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“Miss Yae! Miss Yae!”
The pink-haired woman turned at the sound of giddy young children’s voices, high from the recent end of school. The noon sun colored their faces bright and smiling, the season of summer soon approaching. She had been admiring the shrubbery lining the paths she was strolling through, content with her afternoon walk, free from the office.
“Why hello there,” Yae smiled, bending to meet the children. “Did school just end?” at which the children replied with furious nodding.
“Miss Yae! I want to hear a story!” one of the children exclaimed, dark eyes shining with excitement.
“A story?” Yae mused, standing back up, towering over the younger bodies. The children immediately crowded her, each wanting attention from the kitsune.
“Yes! You always tell the best stories, better than my grandma!” another child declared.
“Hmm… I guess it comes with the job. Very well then, what story would you like?” The fox swiftly turned around, walking towards a clearing she knew, as the children followed after her like ducklings.
“Tell us about the story of Inazuma,” one young girl in pigtails requested.
If anyone else were to watch the interaction, they would have noticed a flicker of perhaps reminisce and healed hurt flash across the fox’s eyes from the mere mention of the country.
“Isn’t that one a little too sad?” the chief editor asked, the rest of her body language betraying nothing.
“No, it’s my favorite,” the girl smiled with a toothy grin.
The group had now reached an empty area of grass and flowers amidst the trees. Yae sat down, cross-legged, beckoning the children to sit with her. Her robes, no longer the elegant crimson-bordered white silk, were a simple muted lavender, and the striking headpiece that once adorned Yae’s crown was gone, only the clipped vision earring remaining.
“If the story is the young lady’s favorite, then perform I must,” Yae started with a flamboyant wave of her hands as the children giggled.
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“It all started long ago, when the country of Inazuma had been standing for many centuries, content and growing at a rapid pace. Its goddess had hidden herself away in her mind, trying to achieve eternity within her conscience,” Yae began, the slightest of a sorrowful expression painting her face.
“How is that possible?” a child asked, brows furrowed and visage scrunched up.
Yae hushed the child, appeasing him with the explanation of “I’ll tell you when the time comes in the future.” The other children all eagerly awaited the continuation of the story; the kitsune was a master of storytelling, changing the tone and mood with ease.
“She left behind a puppet to take charge and create a path for eternity. She was afraid of its growth, fearful that humanity was changing too fast, and ordered a law that all visions must be confiscated. You know what visions are, right?” Yae asked, tilting her head so that the children could see the orb encased in intricate patterns clipped to her ear.
“My brother has one!” a boy boasted pridefully.
Yae nodded and explained, “Well, visions are a manifestation of one’s ambitions and dreams.”
“What does manifestation mean?”
“It’s an example that clearly shows something else. So these visions are proof of the goddess looking upon a person and deeming them worthy through their ambitions and dreams,” Yae slowly guided the children through such a complicated matter.
“If a person’s vision is taken away, then they lose their life’s dream. They are nothing, a husk of their previous self,” her voice had fallen low and dark, eyes hardening at the memories of people who have lost their visions. “The people, outraged at this order, formed a resistance against their own goddess. They wanted justice for this unfair law.”
“But it was for a good reason!” a girl insisted.
“Do you think so? If it’s for a good cause, then should bad things be allowed?” Yae asked gently, hands folded against her.
“Uh…” the girl hesitated.
“It’s not an easy answer, is it?”
“No…” Yae smiled and pinched the girl’s cheek, reassuring her that there was no real right answer.
“Well, the goddess fought back with her own forces. Of them was a general whom she loved dearly. This general, although misguided, loved the goddess back, devoting her life and love to the immortal being,” Yae said lightly. She thought of the stout Kujou general, golden eyes flashing at anyone who dared utter wrong of her god. It was a shame she was so devout to the wrong cause.
“However, war struck tragedy everywhere in the lands. The resistance group was fighting a long and bitter battle, but they managed to take down the general who was leading most of the war.”
Yae remembered the news arriving in the form of a letter, and the first thoughts that flashed through her mind was of Ei. The lightning of the storm had fallen in battle, and the thunder that roared across the skies had become dangerously silent.
“The goddess, overcome by grief and anger, raged at the death of her lover.”
The cold, dead look in Ei’s eyes was all Yae had to see before knowing that it was too late. Ei had lost far too much in the past, and Kujou Sara was the parting of clouds that drew her out of the Plane of Euthymia. The puppet’s empty lost eyes were nothing in comparison to the silent fury of a goddess who had lost it all.
“Give me the gnosis,” she had commanded.
And Yae watched from Narukami Island as the land masses in the distance were burned to the ground, charred and still crackling with Electro energy. There was crash after crash of lightning, the skies mourning the loss with the floods of rain. The inhumane shrieks of wind blew frightfully around all of Inazuma. Yae watched the raw outrage of her goddess, someone she used to call friend, but now no longer recognized.
Before she left Narukami once and for all, she saw a haunted figure in the distance with tattered purple robes, carrying a body in her arms as one would carry their bride. The sky was clear for the first time in a few days, the silent peace after a storm almost unsettling.
“Was it worth it?” Yae called out in a hoarse voice.
“Was it worth it?” the figure echoed in a bitter laugh. It was ironic how the goddess was kneeling on the bloodied ground, the body of Kujou Sara resting lightly against her figure. She was dying, they both knew. The Resistance had put up a mighty fight, after all. “Who knows. Though, don’t be so quick to follow me into Celestia.”
And Yae had turned around afterwards with the whisper of a goodbye.
In the years to come, people would call Inazuma a land destroyed by its own goddess. The area of her gravestone was marked by a field of dark dendrobiums, so dark it could almost be mistaken for deep magenta. Yae would visit there every once in a while, questioning if a god’s love was worth the sacrifice of a country.
“In the end, she passed away with her lover in her arms. Some of the civilians were able to escape and live to tell the story, but these stories are all that is left of Inazuma today,” Yae finished with a solemn tone, bowing her head as a small tribute to the once great country.
“Now, I must ask you. Why is this story your favorite?”
The girl in pigtails said, “Well, doesn’t that mean that the goddess was reunited with her lover in Celestia? Then… she found her eternity after all. It’s really sad but romantic in the end.”
Yae has never thought of it that way. Perhaps after all the suffering her friend had gone through, she would at least find peace up in the heavens. She looked at the girl, barely of adolescence, but still so hopeful with a wonder only youth could have.
“Now, it’s time for you lot to head home. I’ll tell you another story tomorrow.” Yae finally managed to shoo the children to their homes after much promises and enduring complaining.
She looked up at the quickly darkening skies, at the floating palace of Celestia. Never before as the head priestess of the Narukami Shrine would she have ever sat down with children, indulged in their silly whims and enjoyed it. Perhaps time mellowed her over the decades.
“Wherever you are, I hope you are happy,” she whispered. “Don’t worry though, I won’t join you too soon.”
And from above, she could hear the roll of thunder in the background as if in agreement.