The World Quartet Bleeds

Her eyes snapped open. 

Her heart pounded. 

The familiar scent of old books and ink was gone, replaced by smoke and blood. She blinked rapidly. 

'My cozy study! Where?'

She grumbled.

Instead, she found himself lying on hard-packed earth, surrounded by the chaos of a battlefield.

The clashing steel and agonized screams were all around her. She struggled to her feet, her body feeling simultaneously foreign and familiar. She glanced down at herself, breath catching in his throat. Instead of her usual tweed jacket and slacks, she wore ornate samurai armor, its lacquered plates gleaming dully in the hazy light.

"What?" She muttered. The realization struck her like a physical blow. The last thing she remembered was analyzing a strange diary. Now, impossibly, she seemed to have been thrust into the very legends she'd spent her life studying.

An arrow whistled past her ear, snapping her out of her daze. She instinctively ducked, muscles responding with a warrior's trained reflexes. Her mind reeled and struggled to reconcile her scholarly knowledge with this visceral reality.

"Lord Susanoo!" A voice called out, rough with desperation. "We need your divine strength! The forces of Yamata no Orochi are overwhelming us!"

'Susanoo?' The name was heavy on her mind.

Her head whipped around, and her eyes widened as she took in the speaker — a battle-worn samurai, his armor dented and blood-spattered. The man's eyes gazed at her with a mixture of fear and reverence.

"A woman?"

'Uh oh,' she thought. 

Lord Susanno, the storm god of Japanese mythology…

"Lord Susanoo?" asked the samurai, panting.

He was known for his tempestuous nature and legendary defeat of the eight-headed serpent, Yamata no Orochi. Somehow, inexplicably, she had become the very deity she spent countless hours researching. 

The ground trembled beneath their feet, and a bone-chilling roar split the air. She turned and saw a monstrous sight. Towering above the battlefield, its scales glinting like polished obsidian, was Yamata no Orochi itself. Eight heads writhed on serpentine necks, each pair of glowing eyes.

'I want to go to bed.'

Her mind recalled the mythological accounts of this epic battle. According to legend, Susanoo had defeated the serpent through a combination of cunning and brute strength, using enchanted sake to intoxicate the beast before slaying it. But now, experiencing the terror and chaos firsthand, she realized how sanitized those stories had been. 

The dying screamed as the serpent roared.

"Woman! Where's our lord!" The samurai pleaded, gripping her arm. "Why are you in his armor?" He shook his head. "What are your orders? How shall we defeat this abomination?"

'What? He changed his mind?'

She swallowed hard, her throat dry as sandpaper. She knew the myth, knew how it was supposed to play out. But the weight of real lives hung in the balance now. Was she meant to follow the prescribed path, to ensure history — or mythology — unfolded as it should? Or could she forge a new destiny, one that might spare some of the carnage spread before her?

The samurai's grip tightened, his eyes searching the woman's face for some sign of the divine wisdom he expected from his god. 

The supposed Lord took a deep breath and forced her racing thoughts into order. She might not be the real Susanoo, but she had knowledge that could turn the tide of this battle.

"Listen," she said, his voice gaining strength as he spoke. "We cannot match Orochi in brute strength alone. We must use cunning to defeat it." She quickly outlined a plan, drawing on both the mythological account and her own strategic insight.

As she spoke, she felt a strange energy coursing through her. Whether it was the power of Susanoo or simply the adrenaline of the moment, she couldn't say. But she knew that her next actions would shape not just this battle, but potentially the entire fabric of mythology itself.

The samurai nodded, hope rekindling in his eyes. "It shall be done, wo — er, Lord Susanoo. May your divine wisdom guide us to victory."

As the warrior hurried off to relay the orders, she turned back to face Yamata no Orochi. The serpent's heads weaved hypnotically, its eyes fixed upon her with ancient hatred. Her hand found the hilt of a sword at her side — Kusanagi. 

She realized with a jolt. 

The blade hummed with power.

Standing on the steep cliff between myth and reality, Eiko Tamiko made her choice. She would not be a passive actor in a predetermined story. Instead, she would forge her own path.

With a war cry that surprised even herself, she raised Kusanagi high. Lightning crackled along the blade, and storm clouds began to gather overhead. As she charged towards Yamata no Orochi, she felt the weight of millennia of mythology bearing down upon her. But with each step, that burden transformed into a wellspring of strength and possibility.

The battle that would reshape the very foundations of legend had begun.