Chapter 250: Ereshkigal and Ishtar
"Damn Mount Tai God. Damn Houtu…"
Tamamo no Mae, who had fallen out of the sky like an uninvited comet, shook her head and let out a small, miserable whimper.
The ritual had been halfway complete. Amaterasu had already begun to manifest.
Even if it was cut off midstream, it still allowed her to step into the present era again.
But precisely because it was cut off midstream, Tamamo came down, and Amaterasu did not.
The Authority belonging to the supreme deity of this land stayed above Takamagahara.
"Eh? What a beautiful fox."
"Way prettier than the foxes at Inari Shrine."
"Stop talking. Hurry up and prepare for the new ritual."
Tamamo opened her golden fox eyes and watched the shrine maidens approach, hesitate, then scurry off with their heads down.
Her fluffy tail flicked behind her. The ears atop her head twitched left and right.
Yes. At this very moment, she did not even have a human form.
She was simply a fox.
Of course, as Amaterasu, she was not in real danger. Her divine essence resided in Takamagahara. Nothing in the lower world could truly harm her. She only needed to wait for the right timing, and she would naturally return.
Still.
This state was awful.
Migu.
No matter how foul her mood was, no matter how undignified her current condition was, Tamamo could not reverse the interruption, and she could not stop what followed.
The Amaterasu altar was dismantled with startling efficiency. Offerings and sacred implements were removed, replaced with incense altars, a painted stone platform, and the ritual furnishings of an entirely different ceremony.
The Mount Tai God Festival.
In Japan, the deity who held the Three Realms in hand was undoubtedly Amaterasu.
But ruling the Three Realms did not mean supreme.
Countless gods of the Divine Land held worship here as well. Their status was not beneath Amaterasu. Some were above her.
The Heavenly Emperor, the Heavenly Empress, and many others.
And among them, Mount Tai God was not merely prominent. It was fundamental.
Mount Tai stood first among the Five Sacred Mountains of the Divine Land. A hub of leylines. A regulator of yin and yang. An administrator of the underworld. A true Great God.
More than that, this Mount Tai God also carried the manifestation of the Divine Land's will, known as Houtu Pingxin.
The Divine Land's scale, its Mystery, the weight of human order sustained by thousands of years of ideology that never truly declined, made the comparison cruel.
Amaterasu could not compete.
So the Mount Tai God Festival, a ritual seeking audience with Mount Tai God, naturally took precedence over Tamamo's interrupted descent.
And so the fox could only glare, indignation boiling behind her eyes, while shrine maidens performed graceful dances inside Ise Grand Shrine, a sanctuary that belonged to her.
She watched them burn incense and bow to another god, on the very stage that had been prepared for her moments ago.
A sudden heavenly light spilled down.
White robes fluttered. Red skirts swayed.
The shrine maidens bowed as one, foreheads pressed to the floor.
"Hahahaha, I am finally back in the present world!"
"Ishtar, stop stealing my spot!"
"What does it matter?"
"Eh wait!"
Two voices rang out in quick succession.
Tamamo flinched on instinct and refused to look up.
The shrine maidens stayed prostrate, none daring to raise their eyes.
According to old legends, Houtu and Mount Tai of the Divine Land were twin aspects of one divinity.
Sister goddesses once worshipped by a foreign ancient civilization, who arrived in the Divine Land by chance, were assimilated by its cultural framework, fused into its system, and ascended.
One was named Ereshkigal.
The other was named Ishtar.
Two in one, born from the same source, which was why they could occupy the seats of Houtu and Mount Tai God together.
"So I am clearly the Mistress of Heaven," Ishtar complained brightly, "how did I become an earth goddess?"
"If you do not like it," Ereshkigal replied evenly, "you can go back."
"That is impossible. Mesopotamia has already been occupied by Gilgamesh. There is no place for gods anymore!"
"…You say that like it is my fault."
Ereshkigal, newly descended, exhaled and scanned the kneeling shrine maidens below.
Her vermilion eyes narrowed slightly.
Two thousand years meant little to a goddess. The woman standing here looked no different than she had long ago.
Golden hair fell in a smooth cascade, gathered at the sides with vermilion butterfly clips. Vermilion eyes and red lips. A delicate face that never changed. A black long dress cinched at the waist, soft curves hidden beneath the fabric, one leg wrapped in black stockings.
Opposite her sat Ishtar, wearing the vessel called Rin.
Ereshkigal had retrieved her from the Imaginary Numbers Space after Rowe left the Divine Land and went to Rome.
The former Mistress of Heaven lounged on the ridge of the shrine roof, legs swinging. Her skirt swayed. A red jacket flapped in the wind, the collar slightly open, revealing a rounded edge of cleavage with the shameless confidence of a woman who believed the world existed for her.
She brushed her long black hair back and hummed.
"Well then. Where is that guy?"
The reason they followed into the Divine Land, accepted the twin roles within its pantheon, and appeared here was simple.
They were hunting Rowe.
"Rowe," Ereshkigal said, her voice quiet and firm. "Yes. Finding Rowe is the most important thing."
"I am settling that old score this time!" Ishtar sprang up and planted her hands on her hips, vermilion eyes narrowing with righteous fury.
Back then, she had been tricked into fighting other Mesopotamian gods, and the promised treasure payment never arrived.
Ishtar was not the kind of goddess who forgave debts.
"You mortals, it is your honor to witness the glory of the beautiful goddess," Ishtar declared grandly. "Now disperse!"
"The reward from the most beautiful goddess will arrive later!"
Time passed, but her personality remained. That was the curse of being the goddess of beauty.
"That is right," Ereshkigal added, gentler but no less decisive. "Disperse."
The shrine maidens lifted their heads in a daze.
Then they realized the two goddesses on the roof were already gone.
Clouds rolled overhead, briefly forming the shape of a massive ox.
At last, Tamamo let out a slow breath.
"They did not notice me…"
She lowered her gaze to her current form.
A white faced, golden furred fox.
Perfect in every visible aspect.
If no one looked too carefully, even gods at the level of a pantheon's ruler would fail to detect her true essence.
For a moment, Tamamo paused.
Then her ears perked.
Her tail flicked once, decisive.
"This form is not bad."
"Approaching Rowe as a fox…"
Her eyes sparkled.
"That is right. This was the plan I, your humble servant, prepared from the start."
Migu.
Turning a mistake into advantage.
That was Tamamo's specialty.
A grand plan.
A grand success.
Ereshkigal and Ishtar, already gone, naturally did not know the sudden surge of smug excitement blooming inside a fox.
After leaving Ise Grand Shrine, the two chased the source of Rowe's manifestation.
"Is this really the right direction?" Ishtar asked. "We are not lost, are we?"
"It should not be," Ereshkigal said, hesitating only slightly.
"There are traces here," Ishtar insisted. "I can feel it."
Of course, they could not find him.
Because at that moment, Rowe, together with Manaka and Abigail, had briefly returned to a scene that belonged to creation itself.
He stood alone before the ultimate abyss beyond the gate where the Great Old Ones lurked.
With a human body, he cut off the unspeakable.
With a human body, he faced the terrifying.
The machina god and chaos core held open the primal landscape, and the power of a star creating god manifested throughout that temporary cosmos.
Rowe still stepped forward.
"Big Brother," Abigail asked from behind him, still playing the role of gatekeeper, bewilderment in her voice. "Aren't you afraid of death?"
Rowe looked at her.
"Afraid," he said. "But I will not die."
I will not die.
I will only become infinitely stronger.
His hand extended, fingers reaching for the ultimate abyss beyond the threshold.
Rowe, a star creating god, was already vast.
But if he "died" and retrieved what lay beyond, he would become stronger still.
And once retrieved, that power would not replace his current strength.
It would assimilate.
Expand.
A machina god at its limit, chaos at its limit.
Perhaps he really could become the end of Atlantis.
Perhaps he could become the origin the Great Old Ones feared.
Rowe was practically delighted.
The gate trembled.
His finger neared it, a breath away.
Clang.
The door shut.
Shut.
Shut.
Rowe stopped.
"?"
Are you the problem, or am I the problem?
Abigail gasped.
"Eh? Father said… I can't let you in?"
The "Father" she referred to was Yog Sothoth, one of the three Pillar Gods.
"Father said… eh?"
She repeated, then stopped.
Because she heard something else.
An urgent knocking.
Again and again, heavy and relentless, striking the closed gate.
"Open up!"
"Demolition team, prepare!"
"I'm delivering food, checking the water meter, dropping off a package…"
"What is he doing?" Manaka, seated inside the Atlantis machine body at the edge of the furnace core, swung her white stockinged legs and stared with pure confusion.
Abigail looked like her worldview had been forcibly restarted.
You were facing the gate to the ultimate abyss.
This was not a door someone had locked you out of in your own apartment.
Knocking like that.
Was it not… disrespectful?
"Big Brother, stop knocking," Abigail pleaded, tugging his sleeve. "Father said they won't interfere with Earth for now…"
As the priestess of the Great Old Ones, she had never seen anything like this.
It was, in the worst possible way, educational.
Rowe knocked until no response came.
Then he finally came back to himself, jaw tightening.
"Damn it. I was underestimated."
Beyond the universe, countless incomprehensible gazes held still.
Who was underestimating whom?
They were the Great Old Ones.
He was the one knocking.
But Rowe could only stop.
"All that anticipation for nothing."
He turned back to Abigail, who still clung to his sleeve.
"So. What did Yog Sothoth say?"
"Father said they don't want to interact with you," Abigail reported carefully. "They said if you die, something very terrifying will happen."
Silence.
Rowe rubbed his temples.
"Forget it. I won't expect anything from them."
He sighed, then added with sincere contempt.
"A bunch of good for nothings."
Abigail blinked.
Should she laugh?
She did not.
But laughter did ring out across the nebula.
"As expected of Mister Rowe," Manaka said, voice bright with delight. "Such an unexpected development."
She leapt down from the machine body and walked over, stopping right in front of him. Her face was practically glowing.
"As expected of me," Rowe said dryly.
He tapped his temples.
The chaos core vanished.
The machine body disappeared.
World lines merged.
The pre creation nebula scenery collapsed and receded like a stage curtain being pulled away.
In the cold ultimate abyss, the murmurs of the Great Old Ones carried a chill.
"Azathoth… when it awakens, countless universes will return to chaos."
"It… cannot… be allowed to awaken yet."
"He cannot die yet."
But Rowe, Manaka, and Abigail could no longer hear them.
They returned to the present world.
Back to Tokyo, Shibuya.
Another attempt failed.
But at least, the disaster had been resolved.
At least.
"It seems this game can't end yet," Manaka said brightly. "Mister Rowe, my Prince."
She grabbed his hand without warning.
Rowe's sense of self stiffened for a heartbeat.
Manaka clasped his arm and pressed it tightly against her chest, brazenly anchoring him against her softness. Her smile was bright enough to be criminal.
Abigail's eyes lit up, and she seized his other hand.
"What game?" she asked eagerly. "Big Brother, I want to play too!"
"Found him!"
A clear voice cut down from the sky.
And then, with perfect timing, a second voice followed.
"Rowe, how could you… at such a young age?"
"Hello," Ishtar added with theatrical gravity. "Is this the police station?"
Rowe looked up.
Ereshkigal and Ishtar, appearing out of nowhere, had him boxed in front and back.
Ishtar's expression was that of a righteous judge who had already decided his sentence.
Manaka shook her head with a sly smile, as if savoring her own cleverness.
"There is more than one way to make Mister Rowe die, you know."
"Social death is also a kind of death."
Rowe's eye twitched.
This little brat.
Was she doing it on purpose?
Ereshkigal blinked, looking between Rowe, Manaka, and Abigail. Her tone was calm, genuinely puzzled.
"This child looks a bit silly. Did you pick her up somewhere, Rowe?"
Manaka's smile vanished so fast it was almost violent.
Rowe laughed.
For once, it was not even sarcastic.
It was pure satisfaction.
.....
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