Episode 46: The Descent and Interrogation of the Father, Izanagi
Share
[Prologue] The Shattering Sky
The sky cracked and shattered with a sharp sound, like thin glass.
What poured forth from the depths of that massive fissure was an overwhelming, pure white light that threatened to sear the eyes.
In an instant, the light blew away the dark clouds of miasma born of Susanoo's wailing, illuminating every corner of the deadened earth with a purity bordering on violence.
"...!"
Takehaya Susanoo-no-Mikoto, who had been covered in the mud of the withered beach and screaming like a baby, gasped at the intense divine aura striking down from above, instinctively shielding his face with both arms.
From within the light, a single, majestic god descended silently.
He was clad in a pure white divine robe that knew no stain.
In his hand, he grasped the sacred Heavenly Jeweled Spear (Ame-no-Nuboko), the very weapon used to churn the sea of chaos and create this world (Oyashima).
It was Izanagi, the creator of the world and the supreme authority of the heavenly realm.
After surviving the Underworld, purifying his body, and giving birth to the Three Noble Children (Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo), he had declared, "My work here is done," and was supposed to be living in quiet seclusion in Taga of Oumi.
Yet here he was, once again cloaked in the overwhelming anger of an absolute ruler, setting foot upon the earth.
The moment the tip of Izanagi's foot touched the ground, the mud that had been rotting from Susanoo's tears hissed and evaporated, and all defilement vanished from the surrounding space.
[Chapter 1] The Wrath of the Creator God
"...Takehaya Susanoo."
Izanagi's voice was by no means raised.
Yet, those quiet words carried a pressure heavy enough to tremble the earth and make Susanoo's giant body cower to its core.
"You have ruthlessly destroyed this beautiful country—which I put in order with blood, sweat, and tears, and breathed life into—simply so you could cry and scream. You withered the lush green mountains, turned the sea into muddy water, and delighted the evil gods."
Izanagi looked down at his giant son, groveling in the mud, with eyes as cold as ice.
"I commanded you to rule the vast ocean. Despite that, why have you abandoned your duties to wail like a child? Answer me!!"
That final roar struck Susanoo's eardrums like a thunderbolt.
It was the absolute pressure of the father god who created all things.
A normal god would lose their sense of self in terror just hearing that voice, prostrating themselves and begging for forgiveness.
However, the "thirst for love" within Susanoo's heart surpassed even the fear of his father's wrath.
"...Rule? This sea that is nothing but vast and dark...?"
Susanoo slowly raised his trembling, giant frame.
Lifting his face, stained with mud and his own bloody tears, he glared straight at his father.
"You gave Sister the shining Takamagahara, and you gave Brother the tranquil world of night. Yet, why was I alone banished to this dark frontier?! It is because you do not love me, Father!"
[Chapter 2] The Mud-Stained Rebellion and the Forbidden Word
"Foolishness. I entrusted it to you precisely because you have the power for it!"
"Then why do I not have a 'Mother'!!"
Susanoo's blood-curdling scream cut off Izanagi's words.
"Every beast on earth, even the smallest insect, has a mother who holds them and loves them. Yet, why am I the only one who doesn't?! Are you saying that I, born like mud from your defilement, do not even have the right to be loved?!"
The gazes of father and son violently clashed.
What resided in Susanoo's eyes was not the simple anger of a rebellious child.
It was an overly pure despair rooted in a survival instinct that shook the very meaning of his existence.
"...I am leaving. I no longer care what happens to such a cold world. I shall journey to Ne-no-Katasu-Kuni, where my mother resides!"
The moment those words flew from Susanoo's mouth, the blood drained from Izanagi's face.
The pupils of the creator god, which should have been filled with absolute rage, contracted to their absolute limits as if staring directly into a horrifying nightmare.
"Ne-no... Katasu-Kuni... you say...?"
[Chapter 3] The Resurrected Trauma of the Underworld
Susanoo's words violently gouged open the "memories of hell" strictly sealed in the deepest recesses of Izanagi's soul.
—That day, when he stepped into the land of the dead, Yomi, to bring back his beloved wife, Izanami.
The foolishness of breaking his promise, "Never look upon my figure," and lighting a fire in the darkness.
What emerged in that pale light was not the figure of the beautiful wife with whom he had once birthed the lands and whispered words of love.
Decomposed, melting flesh.
Countless hideous maggots swarming and squirming all over her body.
Clad in eight terrifying thunder gods, weeping tears of blood and screaming, "How dare you put me to shame!"—that was the figure of his former beloved wife as she chased him with an unearthly shriek.
"My beloved husband. If you insist on running away, I will strangle to death a thousand of your people each day."
The spine-chilling curse of death unleashed from across the giant boulder (Chibiki-no-Ishi).
To escape the forces of the Underworld, Izanagi ran blindly.
Throwing his headdress, throwing his comb, covered in the defilement of Yomi, crying out in terror and practically crawling back to the world of the living.
(Ah... that was not love. An unsightly obsession with our beautiful past days bred madness and nearly destroyed the world...!)
An icy chill ran through Izanagi's entire body.
[Chapter 4] His Own Hideous Reflection in the Mirror
Izanagi stared intently at his son, who was shedding massive tears and screaming madly, "I want to see my mother," right before his eyes.
In that moment, Izanagi realized.
Why he had pushed Susanoo the furthest away among the Three Noble Children, banishing him to the dark sea.
It was not just because Susanoo was born from his "nose," the organ that most intimately sensed the stench of the dead.
It was because the "abnormal obsession with a non-existent mother (love)" swirling within Susanoo, and the "madness to achieve his desires even if it meant destroying the world" born of that obsession, were too cruelly similar to his own past self—the one who went to the Underworld to retrieve his wife and exposed the world to the brink of ruin.
(This man... is me.)
Izanagi's face twisted hideously in terror and self-loathing.
(What I wanted to wash away in the Underworld was not merely the defilement of death. It was my own weakness hidden under the name of love, my lingering regrets, and my ugly obsession that endangered the world... That is what congealed, took the form of a god, and was born as this man, Susanoo!)
An existence that seemed to embody the "shame" and "sin" he least wanted to face was now screaming "I am going to Ne-no-Katasu-Kuni" right before his eyes.
For Izanagi, it was an absolutely unforivable condemnation of his own past.
[Chapter 5] The Sentence of Divine Expulsion
"...Silence."
Izanagi's voice changed drastically from his previous rage; it was terribly quiet, carrying an absolute-zero resonance devoid of all emotion.
"F-Father...?"
Susanoo instinctively gasped, feeling the aura rising from his father shift from "anger" to a cold rejection bordering on clear "murderous intent."
"What you seek is not love. It is merely compensation for your own weakness."
Izanagi raised the Heavenly Jeweled Spear high and ruthlessly pointed its tip at his mud-covered son.
"This world is not something to be run by such personal obsessions and lingering regrets. One like you, who cannot control his own emotions and yearns for the world of the dead, has no right to remain in the world of light and life."
Susanoo's eyes widened greatly in despair.
His father, far from trying to understand him, had fundamentally denied his very existence.
"Takehaya Susanoo-no-Mikoto. I banish you from this Oyashima."
Izanagi's sentence echoed across the world like thunder.
"You are no longer the god who rules the sea. There is no place for you in this country, eternally. If you desire the world of rot and death so deeply... then go to that defiled hell, prepared never to return!!"
It was the absolute order of banishment by the supreme god—the sentence of Kanyarai (Divine Expulsion).
The pure fierce god who sought love, at the end of his ferociously violent sorrow, was eternally abandoned by his father and completely cast out from the world of light.
Amidst the silence covering heaven and earth, only the hollow eyes of the discarded son and the figure of the father turning his back as if severing the ghosts of his past remained there as a cruel reality.
(KAMIYO Episode 46: "The Descent and Interrogation of the Father, Izanagi" - End)
The stories of the gods do not end on the page.
From apparel you wear to art that colors your space, bring the world of KAMIYO closer to your everyday life.
