- Izanami and Izanagi -
(Past)
Izanami was panting as blood dripped from the scraps of white cloth that clung to her body. She cracked her neck as she stomped onto the corpse of an oni.
"I thought you wanted to rule? Where's that fire you had?"
"She's bleeding!" One voice shouted out.
The head of a yuki landed in front of Izanami, bouncing slightly as it did.
"It's not her blood," Izanagi taunted as he dragged two headless corpses.
Before Izanami and Izanagi was a massive army of yokai. Piles of corpses, some missing heads, some with holes in their chests, some both, littered the area. Izanagi walked behind Izanami. He dropped the bodies he was dragging and grabbed the handle of a weapon that was lodged in the ground. He pulled the spear out.
"Do you want the first swing?"
Izanami chuckled, "I wouldn't dare."
- Izanami -
(Present)
Izanami leaned in her chair, staring at the jeweled spear that adorned the wall of the castle's garden. She pictured herself sitting along the spear's shaft as Izanagi carried it, the two of them more blood and dirt than flesh. She wrinkled her nose as she remembered the sea of bodies that surrounded that battlefield.
Izanami cracked her hand, 'Not something I should reminisce about. What a horrific few years that was...' she sighed. 'I should have asked Lucifer about the Seventh Day when I had the chance. These humans that know me and Izanagi, and yet don't. They know my children, and yet, they don't. Am I really meant to believe it's all some coincidence?'
Izanami rubbed her head. 'So many questions that I can't risk asking. Koz? Chaos? Void? Zero, even?' she looked into the gray sky above her. 'She who invites? Shintoism?' she exhaled fatigue.
Izanami placed her hand on the table she was sitting at and stood up, gripping her head as she walked. Her eyes were a tired glare that warned any servant she looked at not to ask her what was going on.
As Izanami walked through the castle she kept questioning things. 'As much information as I have and yet I'm still frustratingly confused. I should have visited Hell and Purgatory when I had the chance.'
Izanami cursed herself as she entered the castle's library
- Izanagi -
Izanagi sat, eyes closed, projecting himself inside his mind. It was a massive space of darkness, filled with screens of light. Each screen was playing a slightly different version of the same scene. Death and Izanagi were arguing in some scenes, and fighting in others. A thousand screens spread out in the darkness. Izanagi pictured himself walking up to one of the screens.
"A thousand-thousand paths and still no good results."
Every screen shattered into fragments of light. The fragments spread out, forming additional screens that now flooded the dark space. Death's shouting voice could be heard as Izanagi's eyes shifted from screen to screen. Izanagi opened his eyes, leaving the dark space. He rubbed his sweat-drenched head with a shaky hand.
"Why test me in such a way, Fors?"
Izanagi put his head in his hands. His grip tightened around his hair. He spoke to himself in an angry whisper.
"Stop praying to the concepts you fool."
The sound of wood being cracked filled the room.
- Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi -
The two were outside their father's room, waiting for him to come out. Amaterasu was pestering Tsukuyomi.
"You'll have to talk to me about this eventually. I've never seen a being quiet you before."
Tsukuyomi scowled. "Lucifer...I think he has a point. I want to talk more with him but I am afraid that I might have finally ruined the opportunity."
'That's new,' Amaterasu looked surprised. 'No one's ever gotten through to Tsuki before. I guess it would take his hero to do that.'
The door to Izanagi's room opened.
- Izanagi, Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi -
Izanagi's face was a mess. There were visible red finger marks on his cheeks. That, combined with the sweaty strands of hair hanging in front of his face and his hunched posture, made him look as if he had just escaped imprisonment. His eyes were tired in a way that Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi had never seen. His gaze lazily shifted from Amaterasu to Tsukuyomi.
"You're training with Lucifer will have to stop today."
Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi looked at each other.
"May I ask why, father?" Tsukuyomi questioned.
Izanagi explained the circumstances to the two. He told them how a certain organization had offered him and Izanami their alliance on the condition that the territory helps assassinate Lucifer. Before he could continue he was interrupted by Amaterasu, much to his surprise.
"You can't be serious?!"
"Excuse me?" Izanagi lifted his head up slowly. "First of all, your mother and Susanoo already agreed, which was the only dissension I was willing to hear," he took a step closer to Amaterasu. "And secondly, I'm not telling you because I wish to hear your opinion on the matter."
Amaterasu felt an uncomfortable tension from her father's form. She had always felt a lingering unease around her mother and father after her conflict with Death, but nothing to this degree. There was a disconnect between her image of her father and the man that was before her.
"Father," Tsukuyomi took a step forward. "Please, continue to explain."
Izanagi's eyes shifted to Tsukuyomi. He groaned but continued. He told the two that the stress he had been experiencing over the last few years was over this very decision. That no matter how many paths he viewed, no matter how many times he tried to deny it, he kept seeing the safest option being betraying Lucifer and Death.
"Look," Izanagi's voice was weary. "Death, Lucifer, Purgatory and Hell, they are great allies to have, ones I would never throw away easily. Unfortunately, as strong as they are, their territories are an equally great distance away. When the fighting starts..." he closed his eyes. "And it will start...we need to be safe. The beings who made me this offer are good for their word."
"You trust them?" Amaterasu doubted.
Izanagi's eyes opened into a glare. "I. Saw. It," he walked closer to Amaterasu and grabbed her stumped arm. "I tolerated THIS because I knew it was the safest option for you," he dropped her arm in anger. "I..." tears began to fall down his scrunched face. "I hate this...more than you two will ever know."
"Father," Tsukuyomi put his hands on Izanagi's shoulders.
Izanagi pushed Tsukuyomi's hand off, "Which is why decisions like this are left up to me and your mother."
- Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi -
Izanagi had left the two so he could go look for Izanami.
Amaterasu shook her head. "I didn't know it was possible for him to cry. I wonder how mother's been taking all this?"
Amaterasu had expected a response from Tsukuyomi. Tsukuyomi's silence confused her.
"What?"
Tsukuyomi stepped into the room that Izanagi had been using. He looked around the room, taking note of the bloodied scratch marks on the cracked wooden floor. He clenched his hands before sighing.
"I always thought father was not a part of the imbalance in this world."
Amaterasu folded her arms. "Why are you saying that?"
Tsukuyomi kneeled down, touching the bloody scratch marks. "I always thought father was above...this. This political game of alliances and betrayals. I thought his ability to see the future combined with his endless tenacity to search through his visions for the safest path, put him far above the usual trappings of a ruler."
Tsukuyomi fully knelt down on the ground and looked at the wall in front of him. On it was a picture of a smiling Izanagi and Izanami, with Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo below them. There was text on the side of the tapestry. It read: "Never forget that in the face of the world's greatest war, you made the right choice, not the easy one." The text was signed by Izanami.
Tsukuyomi spoke softly, "Father and mother spent every waking moment after father's choice to stay out of Ragnarok, training, preparing to be faced with the consequences of a potentially incorrect choice. Even after the fires of Ragnarok faded, they continued training, afraid they would lose this peace that they had earned."
Amaterasu sighed, "I know the history, Tsuki..."
"What I am saying," Tsukuyomi tilted his head over his shoulder, "is that not once, have mother and father fully allowed fate to guide their decisions. They have always prepared in the event that they should be wrong," he looked back at the tapestry. "I think that responsibility might be falling to us this time."
Amaterasu's eyes went wide. "Are you saying?"
Tsukuyomi stood up. "Only if you agree."
Amaterasu looked at her stumped arm. "I never want to fight that monster again," She looked at her other arm. "And Lucifer...he deserves better than this."
Amaterasu remembered something she had heard the archangel, Azriel, say before her past conflict with Death and Lucifer.
'That fallen is a stain on this world. Every day he lives is an insult to every proper being whose life he's ended.'
- Izanagi and Izanami -
Izanagi found Izanami in the castle's library.
"I thought you were in the garden?" Izanagi was confused.
Izanami shrugged as she put a book back onto a shelf. "I was but I had a sudden desire to come here."
Izanagi wiped his face and tried fixing his hair. "You have always enjoyed reading as much as training. Sorry for my appearance."
Izanami smiled. "It's fine," she shifted to a scowl. "How did Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi take it?"
Izanagi groaned, "Not well enough. I fear we won't be able to rely on them for what's to come."
"Should I handle it?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes..."