Chapter 373: The Unsealing of Yamata no Orochi
Floating in the azure sky were many fluffy white clouds, and high above, an eagle navigated through them, flapping its wings rapidly to advance. Its sharp eyes looked down at the earth, searching for various clues.
Down on the ground, Shirou and Illya were walking through the mountains of various regions, followed by a large white bear. By now, they had crossed several mountains, yet they still hadn't found any trace of the Snake God.
Illya spoke up and asked, "Shirou, do you know the legend of Yamata no Orochi?"
Taking up the conversation, Shirou replied, "The legend I know is roughly that Susanoo, the younger brother of Amaterasu—also known as Takehaya Susanoo-no-Mikoto—committed wrongdoings and was banished from Takamagahara. Then, by a stroke of luck, he heard of the notorious evil reputation of a monster in Izumo Province that came every year to devour a young maiden."
"Seeing that the maiden chosen as a sacrifice was beautiful, Susanoo volunteered to vanquish the monster. He used a ruse, pouring eight portions of fine sake at the place where the sacrifice was offered to intoxicate the eight heads of Yamata no Orochi. Then, using the Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, he slaughtered the giant snake one by one, and from within its body, he obtained the Kusanagi sword, one of the Three Sacred Treasures."
Illya said, "Most of that legend isn't wrong, but a great yokai of that caliber isn't someone who can be killed so easily."
"Oh? Then what really happened back then?" Shirou asked.
"The truth that the deity inside me understands is that although Susanoo defeated the giant snake, he could not truly kill it. To prevent the snake from recovering and seeking revenge, Susanoo found a way to invite his two elder sisters, Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi."
"The three of them used the 'Yata no Kagami' and the 'Yasakani no Magatama' together, along with Susanoo's Kusanagi sword—also called the 'Yaegaki-no-Tsurugi'—to finally seal Yamata no Orochi away."
"Aren't those the Three Sacred Treasures that have been very famous all the way into later generations? They are even the symbols of the Emperor," Shirou said.
"Well, those were the sealing vessels used at the time, but later people just arbitrarily made forced interpretations and associations. It's actually not uncommon for ancient items and legends to change their usage by the time they reach the modern era."
The Yamata no Orochi that the girl was looking for had not died, but was sealed somewhere. As a great yokai of the same rank as the Nine-Tailed Fox, or perhaps even above it, it was just like Tamamo no Mae's Sessho-seki (Killing Stone); even if killed, its name still spread throughout the entire land of Wa, influencing it to this day.
The Yamata no Orochi, which had been suppressed beneath the mountain range back then, naturally continued to influence the local environment and water where it was buried. To some extent, the snake monster sealed underground was like the dragon veins mentioned in Chinese Feng Shui.
Although the influence was significant, ordinary people could not see it, and even if they did, they would not understand it.
Existences of this kind all depended on a certain kind of fate; they could be encountered by chance but not sought after.
For instance, with the true Holy Grail, King Arthur sent out hundreds and thousands of knights to travel the world in search of it, but in the end, only three people ever saw the Holy Grail, and Galahad was the only one who actually touched it.
Through the Holy Grail, Galahad obtained the opportunity to converse with God. Facing the true omnipotent wish-granting machine that could grant any desire, he, being devoid of desires or demands, made no conditions at all and only wanted to listen to the Lord's teachings. Consequently, he was taken up into Heaven and became a saint, which is something an ordinary person could never achieve.
Fortunately, however, the eagle was no ordinary creature either. It was an animal spirit summoned by Illya using the power of the goddess, and it had its own methods for searching.
After flying for several hours, the eagle's eyes lit up as if it had locked onto something. It then dived toward the ground, coming to a height of dozens of meters above the earth, circling back and forth there while letting out bursts of sharp shrieks.
"Did it find something?" Shirou asked.
"Mm! Let's hurry over and have it lead the way. Run~! Shirou!" Illya pulled Shirou along. With the girl in front and the male behind, they climbed onto the back of the large white bear together.
"Roar~!" The large white bear roared. Exerting force with its four legs, it actually displayed a speed that did not belong to a modern sports car, wildly dashing forward in pursuit of the eagle ahead, kicking up a rolling cloud of dust behind it.
The eagle in the sky stopped every time it flew a certain distance, circling in the air. The large white bear was very fast and caught up quickly.
Relying on its thick fur and massive, sturdy body, the large white bear charged straight ahead, using dense thickets of grass as shortcuts. Everywhere it passed, small animals ran wild in fright, and birds flew out of the woods.
Following the mountain path downward, they reached the bottom of the mountain and saw a fork in the road. Following the eagle in the sky, they ran toward the left and arrived at a small
creek with clear flowing water, where fish could be seen leaping out of the water's surface. On the bank was a pile of pebbles that had been washed here during high waters.
"Could this place be..." Shirou frowned.
"What is it? Shirou?" Illya raised her head, looking at the man she was leaning against as she asked.
"No, it's nothing." Shirou shook his head, lost in thought.
Running further inside along the path by the creek, the eagle in the sky continued to fly, leading Shirou and the others to the foot of a mountain. This mountain was very large, and the trees on it were quite a bit taller and bigger than those on the previous mountains. The lush leaves completely blocked out the sunlight, making it look dark and lightless. High wild grass grew all over the surroundings, making it impossible to see any path leading up the mountain.
Arriving here gave off a completely different feeling from the previous places; it was dead silent, and always felt somewhat eerie and terrifying.
Shirou only felt that the surrounding environment was extremely familiar. When the large white bear carried them up to a mountain summit that was lush with vegetation yet completely silent and devoid of life, he became one hundred percent certain of the thought in his heart. It turned out that the place the eagle had found was precisely the spot where Alaya had initially teleported Shirou.
"To think I've returned here again. So this is what Alaya meant by teleporting me here," Shirou said, looking around at this barren mountain where there was no trace of any animals. Thinking carefully, this place was indeed very anomalous; the vegetation was lush, and let alone any human presence, there weren't even any animals.
"But where would Yamata no Orochi be hiding?" Shirou asked in puzzlement.
"The rest is up to us." Illya raised an arm, and at that moment, the eagle circling in the air flew down, flapped its wings a few times, and nimbly landed upon it.
Illya reached out her other hand to stroke the eagle and said softly, "Good bird, good bird, thank you. Go and rest first."
The eagle gave a clear cry, flew up from the girl's arm, soared straight up, and quickly disappeared from sight.
"That child was only responsible for bringing us to the place where it felt an anomaly. The specifics still have to be found by us," the girl said, turning her head to look at Shirou.
"Are there any clues then?" Shirou said.
"It probably has to do with the Three Sacred Treasures or the three great deities. But it's all grass here, so nothing can be seen," Illya said, sitting on the large white bear's back and looking at the surroundings. Because the wild grass on the mountain grew very high, with the
girl's height, if she came down, she might be directly submerged by the wildly growing grass, to the point where even her head wouldn't be visible.
"Yeah." Looking at the sea of green, Shirou also fell into distress. It would be great if his eyes could be used, but in this current situation...
"It's fine! Leave it to this older sister~!" Illya patted her small chest and raised her hand, beginning to summon new animal companions.
A little rabbit, a squirrel, and various other small animals appeared. They obeyed the girl's command, summoning swarms of their own kind, and then conducted a carpet search of the grass on the mountain.
Before long, a little squirrel ran back, climbed onto the girl's shoulder, and whispered something.
"Found it!" the girl said in pleasant surprise.
Standing on the girl's shoulder, the little squirrel directed the route forward, while the large white bear forged a path ahead.
Shirou quickly followed, arriving at a corner of the mountain summit. Unexpectedly, there was an open space here, with a pile of huge stones placed around it, forming a circle. Inside, it was as if plants were forbidden from growing; there were only structures built of stone.
Inside was a shrine-like alcove for worship, and within it was a small white paper house with its two doors tightly shut. At the highest point of the roof was a totem of an eight-headed snake monster. As for the doors of the small white paper house, one side featured the sun inside a mirror, while the other side featured a crescent moon in the shape of a magatama, indicating that there was an underlying mechanism inside.
These two objects were embedded upon it—a golden sun and a pale blue moon. At first glance, they only felt like ordinary handles, but they were actually some kind of mechanism; they could be rotated.
However, to rotate them, one also had to have a hand pressing down on the snake monster on the roof of the shrine alcove. If it wasn't done by two people simultaneously, it could not be activated.
"Shirou, it looks like we've found the right place," Illya said, looking at the totem of the eight-headed snake monster on the shrine alcove.
"Mm, so what do we need to do now?" Shirou asked.
Illya said, "The resurrection of the giant snake is already a reality. The reason it hasn't shown itself must be because there's still some problem with its body. Therefore, it is absorbing energy to repair its body through malice. Right now, the seal here has instead become a protective measure for it; it wants to break through the seal here after absorbing enough
energy. Only by opening the shrine alcove first and breaking the seal inside will the giant snake be forced to appear!"
"But is it really fine for us to rashly break the seal just like this?" Shirou asked worriedly.
"Rest assured! This world has long ceased to be the world of the Age of Yokai. Back then, Susanoo cut down the giant snake's body. Now, even if Yamata no Orochi breaks the seal, only a spiritual body remains. To manifest in this world, it must go through several layers of weakening. We just need to seize this opportunity and defeat it right now," Illya said.
Shirou and Illya exchanged a glance and nodded. Each walked to one side of the shrine alcove. Shirou moved the sun, and on the other side, Illya moved the moon. Eight earth Jizo dolls trembled and toppled onto the ground, all showing signs of cracking. Some cracked in half, some broke their arms, and one even broke its head right off, rolling to Illya's feet.
Frightened, the girl quickly drew back her leg and took several steps back. With the seal of Yamata no Orochi broken—
What surged out of the opened shrine alcove was an overflowing black miasma. It was practically like a sandstorm kicking up; the black smoke swept across the entire mountain, and even the sky changed color. The surroundings became completely gray and dark, as if they had been sucked into a black-and-white movie from the last century.
The entire large mountain was dyed a grayish-black, and long streaks of black smoke were tumbling and moving everywhere. Looking closely at this distorted black smoke, it turned out to be black snakes.
Every plant, stone, blade of grass, and tree on the mountain turned into snakes. Some were small snakes as thick as chopsticks, transformed from flowers and grass. Some were giant pythons, some wrapping around ancient trees, and others coiling around huge rocks.
The snake monsters taking shape from the black smoke were a bit dazed at first, but gradually they all gained consciousness. Their cyan eyes all turned toward Shirou and Illya's side, flickering their long tongues.
"Waaah! How can there be so many snakes? This is completely different from what was predicted. What's going on with this terrifying amount of magical energy?" Illya shrieked, hiding behind Shirou's back. Only after tightly hugging Shirou did she dare to poke her head out.
"We are completely surrounded. This is not good," Shirou projected a red noble phantasm sword. Flames ignited upon it, burning away the surrounding grass to prevent the snakes manifested from the black miasma from approaching this place.
"Damned humans! And the brat of a mongrel god! How dare you ruin my good business! Just a little bit more—in three more days, I would have been able to achieve a resurrection at my full peak, yet it was destroyed by you!" At this moment, an angry, deep, and malevolent voice came from underground.
Shirou and Illya only felt that the ground they were stepping on became extremely soft and elastic. Suddenly it began to shake, feeling just like stepping on a trampoline.
'Could it be that even the land is a snake? No! It's possible that this mountain itself was originally transformed from the giant snake' Shirou thought alertly.
"Wah-yah!" Illya screamed.
Shirou directly scooped her up by the waist, leapt onto the back of the large white bear, and said, "Escape quickly! Run!"
"Roar!" The large white bear's wild instinct also clearly perceived the current danger. Without a second word, it charged straight down the mountain.
At the place where they had just been standing, a loud boom resonated, like thunder or the explosion of gunpowder. The dense swarms of small snakes generated by the black smoke, along with the deep-rooted ancient trees, flew into the air together.
A giant snake head with its mouth wide open emerged from underground, about to swallow Shirou, Illya, and the large white bear into its mouth. The large white bear, nearly three meters in length, looked like a mouse in the mouth of a lion with its blood-red maw wide open when contrasted against the giant mouth of the snake at this moment.
With a thrilling leap, the large white bear dodged the snake head that had overturned the ground, and continued to dash wildly down the mountain.
"Waahhh! My hypothesis was completely wrong! Back then, Susanoo didn't even destroy its body! This mountain is Yamata no Orochi's original body!" Illya shrieked as she broke down.
"Roar! Goddess! Where do you think you're escaping to! Let me taste the flavor of a goddess's flesh, which I haven't had in a long time!"
The sullen voice came from underground again, seemingly chasing the large white bear from beneath the earth. Following that was another loud boom, and another giant snake head drilled out from underground, overturning everything on the surface, whether it was trees or stones.
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