and break promises and speak words they don’t mean, who injure and damage and maim. Stealing from others at the drop of a hat.
Gods and humans. What lying, deceitful creatures they are.
That day, when flames light up the seaside, something more than just the cottage and the body is reduced to ashes.
There is something about you that makes you not quite human, and something about you that makes you not quite a god, and that makes you better.