Akiko crouched and carefully picked the mask up; it appeared to be undamaged. Looking up, there was no kegare to be seen over the school, or for some distance around it. Beyond that, however, the banks of fog still rose, and even as Akiko watched they began to move in, the exploratory tendrils they sent out dispersing in the air, but not stopping.

“Well?”

“Yes,” Akiko replied. “Yes,” more confidently this time, “it worked. The school’s kegare is gone.”

“Are you all right?” The priest sounded really concerned, and Akiko turned to her, nodding.

“I managed to convince the aramitama to do things our way, rather than just charging in.”

“You burst into flames.”

“I what?” Akiko just stared at the priest. “I remember feeling hot, but…”

“You were enveloped in fire. I couldn’t see you at all.”

There was a sound of distant sirens, and Shiraishi drew a deep breath.

“OK. That happens. The important thing is that the harae worked.”

“Not for the whole city, though,” Akiko pointed out.

“It’s progress. We should get back.” She grinned. “We have to break the news to Kazumi.” Akiko laughed; Kazumi would not be happy about going back to school.

The sirens were getting louder, and Akiko suddenly realised that they were approaching.

“We should go now, before they arrive.” Shiraishi nodded, and they set off, walking quickly, but not running. The fire engines rushed past the end of the alley, clearly on their way to the school.

Fire engines? Akiko wondered. But there was no real fire.

“Do you think anyone else saw the flames?” Shiraishi asked, the same thing apparently occurring to her.

“Did you see the flames at the end?” Akiko asked, unsure just how much the priest had seen. Shiraishi nodded.

“The whole school was covered with them. It was really quite spectacular.” She paused. “But I was rather assuming that most people wouldn’t be able to see them.”

Akiko nodded in agreement.

“Kazumi couldn’t see the fire around the shrine before, could she? Maybe there’s just someone living nearby who can see the spirits,” she suggested, but then shook her head. “No, in that case they’d have seen the spirits at the school, and something would have…”

Suddenly, the ground shifted beneath them, as windows rattled and car alarms sounded. Akiko flung out her arms for balance, and ran to the middle of the road. She could feel the waves of kegare under the surface of the city, shifting and roiling, not angry, not conscious, but strong, and not happy with being confined. The fog had formed into dozens of tiny tornados, which tore at the ground, trying to dig down and release the forces below.

The shaking stopped, and the fog spread out once more, hiding the houses from Akiko’s view. It took a few moments for her to force her vision back to the mundane, and when she did the first thing she saw was the mask of worry that was Shiraishi’s face.

“Akiko? Are you all right? That wasn’t a very big earthquake, but you’ve gone white…”

“The kegare…” she began, and then shook her head, starting the sentence again. “That wasn’t just an earthquake. That was the kegare moving. I think we’re running out of time.”

07: Spreading the Light, Episode 49 | 1 Comment »

Kazumi had been less than delighted to hear that her school had been purified, but she set off nevertheless, leaving soon after the morning ceremonies were complete. A near-constant stream of people was coming for harae, and the kegare they carried sickened Akiko, increasing her worry.

Kazumi was back within a couple of hours.

“No school!” she said as she bounded into the shrine grounds, not even trying to sound unhappy. “The fire department was called out last night, and although there was no fire they spotted some problems with the fire safety systems. They had us wait outside while the engineers looked at it, but they found cracks in the building itself. Apparently, it could fall down if we breathe on it too hard. So we were all sent home.”

“Breathe too hard?” Akiko asked.

“Well, OK. But it would only take a level four earthquake, they said. So no school until they have safer temporary accommodation ready.”

“Kegare,” Akiko said, half to herself, but Kazumi picked it up.

“You think the kegare caused the damage?” Akiko nodded, and looked over at Shiraishi, who was just finishing another harae.

“I think we need to act now. Go and get changed.”

“What? Oh, yes. Right away.” Kazumi dashed into the house, and Akiko walked over to Shiraishi, her jaw set.

“Revd Shiraishi, we have to do something now,” she said, not bothering with any preamble.

“What?” The priest was confused for a moment, but quickly put things together. “Why so urgent?”

Akiko quickly explained about the school, and the priest nodded in understanding.

“OK. Tell everyone waiting for personal harae that we’ll do a group one; then we have to do something about the city.”

Half an hour later the three of them were standing in the road outside the shrine, Akiko looking out at the pollution, which was getting ever heavier. She had the mask in her hands, the wood becoming slick with her sweat.

Why am I so nervous? she wondered, even as she nodded to Shiraishi to begin the initial purification.

As the mask settled over her face again, Akiko’s nerves were swept away by the fierce exultation that filled her, a need to act that drove her a step forward, before she turned to walk over to Shiraishi, and stop before the ohnusa. The aramitama seemed to know what was happening this time, because it did not interfere as she began to recite the norito, as the light and fire built up within the ohnusa. Instead, her tension and anticipation grew ever greater, her skin tingling to the tips of her fingers as she reached out for the ohnusa, taking it from the priest and returning to face away from the shrine.

She raised the ohnusa in front of her, and it was a great blossom of flame, the tongues of fire rising up, writhing in the air almost like a snake, almost as if they were anticipating her swinging them through the air.

Perhaps they are, she thought, as she swung the ohnusa hard.

The flames flew off it, growing as they raced away from her, merging into a wall of fire that swept through the houses, and then another as she swung it once more, and a third, scouring the kegare away, and remaining as an arc of fire, another barrier against pollution.

A barrier that was, Akiko saw, far too close.

Again, the mask dropped from her face, and the fire vanished. As the mask touched the ground, the wood ringing clearly, the earth lurched beneath Akiko’s feet, sending her staggering to one side.

07: Spreading the Light, Episode 49 | 4 Comments »

“Was that the kegare?” Shiraishi asked as soon as the ground settled, and Akiko forced a nod. “And the harae?”

“It worked, but it didn’t go far enough. It would take us far too long to purify the whole area like this.” Especially as it seems to provoke the kegare when we do it, she thought, but she decided against sharing that particular worry. They had enough to think about.

“Can we make the aramitama stronger?” Kazumi asked. “You know, have another festival?”

“There’s no time!” Akiko shouted it, and then clamped her mouth shut, closing her eyes and drawing a deep breath. It’s not a silly suggestion. Don’t take it out on Kazumi. “I’m sorry. I don’t think we have long enough to organise a festival, though.”

“Well, what about the kami forest?”

“What about… Oh. Yes.”

“The kami forest?” Shiraishi sounded puzzled.

“Come on,” Akiko said. “I’ll explain on the way.”

“Is it really that ur…” the priest began, and Akiko cut her off.

“It might be. I don’t know. Do you want to take the risk that it is?”

Shiraishi stared at her for a moment, and then shook her head, starting off up the steps, following Kazumi.

“So, what about the kami forest?”

“Right. Kazumi and I explored it a couple of nights ago, and found that it connects to trees all around here. And if you do a purification within the forest, it has some effect around the trees outside. That’s how we were able to get out and back again.”

“Hang on, you were going naked all over Kawasaki?”

“Very briefly. And it was mainly Kazumi.”

“Hey!” Kazumi objected.

“Well, it was. Anyway, we needed to know. So, if I can take the aramitama into the forest and perform a purification, maybe we can do the whole city at once.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I think it’s worth a try.”

They had reached the tree, and Akiko reached out to touch the bark. It was not calming; the tree seemed to be as nervous as she was, which only made Akiko even more nervous. Kazumi was already undressing, and Akiko handed the mask over to Shiraishi.

“Hold this a moment.”

As soon as she was naked, she took the mask back, avoiding Shiraishi’s eyes and trying not to blush.

“OK, it’s probably best if you purify me again.” Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Kazumi vanish into the tree, and she shifted awkwardly in place as Shiraishi recited the norito, stumbling over a few of the words.

As soon as the harae was complete, she placed the mask over her face, without tying it.

The aramitama rushed into her, and this time the expectation had a questioning edge.

“We’re going into the tree,” she said, out loud, “and I can’t take the mask. Stay with me.” Holding her breath as she did so, she lowered her hand, removing the mask, but the aramitama was still boiling within her. She could see flames leaping from the skin of her forearms, and she held the mask out towards the priest, who took it. Without looking at her, she stepped forward and embraced the tree.

There was a moment in which Akiko felt utter terror, excruciating pain, total euphoria, and a mind-shattering orgasm, all at once, and then she was standing in the kami forest.

She was still burning. She could see the flames rising from her skin, dancing over it, almost like feathers.

Immediately, she began the harae norito, chanting the words as quickly as she dared. As she spoke, the flames around her hands spread up, forming an ohnusa of fire, which she lifted.

She spoke the final words of the norito, and swung the ohnusa, waves of light spilling from it to wash around and through all the trees.

07: Spreading the Light, Episode 49 | 2 Comments »

Akiko couldn’t sit still, and she thought Shiraishi was fighting to remain calm.

“Maybe three metres radius around each tree,” she said, frowning. “Not even close to enough.”

“But not nothing,” the priest pointed out.

“No. But you felt another earthquake, right?” Shiraishi nodded; Akiko and Kazumi had felt nothing in the kami forest. “Every time we purify somewhere through the aramitama, there is an earthquake. It might be the kami as much as the kegare. In any case, we can’t do the whole city piece by piece. If we do, there will be too many earthquakes; the disaster will happen.”

“Akiko, you don’t know that,” the priest chided her.

“You don’t know different!” Akiko realised she was shouting again, but she didn’t care. “We have to do something now!”

“The aramitama needs to be stronger, then. It needs to be strong enough for the harae to cover the whole city,” Shiraishi said. Akiko took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down.

“I think so.”

“So we do need another festival.” The priest glanced at Kazumi, who nodded.

“We can’t do one in a day.”

“We have to. We have to start calling the ujiko now, and get as many of them here as we can.”

“But…”

“Akiko! We have to do something!” Shiraishi stood up so quickly that her chair fell over, shouting loudly enough to almost drown out the crash it made as it hit the floor. “Do you have any better ideas?”

Akiko opened her mouth to shout back, and then shut it. No, she didn’t have any better ideas.

“OK. Let’s call them.”

Shiraishi nodded, and pulled the list of ujiko out of a drawer.

“I’ll take the first two pages. Akiko, you have the next two, Kazumi, the last two. Try to be persuasive.”

It wasn’t as easy as Akiko had hoped. A lot of people were in work, and quite a few of the others did not buy the only explanations that they could offer. Indeed, after the first couple of calls, Kazumi looked at Akiko, her face stricken.

“What do I say? I can’t say that kegare is about to destroy Kawasaki. They’ll never believe that.”

“Say… Say we’ve just discovered a festival that’s essential to the shrine and has been neglected, and has to be performed today.” She smiled. “That’s even true.” Her face fell again. “I just hope it works.”

She opened her cell phone again, and dialled the next number on the list.

“Hello, Mrs Tanaka. I’m just calling because…” She paused. The story didn’t sound so convincing now that she was about to say it to somebody. “We’ve been researching the shrine, and we’ve discovered a festival that we really ought to perform.”

“I see. That sounds interesting.”

“Yes. Well, the thing is, it really has to be performed today.”

“Today?” She sounded surprised, which was, Akiko reflected, completely reasonable.

“We were wondering whether you would be able to attend.”

“Well, we weren’t planning on going to the shrine…” Akiko heard another voice at the other end. “Just a moment,” Mrs Tanaka said, and then, Akiko guessed, put her hand over the mouthpiece; there was a muffled conversation.

“Sorry about that. You say you are holding the festival today?”

“Yes, this afternoon.”

“All right, we’ll be there.” She didn’t sound wildly enthusiastic, and Akiko’s mouth quirked into an almost smile.

“Thank you. And please thank your mother.”

“Yes… Oh, yes, of course. See you later.”

“That’s two,” Akiko announced to the room.

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“You didn’t say it was this sort of festival,” one of the women complained, holding up the strip of cloth in one hand.

We didn’t know, Akiko thought to herself, but that wouldn’t be a good thing to say. She had already changed into the loincloth and happi coat, and was aware that she was constantly blushing, something that didn’t help her to explain that there was nothing strange about it at all.

It wasn’t really surprising that the outfits had been Kazumi’s idea, but she had pointed out that the only established festival to the aramitama used them, and that they couldn’t afford to get it wrong. Akiko and Shiraishi had both had to concede that she was right, even as they adapted the mikoshi part of the ritual into a sort of contest involving two gohei; Shiraishi was sure that they needed some kind of chaotic competition to energise the aramitama.

“Sorry, it must have slipped my mind.”

“I don’t think I want to wear this.”

“Oh, don’t be such a wuss.” Akiko gave silent thanks for the older Mrs Tanaka. She’d even bullied her older daughter into wearing the outfit this time; she was standing at the side of the room, back to the wall, her face red. “It’s not like there are any men here.”

“There are. I saw them.”

“About three. And that Akira Takenaka is a really sweet boy; you don’t need to worry about him. The other two are older than me, and have probably lost interest.”

Akiko wasn’t sure about that, but the shortage of men was worrying her. It was going to be another difference from the model festival.

“Have you lost interest?”

“Absolutely.” Mrs Tanaka said it with a completely straight face. “Us old folk have no interest in ogling naked bodies at all.” The woman smiled, but she wasn’t showing any sign of getting undressed, so Mrs Tanaka tried another tack.

“Have you had a harae recently?”

“Well, yes. We all came at the weekend.”

“And?”

“And? Oh, yes, it made a difference. We all felt much better.”

“Right. So now the shrine is asking for something in return. It’s not like you’re actually going to be naked.”

“OK, OK!” Half exasperated, half grinning, the woman put her loincloth down and started to undress. “This had better be a really important festival.”

More than you realise, Akiko thought, as she smiled and thanked her.

As they filed out into the shrine grounds, Akiko saw Mrs Watanabe standing at the top of the stairs.

“What is this obscenity? What sort of depravity is the shrine descending to now? And with children here!” Akiko looked around, and realised she must mean Kazumi. The idea of Kazumi being corrupted by seeing people running around in loincloths was so funny that it gave Akiko the courage to go over and confront Mrs Watanabe.

“This is a religious ceremony…” she began, but Mrs Watanabe cut her off.

“You’re just trying to lure people in so that you can spread your fascistic poison. You and your kami are parasites on Japan, and…” Akiko lost patience.

“Kegare is about to overwhelm Kawasaki. If we don’t perform a festival to strengthen Tamao, we won’t be able to purify it, and it will destroy the city. If you don’t leave right now you’re going to be in the same place as a very strong, and very angry, kami. You can try to explain your attitude to him directly if you like, but I really don’t recommend it.”

Mrs Watanabe stared at her for several seconds, the expression on her face strange and shifting rapidly. Akiko remembered the dead girl, and suddenly felt guilty about the threat. Then Mrs Watanabe turned and ran down the steps. Akiko could hear her sobbing as she vanished from view.

A bad taste in her mouth, Akiko turned back to the festival, suddenly aware that people were staring at her.

07: Spreading the Light, Episode 49 | 3 Comments »

“What did you just say?” one of the women asked, and Akiko could feel her mouth opening and closing as she searched for an answer.

“Could four of the women join the men, please?” Shiraishi called out, interrupting. “We need to balance the two groups a bit.” There was no response for a moment, as everyone was still staring at Akiko. Most of them looked as though they thought she had gone mad, although Noriko looked sympathetic, and Akira… Akiko didn’t want to think too hard about the way Akira was looking at her.

“Ooh, me, me! I’ll go with the men!” It was the older Mrs Tanaka, and she went straight to stand behind Akira. “This festival gets better by the minute!” Akira had gone bright pink, and Akiko couldn’t quite suppress the smile. Several people glanced at Mrs Tanaka, who was blatantly ogling Akira’s backside, and started smiling. The tension dropped, and people started to move again, looking away from Akiko. Mrs Tanaka’s daughter went to join her, and the groups sorted themselves out, choosing a representative to hold the gohei as they formed into two small groups in front of the pool and iwakura.

Shiraishi, the only person fully dressed, in her vestments, performed a harae over them, and then knelt in front of the iwakura to call the aramitama out. Akiko shifted her vision over to watch the spirits. The fire was burning brightly in the iwakura, and as Shiraishi intoned the norito Akiko saw two bolts of fire arc out of it, falling into the gohei, which were instantly limned with light.

The norito finished, and the two groups retreated to opposite sides of the open area. Each side had a table, with a stand for a gohei. The aim was to put the gohei in the other side’s stand. The only rule was that you could not touch the other team’s gohei.

The result was complete chaos. The other team, with the men, had chosen Akira to carry the gohei, and the three men came charging forward while the women hung back, ready to stop the women’s team getting through. Noriko was holding their gohei, and she led them all straight at the men.

As the two groups clashed, and the other women came running forward, Akiko felt hands pulling at her arms as she tried to push Akira back. She lost sight of Noriko for a moment, but then a flare from the gohei caught her attention. It was getting brighter.

The distraction was dangerous. Someone got a good grip on her arm and pulled her out, tumbling her to the ground. Her skin stinging, she pushed herself upright, and launched herself at the back of the woman blocking Noriko’s path, grabbing her shoulders to pull her back.

The happi coat slipped back and up, prompting an embarrassed squeal as the woman reached up to haul it down again, distracting her for long enough for Noriko to dodge round. Another woman was running to get in front of her, and Akiko released her hold, turning to intercept.

And squealing herself as she felt someone grab the top of her loincloth, almost pulling her off balance. She looked round to see a grinning Mrs Tanaka, and reached back to pry her hand away.

It was enough of a delay, though. The woman was in front of Noriko, keeping in her path as she tried to dodge from side to side.

The gohei was burning a brilliant gold now, and the fire in the iwakura was reaching into the sky, red, green, purple, silver, and gold, a serpent of fire hanging over the shrine.

07: Spreading the Light, Episode 49 | 4 Comments »

Still out of breath from the contest — but they won! — Akiko stood before the iwakura. The fire still towered into the sky, its light burning bright against darkness that seemed to threaten from all sides, looming over, blocking all but a tiny circle of blue sky.

Taking a deep breath, Akiko reached for the mask.

Even before her fingers reached it, the column of fire bent over and poured down into her like a waterfall. She felt it fill her, running through her veins, her nerves, into her eyes and ears, blotting out everything else with the sheer power. For a moment she forgot where she was, forgot what she had to do.

The shrieks from behind her brought her awareness back. The ohnusa was in front of her, and she bowed before it, twice.

“Please try to be calm,” it was Shiraishi’s voice. Why? “She is perfectly all right.”

“Somebody call the…”

“No! Please be quiet for the norito.”

They can see! They can see the fire! Akiko suddenly realised. As she began to recite the words of the ancient norito, she wondered what that meant.

She finished and bowed again, but the ohnusa was unchanged, still paper streamers on a wooden rod. She reached for it, with hands she could see were wreathed in flames, and as she touched it the flames spread from her hands to the ohnusa, each strip of paper burning a different colour, scattering sparks of light and flame as she lifted it.

She turned back to the gathered ujiko, and raised the ohnusa. A few bowed their heads immediately, the others after a few moments. She swung the ohnusa, and fire exploded from it, across the shrine grounds, out to the boundary, and beyond, rushing out across the city. Akiko was filled with exhilaration. It’s working.

She swung it again, and the fire rushed out once more, but this time the kegare stopped it some way outside the shrine, a boiling wall of blackness that was pressing in from all sides, pushing the light back. Akiko swung the ohnusa again, but the kegare was too strong now, pushing back hard in all directions, pressing right up to the edges of the shrine.

The fire in the iwakura flared up again, sending out wave after wave of fire, but they were all checked by the kegare. Things moved within the darkness, things with claws and wings and beaks, things that tested the barrier of fire, and then withdrew.

It’s still not strong enough! Akiko thought, wildly. How can we… The fire was eating at the darkness, and for a moment created a hole, a hole that was rapidly patched by kegare flowing in from other sides.

And suddenly Akiko understood what was happening. All of the kegare was concentrating here to contain the aramitama. If they won here, they would win everywhere.

But it wasn’t at all clear that they would win here. There were places where the darkness extinguished the flames, and while the aramitama quickly reinforced it, the strength it had gained from the festival would not last for ever.

Akiko knew what she had to do. Turning, she replaced the ohnusa in its stand, and then ran for the woods. She heard Shiraishi call after her, once, and then fall silent.

The woods felt more alive than ever, even the ground under her feet lending her strength and bearing her up. She reached the kami tree in moments, faster than she could ever remember, and wasn’t even out of breath as she paused to bow before it. She shrugged her happi coat off, and quickly undid the loincloth, before stepping forward to embrace the tree.

For a moment there was agony, as the fire burned at her, and at the tree, and she felt the tree’s pain as her own, but then she was the fire, and the tree accepted her, letting her through.

She stood in the forest, the trees above her drawing their branches back from the flames that still leapt up from her body. Putting her hands together in front of her, she began to intone the harae norito once more. The flames drew in, concentrating above her hands, forming into an ohnusa of fire once more, but as she kept chanting Akiko seemed to flow with the fire, her awareness entering the ohnusa, her voice continuing to chant from behind her and above.

She raised herself, and turned herself loose.

Akiko and the aramitama, a distinction she felt she was losing, rushed through the forest, filling it, surrounding the trees, pushing at them, opening them, embracing them.

Pouring through them, like through a dozen open doors, and bursting out into Kawasaki through the trees, trees which shook themselves and put out new leaves and twigs as they passed, growing larger in a moment. Akiko laughed as she saw Kawasaki from many places at once, the shrine unmistakable within a dense cocoon of kegare, while the light swept between and through houses, under the streets, along power lines, burning away the kegare that was left, purifying everything as it rushed onwards, spreading out to the edge of Tamao’s domain, lapping gently against the realms of other kami.

Concentrating itself like a tsunami as it converged on the shrine, on the kegare around the shrine, the kegare fighting against the light within, turned in on the shrine, not prepared for the fire to strike it from all directions at once.

The scream filled Akiko’s soul as the waves of light crashed down on the corruption, and she exulted in it, gloried in it as the kegare held for a moment, and then collapsed, burning up under the light, dissolving into particles of darkness that vanished into nothingness, a cocoon of kegare that became a film, that was burned through, that vanished as the light without rejoined the light within, a sea of cleansing fire that covered the whole area, burning the clouds away from the sky. The joy of completion filled Akiko, submerging her soul in ecstasy.

Tamao was coiled around the pool, his eyes gazing deep into the light.

“Bright Child, come back.”

Akiko was not the aramitama. She was…

“Bright Child, come back.”

She remembered. She remembered a body. She was not a spirit, she was a body, human. Tamao looked at her, the light refracting through his scales and scattering in a million colours. He was calling her back. She let her awareness extend over the whole of his domain for a moment longer, confirming that it was all purified, through to the deepest level, and then answered his call.

“You have done well, Bright Child. You have done very well.”

There was something in the pool, something pale, something familiar… A body. Her body.

“You are still human, Bright Child.” Tamao had not taken his eyes from her. “Remember that.”

She remembered. She remembered bruising her knee against a table. She remembered the taste of umeboshi. She remembered the feel of silk on her skin.

She was in her body.

She rose from the water, the scattered droplets turned to burning diamonds in the light from the iwakura.

The air was clean under a blue sky, and Akiko’s mind was at peace.

07: Spreading the Light, Episode 49 | 10 Comments »