Akiko struggled to keep her eyes open during the early morning ceremonies around the shrine grounds, making offerings in front of the go-shintai, the iwakura, Mr Takenaka’s shrine, and the tree. When they had finished, she took a moment to lean on the tree, pressing her cheek against it as her tension drained away.

“Akiko!” Shiraishi was shaking her shoulder gently, and Akiko opened her eyes, realising that she’d actually fallen asleep leaning on the tree. She blushed, and quickly apologised, but Shiraishi just looked concerned, and tired.

“Are you all right?” she asked, and Akiko nodded. The priest looked a bit sceptical. “Are you sure? I’m not sure we can keep this schedule up. We need some help watching the shrine, so that we can get more sleep.”

“Help would certainly be nice,” Akiko agreed, as she gathered the mats and table, ready to carry them back to the shrine house. “But who can we ask? Akira would do it, but I don’t like to ask him all the time.”

“No, me neither.” The priest started walking back. “Maybe we should talk to Mr Ito, or some of the other ujiko.”

“Would they help? They don’t exactly come here much.”

“True.” Shiraishi sighed as she said it. “Things are a bit better than they were, well, when you first turned up. But not that much. Maybe…”

As they came out of the woodland, Shiraishi fell silent. Akiko, just behind her, soon saw why. There were about a dozen people, all in Japanese clothing, gathered near the shrine house. There were a couple of women, but most were men, and Akiko instantly recognised Mr Fujimura at the head of the group. They quickly hurried over.

“Mr Fujimura, so good of you to come. I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” Shiraishi said as she reached them. Mr Fujimura nodded.

“That is quite all right, Revd Shiraishi. Please, put your ritual equipment away first. We are not in so much of a hurry.” He smiled slightly as he said that, but it didn’t look entirely natural to Akiko.

Possibly Shiraishi had also not been completely convinced, because she had Akiko just stow the gear quickly in the office, so that they could go back out to the group.

“What can we do for you, Mr Fujimura?”

“We have come for a ceremony,” he replied, looking round and gesturing at the people behind him, who all bowed. “We would like to ask the kami for harmony within the group and success in our endeavours. And, of course, we would like to pray for the health and prosperity of their Imperial Majesties, and the peace and prosperity of the country.”

“Of course,” Shiraishi said, bowing in return. “Would you like to come through to the waiting room while we prepare?”

At the entrance to the room, Mr Fujimura paused, one of the women standing next to him.

“Revd Shiraishi, this is Noriko Yamanaka. She lives quite near to the shrine.” The woman bowed deeply, and when she stood up she looked at Akiko as well as the priest.

“I am Noriko Yamanaka. I’m very pleased to meet you, and I hope to be of service.” Akiko thought that she was perhaps in her late thirties, her hair carefully styled to suit her kimono, which looked very elegant, and expensive, to Akiko’s untutored eyes.

“I am Reiko Shiraishi, chief priest of this shrine. I hope that I, too, can be of service. Please, make yourselves at home while I prepare for the ritual.”

As Akiko hurried off to make the tea, it suddenly occurred to her that there were some similarities between her current job and the last one.

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After delivering the tea, Akiko went to find Shiraishi, and found her in the office, books open around her. The priest looked up as Akiko entered.

“Oh, thank goodness. Akiko, could you get the himorogi and everything set up? I imagine they’ll all be able to cope with kneeling, and I think we just about have enough mats for them. I’ve got to write the norito.” She looked back at the books, and grimaced. “Well, patch together a decent one from various models.” She looked up again, and Akiko nodded.

“Of course.”

The sky was clearing slightly as Akiko started carrying the equipment out, but as she turned back to the shrine house after setting up the first load she saw one of the protesters standing at the top of the steps, where the torii ought to be. He caught her gaze for a moment, then turned and headed down. Akiko hurried back into the house, fighting a sense of foreboding.

When she brought the next load out, a pile of small tatami mats, her worries were confirmed; all the protesters had come up the steps, and were standing at the top. She noticed Mrs Watanabe, and, again, no sign of Mr Akiyama. For a moment, she wished she had his phone number, so that she could get him to come and keep the protesters under control, but then she realised that he would be in school. And, it struck her, Mrs Watanabe would also know that.

She tried to keep one eye on the protesters as she finished setting up the himorogi, the offering tables, and the seating, but they were doing nothing, merely standing quietly at the top of the steps, watching her. She noticed that most of them kept glancing at Mrs Watanabe, as if waiting for some sort of signal, and that just made her more worried.

Shiraishi was just finishing putting the norito together in the office, writing it out as quickly as she dared. Akiko quickly mentioned the presence of the protesters, and Shiraishi frowned, then shrugged.

“There’s nothing we can do about it. Let’s get started.”

Mr Fujimura led his group out of the house. Akiko tried to subtly watch his face as he saw the protesters, but if he reacted, he masked it well. She had a sudden idea, and switched her vision to look for kegare.

Mr Fujimura was almost completely clean. Akiko glanced back along his followers, as she found herself thinking of them, and saw that they were generally about as clean as he was. She glanced round at the protesters, who were much less pure, although the insects, rats, and fungi that clung to their bodies stayed close to them, as if scared of something.

When Akiko looked back round to the iwakura, she could see what; there was a flame clearly visible inside the stones, and as they approached she could even feel the heat. As she knelt in her place, she felt as if the flame was watching her, the heat burning through her vestments. Quickly she switched her vision back to the normal world.

The group settled themselves, and Shiraishi, after looking round to make sure that everyone was ready, knelt in front of the ohnusa to begin the harae.

As soon as she began to speak, Mrs Watanabe began to chant, her words taken up by the rest of the protesters.

“No to Shinto! No to Fascism! No to Imperialism!”

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The chanting continued throughout the ceremony. Akiko couldn’t look round at the protesters, but she kept stealing glances at Mr Fujimura and his group. Mr Fujimura himself kept looking forward, but his face steadily darkened, his expression becoming more and more angry. Many of his followers, although not, she noticed, Ms Yamanaka, did glance round. Akiko wondered whether she should do something, confront the protesters and get them to stop, but she had a role in the ceremony, and Shiraishi was showing no signs of wanting to stop.

As soon as Shiraishi brought the ceremony to a close, however, Mr Fujimura stood up from the ground, bowed formally towards the himorogi, and then turned on his heel, striding across the grass to the protesters. Several members of his group scrambled to their feet and followed him.

“What do you think you are doing?” He wasn’t shouting, but he sounded very, very angry. Akiko glanced at Shiraishi, and the priest shook her head slightly. Stay out of it, was the clear message.

“We are protesting against the ideology on display here,” Mrs Watanabe responded, sounding completely confident in her virtue, “and against the danger that Shinto presents to world peace.”

“And you call yourselves Japanese? You are children of the kami, and you turn against them like this? What right do you have to live in this country? What right do you have to the protection of the emperor?”

“The emperor is an anachronism. The Americans should have abolished him after the war.”

“That is unforgivable. The Imperial line was established by Amaterasu herself to rule over Japan for ever. How can you set yourselves in opposition to the will of the kami, and the will of the son of the kami?”

“How can you stand there and say that?”

“I am not the one standing in a shrine to insult the kami. That is your choice. If you wish to turn away from the truth of your blood, the kami of your country, then I cannot stop you. But you are making a grave mistake, and sacrificing your right to live in Japan.”

“We are citizens of Japan, and religion has nothing to do with the state.”

Akiko and Shiraishi concentrated on tidying up the ritual equipment, but they kept glancing at each other. Akiko was feeling very uncomfortable now; Mrs Watanabe was trying to bring the shrine down, and Mr Fujimura had saved it, but she was much more in sympathy with what Mrs Watanabe was saying. From the look on her face, Shiraishi felt the same way.

“This is the country of the kami,” Mr Fujimura continued, “born from Izanagi and Izanami. It is rightfully ruled by the son of heaven, and we who live here should submit to him, living to respect the kami and honour our ancestors.”

“See?” Akiko glanced round, to see Mrs Watanabe look round at her supporters. “This is the true face of Shinto. This imperialist, fascist ideology. This is what we are fighting.”

“You are all a lost cause. It is for people like you that we need a law prohibiting disrespect for the emperor.”

Shiraishi suddenly stood up, walking over to the entrance. Akiko followed her, and the argument paused as both Mr Fujimura and Mrs Watanabe looked at the priest.

“Would you please leave the shrine grounds,” Shiraishi said, looking at the protesters. “You disrupted the ceremony, and now you are causing trouble for people who are here legitimately.”

There was a pause, and then Mrs Watanabe turned and led the protesters down the stairs. Mr Fujimura watched her go, but said nothing.

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Mr Fujimura and his group left soon afterwards, having offered forty thousand yen for the ceremony. Shiraishi sat down heavily in the office, rubbing her eyes.

“Thank goodness they’ve gone.” She looked up at Akiko, her face troubled. “What are we going to do?”

Akiko knew what she meant, but she didn’t have an answer, so she just shrugged.

“Well,” the priest continued, “at least there was no violence. Just an argument. But…”

“Revd Shiraishi, you’re exhausted. Go to bed.”

“Yes, you’re right. Keep an eye on the shrine.”

Left alone in the office, Akiko did some paperwork, but as it came up to midday she found herself dozing, and making far too many stupid mistakes to continue. Setting the papers back on the table, she looked out of the window. The day had continued to clear, and now the sun shone from a blue sky. The office was getting hot, and although outside looked no cooler, Akiko decided that she was, at least, unlikely to fall asleep while walking around.

The air was hot and humid, a summer day already, and Akiko was sweating almost as soon as she stepped out. The cicadas were buzzing in the trees, almost, but not quite, drowning out the chanting of the protesters, who were still gathered at the foot of the steps. The air above the iwakura shimmered, but, after a moment, Akiko decided that it was just the effect of the stones getting hot in the sunlight.

There was a commotion from the bottom of the steps. Akiko couldn’t make out the details, and didn’t want to, but when she heard someone running up the steps to the shrine she did look round.

It was Kazumi. She ran into the shrine grounds, looked round at Akiko and grinned, and then ran over to the water basin to cleanse her hands and mouth. Her skirt was still so short that her knickers were visible as she bent over, and Akiko shook her head again. Kazumi, hands and mouth done, went over to stand in front of the iwakura, and bowed twice, clapped twice, and bowed again, before coming over to Akiko.

“Good morning! Hot day, isn’t it!” She smiled as she squatted down to get her wallet out. Her knickers almost shone white as the sun caught them, and Akiko suddenly felt that she had to say something.

“Ms Miura, can you please take a bit more care about the way you are dressed?”

“Huh?” Kazumi looked up, puzzled, her legs flexing even further apart.

“Your underwear, Ms Miura. You’re hardly wearing that skirt.”

Kazumi looked down, as if realising for the first time how exposed she was. Then she looked up again.

“Is that a problem?”

For a moment, Akiko had no idea how to respond. Wasn’t it obvious?

“Yes,” she finally managed. “Yes, it’s a problem. It’s not appropriate dress for a shrine.”

“But I thought miko didn’t wear knickers at all?”

“That’s a myth!” Akiko realised that she had almost shouted it in her exasperation, and quickly calmed herself down. “And anyway, under these vestments you wouldn’t be able to see anything.”

“Mm, no.” Kazumi stood up, smoothing her skirt down so that it covered her as well as it could. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise. Er, here.” She held out a five hundred yen coin, still looking down, not meeting Akiko’s eyes. Akiko took the coin, and wondered what she should say now.

“I’m sorry,” Kazumi repeated, before walking to the steps, holding her skirt down with one hand. Then she started running down the steps, and it flew up again.

“Out of the way!” she called, and Akiko couldn’t help smiling, despite herself.

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“Akiko!”

Akiko rolled over in bed, pulling the futon back up over her head.

“Akiko!”

No, Shiraishi wasn’t going away. Akiko turned on to her other side to peer at the clock. It was mid-afternoon; she wasn’t supposed to be getting up yet. Maybe if she waited a bit longer, Shiraishi would leave her to sleep.

“Akiko! We have to go to purify the Tanakas’ house again.”

Groaning, Akiko pushed herself upright, shaking her head and rubbing at her eyes.

“OK. I’m coming. I’m coming.”

She pulled her yukata on as she stumbled over to the door, then slid it open.

“I’ll have a quick shower. And… coffee?”

With every sip of the coffee, Akiko felt more human. Shiraishi was pacing round the kitchen, not looking in Akiko’s direction and fidgeting with things; Akiko blew on the coffee to cool it so that she could drink it faster.

“OK, just let me get dressed,” she said, checking that the towel was still secure before she stood up. “I didn’t want to do it half-asleep, and then have to do it again.” She had just stepped into the corridor when the doorbell rang. Akira, she realised, and ran for her room, sliding the door shut before Shiraishi could let him in.

Akiko had got a lot faster at putting her vestments on, and Shiraishi hadn’t even finished telling Akira what needed looking at when she came back to the office. Akira turned to greet her, smiling, but concern quickly appeared on his face. Akiko immediately glanced down to check her vestments, but they looked OK. She glanced at Shiraishi, who seemed relaxed, so they must be OK. When she looked back at Akira, he was smiling again, but still looked a little worried.

“Good luck with the purification, Akiko,” he said. “And take care of yourself, OK?”

The Tanakas’ house was even heavier with kegare than it had been when she went to look with Akira, and the speed of accumulation shocked her. If it was building up this quickly, they would have to spend all their time purifying places just to stay on top of it.

Inside the house, spirits like long-legged rats with two, three, or four tails lurked in the corners and shadows, hissing at Akiko and Shiraishi as they came in and set up the himorogi, but keeping back, not approaching. As Shiraishi performed the harae, Akiko stayed alert, the kagurasuzu ready, but the kegare spirits made no move, apparently too scared to act before the light from the ohnusa burned them away.

As Mrs Tanaka handed over the money and thanked them, she gave a quick account of all the problems they’d had: the grandmother had been ill again; the television had broken down; three taps had started dripping and the bathroom had started to leak; Mr Tanaka had lost his wallet, which they found trapped behind the fridge when they were pulling out the dead bird that had somehow got in there; and Mrs Tanaka had cut herself several times while making dinner. All minor incidents in themselves, but enough to make her want the ceremony when they all happened in three days. Akiko had to agree, and as they left she glanced around. The Tanakas’ house was clean, but pollution was already blowing onto it from the surrounding buildings.

She frowned. They had to find a better way to deal with it.

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It was a couple of nights before Akiko met Yoshiko again, and Akiko was already at the tree, pacing impatiently, when the other miko appeared. They bowed to each other, and Akiko got in with her question before Yoshiko could start the dance lessons.

“Yoshiko, what do you know about dealing with kegare?”

“What do you mean? We have to keep kegare out of the shrine, so we wash, and avoid spilling blood, and stay away from the dead… but you know that, right?”

“Yes, sorry. I mean…” Akiko suddenly realised that she didn’t know whether Yoshiko actually saw kegare. “Can you see it? Kegare, I mean? You said you saw Tamao, but…”

“Sometimes, I think. I see things that look like mould, or deformed insects or animals crawling on people.”

“Yes! That’s it! Right, what do you know about dealing with that?”

“Well, when you perform a harae it goes away.” Yoshiko still sounded uncertain about what Akiko was asking, which, now that she thought about it, was quite reasonable.

“I’m sorry,” Akiko began. “I’ve not explained this at all well. I know that the harae cleanses the kegare, but that’s not enough. It’s everywhere, and it’s getting stronger.” Akiko quickly began explaining the kegare that she could see, and how it was spreading over most of the city. Yoshiko was very quiet when she had finished, getting up to walk slowly round the tree, even leaning on it for a few moments.

“That’s bad,” she said, finally, looking back at Akiko. “Kegare is not just pollution, you know. It’s also weakening, sickness, decay, and death. And it’s disharmony and conflict between people. And not just between people; when people don’t live in harmony with the rest of the world, that causes kegare as well.

“And I think that kegare makes all of those things stronger, so that once it starts to build up, it increases faster and faster.” Akiko thought about the situation in Kawasaki, and nodded. It certainly sounded like a description of what she was seeing.

“So what can we do about it? What’s causing it?”

“Probably just the kegare itself,” Yoshiko said. “But I’m not an expert on this.”

“Do you know anyone who is?”

Yoshiko paused for a moment, and then shook her head.

“I’ve never seen it build up as much as you’ve described, though. I think the kami cleanse it before it gets that strong.”

“So, why haven’t they done that this time?” Akiko didn’t really expect an answer, but she did hope for a useful opinion.

“Maybe they can’t? Maybe something is stopping them.”

Akiko suddenly remembered what Tamao had said when she spoke to him in the other shrine precincts.

“That’s right. Tamao said that he was too weak.”

“So you need to make him stronger.”

“But how do we do that?”

“The rituals and festivals make the kami stronger. Are you performing them properly?”

“Well…” Akiko was a little embarrassed by the question. “There aren’t many ujiko at the moment, so they aren’t very big.”

“Not many ujiko? I thought you said it was a city?”

“Well, yes. There are lots of people, but they don’t come to the shrine.”

“Really?” Yoshiko looked surprised, even shocked. “Well, that’s the fundamental problem, then. You need to get people to come back to the shrine.”

“But how? And will it be quick enough?”

“You need a festival, I think. People like festivals, and the kami like festivals. And they draw attention, bring people back to the shrine.”

“A festival?” Akiko thought about it. It wasn’t a bad idea, but what sort of festival could they hold? “That’s a good idea. I’ll have to talk to the priest about it.” Yoshiko nodded.

“Good. And now, I think we should get on with the practice. Do you have your kagurasuzu?”

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Akiko walked back to the shrine house deep in thought. She hadn’t really thought of festivals as a source of energy for the kami, but if they were then it did seem like a good strategy. They had been performing the shrine rituals more thoroughly recently, and doing the purifications in the area, so that might have had an effect. Akiko thought back, and realised that she hadn’t really seen Tamao since they had started offering food in the mornings and evenings, so she didn’t know whether it was having any effect on his level of power. In fact, she had almost no feedback on what they were doing.

Why don’t you talk to me, Tamao? She shook her head, and paused as she came out of the woods, looking around the shrine grounds. Was there any way she could get Tamao to speak to her?

The iwakura immediately drew her attention. Even in the darkness, she could see it clearly, the stones standing out from the gloom of the night. She took a step towards it, the feeling that she was the focus of someone’s attention getting stronger by the moment. Another step, and her pulse sounded louder in her ears, strengthening, becoming a drum beat that reverberated through her whole body.

By the time she reached the stones she was stepping in rhythm with the beat of her body, and she sank naturally to the ground beside them, placing the kagurasuzu by her side, bowing so that her forehead brushed the grass, bowing again, raising her hands to clap twice, and then bowing once more.

When she straightened up, she could see the fire within the stones, a shifting red glow, flickering and winking as it looked at her. It was warm, then hot. Sweat began to pour off her, and her heart suddenly started to race. Seizing the kagurasuzu, she pushed herself up from the ground, swinging the bells towards the sky and running round the stones, fast enough to lift the trailing cloth from the ground. She ran faster, her footing unnaturally sure as her breath came in shorter and shorter gasps. The cloth strips seemed to be longer now, the red light from the stones brighter, and she swept the kagurasuzu down, the tinkling of the bells briefly drowning the sound of her panting.

The light within the stones flared.

She swept the bells up, and the light flared again. Still running, she moved the kagurasuzu before her, in patterns that came to her from hours of dance practice under the tree, patterns that she had never used together like this before. The light waxed brighter, and hotter, and called to her wordlessly, a cry of desperate longing.

Thrusting the kagurasuzu high with a shout, Akiko turned and leapt into the heart of the stones.

She fell a short distance, landing on a rough stone surface. She put her hand down to steady herself, and then snatched it back, sucking her breath in hard. The stone was hot. She stood, unable to see anything in the darkness, the heat of the stone already coming through her shoes, and strained her ears for any hint of sound.

The light from the jet of fire almost blinded her, as the crack of its eruption set her ears ringing, and the stone shifted under her feet, making her lose her balance. She cried out as her hands fell on the hot rock again, and she could smell the scorched cloth of her vestments as she stood up again. Her eyes had adapted now, to the red light from the fountain of lava ahead of her, its glow reflected from the dark clouds low overhead. She was standing on top of a large, dark rock, surrounded by other rocks in a chaotic jumble. The gaps between many of them vanished into darkness, deeper than she could see, and even as she regained her feet, the rocks shifted again, as if in an earthquake, just as a strong wind struck her from behind, almost lifting her off her feet.

Lightning split the sky, and then lanced down to strike the rock next to her. Fragments of stone stung her face and hands, and the blast of air knocked her back. The rock heaved again, and a geyser of boiling water erupted from the crevice beside her, sending her staggering away as drops of scalding water fell on her hands.

“Tamao!” Her scream was whipped away by the wind, drowned out by the thunder. The rock was rolling like the deck of a ship now, fire and steam providing spray as the other rocks crashed like waves.

“Tamao!” Akiko was afraid, no, terrified. This wasn’t natural. This was rage. Fury. She fell to her knees again, unable to keep her balance, and cried out as the rock burned her hands. The ground tipped under her, the wind gusting far stronger from one side, and with a scream she lost her balance, tumbling across the rock towards the edge, her hands scrabbling for some grip even as the surface burned and tore at her skin.

She couldn’t hold on, though. The rock was tipping further over, and now the red light from below was from a raging fire, not molten rock but actual flames, red and orange and white, smoke rising from her vestments even now as she smelled her hair start to singe.

And then the rock was vertical, and she fell into the flames. There was nothing but agony in darkness as the flames consumed her eyes, her body.

She was the fire. She wanted to dance, to leap, and she found that she could. Springing into the sky, she danced around the lightning, dodging the clouds, then plunged into a stream of lava, melting the darkening crust again, encouraging it to flow once more. She could still feel the rage all around her, but it was not directed at her. The wind swept down around her, gently carrying her up, up through the clouds, clouds which were the ground.

She was a fire in a brazier, in the grounds of the shrine. She could see around her in her own light, see the nearly-naked people carrying the mikoshi, the palanquins of the kami. They were racing, the men slightly ahead of the women, and around them other people were watching and cheering. She felt their energy, their enthusiasm, flow into her, and she burned more brightly, the sweat that coated their bodies catching her crimson light and scattering it back at her, returning it loaded with energy. The white loincloths, the gold of the mikoshi, the red of the scarlet torii, the shouts of celebrants and the beat of the drums, the scents of sweat and arousal; Akiko was overwhelmed, burning ever brighter, a tower of flame now, looking down on the festival from above and illuminating it like a sun.

The men won the race, setting their mikoshi down in front of the iwakura scant moments before the women. A priest, Shiraishi!, stepped out from the shadows with an ohnusa, and as she swung it in purification Akiko felt her passions subside, her flames shrinking as she calmed down, the light dying with the fire, hiding the end of the festival from her as she sank back down from the brazier, towards the ground.

Where she was lying, her cheek against the cool earth, left hand flung out, touching the rough stone of the iwakura with one finger, the kagurasuzu still gripped in her right hand, vestments warm against her skin.

For long moments she lay still, eyes closed, feeling her breath pass in and out.

On to Part 6: Wild Festival.

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