Strongest Among the Heavens
Chapter 469: Deal With A Goddess

Chapter 469: Deal With A Goddess

*****

"There are many things one must never do.

One must never look at the moon too long, lest one glimpses something looking back.

One must never call a spirit by name, lest it learns yours in return.

And one must never—never—make a deal with death.

I know this now.

Her name is Izanami-no-Mikoto. The Queen of Yomi. The mother of gods. The abandoned wife.

She is beautiful, or so they say. She was once a goddess of creation, a mother to the world itself. But death took her, and now, what remains is something twisted—something that should not be bargained with.

Yet people do.

The desperate. The broken. The ones who cannot bear to let go.

I have read of the monks who once ventured to her domain, praying for lost lovers, lost children. They returned hollowed out. They returned to homes without a home.

There was a man, centuries ago, who sought her favor. He burned incense at the mouth of Yomotsu Hirasaka, the path between the living and the dead. He begged for her to return his wife, who had drowned in the cold of winter.

She answered.

But the thing he brought home was not his wife. It whispered his name at night, in a voice that was almost right. It sat by his bed, still dripping wet, its fingers always too cold. The village found him weeks later, mouth open in a scream, eyes wide and frozen, staring at a figure in the corner that was no longer there.

A deal with Izanami is not like a deal with a trickster god, where the price is sharp but fair. It is not like a deal with a fortune god, where your luck twists in unforeseen ways.

No.

A deal with Izanami is a return to something lost.

A hand reaching from the grave. A love that should have been left behind.

It never goes as one hopes.

I have seen it myself.

A man came to me last winter, wild-eyed and shaking, saying he had been to the mountains, saying he had whispered her name. His daughter had been sick, too sick. He had no other choice.

"She came to me in a dream," he told me. "She told me my daughter would live."

And she did.

But the man did not.

He was found two days later, buried in the snow, his face twisted in terror. His hands were clawed at his own chest, as if trying to tear something out. His daughter, when she awoke, had his eyes.

I say this not as a warning, but as a truth.

There is no mercy in death. There is no kindness in the underworld. The Queen of Yomi may listen to your cries, but she is not the mother of gods anymore. She is a corpse wearing a crown.

And if you speak her name too sweetly, she just might answer."

- ???

******

"You need something from me, O Goddess. You who have dominion over death would not come and rip open the Heavenly Tower like this."

What she did up until now made sense. The Heavenly Tower stole a portion of Yomi, her Territory, and she retaliated.

So why was he alive? Why approach him like this? In Pauline’s rotting corpse?

"You could kill me."

"I could." Pauline’s expression softened and her thumb rubbed soft circles on his cheek. "You nearly killed my son and destroyed this gate. The land of my people in another realm." A long pause. A long breath. "The Heavenly Tower creates. Yes, it does. Truly. It is able to manufacture gods with its might. However, its greatest ability lies not in creation but treachery."

Treachery....

A part of Yomi stolen...

A world of worlds...

"Sasaki Kojiro knew, Kazi. He knew about the Heavenly Tower. He knew that we thought the people were NPCs."

Marta’s words...

Sasaki Kojiro...

Science...

Mythology...

World Trees...

It was a matter of deduction and no detective could deduce better than Kazi Hossain.

"I understand now. The universe is ever expanding, a bubble that grows and grows, and constantly around the bubble of the universe must be....a seal."

"A sea," Goddess Izanami corrected and then smiled. "We call it...the Current of Darkness. It is where the heavens are. It is where everything lays. It is where Yomi is. It is the space of the gods that humanity cannot and should not venture."

The sharp nail of her thumb flicked down his lips. Blood fell in a thin trickle.

"You are a handsome man. So perfectly sculpted. You are like..." Down, down, down her nail went, drawing a thin line of blood down his chin and onto his neck. "Izanagi."

She stopped before his Adam’s apple. She contemplated ending his life. Thin as her current body was, the goddess made it mighty enough to end him.

"I am not Izanagi." He did not dare peer into the future. Against her, it would mean death. "I am Kazi. I am human."

"That you are," Izanami hummed. "A human wielding Primordial Darkness. Tell me...are you the Great Sin? Are you? Are you? Are you?"

The Chosen Sin...? Some sort of prophetic figure? Kazi was quiet. Prophecies...on Earth, he encountered many from delusional men and women.

Even his own father.

But this was no said by a delusion. This was from Izanami, a creator goddess. This was from an entity that could indeed view prophecies. The future was held in her hand. The very world was. She was said to create it, after all, alongside her husband Izanagi.

"I am not."

A breath. Crimson continued to trickled out as her thumb pressed against his neck. He waited for her judgement. No, no, if he waited, then she could kill him on a whim. "The people," Kazi managed to say. "Why did you kill them?"

Her expression twisted and her eyes became one with death. Pauline was no longer remotely recognizable. It was all Izanami.

"The Japanese people are mineto take. Mine, mine, mine!" Her purple hair twisted and elongated into a monster. "All of their souls belong to ME."

She was too powerful, too mighty, and too unstable. Anything he said could set her off, no matter how careful. Powerful women did not like coy men. Be direct. That was his only choice.

Even if it could result in his death.

"They don’t. You promised your husband. You know that you cannot keep theses souls." Kazi was playing a dangerous game. Against a god, he had no choice. Her grip tightened. He shouldn’t have been able to breathe. "Y-you know, Izanami. You cannot...!"

Her eyes raged and turned blacker than black. Maggots crawled out of her cheeks, her flesh thinning until he saw bone. Her The earth shook and the sky tore itself apart. Peaceful blue became a harrowing black.

"I cannot? I should!"

She should! She could!

Kazi’s words were getting to her. He spoke loudly, with the weakness and strength of a human. "You may keep them then! I accept that! And with that, I offer a deal!"

Her grip loosened. "A deal...?"

"I wish for Matsue to be as it was before. I wish for the happiness of families. I wish for it all to come back. In exchange, I will do anything."

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"...these are NOT your people. Do not care for them."

"As you believe in death, I believe in life. I have to care for them."

"..."

Her responsibility was not quaint. Her powers were not so easily used and abused. Killing a whole region’s worth of people was well within her ability and authority. At the same time, it threatened the agreement she made with her husband. The delicate scales between life and death were tipping.

"Please, think about it. This gate will grow. People will populate it. With it, life will arise. And in life comes death. More life means more death for you to consume and spread."

"You believe...in life. You believe in death too." As though coming to a dream, she blinked and Pauline’s natural beauty returned. Her hand retreated and Kazi could wholly breathe. "The Great Sin. You are not the sin. I see that now."

"The Great Sin. Is that who I have to kill in order to get the people back?"

"No. This is not a contract. This is not a promise. This simply is. You are correct. I will bring back the people of Matsue."

Izanami’s mercy. Izanami’s wrath.

It wasn’t a matter of negotiations. It just was.

"But your friends...the five Interlopers...I have tossed them into the Current of Darkness. If you wish to meet them again, traverse the Heavenly Tower. Fight and achieve victory, and may fate be on your side."

’Booker, Jules, and Matty...’

Wait, five. Who were the other two?

"Thank you for your generosity," Kazi said anyway. It did not matter who the players were, victory was impossible to achieve against Izanami. To not be killed was an immense mercy.

"As a token of my good will, I shall return this thing to you." Izanami pointed to herself, to Pauline and her corpse. "However...you must show me your goodwill. Your promise to make this land better. Yes, my goodwill is this woman and yours...yours shall be the people of this land. Your love for life. I shall take with me one thousand souls."

Silence followed and Kazi could hear his own heartbeat race.

"Do you accept? One thousand souls....and I will bring this woman back to you."

She never promised to spare Matsue. She never said she would bring ALL of them back. This...he had expected a deal like this. Cruel and divine in the worst ways.

"You and the Heavenly Tower defied me. That cannot be forgiven. And this corpse...I feel a strong connection between it and you. Love. Affection. Comfort. Accept this offer and my thirst and anger will at last be sated."

One thousand souls for Pauline.

One thousand innocents for one woman.

Izanami was not a villain. She was not a savior. She was the inevitable, the eternal, the mother of all endings.