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It is perhaps fitting that Waka returns to the statue in the summer. Kamiki swims in the damp heat – the villagers labour in the fields, the animals keep to the shade or wade through the river to keep themselves cool. For an outsider it would be difficult to tell, but the air is cleaner, the water clearer, the villagers lighter in their steps.
A darkness has been torn away, beaten back and sealed by god and man both. It would be a refreshing sight, one of his many mistakes scrubbed away so completely – but not at this cost.
He is not the only one who remembers just what the price was, though. There are flowers gathered at the statue’s feet and a few sticks of incense left burning. A part of him – distant and cool and not swayed by this land’s beauty, its people – wonders just how many will remember in the next decade, and the one after that. Mortals have short lives and shorter memories. Amaterasu will dwindle to legend, myth, a fragment of forgotten tradition. Shiranui will be some domestic guardian, a kami of hearth and home.
“If you were awake,” he says to the statue, “I’m sure you would bite me. My cynicism would shame you, ma chérie.” Not a flicker of response. “I’m sure you know best, but couldn’t you have picked a less boring way to pass the years? At this rate, I’ll have to be the one to scrub moss off of you.”
The stone ears remained still, stone eyes dull. Not empty, or lifeless – even now, there is a tension to her, as if she might spring back into movement any minute now. He wishes she would, but it wouldn’t take a prophet to guess this recovery will take a long, long time. Overhead, the sun beats down, as if it isn’t aware its very heart has been trapped in stone.
Waka owes her the company, at the very least.
“Well, since I came all the way out here… might as well play you a song, hm?”