The sisters walked through the bamboo in renewed silence, each trying to serve up an array of quick retorts to avoid being one-upped. Despite the tension it was playful, echoing the growing electric in the air. The path spiralled, seemingly in on itself in concentric circles that felt less like a spiral and more like an illusion.

“I’m getting dizzy,” Ruby moaned.

“We’re nearly there.”

Sure enough, the path righted and broke onto cracked flagstones of jade. Thick roots pushed the broken shards apart and pink flowered moss smothered the once gleaming shrine’s radiance. Bamboo encircled them, hiding away one of Akashima’s greatest secrets.

“What in the hell is this?” Ruby stopped on the first flagstone, gazing open-jawed at the strange edifice ahead.

“This, Ruby, is the Dai Uzu.”

On an altar of steel and stone, a whorl of energy engulfed a storm of blades. The green light pulsated out over the clearing, thick and heavy and full of life. Ruby tried to make sense of the folding lights and flurry of swords, but it made her nauseas to look at it.

“What am I even looking at?”

The more Ruby tried to make sense of it, the more it confounded her. It made her question up and down, right, and wrong, and life itself. Her thoughts became a jumbled mess of contradictions.

“The source of the Kami. We’d call it a maelstrom, though it’s more graceful than that.” Lilith knelt before it and arranged herself into a meditating stance. “Come, sit with me. Don’t look at it.”

“It’s hard not to,” Ruby grumbled. Whenever she pulled away and the dizziness began to ease, she found herself looking back to start the cycle anew.

“Stare too long and it’ll stare back. Come on. Sit with me and listen.”

Ruby approached, careful not to stare too long and mirrored her sister’s position. Unused to the pose, she clicked her back and tried to get comfortable. As instructed, she listened. The roar of the maelstrom dissipated the moment she closed her eyes. Sudden, overwhelming calm washed over her.

“That’s unsettling.”

“In this clearing you are exposed to two things. First, a wellspring of the Tap. Second, the combined dreams and nightmares of every Akashiman.”

Whispers of fable and fox crept into Ruby’s mind. All the childhood stories Lilith had shared with her came to life in her mind’s eye. Kami and Oni of all shapes and sizes flashed before her, laughing and cajoling in a great tapestry of faith. Ruby opened her eyes and it faded, the roar and while returning lie a thunderclap.

“The Tap and the Kami are one and the same?” She closed her eyes again before she threw up.