Susanoo continued dozing in his usual lotus position. Then the eastern god heard a noise behind him, so he took hold of his katana’s hilt and unsheathed it, pointing the blade toward his back.
Slow, dry footsteps echoed, as though someone were walking in sandals.
“Who goeth there?” Susanoo asked, trying to see who those footsteps belonged to.
But there was no answer.
At last, a human figure appeared in the doorway of the room where the eastern god was.
When the candlelight illuminated the entrance, he could see that it was a woman. She was very beautiful, with long dark hair with a Japanese princess hairstyle, and lovely slanted red eyes. The goddess wore a white kimono with red stripes, very much like Susanoo’s own, and a golden headband on her brow. Her face was heavily painted, as white as snow.
“Onee-san?” the eastern god asked in confusion.
“Hai, Susanoo. I have sought thee everywhere,” the woman said. “It is I, thy sister, Amaterasu Omikami.”
Susanoo stood stunned and disbelieving for a moment. Why would his sister come all the way there, crossing the great oceans to enter the New World, and specifically this desert? None of it made sense.
And yet without question, it was her. Even the scent of sandalwood and cherry blossoms drifted from her, something deeply characteristic of her presence.
“But what bringeth you hither?” he asked, lowering his weapon, his face still filled with uncertainty.
The goddess took two steps forward, while a sweet and beautiful smile lit up her perfect face, the way a mother might look upon her little child.
Then the woman placed her hands on her hips and puffed out her cheeks in a little pout. Susanoo remembered so well those childish gestures of hers whenever she spoke, along with that voice which, rather than sounding like that of a grown woman, was more like that of a pampered little girl.
“Well then, when I exiled thee from Takama-no-hara, never did I imagine thou wouldst end up upon the far side of the world,” the goddess said, her expression touched with annoyance.
Amaterasu looked so cute, so gentle, that it was impossible to feel fear or dread in the face of her scolding. Like a tiny puppy barking.
“Gomen, gomen, and yet I encountered a most extraordinary company, who caused me to reflect upon the words you once spake unto me,” Susanoo said, nervously moving his hands toward his sister.
The woman looked at him strangely.
“What dost thou mean, ototo?” she asked.
“One day shalt thou raise thy sword against one whom thou shalt revere so greatly that he or she shall break it. And then shalt thou perceive that, though thou pretendest to be wicked and to wound others, it is but thyself whom thou woundest. On the day thou findest that being, and contendest with him or her, I am certain I shall be willing to call thee brother once more,” Susanoo recited from memory the words his sister had once spoken to him.
The woman looked at him in surprise.
“If you have called me brother once more, ototo, then it meaneth that I have at last fulfilled the charge you laid upon me, Onee-san,” Susanoo replied, his face bright with joy.
But Amaterasu shook her head.
“I know not why thou rememberest something I merely uttered so that thou wouldst vanish from my sight after the havoc thou wroughtest in my palace,” the goddess replied.
Susanoo looked at her in disbelief.
“Do not tell me thou hast founded all thy present adventures upon some idle words I happened to utter,” the goddess asked mockingly. Then she began to laugh.
To laugh, she lifted her arm and covered her mouth with the sleeve of her kimono. Her laughter was soft and charming, but to Susanoo it sounded darker, almost grotesque.
The goddess stopped laughing and put her hands back on her hips. Then she looked Susanoo in the eyes again.
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“And furthermore,” she added, “thou sayest thou now followest wondrous companions? Thou art but wandering the world like a vagabond, when all thou hadst to do was sever the head of that tannin thou didst meet, if truly thou desiredst to obey my words to the letter.”
Susanoo went still in shock at his sister’s words.
“Matte... do you know Rodrigo-san, Onee-san?” Susanoo asked in bewilderment.
Amaterasu raised her index finger and smiled mischievously, as though she knew perfectly well what this conversation was about.
“Assuredly. I have seen how thou art now companion to that ryujin, rather than bringing me his severed head unto my royal palace,” Amaterasu replied. “Dost thou not wish to return unto me, ototo?”
Now Amaterasu looked at him with tearful eyes full of sorrow, like an injured little puppy. It was incredible how many different expressions the many-sided goddess could make. Susanoo felt more and more familiar with her, even though the words she was speaking sounded like nothing she would ever have said before.
Amaterasu was, in a way, an adorable woman. Though she tried to appear majestic and powerful before others, her childish mannerisms, her extraordinary curiosity, her easy wonder at new things, made her unmistakably herself. And for that very reason, the mere thought of Amaterasu telling him to “bring me Rodrigo’s head” was not something she would have wanted or accepted. He knew that if anything like that truly happened, she would sooner hide herself away in terror in her room or some cave once more.
“Mochiron, Onee-san, yet I have chosen to follow the warrior’s path, and to grow stronger alongside my nakama ere I return,” Susanoo said, bowing slightly before his sister.
Amaterasu shook her head in refusal.
“Thou dost not love me, ototo... thou despisest thine own family,” the eastern goddess said, sobbing as she covered her face so that her brother would not see her cry.
“Iie, Onee-san, I pray you, do not do this,” Susanoo said, trying to stop his sister from weeping.
“Then slay Rodrigo here and bring me his head,” Amaterasu said, lowering her hand from her face.
The goddess now wore a hungry, malicious stare. Susanoo went rigid when he saw his sister’s eyes like that.
Never in his life had Susanoo seen such a look in his sister’s eyes. It was obvious that what stood before him was an impostor. Yet he could not feel wholly certain. Something inside him still insisted that yes, it truly was his sister. The god felt a great pressure in his chest, and his heart began beating rapidly.
Then the bed where Rodrigo slept appeared behind the eastern god. Rodrigo was sleeping deeply.
“If thou lovest me, thou shalt kill that ryujin now,” Amaterasu said.
Susanoo walked to where Rodrigo lay sleeping and raised his katana, but just as he was about to strike the fatal blow, the god stopped.
“Iie. This were the act of a coward, and my sister would never dishonour the warrior’s code,” the eastern god said, turning to face his sister.
“Who art thou?” Susanoo asked furiously, pointing his weapon at her. He had stopped using the respectful form with which he always addressed his sister. Now he saw her as nothing more than a demon wearing her shape. His gaze had hardened into anger and contempt, and he felt violated and humiliated by the deception.
Amaterasu raised both hands and smiled nervously. Her childish gestures returned at once.
“I am thy dear Onee-san, Susanoo. Wilt thou truly abandon me as well, merely to wander with these foreigners?” she asked.
Susanoo glared at her in fury, but his hands trembled as he aimed his weapon at his own sister. Those words, though highly unlikely ever to come from Amaterasu, were accompanied by gestures that were unmistakably hers.
The eastern god was confused, and he did not know what to do.
“On the other hand, dear ototo...” Amaterasu said, and then in an instant she moved at tremendous speed behind the eastern god and slashed his throat with a golden mirror whose handle ended in a blade, which she had drawn from within her robe.
“That thou wouldst choose the life of that vile ryujin over mine is an act of treachery toward my person, and thou deservest naught but death,” the goddess said furiously as she watched Susanoo fall to his knees, clutching at his throat while blood poured from it in bursts.
“Why... Onee-san...?” the eastern god said as he struggled for breath.
Susanoo looked up at his sister’s face.
No. It was not Amaterasu. It was something else. Something evil, full of hatred. Her red eyes burned with demonic intensity, and her mouth wore a bloodstained, sadistic smile. It was a demon, without question.
Susanoo felt weak and pitiful for having failed to see through the deception. He needed more training, and his familiarity with his sister had caused him to lose the battle without even managing to strike a single blow.
Amaterasu knelt before her brother and began gently stroking his face.
“Dost thou see, ototo? Thus it is when thou opposest me,” the goddess said.
Then Susanoo struck her hand aside and, using his katana, cut his sister clean in half at the waist. The goddess stared at him in horror.
“OTOTO!” Amaterasu screamed in agony as her entrails spilled onto the floor and blood flooded everywhere.
“Call me not that, demon!” Susanoo shouted furiously, and decapitated her.
The god was breathing hard, his own neck still grievously wounded, but he had managed to kill the impostor that had taken his sister’s shape.
“I see now. You are an interesting one,” he heard a voice say from the corpse of his sister.
Then her body, severed from head to torso, began to levitate, while her face twisted into something demonic and monstrous, like a bewitched fiend.
Susanoo took his stance again, ready to strike the terrible demon before him, but something behind him seized him. He could not move.
Then he realized it was a kind of shackle rising up from the ground. A dark chain, radiating demonic energy.
Unable to do anything, the demon drove its long nails—like the claws of some beast—into the eastern god’s chest and began tearing him apart as though he were nothing more than old cloth.
In that moment, Susanoo felt the light fading from his sight. All he could see now were the pieces of his own body and the spurting blood as the horrible monster tore him completely to shreds.