KAMIYO Episode 37: The Boulder of Chibiki — The Parting of Life and Death, the Vows of Curse and Blessing

Prologue: The Approaching Fundamental Despair

Izanagi, having repelled the army of Yomi and the Yakusa-no-Ikazuchi (Eight Thunder Gods) through the sacred power of the peaches (Ookamuzumi-no-Mikoto), sat at the exit of Yomotsu-Hirasaka.

As he caught his ragged breath, an ice-cold wind brushed against his skin once more.

It was incomparable to the bloodlust emitted by the monsters earlier.

It was a deep, heavy, and endlessly sorrowful "fundamental presence of death."

Drag... drag...

From the depths of the dark slope, heavy footsteps, sounding as if dragging flesh, approached.

When Izanagi raised his head, a single silhouette cloaked in unbelievable miasma emerged from the bottom of the darkness.

It was neither a Yomotsu-Shikome nor a thunder god.

It was the Queen of Yomi, boiling with ultimate love and hatred after her army had been repelled—his most beloved wife, Izanami herself.

"...I will not let you escape. You, above all else, absolutely...!"

Spewing dark resentment from her putrefying flesh, she approached with burning flames of obsession, intending to drag her husband down to the country of death with her own hands.

Chapter 1: The Boulder of Chibiki and the Kotodo-watashi

"...Izanami. You are no longer the beautiful wife I knew. You are a terrifying Queen of Death who will rot the world."

Izanagi stood up with a tragic resolve in his heart.

If he let her escape as she was, the defilement of death would overflow onto the surface, and all the life in Oyashimakuni that they had painstakingly created would rot away.

To protect this world, and above all, to prevent the wife he once loved from being degraded into a monster any further, he had to choose a "complete parting."

Izanagi walked over to a massive rock sitting beside the exit of Yomotsu-Hirasaka.

It was a ridiculously colossal bedrock called the Chibiki-no-Iwa (The Rock of a Thousand Pulls), so large that it would take the combined strength of a thousand men to barely move it.

"Uwooooooohh!!"

Izanagi squeezed out every last drop of his remaining divine spirit as the god of creation, pushing and moving that giant rock.

With an earth-shattering rumble of Rumblllle!!, the Chibiki-no-Iwa rolled, completely and eternally blocking the sole entrance connecting the world of the living and the world of the dead.

Thud! Immediately after, the dull sound of Izanami violently crashing against the other side of the giant rock that had become a stone door echoed.

Chapter 2: The Dialogue Across the Rock

"Open it...! Izanagi, open this!!"

From across the Chibiki-no-Iwa, Izanami's tragic screams rang out.

The sound of her beating the rock gradually grew weaker, eventually turning into a weeping, sobbing voice.

"Why... why are you leaving me behind? Did we not vow to live for eternity together? Leaving me all alone in this darkness... are you saying you alone will return to the world of light!"

That voice was not the resentment of a monster, but the sorrowful wailing of a woman who deeply loved her husband.

Izanagi, too, placed his hands on the thick rock, shedding large tears.

"Forgive me, Izanami... I, too, love you. But we must never intersect again. You, as the master of the country of the dead, and I, as the master of the country of the living, must live by our respective laws."

Through the rock, Izanagi performed the Kotodo-watashi—the formal declaration of divorce and the complete separation of the worlds of life and death.

At this moment, the world that had been bound together as one by the two gods was eternally torn into two dimensions: "Life" and "Death."

Chapter 3: The Curse of Hatred, One Thousand Deaths a Day

The moment she heard the declaration of Kotodo-watashi, the last remaining sliver of "love as a woman" within Izanami beyond the rock completely shattered.

Because she loved him, the despair of being betrayed was profound.

She could absolutely not forgive her husband for abandoning her and going on to live again in a beautiful world overflowing with light.

The Queen of Yomi declared in the most terrifying and ruthless voice, sounding as if it were crawling up from the bottom of the earth:

"My beloved husband. If you are to reject me and act with such cruelty..."

Rumble... The Chibiki-no-Iwa began to turn black with miasma.

"From this day forth, every day, I shall strangle to death one thousand of the beautiful humans of your land, who grow like the green grass."

It was an eternal "curse of death.

" It was the moment the concepts of "lifespan" and "unavoidable death" were first born into Oyashimakuni, which until now had only overflowed with life.

The mother goddess had transformed into an absolute grim reaper, reaping the very lives she had brought forth with her own hands.

Chapter 4: The Vow of Blessing, One Thousand Five Hundred Lives a Day

Even faced with his wife's terrifying words of curse, Izanagi no longer ran away.

 He powerfully pressed both hands against the Chibiki-no-Iwa, raised his head, and declared majestically:

"My beloved wife. If you are to snatch away lives in such a manner..."

From Izanagi's entire body, a blinding light of life was emitted.

It pushed back the miasma of death, powerfully purifying the Chibiki-no-Iwa.

"From this day forth, every day, I shall build one thousand five hundred parturition huts, and cause one thousand five hundred new lives to be born."

If you take a thousand lives, I shall continue to bring forth fifteen hundred lives to surpass it.

No matter how much death visits, the chain of life shall never be severed.

That was the ultimate "blessing" he, the god of life, cast against his beloved wife's curse, and the completion of the "cycle of life and death."

A thousand die a day, and fifteen hundred are born.

Through this absolute balance, Oyashimakuni obtained the "law of the world" to prevent the mere runaway proliferation of life, eternally prospering while repeating death and rebirth.

Chapter 5: The Eternal Parting with Yomotsu-Okami

"...Ah... Aaaaaaaahh!!!"

From the other side of the rock, Izanami's scream of despair and defeat faded away.

The power of the living had surpassed the curse of the dead.

From this day forward, she became the absolute master of the underworld, called Yomotsu-Okami (Great Deity of Yomi), or Chishiki-no-Okami (Great Deity of the Rock-Block) in honor of the great rock blocking the path, and she never appeared on the surface again.

"Farewell, my most beloved wife..."

Izanagi gently pressed his forehead against the Chibiki-no-Iwa and bid his final farewell.

Then, he slowly turned around and began to walk toward the light of the surface that had faintly begun to shine through.

Exiting the cave of Yomotsu-Hirasaka, the beautiful great nature they had created spread out before him in its unchanging form.

However, Izanagi's heart was not clear.

For upon his physical body and spirit, the fathomless "defilement of death" he had bathed in within the Yomi-no-Kuni clung heavily and darkly.

(If I leave this as it is, it will rot Oyashima. I must quickly wash away this defilement...)

The sorrow of losing his beloved, and the horrifying impurity brought back from the country of death.

The battered creator god began to wander the sunlit surface in search of pure water to cleanse his soul and body.