Yata Mirror

"Which four things? I'll have them brought here at once."

Nagaosaki Akira answered immediately. If it meant saving Heijō-kyō and his own life, he would deliver not just four things but forty, as quickly as he could.

Reiko looked at him and spoke slowly. "The Sacred Tree, the Yomi Jade Branch, the Yata Mirror, and a grand ritual."

"The Y-Yata Mirror? Lady Reiko, do you mean the Yata Mirror that ranks alongside the Kusanagi Sword and the Yasakani Jewel as one of the Three Sacred Treasures?" Nagaosaki Akira lowered the phone he had taken out to make a call and stammered the question.

Reiko nodded.

Nagaosaki Akira looked utterly defeated.

This was the Yata Mirror, a legendary national treasure. How was a deputy director of the Public Security Investigation Agency supposed to get his hands on it?

More importantly, unlike most people, he knew the Yata Mirror had been lost long ago. The one kept at Ise Grand Shrine was a fake.

The emperor was still offering a reward for anyone who found the Yata Mirror.

"This sounds like the ritual for summoning the great... deity recorded in the Chronicles of Empress Jingu."

Tomioka Yoshimasa had been about to say Great Amaterasu, but he remembered that Reiko served Amenominakanushi and changed his wording.

"Could everything written in that book be true? Could it be, rather than a book of myths someone invented in Queen Himiko's name, a text she wrote herself, recording all her rituals and cultivation methods?"

The Chronicles of Empress Jingu?

Tanaka Shigenaga committed the title to memory.

This was the second time he had heard of the book.

The first had been in the commentary subtitles of an online video showing the gods' blessings at the Gion Festival.

And now he had heard it here.

He decided to buy a copy of the Chronicles of Empress Jingu and study it when he got back. Perhaps he could cultivate spiritual power too, become an honored guest of society's most powerful figures, and make a name for himself as a great Onmyoji.

The strange vision heralding Yomi descended slowly but steadily. Towering buildings vanished into it, taking on a dim yellow hue.

People sheltering in their homes either fled outside in panic or screamed as though the world were ending.

Reiko sliced open her palm with the tip of her Demon-Breaking Arrow.

Crimson blood flowed from the wound. She dipped a finger in it and wrote one strange incantation after another on the ground.

When she finished, Reiko ignored the wound in her palm and formed a seal with both hands.

"Barrier!"

Bang!

The incantations lit up.

An invisible barrier rose over all of Heijō-kyō.

The descending vision struck the barrier and stopped. Layer after layer of Yomi's dim yellow light spread across its surface, but none could break through.

Reiko explained quietly, "I can hold it for six hours. After that, my spiritual power will drop too low to sustain the barrier."

"Six hours... There's no way we can evacuate everyone in time." Nagaosaki Akira gritted his teeth, picked up his phone, and called the Prime Minister to tell him what had happened.

In the prime minister's official residence in Nagatachō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, a group of people had gathered.

There were Shinto priests, Onmyoji, Buddhist priests, and heads of various government departments among them. Their positions differed, but they all looked dreadful.

They had been meeting for a full day and night without sleep. And until the crisis in Heijō-kyō was resolved, they would have to keep meeting.

Prime Minister Tagawa Masamune ended the call, his brows drawn tight. "Deputy Director Nagaosaki Akira reports that High Priestess Reiko needs the Sacred Tree, the Yomi Jade Branch, the Yata Mirror, and a grand ritual to summon Amenominakanushi and sever the connection between Yomi and Heijō-kyō."

The Sacred Tree and a grand ritual were manageable. Sacred Trees could be found everywhere, and an administrative order would take care of the ritual. At a time like this, surely no one would cause trouble.

But the Yomi Jade Branch and the Yata Mirror were another matter. No one had even heard of the former, and the latter had been lost long ago.

"The Yomi Jade Branch? A flowering jade branch from Yomi?"

A Buddhist priest murmured, "According to the Chronicles of the Eastern Isles, Izanami died after giving birth to Kagutsuchi, burned by his divine fire. Izanagi missed her so much that he followed her to Yomi Land of the Dead."

"Before entering Yomi Land of the Dead, Izanagi plucked a jade-branch flower from the Living World and took it with him, intending to offer it to Izanami to win her favor."

"But after her death, Izanami's body was covered in maggots. When Izanagi accidentally saw her in that hideous state, he was so frightened that he fled Yomi Land of the Dead."

"As he fled, Izanagi accidentally left the flower behind in Yomi. It took root there and became known as the Yomi Jade Branch."

A jade-branch flower growing in Yomi?

The name certainly fits.

Prime Minister Tagawa Masamune muttered to himself, then asked, "Where can we find the Yomi Jade Branch?"

"In Yomi," the Buddhist priest replied.

Prime Minister Tagawa Masamune nodded. "Gentlemen, which of you is willing to enter Yomi and bring back the Yomi Jade Branch?"

The Prime Minister's residence fell silent. Even the Buddhist priest who had spoken first said nothing.

Enter Yomi and bring back the Yomi Jade Branch?

Do you think we have spiritual power, or do you think we're Izanagi?

Getting into Yomi would be easy enough. All we'd have to do is kill ourselves. But how would we get back out?

"Gentlemen, are none of you willing to serve your country in its hour of need?" Prime Minister Tagawa Masamune felt his eyelid twitch.

If he failed to resolve the crisis in Heijō-kyō, he would not last another few days. Come morning, he might as well announce his resignation.

"Prime Minister, it's not that we don't want to help. We simply don't have the ability. We could enter Yomi, but we couldn't get back out..."

An elderly Shinto priest swallowed. "The only person in the Eastern Isles who could enter Yomi, retrieve the Yomi Jade Branch, and return is High Priestess Reiko."

As far as he knew, every Onmyoji, Shinto priest, and Buddhist priest present was an ordinary person, just like him.

They could put on a show for ordinary people, but if they had to prove themselves, every last one of them would be exposed.

If High Priestess Reiko had not turned his understanding of the world upside down, he would have said there was no such thing as spiritual power and that it was all a sham.

He suggested, "Prime Minister, why not ask High Priestess Reiko to do it?"

Prime Minister Tagawa Masamune nodded. He called Nagaosaki Akira and spoke with him, then hung up. "High Priestess Reiko has agreed to enter Yomi and collect the Yomi Jade Branch. But that still leaves one of the four things—the Yata Mirror."

Several people in the Prime Minister's residence who did not know the truth all turned toward the chief priest of Ise Grand Shrine.

Cold sweat poured down the forehead of Oonakatomi Kaito, the shrine's chief priest.