KAMIYO Episode 31: The Birth of Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami — The Scorching First Cry, the Torn Paradise

Prologue: The Gears of Paradise Going Awry

Oyashimakuni (The Great Eight Islands), where the seas had filled, mountains towered, and lush forests and fields covered the earth.

In the center of that beautiful paradise, where all creation showed perfect harmony and rejoiced in the climax of life, the gears of ruin suddenly began to turn.

"A... aaaaaaahhh!!"

Izanami, the mother of life, collapsed onto the mud, clutching her abdomen.

Her beautiful skin took on an abnormally high fever, and her sweat evaporated with a hiss the moment it poured out. Every time she writhed in agony, the surrounding air distorted like a heat haze, and the beautiful flowers that Kayanohime-no-Kami had made bloom instantly scorched black and crumbled away.

"Izanami! Hold on, suppress the power swirling within you!"

Izanagi desperately reached out to his wife, but the heat was so intense he could not even touch her.

What resided in her womb was not the "life-nurturing power" they had brought forth so far.

It was pure destructive energy meant to return everything to nothingness and burn it to ashes. That tremendous heat was right now about to burn the mother's body from the inside out.

Chapter 1: The Incarnation of Absolute Destruction, the Uncontrollable Flame

"It's... impossible...! Neither my 'love' nor my 'prayers' reach this child...!"

Izanami cried out in a voice that sounded as if she were coughing up blood.

The earth god, the tree god, the mountain god—they all took shape by receiving the love and wishes of their parents. However, this entity raging in her womb right now possessed no will to protect anything. It was composed solely of the "instinct" to devour surrounding energy, emit heat, and spread in flames.

The primordial flame.

In the cycle of great nature, it was a "symbol of destruction," absolutely necessary to burn away the old, return the forest to a blank slate, and urge death and rebirth.

But its power was far too immense, and it mercilessly eroded even Izanami's divine body, the very vessel that births life.

"Stop...! Do not come out! I will not allow you to burn my wife's body any further!!"

Izanagi's tragic scream echoed across heaven and earth. But even the command of the creator god could not stop the flame that had reached its moment of birth.

Chapter 2: The Scorching First Cry — Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami

Dooooooom!!!

With a roar that seemed to tear heaven and earth cleanly in two, a blinding flash, as if the sun itself had exploded, erupted from Izanami's lower body.

It was a giant pillar of fire piercing straight and high into the heavens.

Fierce hot winds raged around the pillar of fire; nearby giant trees ignited in an instant, and rocks melted into sludge, flowing out as magma.

And from the center of that burning hellfire, a robust male god clad entirely in crimson flames revealed his form.

He was the absolute god of fire who burns everything to ashes.

It was the birth of Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami.

"...A, aa..."

The newborn Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami held not a shred of hostility toward his parents.

Possessing a divine body of flame, he merely stood there, radiating heat as if uttering his first cry. However, simply by exhaling, the atmosphere burned, and simply by moving, everything around him turned to ash.

His very existence itself was a fatal "violence" to all living things.

Chapter 3: The Scorched Mother Earth

"Ah... a..."

At the feet of the newborn Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami, Izanami lay powerlessly, no longer even able to utter a sound.

As the price for giving birth to the god of fire, her beautiful divine body was scorched black beyond recognition. Particularly, her genitals (hoto), the exit of life, suffered fatal burns, and her absolute vitality as the goddess of creation began to audibly collapse.

"Izanami!! Izanami!!!"

Caring not if his own hands were burned, Izanagi pushed through the waves of Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami's flames, rushed to his wife's side, and held her body tightly.

From her body, which had brought forth seas, mountains, and forests until now, he felt the "heat of life" being lost at an unbelievable speed, replaced by the spreading coldness of death.

"Don't die! Do not leave me behind! Our country-building is not yet finished!!"

Izanagi's tears fell upon Izanami's scorched cheek, evaporating with a hiss.

No matter how immense the divine spirit one possessed, the fatal "destiny of death" that had arisen could not be pulled back, not even with Izanagi's power.

Chapter 4: The Boundary of Life and Death, the Passing of Izanami

"My dear... do not cry..."

Within her fading consciousness, Izanami slightly opened her eyes and gazed at her beloved husband's face.

In those eyes, there was no resentment or regret. There was only an unfathomable sorrow that she had to pass on and leave her husband behind, and pity for her child of flame who was innocently burning everything around him.

"This is... as far as I go... I was... happy... to have been able to create... a beautiful world... with you..."

"Do not speak such nonsense! Did we not swear to watch over this country together!"

"...Farewell... my... beloved..."

Izanami's hand powerlessly clawed the void, and then slowly fell to the earth.

The light completely vanished from the eyes of the mother goddess who had continued to bring life to Oyashimakuni.

For a god to discard their physical body and depart from the world of the living to the world of the dead—it was her "Kamusari" (divine passing).

At that moment, all the flowers in the world lost their colors at once, and a heavy, oppressive wind like a scream blew across the earth. All creation wailed, mourning the death of the mother.

Chapter 5: The End of Despair, the Overture to the Yomi-no-Kuni

"Ah... ah... aaaaaaahhh!!!"

Izanagi's beast-like scream echoed into the crimson-dyed sky.

Embracing his wife's corpse growing cold in his arms, he was struck down by a despair that felt as if his body were being torn apart.

A perfect paradise. A beautiful world.

But a world without his beloved wife held no value to him.

His deep sorrow eventually lost its place to go, beginning to transform into a dark, murky "anger" and "obsession."

Izanagi slowly raised his head.

Beyond his hollow gaze was the figure of Hinokagutsuchi-no-Kami, purely making his flames flicker. And his consciousness turned toward the absolute forbidden realm where Izanami's soul must have gone—deep, dark, a place where the living must never set foot.

The very bottom of the earth. The country of the dead, where no light reaches—.

(...Wait for me, Izanami. I will surely bring you back.)

A sudden plunge from the climax of life into the abyss of death and despair.

The obsession of the creator god who lost his love twisted even the providence of great nature, finally taking its steps toward the forbidden land, the "Yomi-no-Kuni" (The Underworld).