After the downpour, everything was refreshed and the sky was clear and serene, as if it had been scrubbed clean. A yellow moon had risen in the night sky, glittering brightly. Yakinahiko had told Unashi that he was the god Izanaki and about the discord with his wife, Izanami. Now he sat on a rock and stared at the moon, feeling depleted. Unashi lay on the sand, unmoving. Yakinahiko imagined that he had been shocked when he had heard Izanami’s parting words to him.
Finally, Unashi lifted his tear-stained face. ‘Yakinahiko-sama, is Izanami-sama strangling the life out of any woman who becomes your wife?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But if she is, you cannot stop her.’
‘That’s right.’
Yakinahiko looked over his shoulder at the cave in the cliff. He could just make out, in the moonlight, the tip of Masago’s white coffin. The woman he loved was now rotting inside that cave. The loneliness made him so sad he felt as if his entire body were being torn asunder. When your companion dies, all the time you would have shared together dies as well. It was lonely for the departed, but far more so for the one left behind. What had become of his sympathy when Izanami had died when he was a god? Yakinahiko had long been indifferent towards the dead because he was immortal, and the defilement of death terrified him. But now, when he thought it over, he wondered if perhaps the opposite were true. Perhaps he had desired immortality because he was terrified of death’s defilement. At any rate, to live without end meant that he could never truly love a woman or live his life with Unashi.
‘Neither Izanami nor I will ever be free of our parting words.’ Yakinahiko stood up. He threw his wet clothes down and started to run, naked, over the rocks, hoping he might just disappear for ever from the face of the earth. He clambered over the ragged crags and when he reached the top of the cliff, he dove into the sea, some twenty or thirty feet below. But he failed to strike his head on a rock and succeeded merely in scooping up a handful of sand from the ocean floor. His mouth filled with the salty water, as his body bobbed to the surface. He did not try to move but his body floated. He could not die. It was impossible.
‘Yakinahiko-sama! Yakinahiko-sama!’ Unashi was scrambling over the rocks, calling his name. ‘What are you doing?’
Yakinahiko waved and began to swim to him. ‘Nothing’s the matter,’ he replied, as he strode out of the ocean. Cold drops of water ran from his body as he scaled the crags.
Unashi ran up to him, out of breath. ‘All of a sudden you just leapt into the ocean – you gave me quite a scare.’
‘Did you see, Unashi? No matter what I do, I cannot die. A while ago I slipped from a precipice and split my head open. But the next morning I was back to normal. I’ve been tangled up in wars and had an arrow through my chest. That time I died momentarily. The next day the holes in my body had filled in and I had returned to life.’
‘So, Yakinahiko-sama, when I grow old, even when I die, you’ll still be just as you are now?’
‘Yes. Does that terrify you?’
Unashi shook his head. ‘No. I think it’s pitiful. People say they want to live for ever but someone who’s immortal must be very lonely. I wouldn’t be able to stand it.’
It was like Unashi to be so perceptive. Yakinahiko loved him all the more. He had never meant to cause his young attendant such distress.
‘Yakinahiko-sama, what do you want to do? I will do whatever I can to help you, even give my life for yours. Please, tell me what you would have me do.’
‘I want to die. If I don’t die, Izanami’s rancour will never end. My wives will continue dying for all eternity. Please, could you kill me?’ Yakinahiko asked.
Unashi began to cry. ‘I understand. I couldn’t bear to be parted from you, but if that is what you really want, I will try. You must tell me how to end your life. If you know what I should do, please tell me and I will do it!’
Yakinahiko showed Unashi his left hand. ‘Look at my hand. Yesterday Ketamaru left a deep gash with his talons and today there is no trace of the wound. You can stab me, even slice me to pieces, and tomorrow I’ll be whole again.’
‘But you said you wanted me to end your life.’ The moon shone in Unashi’s eyes, a clear, sharp light.
‘That’s right,’ Yakinahiko responded, and cradled the boy’s head in his arms. ‘But it’s not possible.’
‘Yakinahiko-sama, have you ever killed anyone?’
Yakinahiko shook his head. ‘Animals I kill day and night – too many ever to count – but never a person. When I was Izanaki I copulated with my female consort and created this island country. I made other gods. I made children. I had no business with death. All the more reason why I had to part with Izanami once she died and went to the Realm of the Dead.’
‘Why don’t you kill me and see if that makes a difference?’
Yakinahiko was shocked. ‘Why would I kill you?’
‘Because something might happen.’ Unashi’s answer was not convincing. ‘I think there’s value in trying.’
‘But there’s no point in your dying, Unashi.’
‘From what you’ve told me, Izanami is responsible for death and Izanaki for life. The roles are very clearly drawn. If you did something that was the complete opposite, don’t you think it might make a difference?’
‘Why don’t you kill me and I’ll kill you? Let’s die together and see what happens. Death – should we both succeed – would be a happy outcome.’
Before he had finished speaking Yakinahiko began to tremble at the thought of what he had proposed. The odds were high that Unashi would die but that he himself would revive.
‘I’m ready. I will gladly give my life for you. And if Masago-hime knew that her death was the result of her association with you, I’m sure she would feel content. That’s what love is. You, too – you loved Masago-hime body and soul. That was what you told me yesterday.’
Unashi urged Yakinahiko on with such adult assurance it was difficult to believe he was just nineteen. Surely if he killed the man he admired and if in turn he were killed by that man, he would die peacefully. Yakinahiko unsheathed the long sword at his hip. Unashi was trembling as he pulled out his own blade. Ketamaru, waiting in the shade of the banyan, sensed that something was afoot and gave a piercing cry.
‘Yakinahiko-sama, thank you for everything you’ve done for me.’ As Unashi delivered his final words, a dark cloud floated across the moon.
‘If we are successful, we will meet again in the Realm of the Dead.’
After Yakinahiko had spoken his final words, he gave Unashi the signal. ‘Strike!’
He sank his blade deep into Unashi’s throat. At the same time, he felt the force of sharp steel thrust into his own. Before he could sense pain, his throat filled with blood.
How much time had passed, he did not know. Yakinahiko opened his eyes in the darkness. He could hear the sound of the sea and the wind roaring above him. He spat out the sand in his mouth and leapt to his feet. His head hurt and he struggled to come to his senses. He remembered nothing.
Beside him a man dressed in white lay on the ground with his throat split open. His body was regal and his hair, pulled atop his head in two bunches, was ornamented with jewels. The blood from his wound had soaked into the sand, turning the ground around him black.
‘Unashi, you died, didn’t you?’
The memory of their murder pact rushed through him like a torrent. Yakinahiko hurried to Unashi’s side and took him in his arms. Despair infused him as he realised that he alone had continued living. Then he jumped to his feet in shock. The man lying before him was not Unashi. It was himself – Yakinahiko. At least, it was Yakinahiko’s body, lifeless, surrounded by blood. But who was he? Yakinahiko felt his throat. There was no wound. He looked at his hands. They were the hands of a young man, the knuckles still smooth and not pronounced. Was it possible that he was Unashi? If he was Unashi, he should have two moles on his left arm. He frantically tore his clothes off and carefully examined his arm in the moonlight. And there he found the moles. When they had struck each other, had his body expired while Unashi’s lived on? Unashi’s spirit must have died so that his own had inhabited Unashi’s body. Overwhelmed by the knowledge that he had killed Unashi, Yakinahiko collapsed in tears.
‘I have no idea what tomorrow will bring.’
Would Yakinahiko’s body return to life, as it always had in the past? Or had Unashi’s body now become immortal? Yakinahiko decided to put it to a test. He picked up the sword he had dropped earlier and sliced Unashi’s palm with the tip. The pain was excruciating and blood spurted from the wound. He watched in silence. He wondered if the wound would be gone by morning. Meanwhile, the blood oozed without stopping.
Day broke. At some point he must have fallen asleep, the blood still flowing from his palm. Ketamaru’s piercing cries awoke him. He walked over to Yakinahiko’s body, the body that until recently had been his own. Nothing had changed. It was still dead. Unashi’s wound, conversely, still bled.
Yakinahiko was unable to find the words to express his feelings. He had assumed the youthful body of a nineteen-year-old man. A mortal man. At last he was mortal! He had lost his steadfast retainer, but in return, he had become a real human man. Destroying Unashi’s youthful spirit had allowed him to steal into a boy’s young body. But his punishment for slaughtering a human was to lose his god status. He had, after all, been the God of Birth.
‘From now I shall live as Unashi.’
So resolved, he began to feel throughout his entire being the wondrousness of Unashi’s youth – the suppleness of his skin, the flexibility of his muscles. ‘Well, then. Your master is dead. You can go wherever you please.’ Unashi untied the cords that bound Ketamaru and released him into the sky. Ketamaru gave a shrill cry and circled Yakinahiko’s corpse. He soared away and seemed to have gone when suddenly he returned with a large snake clutched in his hook-like talons. Taking aim at Unashi, he dropped the snake. There were plenty of poisonous snakes on Amaromi. It seemed that Ketamaru, believing that Unashi had killed his master, was seeking revenge. Unashi sliced the snake in two with his sword and shouted, ‘Ketamaru! Yakinahiko is dead. Go and tell your fellow birds.’
The goshawk cut circles in the air and screeched. The wound on Unashi’s palm ached. When he looked at it, he realised that the snake had bitten him before it had died: one of its tiny fangs had lodged itself in the wound. He withdrew the fang, but the poison had entered his blood. His left arm began to swell and turn red. It felt heavy now. So heavy that he found himself unexpectedly falling to his knees. The goshawk flew off, seemingly satisfied. Unashi smiled bitterly at the irony. The bird had meant to take revenge on the man who had slain his master, but its revenge was played out on none other than Yakinahiko, now transformed into Unashi.
‘Unashi-sama! Are you all right?’
The cry was full of alarm. When Unashi and Yakinahiko had not returned by morning, the island chief and his attendant had come to search for them. The chief froze when he saw Yakinahiko’s body.
‘How did Yakinahiko die?’
‘He was overcome with grief and determined to take his own life. I tried to stop him, but his intent was too strong and he would not be deterred.’
Unashi developed a high fever and lost consciousness. He lingered in a near-death coma for more than two weeks. While he was ill, the village conducted Yakinahiko’s funeral. His corpse was placed next to Masago-hime’s, and the two lay side by side like a happy couple. When the years passed and their bodies disintegrated, surely their spirits would slip together across the seas to reside in the land of the gods.