KAMIYO Episode 32: The Wailing Totsuka-no-Tsurugi and the Blood-Stained Birth of the Gods — Overture to Yomi

Prologue: Creation at the End of Agony, the Tenacity of the Mother Goddess

By the blazing flames of Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami, the divine body of Izanami, the mother of life, was mercilessly scorched from the inside out.

Her bountiful flesh, which had once brought forth seas, mountains, and forests, stood at the brink of death, yet she had not lost her tenacity as the "Goddess of Creation."

"Ah, aaaaaah...! Not yet, not yet... Even if this body perishes, I shall make this life the foundation of Oyashima..!"

In the indescribable agony of her burns, when Izanami vomited, from her vomit were born Kanayamabiko-no-Kami and Kanayamahime-no-Kami, who govern shining mines.

Furthermore, from her feces emerged the gods governing the earth's soil and rich agriculture, and from her urine successively appeared Mitsuhanome-no-Kami, who governs pure water, and Wakumusubi-no-Kami, who governs the generation of life.

Transforming even her own agony and bodily fluids into life that enriches the world. It was the fierce and sublime self-sacrifice of Mother Nature.

However, that miracle too finally reached its limit.

"My... beloved... world..."

Exhaling one last quiet breath, the light vanished from Izanami's eyes.

It was the moment "absolute death" visited Oyashimakuni, which had been at the climax of life.

Chapter 1: The Burial at Mount Hiba and the Goddess of Tears

After Izanami met her Kamusari (divine passing), colors drained from the world.

Izanagi embraced his wife's drastically changed corpse and headed toward Mount Hiba, a beautiful and quiet peak on the border of Izumo and Hoki.

"Why, Izanami...?

Were we not supposed to create this country together and live for eternity together...!"

Burying his wife at the summit of Mount Hiba, Izanagi clung to the cold earth and broke down in tears.

His wailing, enough to shake heaven and earth, did not cease, and large tears spilled endlessly from his eyes.

As those tears of bitter grief seeped into the soil of Mount Hiba, a single goddess softly revealed her form from within.

Her name was Nakisawame-no-Kami.

Born from the sorrow of losing a loved one and the unwithering tears themselves, she was the water goddess governing repose and mourning.

Nakisawame-no-Kami wept quietly as if nestling close to Izanagi, moistening the foot of Mount Hiba with pure spring water.

Chapter 2: From Sorrow to Hatred, the Drawn Totsuka-no-Tsurugi

No matter how much he cried and screamed, his wife would never return from the cold earth of Mount Hiba.

The bottomless sorrow eventually lost its place to go, beginning to transform into a dark, murky "hatred" within Izanagi.

His hollow gaze was directed toward the distant plains.

There stood the root cause—Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami, innocently making his flames flare up and burning the surrounding great nature to ashes.

"Those flames... robbed me of my beloved wife, my very other half...!"

From Izanagi's entire body, an unprecedented, terrifying thirst for blood rose up.

He slowly stood up and laid his hand on the hilt of the divine sword he wore at his waist, the Totsuka-no-Tsurugi (Sword of Ten Hand-Breadths)—also known as Ame-no-Ohabari.

It was not the power of creation to bring forth life, but a pure will of destruction meant solely to reap a single life.

Chapter 3: The Execution of Kagutsuchi and the Blood-Stained Birth of Gods

Soaring to stand before Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami in an instant, Izanagi drew the Totsuka-no-Tsurugi without a shred of hesitation.

"Diiiiiiieee!!!"

A flash of light.

Izanagi's wicked blade, driven by rage, cleaved cleanly through Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami's neck.

The divine body of flame was severed before it could even scream; the burning head danced in the air and tumbled to the earth.

However, the death of a god was not a mere "end."

From Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami's severed neck, and from the blade of the Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, a massive amount of "divine blood" like red-hot magma spewed forth, raining down upon the surrounding rocks and soil.

At that moment, from the gruesome scene of murder, new life was explosively born.

From the blood dripping from the tip of the sword, gods of the sword powerfully stood up, spearheaded by Takemikazuchi-no-Kami, the strongest god of martial arts who crushes rocks and summons lightning.

Furthermore, from various parts of Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami's hacked corpse, multiple giant mountain gods harboring the power of flame successively revealed their forms.

Born from blood, blade, and hatred, the roars of the fierce warrior gods shook heaven and earth.

This was the final, overly cruel and violent process of the Kamiumi (Birth of the Gods) begun by Izanagi and Izanami.

Chapter 4: A Heart of Nothingness and a Mad Decision

With the blood-stained Totsuka-no-Tsurugi in hand, Izanagi stood in a daze, drenched in the blood that had splashed back on him.

Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami was dead, and from his corpse, new warrior gods and mountains were born.

Yet, his heart did not clear in the slightest. Avenging his wife did not mean that Izanami's warmth would return.

Around him, the newly born warrior gods raised their swords to the heavens, flaunting their mighty power.

But in Izanagi's eyes, this beautiful Oyashimakuni and the powerful figures of the gods now merely reflected as a landscape of nothingness that no longer mattered to him.

"...No. This is not the world I wished to see."

Izanagi thrust the blood-stained sword into the earth and muttered lowly, keeping his head down.

Within his heart, the "order of the world"—the providence of great nature and the laws of life and death—audibly crumbled away.

"I cannot live without Izanami..."

Chapter 5: Descent into the Yomi-no-Kuni
Izanagi slowly raised his head.

In his eyes, the light of a rational creator god was no longer present; only a maddened obsession attempting to twist even the destiny of death burned brightly.

"Then, I shall bring her back. Be it the country of the dead, or the ends of the earth, I will take my wife back into these hands."

The place he gazed upon—it was an entrance of darkness leading to the very bottom of the earth, even deeper than Mount Hiba.

An absolute forbidden realm where no light reaches, and where the living must never set foot.

As the wind ceased and even the chirping of birds vanished, Izanagi stepped forward alone into the hole where the heavy, stagnant presence of death drifted.

The god who created the world, in pursuit of his beloved, was about to cross the boundary between life and death himself.

Izanagi's back, being swallowed by the darkness, quietly foretold the terrifyingly sorrowful and desperate journey in the "Yomi-no-Kuni" (The Underworld) that was about to begin.