The city was never meant to be quiet.Even in its sleepless hours, trains sighed beneath the streets, neon pulsed like an arterial system, and vending machines hummed lullabies to the thirsty. But that night—no, that dawn—something older than electricity sang over Tokyo.
The Seeker felt it first in the scar.It burned like a coal pressed beneath his ribs, glowing in rhythm with sirens and distant chanting. He had been trying, for weeks, to avoid the places where omens clustered. But the scar was disobedient. It tugged him across the Sumida River, through alleys where fox statues wore paper bibs, to the open expanse of Ueno Park.
There the crowd had gathered.
They were not worshippers at first glance. Office workers still in wrinkled suits, students clutching backpacks, mothers pushing strollers with sleep-heavy children. Yet they all faced the same direction, toward the shrine at the park's heart, and their voices rose and fell in a rhythm older than Japanese itself.
Xuemei had warned him. "The gods don't just return," she'd said, flicking ash into a porcelain dish. "They colonize. First your tongue, then your laws." He'd laughed then, brittle, not believing. Now, pressed among the bodies, he saw how swiftly a city could bow.
At the shrine's steps, banners unfurled: golden suns painted across white cloth. And then—light. Not metaphor, not trick of dawn. Light withdrew. The sky, though morning, dimmed as though the sun had been pocketed. The crowd gasped as one organism.
Amaterasu had arrived.
She did not step so much as unveil. A woman shaped from brilliance, her hair black as lacquer, her robes rippling with solar flares. Her face was expressionless, less a human mask than the concept of radiance itself.
"Children," her voice lilted in every ear. No amplification, no mechanics. Simply presence. "You were faithful even when I withdrew. You fed my shrines when I hid from the world. Now the world has chosen darkness. Shall you not shine?"
The crowd answered without hesitation. "Shine."
It was not a chant. It was agreement. Contract. A people binding themselves in a single breath.
The Seeker's scar burned hotter. He clenched his jaw, trying not to cry out.
"Run," whispered a voice beside him.
He turned. Hermes, looking perfectly ordinary in a hoodie and sneakers, munching from a paper bag of French fries. "You're not supposed to be here," the trickster said, his words muffled by food. "Or maybe you are. Depends on whose script you're reading."
The Seeker wanted to demand answers. But his scar flared—and this time, those nearest him noticed. A woman in the crowd shrieked and pointed. "A sign! He carries her fire!"
Amaterasu's gaze turned, unbearably heavy, to him.
"No," Hermes muttered, rolling his eyes. "Not her fire. Not anyone's. But they'll think so. And thinking makes it true." He shoved the fries into the Seeker's hand. "Run. Pretend you're mortal. You are, mostly."
The Seeker bolted.
Through the crowd, down a path lined with cherry trees. Shouts rose behind him—half reverent, half furious. He caught fragments: messenger, prophet, traitor. Words were flexible weapons in a city choosing its god.
He ducked into a side street, lungs burning. The scar throbbed in furious rhythm. And then he saw the lantern.
Not one of the shrine's paper lanterns, but an iron one, held aloft by a figure in a dark coat. Glass panes smoked from within. A Lantern Keeper.
"Seeker," the figure said calmly, though the crowd's roar drew closer. "You've made quite the spectacle. Your survival is… inconvenient."
He braced for capture.
Instead, the Keeper lowered the lantern. "Join us. Or be extinguished."
The Seeker laughed, hoarse, tasting iron in his throat. "You think she'll let you walk out alive? Amaterasu's chosen her flock. They'll tear you apart."
The Keeper's mouth twitched. "Then perhaps we'll share a fate."
Before either could act, the world tilted. A tremor rolled through the street. The pavement split, and from the crack rose flame. Not gasoline-bright, not electric-orange, but blue and ancient.
Xiuhtecuhtli. Forgotten Aztec fire. He crawled upward like a candle desperate for air, his eyes twin coals. "Remember me," he croaked to no one in particular, voice breaking with centuries of neglect. "Remember…"
The crowd's scream fractured. Some clung to Amaterasu's banners. Others fell to their knees before the fire that burned in the street. Two gods. One city.
The Seeker staggered back. His scar blazed so fiercely it illuminated his shirt. Not metaphor, not private torment—the mark glowed for all to see.
Dozens of eyes turned toward him. Mortal. Keeper. Divine.
The city had chosen its god, but the gods had chosen him.
And in that unbearable moment, the Seeker understood what Xuemei had meant. Colonization was not persuasion. It was occupation. And his body had just been claimed as territory.
The lantern's light, the solar banners, the blue fire—three flames battling in the same narrow street. He realized, with cold certainty, that survival was no longer the point.
It was recognition.
And recognition was the most dangerous currency in the world.