/Is this how the snot-born earns back his godhead? He slurps us, oh, we are his soup!/
I walked to the second head, and hewed into the silver-blue flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a rattle:
(Is this how the unloved child punishes the only one less loved than he? He chews us, oh, we are his gristle!)
&nb
sp; I walked to the third head, and hewed into the pearl-gold flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a scream:
—Is this how the suitor greets his bride? He buys us, oh, we are his prize!—
I walked to the fourth head, and hewed into the nacreous flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a hiss:
{Is this how the dog shows its dam its adulation? He gnaws us, oh, we are his bone!}
I walked to the fifth head, and hewed into the bruise-violet flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a sigh:
|Is this how a cloud shows the sun its strength? He hides us, oh, we are his crime!|
I walked to the sixth head, and hewed into the tarnished opal flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a howl:
[Is this how the hero defeats his dragon? He cuts us, oh, we are his supper!]
I walked to the seventh head, and hewed into the watery flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a shudder:
*Is this how family honors family? He stains us, oh, he stains us, we are nothing to him! No, please, Susanoo, let me stay, let me live beside you, as Mother meant—*
I walked to the eighth head, and hewed into the worm-slick flesh of its neck—and the blood which flowed from the serpent was red as a woman’s, and the jaws sprung open, and its exhale was a maddened cry:
“Please, oh, please, I am afraid! The jellyfish, the jellyfish—I can’t see! The jellyfish crowd overhead!”
I opened the last neck and lodged there, as though she had just been swallowed, was the body of Kushinada, laid into the green-black flesh like a gem set into a box. She was as beautiful as they promised, her hair wrapping her body, strands sticking in the pooled blood, her pale and perfect face streaked with bile and slime. She lay clutching the length of the serpent’s gnarled spine with all her strength, her arms and legs clasped around it, weeping piteously.
“No, no, Kameko, Kazuyo! Kaya, Kiyomi, my sisters! Kyoko, Kaori, Koto! Come back, come back, Hiruko, please, it is cold out here, I am alone, I am alone, we said we would none of us be alone again. Come back!”
I pulled her from her throat-crèche, pulled her out of that wreckage of blood and tissue as a midwife pulls a child from a dead mother, and she trembled beautifully in my arms. I brushed her hair from her face, tenderly and dear.
“You are not alone, Kushinada. I am here, and I have saved you.”
But she kept weeping, soft as a mouse, and shaking her head, whimpering:
“No, no.”
It became tiresome.
I gave her over to the monks to clean and comfort, for a thing had caught my eye. Kushinada—jewel among maidens!—had clung to the serpent’s spine as though it would save her. It gleamed white as a tooth in the slough, the vertebrae knobbled and arched almost in the shape of a sword. I knelt in the sodden grass and pulled the bone from the muscle, ligaments popping and cartilage cracking as it came free. With the blunt and heavy edge of the abbot’s sword I hacked at the length of it until it shone with a terrible edge, and a hilt which as so bright and pale as to seem nearly hewn out of diamond.
I sweated in the deepening twilight, but I was proud of my work. I gave the blade a flourish and with one blow halved the trunks of eight tall weeds sprouting from the serpent’s corpse. Kushinada gave a sharp yelp like a kicked cat, and fell to her knees, tears steaming on her perfect cheeks.
“That is the flesh of my sisters, flesh of my flesh, bone of our body!”
“No,” I answered her, “it is mine, I have made it, it is fine, and I will call it Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutting Sword.”
I brandished the sword again, and put it into the hands of the abbot.
“Take this to the temple of my sister, Ama-Terasu. Give it to her priests and her cawing roosters, and perhaps the old wretch will make white-haired boys out of it this time. And perhaps she will forgive me the Piebald Colt, who was a good beast, after all.”
The abbot nodded and folded up his relic, fading into the city streets, as monks are wont to do.