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Before we begin, we must first introduce the son of Izanami, prince and heir to the Amenonuhoko, a weapon to bring salvation to the country. He who was blessed at birth on the altar to become the vessel for the mother goddess and revealed by the kingdom’s people to purge the immoral. Born with golden eyes and hair spun from the fabric of stars, the son of Izanami was titled as the empire’s savior, untouched, unblemished, an uncapped purity. Yet the rest of the gods felt it unfair for Izanami to have sent a portion of her essence to the mortal realm when they were incapable of doing so themselves, so they unleashed a curse that manifested as a human. A foil for Izanami’s son.
Ah, now have I piqued your interest, dear reader?
Sit down, sit down, let me tell you about the boy damned by the god of mercy, Guanyin, who dons the name of Kannonzaka. A wretched being, they deemed him, with the appearance of a sickly child and empty eyes that could fit the sea’s expanse. Kannonzaka will become Guanyin’s savior, in the way Izanami is for his people. However, in the making of this boy, there was one thing the gods neglected: the hands that they gave to him on two wrists. After all, even fate can underestimate a mortal’s potential in wielding its free will.
Come, open your ears to the sounds of the world, listen: herein lies the story of two incarnations bearing one heart in two bodies, and their pledge to defy the world.
Kannonzaka is originally a gift. Irony stains his name when the Avalokitaśvara send him to the Izanami’s palace as a peace offering, burying his past under false politeness and amiability held like a butter knife. They do not tell the Izanamis about Guanyin’s curse in Kannonzaka’s chest, and they dare omit how the child was to taint the pride of this kingdom one day. Of course, the Izanamis are blind to all as well, as they accept this frail child who holds sin behind a cage of teeth, but they are not oblivious to the vicious aura that seeps from Kannonzaka’s skin. Adults often can detect these things as their mind has developed to categorize between good and evil, sin and purity. Children, on the other hand, have not yet nurtured this trait to fruition.
That is how the son of Izanami finds Kannonzaka sitting in the palace’s cellar, unwashed and dirty like those fallen from grace and sentenced to the wild. A savage being Kannonzaka is, but Izanami does not find it bothering in the least. He does not find fault, and Kannonzaka is appalled, for he has been a scapegoat since birth.
“Wanna see the birds?” Izanami asks.
“I could kill you.” The words are foreign in Kannonzaka’s mouth, manipulated by an entity separate from his will. It takes his tongue for its own—a mother tongue that uses her offspring in lieu of tending to him. A separate language from his soul. One that embodies him, but is not him; it is not his to own, this violence that simmers in his blood. Kannonzaka balks, mouth open wider than a dragon’s maw that could consume the whole of Izanami’s head down to his throat.
But Izanami sees none of this, for he is made of light and has not yet learned to distinguish between harm and safety, so he takes Kannonzaka’s hands instead, and leads him outside the castle walls. They sneak past the guards and into a clearing where the grass whistles in the wind.
So it goes: Kannonzaka follows Izanami outside the palace day by day during nightfall when the moon curves itself around in the promise of freedom. The nights are sweet as contentment laces the cold air and the youth paint the forest as their fantasy.
“This one is a sparrow.” Izanami points to the brown-breasted creature in front of the bush one night. It looks frail and small, similar to their silhouettes in the dark. “We should name it after you.” He turns to Kannonzaka, the moonlight reflecting crystals in his eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Kannonzaka.”
“No,” Izanami shakes his head, exasperated. “Your first name.”
Kannonzaka hesitates. His first name is a vagueness upon his tongue, faded after a loss of use from his guardians. It has no place in this world, he was told. He has been known as many things—Kannonzaka, Guanyin’s sin, the vessel for The Lord Who Gazes Down Upon The World—but has never been addressed by his given name. Even as a child, it is a sign of weakness to give others his first name, Kannonzaka knows. To entrust another with his name is to believe in their ability to retain that trust. And when those around him merely dehumanize him to an abstract concept, existing only to the extent of human belief, he should never give his name.
But Izanami has not dehumanized him yet, has he? Never during these past nights has he treated Kannonzaka as an inferior, as a blemish to the world’s reputation. The kindness he has received from Izanami, the birds they have seen, the time that has passed leisurely—it did not seem to Kannonzaka that the boy would betray him.
“Doppo,” Kannonzaka says, picking at the grass. “That’s my name.”
“Hello, Doppo!” Izanami half-shouts, all politeness and court etiquettes stripped away. “My name is Hifumi! That’s Hi-fu-mi, understood?”
Doppo tugs more grass from their root, an imagery of his past. He bobs his head just as a shadow runs across the clearing. Izanami stills, all gaiety slipping from his shoulders.
“Doppo,” he says quietly. Kannonzaka stops pulling at the grass. “We have to go.”
Izanami seizes his hand and begins to run through the forest, back to the palace walls. Their pants echo through the trees, branches snapping under the weight of their feet, the moon a static spectator to the wolf whose paws pummel the ground behind them.
“We’re almost there. A little faster, Doppo—” Izanami speaks, but no later do his words leave his mouth that he trips, tumbling down the slope leading to barren ground.
“Hi- Izanami!” Kannonzaka yells, but the wolf carries itself faster than the sound of his voice, fangs bared silver before the prince, tongue rolling out from its massive jaws. His heart thunders within as he realizes he will be the first to witness the downfall of the kingdom’s savior before he has done any saving.
Kannonzaka thinks of Izanami, and how he would look backlit by the rising sun like a god drowning in his own ichor. A morbid beauty, splendidly embellished with the loss of innocence that would seep out from his tiny limbs as they break one by one under the wolves’ teeth. It would be delightful, his mind whispers to him. Think of the bliss that would flavor your tongue in a specialty created just for you. It laughs in a shriek that shreds every ounce of composure within him. Think of his flesh in your mouth, the destruction of a star. You could taste his ichor in your mouth. Tell me, my dear child, what do you think of that?
But Kannonzaka cannot think, for the wolf lunges at Izanami, who lies petrified on the ground. To think he would give his life for someone who took his name in kind hands and gave him a home. Kannonzaka stares wide-eyed at the prince, his vulnerability, the human heart Kannonzaka hears beating within Izanami’s chest, and those are enough for Kannonzaka to throw himself between the two.
Canines sink into Kannonzaka’s arm, bone meeting flesh, inflamed blood coursing down his pale skin. It burns with the intensity of the dawn that outlines Kannonzaka as he tosses the wolf off him. The voice in his head screams in a pulsating headache when he leaps onto the wolf and sinks his fingers into its fur, tearing it out in clumps of bloody mass. KILL THE PRINCE. He breaks the bone in one of the wolf’s legs with his two hands that carry brutality. KILL THE SON OF IZANAMI . With two arms around the creature’s head, Kannonzaka snaps its neck with blood tasting of victory in his mouth. KILL HIM KILL HIM KILL HIM .
The last Kannonzaka sees of his surroundings is Izanami underneath him, cheekbone stained red with falling blood mimicking camellia petals, gazing into the face of a sin’s manifestation like it is the most beautiful thing he has ever laid his eyes upon.
“Doppo.”
Kannonzaka opens his eyes to Izanami in bed, staring at him from where he lies. His golden hair spills across the pillow in sunlit waves and half-lidded eyes gaze at Kannonzaka from under eyelashes tinged by candlelight. A sliver of the sun has made its way into the castle albeit midnight nearing, taking residence in his eyes. But unlike the sun, Izanami is warm to the sight, captivating and lovely like the tender rays leaking through his fingers during afternoons, but not so that it blinds Kannonzaka as the sun does. It makes it terribly difficult to look away.
“Are you feeling ill, your royal highness?” Kannonzaka opts to say instead. “Shall I call the physician?”
“You can use my name when we’re alone.” Izanami blinks slowly at Kannonzaka, moving as if temptation had a body. The candle flickers once in a titter. “Come here.”
“You know as well as I do that I cannot do that, your royal highness. A knight and his prince, it is unsightly and—” Kannonzaka tries to lecture, but Izanami huffs with irritation.
“You are hurt from this evening’s battle. And yet you still stand guard at my door. As your benevolent prince,” Izanami smiles, and Kanonnzaka knows then he has lost, “I order you to rest next to me.”
“...As you will it, your royal highness.” Kannonzaka removes his armor, revealing white bandages strung around his waist in thick spider webs that keep the red from painting the grounds raw. The dagger wound still pulses dully under its seal, aching once Kannonzaka eases himself under the covers next to Izanami. This is a vulnerability Kannonzaka will allow only his prince to lay eyes on.
“Hello,” Izanami says, a playful delight in his eyes that forces Kannonzaka to swallow in embarrassment.
“Good night, your royal highness,” Kannonzaka says, keeping distance from Izanami. The attempt is, of course, futile, as Izanami edges in closer and rests his hand on Kannonzaka’s bandages.
“The people who attacked us were after you, not me.”
Kannonzaka remains silent, letting Izanami run his fingers over the wound. “You shouldn’t touch me. I could taint you.”
“And you had no armor on.” Izanami’s fingers fall to a stop at Kannonzaka’s hip bone. They lie idle there, their warmth seeping through the bandages as if Izanami is thinking of spending his blessing to heal the knight. “It made me scared.”
Kannonzaka breathes out a sigh, and his hand almost reaches upward to brush the hair away from Izanami’s eyes right before he remembers the curse he embodies. “You have nothing to be scared of. They will have to do more than that to take me away from you.”
Izanami lets out a little laugh that has the corners of Kannonzaka’s lips quirking upward. He buries his head in the other’s chest, and Kannonzaka lets him, having no qualms with the action except those of societal expectations.
“We should run away together,” Izanami says. The idea dissipates in the shadows flickering against the walls, spelling calamity to its existence. Kannonzaka closes his eyes. It is a forbidden idea, but not one that he has not considered before.
“I have devoted myself to you already. Is that not enough for the time being?” Kannonzaki offers, as frail as that idea is. It is not enough, he knows, and Izanami knows that too. The understanding hangs thick in the air, a second layer of fog that has crept under the bedroom doors.
“I want it to just be the both of us alone. No Izanami, no Kannonzaka. Just Hifumi and Doppo.”
Izanami shifts next to Kannonzaka, his amber eyes imbued with a hope that Kannonzaka wishes will never die. He wants it to rise like the sun in the east, and if it meant he would fall by the heat of its light, then so be it. This body will act as sacrifice for his prince’s desires.
“One day, I will take you from this kingdom,” Kannonzaka promises. “Even if they come after us, they will have to get through me before they can take you back, and we both know I have never lost a battle. I will fall both our kingdoms before they can reach us.”
Izanami seems satisfied with that answer, because his hand skims across Kannonzaka’s skin to wrap around his shoulder. “Hold me… please?” he asks softly with sleep, and who is Kannonzaka to refuse?
He has never forgotten how Izanami has saved him so many times over, from his execution on the night they encountered the wolf, from himself, from the people’s wrath. He encircles his arms around his prince, touching a blessing in the flesh, wondering how even the damned can find redemption. The only piece of salvation he has lies in his arms, embraced by Kannonzaka himself.
“Hifumi,” he finally says in a whisper taken by the light wind. It is spoken as a plea, as if Izanami’s name itself holds power to free them both. “Hifumi, Hifumi, Hifumi.”
Kannonzaka closes his eyes, and prays to the prince in his arms, the only god he’s ever believed in.
Now, dear reader, considering that we are still alive and well in this kingdom, we can assume that Izanami and Kannonzaka have gotten their happy tale’s end, no? Hm? Merely a legend, you say? Ah, certainly you will allow someone as old as I to keep their childish fantasies? Of course, of course. My only task in this era is to pass down the story of the two incarnations. I know not of what happened to them after, but let me tell you how Guanyin and the gods, and even Izanami herself, threw a tantrum in the heavens. Oh, it was a sight to behold. Beings eons old wallowing in their sorrows, setting fires to forests as a farewell gift to the two incarnations. I laughed so hard my birds turned upright in their nests and laid so many eggs that they summoned storms during migration. How I know of this, you ask? Now, now, I think it is time you should go to bed. It is late, and you must continue traveling tomorrow, surely. Go forth, dear reader, and carry this candlelight to your room. Remember the tale I have passed to you, and sleep well.