She had existed long before she became aware of it on a red summer's evening tapering towards night-time. As far as she could tell, she had always stood there on the sturdy ground, listening to her people playing their flutes and beating their drums and feeling their faith in her waxing with each passing moment.
She watched a group of dancers moving like water among the players, channelling the people's faith into her with their gestures. It tethered her to them with a myriad of red strings like those tied to the humans' wrists and ankles and pleated into their hairs. She listened to their wordless pleas for a peaceful future and a bountiful harvest, for a great blessing to offset four years of misfortune and grain cursed into husks.
She knew at once what to do. There was no question of could or could not: she would do it and that was that.
She looked at the dancers for a moment longer, allowing the rhythm of the music to surge within her, then moved through the crowd like a warm gust of wind.
As she approached the lake, she sculpted her being into a physical shape. She modelled herself after her people — two arms and two legs, a short, compact build, a simple tunic — then after a moment's thought turned her hair the colour of sunbeams. She reached for the deposits of ore deep underground and fashioned them into jewellery: jingling bracelets, a tiered necklace, and glittering anklets. She drew upon the clay underfoot and used it to paint stripes upon her arms and face. Finally, she wove two lengths of red string into her hair.
The soil beneath her soles was strong and wondrously rich. Later, she would dance on every single patch of land within her realm. First, however, she walked to the shore of the great lake. Without pausing, she stepped onto it.
Her feet never touched the water's surface. With each step forward, she raised the bottom of the lake to meet her feet, forging herself a sturdy pathway of earth.
By the time she had crossed to the centre of the lake, the sun had all but set. The emerging pathways of stars were reflected in the depths behind her, while ahead, the final stripes of red were doubled on heaven and earth. She paused there to breathe in the night and waited.
Her feet itched. Looking down, she discovered saplings rising from the newly elevated ground, growing so fast they were soon grazing her knees. She smiled at them.
The surface of the lake began to ripple.
A great serpentine head broke out of the water with a tremendous splash. It was swiftly followed by half a dozen more, all craning their necks high above her, seemingly intent upon piercing the sky itself.
One by one, they turned their gazes and undivided attention upon her. There were flecks of silver in their burning red eyes, as well as recognition: they knew she was kin, born of the same faith and belonging to the same soil. But how much did that matter to them?
When they spoke, their mouths did not move. Instead, she felt their words as though they were being chiselled into the core of her being.
Who are you to have come to Our presence?
The body she had crafted was slightly too human: it wished to tremble. Instead, she observed the Mishaguji with a sense of profound calm, studying their shimmering scales with their resemblance to finely hewn pale stone and taking in their immense, unshakeable power fuelled by the faith of a hundred generations.
She tilted her head to meet the eyes of the large Mishaguji who stood directly before her. "I am this land."
It was her first time hearing her own voice. It made her think of a flute.
The words ran like a ripple across the lake as the Mishaguji reacted to them. Some raised their heads as though desiring to study her from another angle. A few averted their stares. A few more narrowed their eyes.
The Mishaguji she had addressed did none of these things. It simply kept observing her, its thoughts unreadable.
She held her ground and waited.
Slowly, like rainwater rolling down a mountainside, the Mishaguji inclined its head. The pristine surface of the lake transformed into a churning torrent as it lowered itself against the water. From up close, its eyes seemed larger than the sun.
She waited for a moment longer. Then, she walked to the edge of her bridge and leaned forward.
As soon as her fingers touched the smooth scales between the Mishaguji's eyes, a wave of power coursed through her. Every single fibre of her form from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hairs was suddenly newly awake and more real than they had been before.
She had found her family.
She smiled as the Mishaguji closed its eyes.
Tadpoles zig-zagged between beams of light. Farther away, a gang of children played in the shallow water of the bay, their laughter piercing the balmy air. Suwako smiled as she watched them both, certain for a moment that this summer calm would last forever.
She buried her feet deeper into the reedbed, grinning as the tips of her toes poked through the mud. Her body wasn't much larger than those of the children: barring special circumstances, she preferred to keep her shape small and nimble. Her people loved her for it: they smiled fondly at her whenever they saw her walking by the fields or dancing alone by the lake, without forgetting the obeisance due to their goddess and supreme ruler.
The children were growing more boisterous in their frolics. Two of them were her descendants: the boy with the grass-green eyes and the girl with hair like bleached straw, she supposed, but divine blood didn't always result in physical markings. Often, she would only recognise her children's children's children when she came face to face with them: they were essentially just humans, with the wants and desires of their kind.
It was fortunate, then, that she was there to rule them. There hadn't been a single bad harvest in four generations, and more often than not they were abundant. Each year, the Mishaguji allowed the saplings to take root and the soil to remain rich and the weather favourable. Each year, the plants thrived and resisted blight and insects. Each year, her people ate well, raised healthy children, and worshipped her with increasing fervour. Her domain, small as it was, had grown rich: those from nearby lands with less powerful gods were eager to trade their goods for more grain. Even if the flow of commerce had stumbled recently due to troubles elsewhere, it hardly mattered: her people would prosper forevermore protected by her and the Mishaguji.
Provided they did not anger her, of course.
She studied the tadpoles again. Each year, she followed their life cycle from spawn to full-fledged frogs with great delight. Of all the wonders in her domain, this was the one which charmed her the most.
She was just about to entertain herself by taking the shape of a frog when the peaceful atmosphere was dented by running footsteps.
She belatedly realised that the man running over to her was a grandchild of hers. She sat up marginally straighter, confident that her divinity shone unimpeded through the mud.
She was correct. The man fell onto his knees without giving a single thought to dirtying his shins. Sweat flew from his hair as he pressed his forehead against the ground. "My lady! There has been—"
He ran out of breath mid-sentence. Suwako waited for him to compose himself.
Once he did, the details came out in a jumble. A large war party — no, a full-fledged army — had been sighted near the border of her domain. Yes, they were the people everyone had been speaking of lately. Yes, they were already on their way.
Suwako listened to all this without moving. Then, when the stream of panicked announcements came to an end, she stood up and walked away from the lake without bothering to wash her legs.
Very well. If the Yamato wanted war, they would have war.
The sky was already locked in a struggle: storm clouds burgeoned like mushrooms everywhere above the battlefield, threatening to break at any moment.
Not a drop of blood had been spilled yet, but Suwako could feel its presence in the air like poison. She refused to breathe it in and focused instead on the iron ring in her hand, gripping it tighter. It wouldn't slice her palm. It would tear her enemies to shreds.
Behind her, her peopled stood as an unswerving force armed with the finest weapons in the region. They would defend her domain to their final breaths. Their lives belonged to her, just as their faith belonged to her and the Mishaguji alone.
Ahead, the enemy forces blighted the horizon. They were great in number, but poorly armed and wearing next to nothing in terms of armour. Suwako's iron rings would cut right through their flesh.
Just as she thought that, a lone figure separated itself from the enemy army and approached her vanguard. She gestured at her archers not to draw their bows just yet. She could sense what the lone person was long before she could make out her features.
The enemy goddess stopped in the middle of the field. She was taller than anyone Suwako had ever met before and wore garments dyed in such rich colours they seemed to be woven from fresh flowers. Her gaze swept across Suwako's army before falling upon Suwako with the certainty of rainfall.
Suwako held her chin up and dug her fingers into the unyielding metal until she could almost sense the sharpness of the ring's edge. Something about this goddess of the Yamato struck her as strange. She was as thickly armoured in faith as one would expect, but at her core, there seemed to be something... different. As though she had not been born from belief alone...
This was not the time to ponder such matters. Suwako raised the iron ring skywards so that it caught the blood red of the setting sun through a crack in the storm clouds. Behind her, metal clattered as her warriors prepared for war.
Quietly, with a startling precision of movement, the strange goddess raised her hand.
It took Suwako a moment to understand what she was seeing simply because it made so little sense. Who would arm themselves for battle with a single piece of a vine?
It was audible before it was tactile, the sudden sensation of years rushing by. Gasps and exclamations of horror rang in Suwako's ears as she looked at her ring and saw it had rusted through so completely that a gust of wind would blow it asunder.
She didn't have to look over her shoulder to know the same was true for every single piece of iron on her side of the battlefield. In a few heartbeats, the finest arsenal of the region had been reduced to dust.
Suwako looked up and saw the gulf between her and the strange goddess growing before her eyes. She had lost the battle before it had begun. All their lives were forfeit. All that was left was to beg for mercy.
She allowed the ring to fall and watched the rust scatter into the wind.
The chatter of the people tending to the harvest carried all the way to where Suwako lay in the grass, mingling pleasantly with the croaks of the frogs. As she listened to them, she relaxed so thoroughly she thought she might melt and slip quietly into the lake.
Everything was as it ought to be. The ground beneath her embraced her as kin. Her people were happy and thriving, as were all the creatures of land and lake alike. The warm breeze lapping cool water against the soles of her feet was ticklish, but pleasurable all the same.
She would almost certainly have drifted to sleep if not for the shadow falling upon her.
She ignored it for as long as she could. When the tension in the air finally drove away her drowsiness, she sat up slowly and looked straight ahead at the glittering waters of Lake Suwa.
"It's beautiful when the sun ripples through it," she said.
At first, Kanako said nothing. Her shadow with its folded arms continued to encompass Suwako, and Suwako could readily picture her cold, snake-like stare without seeing it.
When Kanako finally spoke, it was with controlled calm. "You knew this would happen."
Suwako saw no reason to reply. She concentrated on drumming her fingers against her knees and breathing in the humid air.
"You gave up your kingdom with the knowledge the people's faith would remain with you," Kanako persisted.
"They'll forget me eventually. You don't really think they'll keep following a goddess who prostrated herself before another, do you?"
Kanako made a sound somewhere between vexation and disbelief. The ice of her stare moved on from Suwako as she took in the lakeside view.
Suwako plucked idly at the grass. How long would it take for Kanako to move onto the real topic on her mind? They both knew the loyalty of Suwako's people was not at the heart of Kanako's troubles. Her domain had not been Kanako's first conquest, and she was far from the first native god Kanako had supplanted. The only reason why Kanako was speaking to her at all at this point was the Mishaguji.
She turned to look up at Kanako's face. Kanako was comporting herself well: her irritation was obvious, but not overwhelming. She cut a fine figure of divinity standing there in her brightly-dyed garments, holding her head up in absolute certitude. Suwako was a bit impressed in spite of herself.
"How did you win them over?" Kanako finally asked.
"By being me."
Kanako mulled the answer over for a while, then shook her head. "I expected as much."
As far as Suwako could see, that was the end of the discussion. She would lose her remaining faith and slowly vanish, but the Mishaguji would persist, and so the land would never truly be Kanako's. No matter how powerful Kanako was or would become, she could do nothing to change that.
Kanako must have known as much even before she asked the question. Perhaps she had thought she could persuade Suwako into revealing the secret behind controlling the Mishaguji. If so, it was too bad. Suwako had already relinquished everything she could to Kanako. The Mishaguji had a will of their own.
"If you will not convince them to work with me," Kanako said slowly, "what is there to protect your people from bad harvests and other disasters?"
"Not much. You, I suppose."
"You know that will not be enough. How can you be content to sit here and play in the dirt when your kingdom is doomed?"
Suwako buried her palms more firmly against the soft earth and watched it rise up between her fingers. She said nothing.
"I didn't know native gods could be this heartless."
"I'd do something about it if I could, but since I can't..." Suwako shrugged. "It's too bad for all of us."
It was Kanako's turn to say nothing as she studied the dirt stains on Suwako's legs and then eyed the tangles in her hair. Finally, her gaze returned to Suwako's eyes. It lingered.
After a long, ponderous silence, she made a nearly imperceptible nod.
She offered Suwako her hand.
Suwako pulled her hands away out of the dirt and studied Kanako cautiously. The significance of the gesture was as obvious as it was strange. It was an offer to help Suwako upright, yes, but it also meant much more.
Suwako found herself fixating on Kanako's fingernails. They were short-hewn, immaculately clean, and a lovely oval shape. Had Kanako ever even touched the ground with her hands before? How exactly had she come into being? Who had she been before she became the person who stood before Suwako now?
"Do you mean it?" she finally asked.
Kanako's eyes remained narrowed, but they were now quietly studious rather than vexed. In fact, she looked as though she was about to smile. "You leave me with very few options."
"But some." This was happening so very quickly. Suwako had considered the possibility of a bargain, but for Kanako to offer it like this, with no apparent strings attached? There had to be something else at play here.
"Not if I wish to unite all lands on this side of the ocean. For that, I need you." The corners of Kanako's eyes crinkled. "But as it happens, I'm now certain we are capable of working together."
Suwako met her gaze evenly. Looking past the calculations, the self-assurance, the desire and need for power and control, there was something else. Not respect, exactly, but... recognition. Something which could, should Suwako allow it, blossom into something greater.
Suwako took Kanako's hand and slowly rose to her feet.
She lost track of time as they stood there, hand in hand, studying the depths of each other's eyes. Memories of her birth slowly permeated her mind: she recalled another pair of serpentine eyes assessing her, and remembered how secure she had felt about her place in the world. This was different. Kanako was not kin, but someone new and challenging. Someone she would have to learn to understand, with goals differing from her own. Someone who Suwako just might...
She looked at where the dirt from her fingers had stained Kanako's hand and laughed.
As soon as Kanako's low chuckling mingled with her own mirth, Suwako knew she had made the right choice.