mother of all

🖌 Your Mom. well, not literally, but symbolically. spiritually. Proud of you. Would love to listen to your tiny day to day worries and help however she can.

🖌 Any and all isolated/orphaned children are surrendered unto the sun mother starting immediately, you’re baby and she loves you.

🖌 Demons trying to usher an eternal era of darkness dni she doesn’t have a divine weapon right now but that didn’t stop her in Kusa Village and it won’t stop her here (ง'̀-'́)ง

🖌 Non-hostile demons can chill though we’re good

🖌 Going to feed every animal in Isola and no force on this green earth can stop her

“No, I didn’t ascend… though,” he traces under his right eye with a single clawed finger, “I was definitely possessed by something.” And modified extensively at some point, forced down and used as a vessel…. not that he knows that or even remembers it on any level of consciousness.

The mention of nothing left makes him shiver. Has him looking in another direction again. The recollection of a cloying emptiness in him is something he does not want in the forefront of his mind.

Her mention of ‘alive and lucid’ at least brings those mental and emotional rejections to a sort of rest. That’s right. Adachi is, at the very least, lucid. And some form of alive. Alive and lucid and as he ponders over this, her words are at a distance until they are not.

“… I’ll tell you more about that another time.” It really isn’t a thing for first meetings, but she’d likely sing another tune on hearing that he had tried to bring the world to an end before that. His beliefs once stood in stark contrast to hers. “I just had some rules to follow… and a couple of clueless kids to keep alive, so things wouldn’t go right to hell.”

He’s quite fidgety.

The pattern of them paints several possible pictures in her mind, but, as he says, well, it’s something better to hear about later perhaps.

She stands by her observation. He is alive. Even mantled in corrupted divinity, even with unearthly light about his eyes- he is alive in the way of things that crawl restless under their own skin. Not all living things breathe, not all living things eat or rest, or weep- but to care about something, or be troubled by the lack- that is what makes life, life. 

When she was dead, when she was stone, it was the only time that she truly did not think of anything, care of anything. Life had swam, in all its colors, before her eyes, but it had held no meaning.

And that’s nearly a thought to make her shudder.

“Another subject, then.” It isn’t necessarily explicit promise to hold him to or away from his promise to tell her more in the future, but she looks to the sky, still dark under its clouds. It hasn’t rained, but it promises to sometime in the future.

Somewhere beyond those clouds, the moon shines.

“May I ask for your name? The one that is yours, and not Izanagi’s.”

Her laugh brought a smile to his face, or as much of a smile as he could form with a beak, which wasn’t much of one at all.  

As he listened to Amaterasu talk about her human form, his expression turned thoughtful. “You’ve been in your wolf form for so long that it is to be expected. Perhaps, once this is all over you’ll have your answer.” Or if she had the candies, she could switch back with ease. However, Waka quite enjoyed chatting with her in this form, and he didn’t want it to end anytime soon.

He did, however, want to be rid of this form. Who knew that being one of these things would be more hassle than it was worth? At least with his costume he still had his hands.

He stopped fumbling with the candies at her next words, the look on his face one of slight surprise, bordering on incredulous. He never thought of himself as similar to Issun, and if he did, it was in reference to Waka’s much younger self. To hear from her that they were similar left him feeling off, as if he wasn’t certain whether he liked the comparison or not.

“…if you wouldn’t mind,” he said, handing her the bag of candies, knowing full well he was refusing to even so much as comment on the comparison from before.

If she can tell she’s ruffled feathers, she gives no exterior sign of it.

The truth is, she’s not sorry. Her words, while long held at bay listening to the two of them bicker and make misguided accusations, are unsparing, and she needs no other form of them.

She extracts one of the ‘descent’ candies and passes it to him, expression neutral, and shifting her attention to what he’d said earlier.

“...It has its advantages, I suppose. A different way to see people. A different way to talk to them.”

Wryly, “I have no idea how you wear clothes every day of your life. It was enough of a hassle to keep all of these layers on long enough to change. The only thing I’m not looking forwards to is changing back and removing them all, so I’m trying to make the most of the festival while it’s here.”

She’ll wait for him to make his transformation before speaking more, turning to watch the city and its decorations for a while to afford a form of modesty.

… Choose who we become.

Those words raise bitterness in him, a sort of depressed irritation – but Adachi knows better. He won’t give away all that he’s got now, even if he really wants her to understand. The most she’ll be able to see is a brief darting of his gaze down to one side, and stiffening in the shoulders.

“I want to know what’s wrong with me, first. I only have suspicions. I used to only be human. But I guess if I’m taking this opportunity to show off a piece of me that isn’t, then there’s meaning in that, huh?”

At least there’s an offer open. She isn’t hostile… yet. Hell, she’s offering to help - more than what anyone else has done for him so far. “Hah, I won’t be doing anything like that. I really don’t think you’re the type to try destroying the world… and you don’t look like a forgotten fire god, for that matter.”

“… There were others who used to be here. People who had gods as their other faces. There was even one of you. Or, named after you.” He’d rather not linger on the talk of death, even if he’s still splattered in kegare resulting from it.

He tells both more and less than he seems to believe. For a time, she simply listens, turning her umbrella thoughtfully, painted eyes half-lidded.

“I have met many strange gods in this city. The notion of other suns does not surprise me. I suppose it’s even entirely possible to imagine hostile suns, though I’d hope not.”

She let out a thoughtful hum.

“Your situation would appear to be a strange one, at least to my knowledge.”

Tapping nails against her umbrella, “If you were human originally, and don’t appear to have ascended yourself, as much as become entwined with another entity... demons can possess a host, gods may speak through a prophet, but, as someone with familiarity with both, they don’t generally produce lasting entwinements of this sort. I knew a priestess overtaken by a fox spirit, but overtaken is the key word. There was nothing left of her.”

Naught but a ghost and a spent body crumpled in a hidden passage.

“You seem to be rather alive and lucid, if the situation bothers you, so those scenarios would not apply.”

A genuine smile followed. “And, no. I would no sooner wish destruction upon a world- mine, or any- than I would sharpen my teeth for war against my own children. The world is beautiful when it is alive. My ambition is that it flourishes, and people are happy.”

She catches him off guard.

“O-Oh! You got me there!” He chuckles as he reaches for the stick, holds it up, patting her on the head. What a funny dog.

“I’m going to throw it extra far this time, are you ready?”

He cocks his arm back, even taking a running start, before stopping and whipping his arm forward as fast as he could- but he never really lets go of the stick. Instead, he hides it from her view, pretending as if he’d thrown it way into the distance.

She basks in well-deserved pats for a moment before sinking into a play-bow, black-tipped tail flying with excitement before she springs, head lifted, ready to track the-

the-

She slows after her first few strides, head tilted.

...The... stick?

A slow look back toward Roro.

“And the one I know is a god, from the creation myths.” He may have not been a mythology student or anything remotely like that, but Adachi knows because Magatsu-Izanagi knows. “Made the islands of Japan, stirred the oceans, had kids. She ends up dying, he goes into Yomi to save her and ends up running from her when she’s already decaying.”

A compliment is a compliment, no matter what. There’s a half-smile under that plate covering his face. At least he looks cooler! … Maybe.

“Animals, hmm? That’s not really how it was back home, but everything else except the ‘hunger’ matches up. I had to help kill a god myself, back home.” … Maybe not the best thing to admit, but Adachi doesn’t know when to shut up. He lifts the ‘mask’ to better address the divine in front of him, and his eyes are gold even now.

“I don’t really know what I am anymore. If you find out a way to tell me… I’d appreciate it. Seriously, I’m not even being sarcastic here.”

“Animals indeed. You’d find me looking very different than this most of the time.” 

She quiets, venturing closer as he moves the mask. Gold eyes meet gold eyes, and her hand curls to her chin, in thought.

“If no one else can tell you what you are, then I would think the primary course of action is that you are able to decide for yourself. That is something that unites all beings, from gods to transient servants of spirits. More than merely ‘what we are’, we choose what we become. This odd festival of the Stars’ is an opportunity, but it isn’t the only one.”

A tilt of her head, scrutinizing him from this angle. “If you truly aren’t at ease without guidance or information, then you ought to seek me out when this festival is over and I’ve returned to my true form. Although, at that time, I would somewhat prefer if you didn’t try to kill me.”

Her expression is more wry than anything- she doesn’t expect he’ll do so, as his word choice hardly suggests he was overjoyed to commit his previous act of deicide. “I’ve died before, and it’s a nuisance.”

The light rising in the east. The light of the east. The east. Daughter, his Persona had said, and it clicks. Immediately Adachi feels a surge of fear – and anticipation. And memory. One of the IT – hadn’t she called upon such a construct named after her?

What, she says, and it. Dehumanizing. But sometimes he wonders if he is still human.

“And I am… dressed as the god who dove into the underworld to save his wife. But he’s more me than I am him.” A shrug – can’t take the man out of the godly outfit. “Magatsu-Izanagi.” 

There is a simple shake of his head. “I don’t do death. The ‘death’ is probably just from the myth.” And the emptiness is not the same as Yami’s – this is merely emptiness in itself. A vessel unfilled… for now.

“Didn’t know the gods themselves could be pulled here. Because I’m definitely not a god.”

He’s more me than I am him, he says.

A thoughtful hum.

“The Izanagi I know was a mortal warrior. He lived and died in his time. It can be said he faced a great evil for love.” 

Her expression turning a bit blunt, “I will say you cut a more impressive figure than he did.”

There was a reason Nagi was remembered for his valor, and not so much for charisma or appearances.

He is still foreboding, but as he is civil, caution ebbs, and she speaks more freely. “...You would be surprised. A god hungers and tires, weakens and dies if greatly wounded. We are animals, in a sense. Though it always seems to surprise humanity to see us as such.”

“…you would not be the first to have been surprised by my appearance,” he said, his tone low as he bent down to pick up her sandal. While he still felt the pain on his face, he couldn’t fault her for striking at him without hesitation. “I must say that it is good to see your strength hasn’t waned much in your other form.”

He held out her sandal while listening to her words, which amused him. “Is it not? I decided to have a bit of ‘fun’ with this holiday, though I was not expecting the results to be this…extreme.” Waka reached into his pocket to take out the small pouch of candies he acquired from a nearby vendor. Inside the pouch were two different kinds, though one group was short a candy due to Waka having eaten it after removing a bit of his mask to do so.

“I believe your little bouncing friend is to blame for that. What was it again..? ‘Leap before you think’?” His tone was one of great amusement as tried to take the other coloured candy out of the pouch. While the hands of the crow tengu were good for a sword, they were abysmal for just about everything else.

A small laugh- very kindred to the amused snorts of her true form. “You’re very kind, but it’s not much.” Or perhaps it’s unkind, considering she just hit him with a piece of wood.

Calmer now, she reopens her umbrella, and situates it as he speaks, raising her eyebrows toward him.

“They certainly are. I can’t even do this on my own these days. It’s...” Painted eyelids lower briefly. “...Nostalgic. Fragile. Interesting, and annoying. I don’t know if I miss it or not.”

Her eyes track to the pouch he produces, and the somewhat fumbling of adapted feathers. “You aren’t as dissimilar to him as you may think you are.”

It’s voiced bluntly, but not cruelly. She elaborates, feeling perhaps still apologetic about hitting him. “There’s much I find to respect in both of you. There’s bravery in facing the world when you don’t know what’s coming.”

Her expression softens. “And, there’s a bravery in facing the world when you know exactly what may come.”

He is still covered in the filth of Yomi, stained by the touch of the underworld. It would be enough to get the attention of any deity.

It is the feeling of another that makes him pause mid-step. It is the realization of familiarity that makes him lock eyes with the stranger ahead. Immediately Adachi straightens up.

Daughter, says Magatsu-Izanagi, whispering into what remains of his soul.  But… not from the Sea of Souls. Not like me.

“This is me. And I am it.” I am thou, thou art I, all that. He holds the fragile naginata in a backwards grip, low enough to defend himself. Maybe. “And you… if you’re asking, then you know something. Who are you?”

A perfectly enigmatic answer he gives, and follows with a question.

She supposes her curiosity was intrusive, but she remains guarded to this stranger. She tilts the umbrella back, head lofted, correcting from a wary beast to a proper lady’s poise.

“I am the light of august that rises in the east.” 

Cryptic answer for cryptic answer. She will see what he knows, as much as she reveals her own.

“And I make it my business to know what walks among my children, especially if it walks veiled in the presence of death.”

But not empty death. No, if that was the air she picked up, this conversation would have been over before it started and she’d be pulling at the edges of her seemly appearance to tear into him with her teeth. 

When Waka had made the costume, he didn’t expect many to get it, or to be mistaken for the real thing. He also did not expect to find candies with magical properties that were rather edible, and it wasn’t until Waka ate one and actually became the tengu costume he made that he realized he should never had eaten it.

Seriously; why was he stupid enough to eat something he didn’t know? 

To make matters worse, a rather familiar form appeared in front of him, and it took him a good few minutes to piece together what he was seeing. It had been hundreds of years since he last saw that form, but once he put a name to the form he knew who it was.

“Ma cher-” He never got to finish his words as a snarl, followed by a wooden sandal smacked him hard in the face.

In the moment the sandal connects she parses his clothes, and the half-spoken greeting, and pauses mid-stride, her arm still extended as sleeve flutters and settles.

The sandal clatters to the ground.

She pauses, balancing lopsidedly, and tilts her head, a very canine gesture indeed.

She- supposes- the smell of incense is faintly there.

After contemplative pause, she hobbles a bit clumsily to recover her sandal. “You surprised me.”

It’s an explanation, not an apology. They’ve done worse to each other, and it is probably obvious that she doesn’t usually hit Waka in the face unprompted.

With both of her shoes back on, she stands back to contemplate him. He doesn’t make a half-bad crow tengu, but, in her opinion, tengu are not the most appealing of creatures. “Interesting choice. I suppose I wasn’t thinking.”

At the sound of a shout she turns her attention, umbrella daintily turned to the side to behold...

A shabby-looking gentleman with a knife. Several of them, actually, and all focused on her.

For a moment, Amaterasu’s head simply tilts to the side, brows furrowed, in a way that clearly agitates the group.

...Oh. Oh.

“This is... a robbery, is it not?”

The man to the front affirms with a grunt.

In whichever form, Ophiuchus is splendid to behold. She sits at an open-air café, looking up at its proud silhouette from this balcony perch. 

A familiar presence- the moon from behind the clouds- draws her attention, and she turns with a welcome smile.

They meet under moonless skies, on streets of concrete where few people linger. A brooding presence of divinity, foreboding as the clouds overhead, as Ninetails’ shadow cast over the earth was.

Amaterasu stands, posture perfect, sandaled feet having come to a stop. Her lip does not curl far enough to bare a wolf’s fangs...

…but the sentiment carries in her voice. “A fearsome shadow you’d cast. Is it mask, or visage?”

Like this, she is greatly unthreatening to him, but hardly intimidated for a moment. Perhaps she ought to have added a sword to her umbrella before consuming the candy..?

Is that... a crow tengu? Here of all places?

She would assume the Stars wouldn’t grab something overtly dangerous, but it might be weakened or disoriented if it’s not making an attempt to assume human form.

Poor timing, that it should cross her path at a time when she’s not the proper use of her form- and she hadn’t thought to take those restoring candies with her. She folds her umbrella, halting its resistance as she runs forwards, one of her heels lingering high enough to place a sturdy, black wooden sandal in her grip.

“I’m... sorry, have we met before?”

The thought stirs her lips and out before she concludes that it’s a foolish sentiment to air, in a state that precious few- maybe none in this city- would even recognize. But there is something very familiar about this individual, his presence.

A light shake of her head, the- unfamiliar? nostalgic?- jangle of hairpins rather than the flap of ears and the shifting of fur. “I suppose faces repeat after a while. Forgive me, I’ve gone nostalgic in my age.”

Perhaps this is a gloomy note to end on, and she feels bad having pulled the person into this conversation. And yet, she can’t shake the thought from before... her nose is weaker in this form she supposes. Still. Something better to talk about.

For a wolf, she’s surprisingly expressive as he tells her his story. She even tries to comfort him at the end of it all.

“Thanks for that… and for listening to me.” It’s not often that he feels awkward, but he’s really not sure what to say after that… until Amaterasu flicks her tail at a speed possibly too fast for humans to catch and he sees something drifting through the air where only the wolf’s tail had been before. Ai reaches his hand out to catch a perfect, pink cherry blossom petal. In the middle of Autumn. He looks up at the wolf, surprised.

“Did you do this somehow?” Okay… a magic wolf… he was actually not really that surprised at that concept. Magic might be a new concept to him, but if Duel Monsters came with special abilities, why not animals from the physical world.

Ai looks at the petal again. One might think that being an organism based in technology, he wouldn’t have any appreciation for nature. In fact, the opposite was true. The Cyberse world the Ignis had created was filled with all sorts of different natural environments - forests, deserts, rivers - and many mythical creatures. Having a presence in both the digital and physical worlds, Ai appreciated both forms of life equally. To him, a tree grown in the physical world was no different than one that began its life by being coded. While he especially loved animals, he also had a deep fondness for flowers and their silent language.

Cherry blossoms represented the fleetingness of life, but also new beginnings. They were an considered an omen of good fortune and an emblem of love and affection. Ai felt his eyes becoming misty at the meaning behind the simple gift, and the fact that he had been gifted with anything at all. When was the last time someone had given him a present? When he had received his name?

If a wolf could accept him for what he was, maybe there was hope for him coexisting with humanity after all.

“Thanks, Am-chan. I think I know what you’re trying to say and it really means a lot to me.” He swipes at his eyes. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything to give you in return.”

For a few seconds, it appears as if the wolf is glowing. Bright crimson lines seem to paint their way across her body. Ai blinks to clear his eyes, and Amaterasu is back to her normal, pure white self.

A soft affirming huff meets his question, an unspoken lupine smile glinting in her eyes. 

He doesn’t need to give her anything.

Rather, for someone who has struggled as much as he has, she is at best remorseful she cannot give him more.  

If there is an oddity, briefly, to how he looks at her, she does not catch it, padding closer to- very gently- pick up his drone with her teeth and steady it up on her shoulders.

A soft, inquisitive noise in her throat. Shall they go somewhere? Perhaps she cannot give him many flowers, but, there are places in the city that flowers grow regardless. Or, they might simply play together.

Either way, she will remain with him for now.

That is what friends do for one another, at least.

He watches her take off after it, still surprised at how fast she could run. Then, there’s that magnificent leap into the air, before she disappears into the leafy, crunchy pile.

He blinks, expecting her to rise from the mess of leaves. He doubted that she injured herself, but how strange that she did not move.

He walks up to the pile, cocking an eyebrow, trying to spot her between the leaves, but to no avail.

“Uh…Amaterasu?” He queries, waiting for a response.

A muffled noise.

The faintest wiggle of a tail shifting leaves.

Then-

She pops out of the brush, stick grasped in a slobbery, doggy grin. Surprise!