Flowery words, a fake nearly passing for the real, yet the jeweled branch was no common thing

Between Kai and Suruga, Mount Fuji stood. So high that clouds could not pass, its summit was hard for birds to cross. Fire was quenched by falling snow; snow was diminished by melting fire.

Located in southeastern Honshu Island, eighty kilometers from Tokyo, Mount Fuji straddled Shizuoka Prefecture and Yamanashi Prefecture. The Aokigahara Sea of Trees lay at its foot, while its summit towered into the clouds, blanketed in white snow year-round.

Viewed from above, mountains and forests covered more than seventy percent of Japan's territory. Amid this natural environment of overlapping peaks and winding waterways, mountain worship arose.

In ancient times, the Japanese believed that after death, their ancestors' souls would drift to the mountains and become guardian deities of their clans-ujigami.

Buddhism's eastward arrival in Japan brought the concept of reincarnation through the Six Paths. As Buddhist and native Shinto beliefs merged, people began to believe that the souls of the dead had to pass obstacles such as rock faces, thickets, and streams to reach the mountaintops, much like the six realms encountered after death in the cycle of reincarnation. The souls would ultimately attain Buddhahood at the summit.

Mountaintops were regarded as the "other world," supremely sacred places where gods and Buddhas lived together.

As one of the three sacred mountains and the highest peak in Japan, Mount Fuji was naturally a symbol of Japanese mountain worship.

Sengen Shrines were found throughout the Mount Fuji region, and Mount Fuji itself was worshipped as a deity.

While the chain reaction triggered by the battle between Superhumans in Sapporo City left all of Japan in turmoil and its people anxious, visitor numbers at Mount Fuji actually rose rather than fell. Tourists seeking emotional comfort continued to arrive to climb the mountain.

Today, May fifteenth, was also a somewhat special