[3rd] Week 300: - Remembrance I - What Came Before

[Rob]

Remembrance I
What Came Before
1045 Words​

True to herself, but with flickering eyes that underlined a more depressing thought, Nana pressed her way forward into the innermost sanctum of the Amaterasu estate’s underground haven. It was a majestic and expansive underground hallway system, with overarching and branching sideway rooms that server purposes of differing kinds. As she strolled through the main hallway, she pushed past over at least a hundred different statues and portraits of prominent members of House Amaterasu.

With varying degrees of interest, the blue-eyed Shunshin passed them by, spending more time glancing over the sparse few men and women she considered as paragons of their time than with those that left only a small mark upon the vast and rich history of the house she so willfully founded all those years ago.

This founding, dating back to a time where historians were few and far inbetween was not one without its fair share of trouble. The now esteemed Noble House of Western Seireitei had everything but an easy road to nobility and it was this very thought, this simple mention that haunted Nana’s mind for several sleepless nights now.

It wasn’t too surprising then actually that she had decided to go visit the final resting place of the members of House Amaterasu. The Tomb of Amaterasu-ōmikami where, supposedly, the First had been laid to rest in the most impressive and ornamental looking resting place you could ever imagine. In truth, the First’s death was no more true than Nana being the Captain of one of the division within the Goteijuusantai and there was a fairly simple reason for that.

A reason so simple, so down to earth, that no would have ever expected it to have such a complex impact on the Amaterasu matriarch.

After all, who would believe her when she said she was, in fact, the First herself? And the Second, for that matter. And the Third, all the way down to her latest sense of self, the Seventh: Nana. This was her, the Seventh, Nana, Shunshin Amaterasu, the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth. They were all her. All different people, but definitely her. She was herself, but at the same time also those that came before her.

It wasn’t as simple as reincarnation, though. Oh, how she would’ve loved that. No, she had never passed over from the afterlife. She began her life as a shinigami and, through some odd chance of fate, she spiralled through very different versions of herself throughout history. As the First, she was probably the most levelheaded and most powerful of all versions. She had been a paragon of her people, the founder of House Amaterasu and perhaps one of the greatest sword-bearers of all time. She wielded her blade like it wasn’t just a part of her, but was her in its entirety.

Even then she crafted her own blades and it was through this skill that, to this day, House Amaterasu still crafts the Goteijuusantai’s asauchi. The ability to craft steel was, of course, not one she had come up with herself and as such she was not the first to create weapons for the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. It was only after she took the reigns that the blades began to inhabit the ability to become a soul of its own and bond with their owners on a much deeper level. She was loved by many and, in return, cared a lot for those she called family.

When, after several centuries of non-stop hard working and endless battles, she began losing her sense of self, she slowly, but surely began to turn to darker deeds. It started out small, as usually, and she wouldn’t let anyone from her own family know or hear about it, but it soon turned into dabbling with forces she knew she would have no chance of surviving.

An aged and at times fragile mind can make strange decisions, though and a dangerous and tumultuous life as a hollowfied shinigami was what followed these events. It had been a major blow, to see her thirst for more and more power backfire on her like this and she had to struggle to keep her senses intact for the sake of keeping both her blood-related family and household in its entirety safe and running.

All this, while she was battling the inner demons she had involuntarily let loose upon herself.

When she was discovered, by her own brothers no less, she found herself exiled after a failed attempt to rob her of her life right then and there. She was sent to earth where, slowly, but surely her mind began to deteriorate into that of a being bent only on the destruction of those who dared to oppose her.

As with all stories, this fragile state inevitably led to a clash near a cave in Takachiho, Miyazaki prefecture, Japan between the former Matriarch and her two brothers Susanoo and Tsukiyomi, whom, though now something she felt a feeling of regret for, was her husband as well at the time. It was during this ‘great’ battle, one that had managed to shake the very balance of the world during its most heated moment, that the famed shinto legend of Amaterasu-ōmikami being driven into the Ama-no-Iwato originated.

Though mortals would have everyone belief it was because Susanoo had become, as they so adequately put it, ‘restless’ and had gone on a rampage, destroying her rice fields, hurling a flayed pony at her loom - really? - and ended up killing one of her attendants in a fit of rage, it was actually because she was the one who went on a rampage that this entire ordeal spiraled out of context.

The humans probably figured that, as a woman, she would never do such an outrageous thing. Or maybe this was just how the story had evolved over time.

Snapping back to reality, she sighed softly. It had been a while since she had reminisced about the past as much as she had today but, for some odd reason, she didn’t particularly hate it which was quite unlike her. Normally, she did not like to dwell on the past but just this once...

It kind of seemed appropriate to do so.