Itsukushima in eternal darkness, I am not a god.

That night,

At Itsukushima Shrine in Heian-kyo.

The thick strings thundered, the thin strings whispered, and a melody calling forth daylight rang mournfully through the hopeless eternal night.

The interwoven notes came from the musician's very soul, their profound emotion thinning the darkness that shrouded the sky.

Beneath that precious, fleeting glimmer of daylight, the monsters converging from every direction briefly halted their advance. An almost human fear surfaced on their blue faces, beneath their protruding fangs.

Yet this vision of clouds parting to reveal a clear sky was soon suppressed by an even greater power.

Like an enormous hand blotting out the sky and moon, the black curtain casually extinguished that barely visible sliver of light. A terrifying eye, threaded with crimson veins, abruptly materialized in the darkness overhead.

Like a demon god from hell, it gazed down upon its own private hunting ground.

And the moment that uncanny demonic eye appeared in the sky, the monsters below, whose movements had stiffened and whose faces had betrayed fear only a second earlier, suddenly grew frenzied, as though injected with stimulants.

Mad, blood-red ferocity erupted in their demonic eyes. In the next instant, they surged toward the altar in their sights, heedless of death.

That was the last place on this land that still gave off the scent of living humans, and, in their instincts, the last thing that might destroy them.

As the darkness closed overhead again, stark grief surfaced on the face of the musician holding her pipa.

But she did not stop.

Her slender fingers continued plucking the cold, sharp strings.

Because she understood all too clearly.

The lives of her people, Itsukushima's hope, and the unresolved troubles of the past all rested upon her alone.

And so, she absolutely could not stop!

Even as the darkness