When I decided to believe and go forward,
The door opened, and those lights came shining on me.
Let's flap these wings beneath the blue sky,
These linked hands will never be separated.
- Reprise l. 5-8
Haku and Risuni followed the adults through the archway, guiding Chihiro together by the arms. Chihiro’s skin felt warm on Haku’s hand. Her arm felt so fragile, her bones so thin and delicate, her pulse beneath his fingertips quick like a frightened rabbit's, as they walked in the shade of the tunnel. Her elbow was tensed, as if she would run away at any moment. But she didn’t. Her timid steps gradually relaxed as she began to trust them to lead her safely through the darkness. Their feet slapped against the stone floor and the sound echoed hollowly in the tunnel around them.
“Where are we?” Chihiro asked, bewildered. “It doesn’t sound like the forest anymore. It sounds like…” a low whistle sounded in the distance, “a train station?”
“Not exactly,” Haku said. He felt the spell on the Gate awaken to probe them, and then slowly fade away. It could not stop them. She doesn't deserve this! Haku thought. But Fujisan had to go and...
Chihiro hissed in pain and Haku loosened his grip on her arm, worried. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking…”
“It’s not you,” she said softly. “It’s just that, my head hurts. Is something wrong?”
"No," Haku said, then laughed quietly to himself at the obvious lie. Her head hurts just hearing the train echo through the tunnel, even with the charmed hair tie around her wrist. Is the charm not working? At this rate she can’t stay in the Spirit World for long. It’s too risky. We can’t let her remember. And then he thought, sadly, that she might never remember him the way he remembered her. It doesn’t matter, he told himself firmly.
“It’s called the Waiting Room,” Risuni said, startling him. “We are in the gateway between the Human World and the Spirit World. There’s a ferry on the other side that takes travellers to the nearest town, and every night, they wait here for the ferry.”
“But how did we get here from the clearing?” Chihiro asked. “There’s nothing there, I go there all the time…”
Haku and Risuni looked at each other, struggling for an explanation.
“It’s not always visible,” Risuni tried. “It’s like… remember that parallel worlds theory we talked about in physics?”
Chihiro’s face scrunched up in confusion, but she didn’t open her eyes.
Haku squeezed Chihiro’s arm gently, trying to reassure her. Well, I promised to explain things to her. Where shall I begin? “Let me tell you a story,” he said.
As he began, his voice took on the intonation of a chant, and he felt Chihiro’s arm relax. It must’ve been a ritual she knew, and it brought an element of familiarity to what must have been a very strange place.
“In the beginning,” he said, using magic to pull images into Chihiro’s mind, “after the first six divine generations retreated from the surface of the earth into the high plain of heaven, the seventh divine generation created Kuniumi, the islands of Japan. At that time, the worlds were one, and the humans and spirits lived in harmony. Mountains rose and rivers were born. The humans worshiped the spirits of the wind, the water, and the earth as kami, or gods, and were looked upon with favor. These kami were the guardians and protectors of the people, and were well loved.
“The greatest of these kami was Amaterasu, goddess of the Sun. She fell in love with the first of the dragons, whom the gods made the souls of the oceans of water and oceans of fire, and he created a great palace for her at the western border of the Great Sea. There, Amaterasu gave birth to the Emperors of Japan. This is why Kuniumi has always been called the Land of the Rising Sun.
“Amaterasu loved the humans. She loved their capacity to love. Her children ruled over Japan wisely for many generations, with her blessing. The people prospered. They had enough to set aside for times of famine, and life was long and full.
“Then, Amaterasu's brother Tsukuyomi, the moon god, grew jealous of how much the humans loved her. They rejoiced to see her face and produced good things under her care but turned their backs on him, and his anger grew.
“After Amaterasu banished Tsukuyomi for killing Ukemochi, Tsukuyomi had a son - Akuma. From the moment he was born, Akuma was afraid of the dark. He resented Amaterasu ruling in the light, while he and his father were exiled into darkness. He decided to give the darkness that she forced on him to her beloved humans - darkness in the form of selfishness. The people became discontent. Their wants grew greater than their needs. Desire for riches overcame the love for their homelands, so people moved away from their beloved kami and crowded together in the concrete jungles. As they left their homes, they left their pasts. As they traveled through the generations, they abandoned their stories in the hearts of their ancestors. They mocked the idea of petitioning the kami, for the kami could not give them what their greed desired. They left their lands desolate for their presence and their gods forlorn. The kami are the rivers, the mountains, the winds, the rice paddies, and without the humans' love, they had no life, for love and life are one and the same. With inattention and scorn, the humans repelled the spirits. The world split in two like a heart separated from its beloved, the spirits on one side, the humans on the other. At first, the worlds were superimposed on each other. Over time, they drifted apart, connected by a few splintered pathways.
“Humans desired more and more wealth, but they could not be satisfied by it. They began to hunt and kill the gods in order to take their lands and treasures for themselves, forgetting that once we let humans live on our land with our blessings. The hunted kami fled, one by one, to the Spirit World. Many died. The worlds sundered further and further, and mourned.
“Gradually, spirits grew to fear humans. They feared that the hunters would pursue them across the border along these pathways where the worlds were still connected. A barrier was built across the paths to separate the worlds even further. Gates were set in the barrier and spelled to ensure that any human who crossed into the Spirit World would never be able to find the way again. As more and more humans forget that they used to live among spirits, the old stories were in danger of being forgotten forever. Certain families around the world, ones that generations ago had interbred with spirits, took it upon themselves to keep the traditions alive, to guard the shrines and the knowledge of the kami. The worlds are connected by knowledge and love, and so by loving the land and keeping the old traditions, the families kept the worlds connected, even as fear continued to breed between spirits and humans.
"Thus begins the history of the Rift War, also named Amaterasu's Sorrow. It is here in the telling that the story as written in the Kojiki ends. The rest of the story has yet to be played out. Today, another chapter in the story begins. Today, Mount Fuji cried in despair as its spirit, Prince Fujisan, abandoned it.”
Comments (0)
See all