It took around an hour to reach Aso from the city by car. Miike Tetsuya was in the passenger seat as Chiaki Shuuhei raced down National Highway 57 at full speed toward Aso Town
and Tetsuya’s family home.
Aso’s topography was very interesting. Within an enormous caldera with an outer rim 128 kilometers (~80 miles) in circumference lay seven towns and villages. At almost the center of this basin-shaped formation towered the central volcanic cones, including the famous Five Peaks of Aso [Aso Gogaku]. Many people seemed to assume that Mt. Aso referred to this famed mountain, but in fact it referred to the entire entity, including the outer rim. In ancient times Mt. Aso had been a cluster of active volcanoes which collapsed into the enormous Aso caldera after a massive eruption emptied 40 billion metric tons of ejecta from underground.
There was only a single break in the rim surrounding the caldera: the Tateno Crater Shoals. Both National Highway 57 and JR from Kumamoto entered Aso through this valley.
Tetsuya stayed silent the entire ride. The news program presenter on the radio was reporting on the earlier incident at Katou Shrine, and though Chiaki was worried for Takaya, he concentrated as much as he could on the matter at hand and stomped hard on the accelerator.
Just past Aso Station on the Houhi Main Line was an intersection; he turned left to enter a narrow lane to Yakuin Field , the village where Tetsuya’s family home was located. After wending through several of these narrow paths through rice paddies they reached the house of Tetsuya’s granduncle, Miike Tatsuya.
A dog started barking furiously as he shoved the car into a cramped nearby garden. The house was already dark, its storm shutters shut, but the sound drew someone to the door.
“What’s wrong, Tetsuya!” Tetsuya’s granduncle and grandaunt were both shocked by his abrupt return, given that in general Tetsuya never even called unless necessary. “Has something happened? You didn’t even let us know you were coming!”
Tetsuya climbed sullenly out of the car.
“And who is that?”
“A teacher from my school,” Tetsuya answered curtly. His granduncle probably thought Tetsuya was in trouble at school again. He bowed his head toward Chiaki.
“Y-you’re his teacher, then? You’ve come a long way this evening. Please come in. Tetsuya! What have you done this time?!”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Granduncle. I didn’t do anything. Anyway,” Tetsuya’s face darkened, “There’s something I gotta know.”
“Know? What?”
“Where is Hokage?” Both Chiaki and Tetsuya saw his granduncle’s face immediately change. “You know, don’t you? Where Hokage is right now? If you know, tell me. I gotta know where she is!”
“Tetsuya...!”
“A person’s life is at stake! Tell me, Granduncle! Where is Hokage?!”
“A person’s life?”
Tetsuya’s granduncle looked uneasily at Chiaki, who nodded.
“It’s true. There’s no time to lose. If you know Hokage-san’s whereabouts, please tell us.”
“...That’s...” Tetsuya’s granduncle shook his head, perplexed. “something I have no knowledge of.”
“What?”
“We don’t know anything. That’s the truth. But even if we did, we Celebrants would not be able to tell you.”
Tetsuya glared like a dog about to pick a fight. “Then the head house people know, don’t they?”
“Tetsuya!”
“Fine! I’ll just ask my uncle directly! Come on, Sensei, let’s go!”
“Look here, Tetsuya!”
Ignoring his granduncle’s attempts to call him back, Tetsuya pulled Chiaki away by the arm and got into the car. They drove off with his granduncle still shouting behind them. ...Tetsuya gnawed a nail in annoyance in the passenger seat.
“Now you know, Sensei. That’s how it is. It’s like everyone from the branch family are servants of the head house. And all the secrecy—it’s gross.”
“What are the Celebrants?”
“It refers to my entire family. That’s what they call all of us Miike. It’s written with the characters for ‘celebrate’ and ‘child’.”
“...”
The Miike Celebrants have to devote their entire lives to the head house. The head house people are our lords. If they say, ‘Do not speak of it,’ then we’re supposed to keep quiet even if it means biting our tongues off. That’s the kind of family we are."
(It certainly is quite strange.)
The idea of head house and branch families remained firmly rooted in some places, but it seemed especially deep-seated in the Miike family. That, and this Asara made the family itself quite mystifying.
Moonlight clearly illuminated the northern outer rim of the crater. They took the road cutting straight through the center of the rice paddies. Immediately past a right turn was a house surrounded by a long hedge: the Miike head house.
In the spacious courtyard was a storehouse as well as a detached building. The main building had the splendor befitting a head house.
They got out of the car, looking tense.
They were led inside and told to wait.
The house was in the traditional farmhouse style. The entrance led into an earthen floor interior. There were no corridors; the rooms were not partitioned by sliding screens, but doors of yellowish-brown wood. One could feel its age from the slightly blackened pillars. There were perhaps ten rooms or so. Such an old building must have belonged to the village headman class in former times.
The room into which Chiaki and Tetsuya were shown was around twenty tatami (~356 sq ft) in size. It was heated only by an oil stove, and was quite cold when they entered.
Tetsuya seemed strained next to Chiaki. His uncle, Miike Haruya, was the head of the head house. Ordinarily one would have wondered why he was so anxious about seeing his own uncle, but...
“Damn...it...”
Tetsuya was seated in formal pose, and his fists quivered on his knees. Nonetheless his eyes had a fiery glitter to them.
(Is he such a scary dude?)
The door clattered open, and a man dressed in Japanese clothes entered.
Tetsuya’s back immediately straightened.
Miike Haruya was in his mid-forties. His presence felt exactly opposite of what Chiaki had imagined, and he was a bit taken aback. Perhaps because he routinely wore kimonos, the navy-blue one he had on looked stylishly natural on him, not at all disheveled, the collar just so. Though he was the head of a farming family, he didn’t seem the slightest bit rustic. If anything, he looked more the intellectual type, endowed with a special kind of dignity, very much the head of an old family.
(This man...) He’s the formidable type, Chiaki groaned internally.
“You look well, Tetsuya,” Haruya said. With that defiant glitter still in his eyes, Tetsuya carefully bowed in strict accordance with etiquette.
“...It’s been a while, Uncle.”
“You didn’t visit for the New Year, and I hear you have not kept up with your kagura practice. There is value in such training. To learn kagura is one of the duties of a Celebrant. You will be dancing this year.”
“...”
Though his bearing was meek, his eyes were full of defiance.
“You are?”
“I am a teacher at Old Castle High School,” Chiaki introduced himself. “My name is Chiaki Shuuhei.”
“Ah, a teacher?”
“My apologies for this sudden nighttime visit. This is a matter of urgency.”
“It’s about Hokage, Spirit-Protector,” Tetsuya addressed his uncle, cutting straight to the chase. “Please tell us where to find her! We need to know where she is!”
Haruya’s eyebrows twitched. “What is the meaning of this?”
Chiaki passed Haruya the letter and lock of hair. Haruya opened the folded paper and ran his eyes over the lines written there. Tetsuya gazed intently at his uncle’s face.
“As you can see, someone sent Tetsuya-kun this letter.”
“...”
“The kidnap victim, Inaba Akemi, is his classmate. She never returned home, and we currently have no news of her. There are witnesses who saw her being abducted from Katou Shrine.”
“...”
“I found this too, in front of the shrine. Look!” Tetsuya produced the keychain he had picked up. “This is Inaba’s. She really was kidnapped! If we don’t bring Hokage, something bad’s going to happen to Inaba!”
His uncle was unperturbed. With a sober gaze he lifted his eyes from the letter. “Have you contacted the police?”
“No, not yet.”
“I see.” Haruya answered concisely, “Compliance with these demands is not possible.”
Tetsuya’s eyes bulged. Haruya handed back the letter impassively.
“I don’t know who committed this mischief, but no attention need be given to such antics.”
“This is not a prank!” Tetsuya’s voice was raised. “Inaba really was kidnapped! They’ll probably kill her! If I don’t bring Hokage—”
“How do you know?”
“They know about Asara—which is something only us Miike should know about! The people who kidnapped Inaba must be the same people who destroyed Katou Shrine! Right, Sensei? And they did for Ougi, too!”
Chiaki’s eyes widened in surprise at Tetsuya’s intuition. “Miike...”
“I don’t know who they are, but this is no prank. If I don’t bring Hokage, they really will kill Inaba! She’s going to die, Uncle!”
“... In that case, there is all the more reason not to comply.”
“!”
Tetsuya was speechless. Haruya’s eyes fell to half-mast, and his tone became very stern. “If this is true, then it is all the more imperative that Hokage’s location not be revealed. Would you put Asara in danger by responding to this threat? We must not comply.”
“Inaba is Hokage’s friend, too! Are you saying we’re just going to let her die?!”
“This has nothing to do with our family.”
Tetsuya was left utterly without recourse by the coldness of Haruya’s words. He clenched his teeth hard enough to break them and glared piercingly at his uncle. His voice was like a moan: “Is Onpachi-sama more important than actual living human beings?”
“Tetsuya.”
“What the hell is wrong with this family?! Just what the hell is Hokage?! Why does she have to be hidden away?!”
“...”
“Are you planning to marry Hokage to Onpachi-sama? It’s not like we’re living in an old folk tale. It’s completely stupid to take superstitions as fact and live in fear of them in this day and age! You were once a card-carrying cosmopolitan intellectual yourself!”
Chiaki quietly waited to see what Haruya would do. Yet Haruya didn’t even quiver at Tetsuya’s abuse. Chiaki suddenly asked, “Who are you hiding Hokage-san from?”
“...”
“Perhaps you anticipated something like this would happen?”
Haruya’s eyes lifted in surprise.
“! What...?!” Tetsuya pressed his uncle, stunned, “Is that true, Uncle? You knew that someone would target Hokage...”
“This has nothing to do with either of you.”
“Of course it does!” Tetsuya bellowed, striking the tatami mat, “Hokage is my sister! How can you say she has nothing to do with me?! Who’s targeting her, and why?! What do they plan to do with her?! What the hell is going on with this family?!”
Tetsuya was so agitated that his voice had become choked with tears, and Chiaki patted his shoulder to calm him.
Miike’s head, however, was calm. He sat with his hands tucked into his sleeves, saying nothing.
“Miike-san.”
“...I cannot tell you Hokage’s location. This is the answer of the Spirit-Protector. Go home.”
Tetsuya stared at his uncle in astonishment.
Haruya bowed toward Chiaki and stood. Without another word to the dazed and befuddled Tetsuya, he left the room.
“Uncle...”
Chiaki immediately sprang up, hot on Haruya’s heels.
“Please leave.” Haruya was just as cold toward Chiaki. “There is nothing more to discuss.”
“What is Asara-hime?”
“...”
“I can do nothing if I don’t understand. What is Onpachi-sama? Do they have anything to do with the bonfire ritual?”
“I see no need to explain to you.”
“Inaba is my student. I can’t simply stand by and do nothing. If you absolutely refuse to tell us Hokage-san’s whereabouts...”
“It has nothing to do with my family.”
“You can keep your silence, but they may resort to even dirtier measures.”
Haruya’s shoulders jolted—the first time he had displayed such a reaction. Haruya looked at them over his shoulder. “Do you know who made these threats?” he asked.
Chiaki nodded. “Probably someone out of the police’s reach. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Who are you?”
“Why don’t we make a deal, Miike-san? You have a secret you must protect even if it means letting someone die. But the people who wrote this letter will stop at nothing to achieve their ends, no matter how vicious their means. I want to help you, Miike-san. I will take the responsibility of guarding Hokage-san on myself. Won’t you tell me where she is?”
“That’s ridiculous. You are no match for them.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to use the ace up my sleeve?” Haruya glared. Chiaki made up his mind. He returned the glare with a seriousness that declared he was sincere and announced challengingly, “...I’m not leaving until you agree.”
It became a test of endurance.
Haruya had apparently instructed the members of the head house, “Do not engage with them”; no one intervened. They remained in the silent spacious room. The stove had been carried away, and the temperature in the room dropped precipitously as the night deepened. Tetsuya shook from the cold even though he was wearing a jacket, but the shaking of his fists was perhaps also due to another reason.
“This family...” Tetsuya groaned lowly again and again. “I’m cutting all ties with this family...”
“Miike.”
“I need to gain my independence as soon as possible... After that I’m gone.”
He could see their coldness toward Tetsuya. It’d been apparent as soon as they’d arrived. And it wasn’t just because he was from the branch family.
(This is why small towns get a bad name.) Chiaki thought, bored and fed up. Maybe it was because the feudalistic patriarchal system was still so deeply-rooted in such places.
Chiaki had severed ties with his family and relatives long ago, and he could see how unbearably oppressive it was for someone with Tetsuya’s personality. He’d watched Irobe and others live through four hundred years of such a structure with their bonds of obligation with equal parts disgust and admiration.
(It must feel pretty cramped.)
He sympathized with Tetsuya. Doubtless it was not altogether unrelated to the reason for his becoming a problem child.
He looked at his watch. The hands indicated 1 a.m. Chiaki’s thoughts returned to immediate concerns.
(I’m gonna have to turn up the heat.)
They’d been given 48 hours. They had to produce Hokage at midnight the day after tomorrow.
(Morning, then?)
If Haruya made no move by morning, he’d have no choice but to use the ace up his sleeve.
(I’ll use hypnotic suggestion to make him talk.)
At dawn the exhausted Tetsuya fell deeply asleep.
Though birds had begun to sing, the sky was still dark. The time was 5:30 a.m.
“?”
Just then, he heard sounds from the inner rooms and indications that someone was coming—venturing outside via the main entrance.
Chiaki stood and followed. Sure enough, it was Haruya.
He walked out of the entranceway alone and set off on foot along the still-dark road bordering the rice paddies.
(Where is he going?)
He was carrying a rope-like object woven out of straw. There was the scent of something burning—there was a small fire at the rope’s end.
Morning’s glow suffused the eastern sky. The air had grown both much colder and much clearer; only the cheerful voices of the birds broke the silence. The Five Peaks of Aso stretched majestically beyond endless paddy fields.
After taking the road into the village a little ways, Haruya headed for a certain shrine. It stood isolated past a torii, so small that it was more wayside shrine than anything else.
‘Frost Shrine’ was written on the torii’s placard.
Haruya walked to the front of the shrine and performed his formal obeisances with burning straw in hand.
“...”
Chiaki watched. Haruya straightened and said without turning, “As head of the Miike, I must worship here every morning.”
Though he had never turned to look behind him, he had sensed Chiaki’s presence. Chiaki nodded. “What about the burning straw?”
“This is flame from the bonfire ritual.” Haruya looked over his shoulder at Chiaki. “The Miike family receives the sacred fire every year on the day of the night-crossing and maintains it throughout the year in our household shrine. Of course it must be brought along in our daily worship.”
“This is Frost Shrine? The one that enshrines the god to whom the bonfire ritual is dedicated? It’s smaller than I imagined.”
“Bonfire Hall is on the opposite side across the street. That’s where the chosen bonfire maiden is shut up for sixty days to tend to the Frost God’s fire.”
“I see,” Chiaki said, approaching with his hands tucked into his pockets. "What an odd deification. A much larger shrine—Aso Shrine—is around here, right? Does it have something to do with the ‘Frost God’ too?
“In fact,” Haruya smiled for the first time, “without Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto, this shrine wouldn’t exist. After all, Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto himself built this shrine.”
“What?”
“Frost Shrine is also known as Frost Hall. We raise the fire of the bonfire ritual to warm the god and prevent him from bringing an early frost down on the crops...” Haruya’s smile vanished. “But the true purpose of the festival is to protect the rice from the onryou’s curse.”
Chiaki’s brow creased. “Onryou’s curse?”
“Yes. The true form of the god deified at Frost Shrine is the onryou of a man named Kihachi, who was beheaded by Aso Shrine’s Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto,” Haruya quietly explained.
He was also called ‘the Buddhist Priest Kihachi,’ a strong warrior of this land from ancient times, a retainer of Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto. According to legend, this Kihachi was the possessor of superhuman strength and stamina, and Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto, who loved firing his bow more than anything else, tasked him to retrieve his arrows. The god would sit on one of Aso’s central volcanic cones, Oujou Peak, and shoot at the ’Target Rock’ in the Tail Rock cluster. Sometimes the swift-running Kihachi would go to pick up an arrow that had missed the target. He made 99 rounds, but on the 100th trip, feeling tired and annoyed, he gripped the arrow in his toes and threw it back at Takeiwatatsu-no-mikoto.
The god was angry. “Disgraceful!” he raged at the crude way in which his arrow had been handled. Kihachi tried to run; the god gave chase. Then, after a violent struggle, the god cut off his head.
Yet the decapitated head returned to its body. Kihachi had to be cut into many pieces before he finally died.
The decapitated head flew high into the sky. From then on Kihachi’s flying head became an onryou full of resentment for the god, and it brought early frost and drought on the crops. The people couldn’t survive without food, and the distressed god built a temple right in the center of Aso Valley to placate Kihachi’s spirit and call him back to earth. Thus Kihachi’s head returned to earth and was enshrined at Frost Temple (Lower Hall), and afterwards the frost no longer fell. —This was the origin of Frost Shrine.
The bonfire ritual was to ensure Kihachi’s head slept peacefully in warmth (the cold pained it) and did not wake up to torment the people.
“Kihachi...he’s the one you call Onpachi-sama?” Chiaki exhaled a long white plume, his cheeks stiff with cold. “There’s something I still don’t understand. How does your family come into it? You’re no simple shrine parishioners no matter how I look at it.”
“...”
It didn’t look as if Haruya was going to answer the question. Chiaki pondered.
“Tetsuya said you’re descended from Asara. Who is Asara-hime?”
“Asara-hime was the name of Kihachi’s wife.”
“Wife?”
“Yes.” Haruya lightly swung the burning end of the rope. “You probably already know that there was once a place in Aso known as Takachiho. It is mentioned in the legend of descent of the sun goddess’ grandson to earth. Legends from there depict Kihachi as an evil bandit.”
“...”
“This evil bandit forcibly took Asara-hime as his wife, and she spent her days in tears and sorrow. But one day, a noble personage known as Mikenu-no-mikoto appeared before Asara-hime.”
“Mikenu-no-mikoto...”
“Yes. He was the younger brother of Emperor Jimmu—the primary enshrined deity of Takachiho Shrine. The god resolved to exterminate Kihachi and rescue her.”
But Kihachi could not be eliminated so easily. Though killed over and over, he came back to life again and again. In the end, together with a master of martial arts called Tabe Shigetaka, the god defeated Kihachi, chopped his body into many pieces, and buried them such that he could never put himself back together. Many of the mounds where pieces of Kihachi were buried still existed in Takachiho. The sword which the god used to killed Kihachi was called ‘Onikirimaru’, or ‘Demon-Slicer,’ and became a treasure of Takachiho Shrine.
Mikenu-no-mikoto took Asara-hime as his cherished wife, and they lived happily ever after.
“Asara’s bloodline... You’re not suggesting you’re descended from Asara-hime, are you?”
“One of Asara-hime and Mikenu-no-mikoto’s children is our distant ancestor...”
“...!” Chiaki stared at him. “Wh...at!”
“You want to say it’s impossible, I suppose?”
“...”
Haruya continued calmly, “Our bloodline has continued for a thousand and some hundred-odd years in order to fulfill a certain wish of Asara-hime. I’m the 98th head. Our lineage rivals that of the successive generations of the Aso family, who serve as Aso Shrine’s chief priests. ...The Miike family’s other name is ‘Shadow Aso Family’.”
Haruya slowly crossed his arms and quietly gazed at the Five Peaks of Aso to the south.
“Shadow...Aso Family...?”
“Yes. Miike—Divine Pond. Specifically, the crater of the Middle Peak [Naka-dake] .” Haruya pointed at the faint white smoke rising from the center of the Five Peaks. “You can barely see it because it blends into the clouds, but the Middle Peak is still active. Since ancient times that crater has been called Divine Spirit Pond, or simply Divine Pond because it looks like a pond when it fills with rainwater. That’s where my family’s name comes from.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Miike family is tasked by Aso Shrine with custodianship of the crater. We keep watch over the activity of the Middle Peak. Do you know why?” Haruya asked. Chiaki shook his head, and Haruya lowered his head a little. “Asara’s descendants are said to govern the Middle Peak’s eruption.”
“...” Chiaki was silent for a moment. “Why...”
“Kihachi’s hatred will cause the Middle Peak to erupt. Because Asara was Kihachi’s wife.”
Haruya stopped. He’d said Kihachi’s wife. But wasn’t the ancestor of the Miike family the offspring of Asara-hime and Mikenu-no-mikoto?
(What’s going on...?)
And Asara’s wish—what had she wished for?
“Asara must be born for Onpachi-sama’s sake.”
That’s what Tetsuya’s grandmother had said. What did that have to do with ‘Asara’s wish’? Mikenu-no-mikoto’s descendants revered the villain he had slain as ‘Onpachi-sama’. He didn’t think it was simply fear of being cursed.
(What’s with this Miike family?)
There didn’t seem to be any further explanations forthcoming. Miike Haruya bowed his head as if in prayer before abruptly turning to face Chiaki directly.
“You said you’d help us. That you would protect Hokage.”
“Yeah.” Chiaki collected himself and straightened. “I meant what I said. If you’ll help us rescue Inaba.”
“I’ll need proof.” So saying, Haruya extracted a talisman from inside the breast of his kimono. On it was a stylized image of the Big Dipper and the words of a purification rite. Haruya lit the amulet with his burning straw-end, and as it burst into flames he hurled it at Chiaki.
“...!”
With a whoosh a blue blaze flared from Chiaki for an instant.
It was completely heatless, and a moment later disappeared along with the talisman.
“Ah...” Haruya was a little startled. This was the first time he’d witnessed such a magnificent blaze. “Splendid. You are the possessor of no small amount of spiritual power, I see. Who are you?”
“What was that just now?”
“A flame that reacts to spiritual power which used the power you emit—your aura—as its fuel. I’m amazed.”
“Well, of course,” Chiaki snorted a laugh, blustering, “I’ll protect your young lady from all comers. There aren’t many who can pick a fight with me.”
“You’ll protect Hokage, truly?” Haruya stressed the words, expression stern, “No matter who you must face?”
His gravity aroused Chiaki’s doubts. From the look of things, Haruya had a very good idea of ‘whom’ it would be. Not an onshou—which meant:
(A third party...?) Someone between the onshou and the Miike family. (Whoever it was...)
—Who had leaked the secret of Asara-hime—of the Miike family to the onshou. Perhaps Haruya knew who the culprit was.
Chiaki expression turned cold.
Even if he had to bluff his way through this, he had to undertake the role of Miike Hokage’s bodyguard for Inaba’s sake.
“Don’t worry, guarding young ladies is my forte.” Chiaki folded his arms cockily. “The more I hear, the more questions I have, but for now I promise I’ll let no harm come to Miike Hokage. ...Tell me where she is, Miike-san”
“Very well. ...But first,” Miike Haruya said in a low voice, “there is something I must investigate.”
“Investigate? What do you mean?”
“I must go to Aso Shrine.” Haruya looked east, the direction in which Aso Shrine stood. “It is of the first importance. I must know whether its «Golden Serpent Head» is safe. ”
“Golden...Serpent Head...?”
“Yes. If it has been taken, then I must say matters are extremely urgent.” Miike Haruya asked Chiaki, his expression rigid, “Would you come with me, Chiaki-sensei?”
The cold morning wind ruffled Chiaki’s coat. Chiaki stiffened his spine and glared balefully toward Aso Shrine.