Chapter 20: The Legend Beneath the Legend.
After leaving the shrine, the investigators returned to the place where they were staying.
I went with them.
I hadn't planned to. But something had shifted inside me. The wooden tablets. The name. Yamatsuchi-Ushi. The being beneath the earth.
I needed to understand.
They had rented a small room at the edge of the village, a modest space with a low table, a few cushions, and barely enough room for their equipment. Wires snaked across the floor. A laptop sat on the table, its screen glowing in the dim room.
Aiko gestured for me to sit.
"This will take a while," she said. "We need to transfer everything."
I sat.
They worked quickly and efficiently. Cameras were connected to the computer. Memory cards were inserted. Photographs began appearing on the screen, hundreds of them filling the folder within seconds.
Aiko sorted them into categories.
Shrine carvings. The six torii gates. Paintings. Wooden tablets. Symbols. The Nijie figures. References to Yamatsuchi-Ushi.
Then she began enlarging some of the photographs.
Details that hadn't been obvious at the shrine became clearer. Faint lines. Hidden shapes. Small marks I had missed in the dim light.
I leaned forward.
"What are those?" I asked.
Aiko didn't answer. She was already focused, her fingers moving across the keyboard.
Aiko opened a browser and began searching for Nijie. She tried different kanji and combinations of characters. She searched in Japanese, then in English, and even tried older forms of the characters.
Nothing substantial appeared.
No historical records. No reliable folklore sources. No modern articles. Just a few vague mentions on obscure websites, none of them useful.
It was almost as though the Nijie had never existed.
I found that strange.
"Maybe they're just local folklore," I said. "Something the village made up."
Aiko shook her head.
"Maybe. But why are they carved into a shrine? Why would someone carve figures that don't exist?"
She zoomed in on one of the ancient images.
The little figures were clearer now. They had round bodies and thin limbs. Their hands held small objects, brushes, I realized.
Painting tools.
Above them was the rainbow.
And behind the rainbow was something else.
A shape.
A presence.
Something larger and darker, watching from beyond the arch of colors.
"The higher being," Aiko murmured. "The one they served."
She stared at the image for a long moment.
"Someone knew about this," she said. "Someone carved this deliberately. This isn't random. This is a story."
Aiko typed Yamatsuchi-Ushi into the search bar.
The results filled the screen almost immediately.
Articles. Forum posts. Blog entries. References in old books.
She clicked on the first link.
Something immediately felt wrong.
The modern legend described Yamatsuchi-Ushi differently from the shrine records.
The online version described it as a monstrous being of the earth, associated with mountains, earthquakes, tremors, anger, and destruction. Some versions portrayed it almost like a giant bull-like yokai, a beast that lived beneath the earth and lashed out whenever it was disturbed.
Aiko frowned and pulled up the photographs of the wooden tablets.
"This doesn't match," she said.
I looked at the screen. At the modern description. At the ancient text.
She was right.
They weren't the same.
The shrine records described something that demanded offerings. Something that needed to be kept calm. Something that was listening.
The online version described something angry. Something destructive. Something that attacked without reason.
"Which one is true?" I asked.
Aiko didn't answer immediately.
She stared at the screen, her brow furrowed.
"I don't know," she said. "But one of them is wrong."
She looked at me.
"And I think the village knows which one."
They placed the ancient shrine image beside the modern information on the screen.
The differences became obvious.
On one side was the modern legend: Yamatsuchi-Ushi, a destructive creature beneath the mountains. A monster. A beast. Something that lashed out in anger, caused earthquakes and tremors, and brought destruction whenever it stirred.
On the other was the ancient shrine record.
There, Yamatsuchi-Ushi appeared to be something else entirely.
Something the ancient villagers understood.
Something they interacted with through rituals, offerings, careful attention, and listening.
Aiko stared at the two images.
"Did the legend change over time?" she murmured. "Did the story get distorted?"
I thought about the shrine. The offerings. The rice. The careful arrangement.
"Maybe people misunderstood what it originally meant," I said.
Aiko nodded slowly.
"That's possible. Stories change. Details get lost. Meanings shift."
She looked at the ancient image again.
At the small figures carved into the wood.
At the rainbow arching above them.
Then she noticed something.
She leaned closer to the screen. Her finger traced the text on the wooden tablet.
"The ancient records don't describe Yamatsuchi-Ushi as evil," she said. "They don't describe it as angry. Or destructive. They describe it as something that must be kept in balance."
She looked at me.
"Something that must be maintained."
I felt a chill run down my spine.
The rice.
The offerings.
The hidden rope.
The fresh grains placed recently.
Someone was maintaining the balance.
Someone was keeping Yamatsuchi-Ushi calm.
Nijie.
Yamatsuchi-Ushi.
The Rainbow Painters.
The ancient Being.
They tried everything.
Yamatsuchi-Ushi + Nijie.
Rainbow Painters.
Rainbow yokai.
Ancient mountain deity.
Local shrine records.
Regional legends.
Nothing.
The search results were empty. The connections didn't exist. It was as if the two had never been mentioned together.
As if the Nijie had been erased from every record.
Aiko became increasingly frustrated. She typed faster, searched deeper, and tried different combinations.
Nothing worked.
"It's like the Nijie disappeared from history," she said. "There's no record of them anywhere. No mention in any text. No reference in any archive."
She sat back. Her hands fell from the keyboard.
"It doesn't make sense. They're carved into the shrine. They're part of this story. But they don't exist anywhere else."
I thought about the shrine.
The hidden rope.
The scattered shide.
The careful arrangement.
And I remembered the words that had risen in my mind when I first saw the carvings.
Maybe someone wanted them forgotten.
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
"Maybe someone wanted them forgotten."
Aiko looked at me.
The room went quiet.
I realized what I had said. The weight of it. The implication.
"I mean..." I started. "Maybe the story was simply lost. Over time. Things get lost."
Aiko didn't comment.
But she picked up her pen.
And wrote something in her notebook.
They returned to the photographs.
Aiko enlarged the carvings one by one, the Nijie figures, the rainbow, the mountains in the background.
She studied them carefully.
Then she noticed something.
"The Nijie aren't shown fighting Yamatsuchi-Ushi," she said. "They aren't shown worshipping it either."
She pointed at the screen.
"Look. In every carving, they're painting. The rainbow. Around the mountains. Around the villages. But they're not interacting with Yamatsuchi-Ushi directly."
I looked at the images.
She was right.
The small figures were always in the same pose, brushes in hand, arms raised, painting an arch of colors across the sky.
The being behind the rainbow was present, but distant.
Watching.
"What does the rainbow represent?" Aiko murmured.
She pulled up several different carvings and arranged them side by side on the screen.
In each one, the rainbow appeared after something.
A disaster.
An earthquake.
Cracked mountains.
Destroyed buildings.
Fallen trees.
Then the rainbow.
Aiko stared at the images. Her brow furrowed. Her lips moved silently as she studied the sequence.
Then, slowly, she realized something.
"Maybe the rainbow wasn't a symbol of the god," she said.
I looked at her.
"Then what was it?"
She pointed at the screen.
At the rainbow.
At the Nijie painting it.
"Maybe it was a response."
I felt another chill run down my spine.
"A response to what?"
She looked at me.
"To the disaster. To the destruction. To whatever Yamatsuchi-Ushi did when it was disturbed."
She paused.
"Maybe the Nijie weren't servants. Maybe they were something else. Maybe they were the ones who came after. The ones who repaired. The ones who brought color back to the sky."
I looked at the images again.
The cracked mountains.
The fallen buildings.
The rainbow arching above them.
The Nijie weren't painting a symbol.
They were painting a promise.
That the world would be beautiful again.
The website was old.
The design was dated, the layout clunky, the kind of site that looked as though it had been built decades ago and abandoned. But it contained a collection of Japanese folklore: hundreds of stories, legends, and myths gathered in one place.
Aiko scrolled through the entries.
Most were familiar.
Kitsune.
Tengu.
Oni.
The usual figures.
Then she stopped.
Buried among the hundreds of stories was a short entry about Yamatsuchi-Ushi.
The description was different again.
According to this version, Yamatsuchi-Ushi wasn't simply a monster. It wasn't a destructive beast.
It was described as a being that slept beneath the earth.
When disturbed, it caused the ground to tremble.
When angered, it shook the mountains.
But there was no mention of the Nijie.
No mention of rainbows.
No mention of servants, painters, or promises.
Aiko saved the page.
Then she stared at the screen.
"Three versions," she said.
She pointed to the first.
"The internet legend. The monster. The destroyer."
She opened another window.
The shrine photographs.
"The ancient records. The being that must be kept in balance."
Then she opened a third window.
The old website.
"And whatever this is. The sleeper. The one who trembles when disturbed."
She looked at me, her eyes clouded with confusion.
"Three different stories. Three different versions. All about the same thing."
She leaned back in her chair.
"Which one is true?"
I didn't answer.
But I thought about the shrine.
The offerings.
The careful maintenance.
The hidden rope.
Someone knew the truth.
And they weren't telling.
***
Aiko leaned back in her chair, her notebook opens in her lap. Takeshi stood near the window with his arms crossed. Kenji sat on the floor, his back against the wall, his device forgotten beside him.
"Maybe the original story was deliberately altered," Aiko said. "Someone changed the details over time. Made Yamatsuchi-Ushi into a monster instead of a sleeper."
"Or maybe the village created its own version," Takeshi suggested. "Something to explain what was happening. Something that gave them a sense of control."
"Or the modern legend came from another region entirely," Kenji added. "A different story that got mixed up with this one. Names get confused. Details get conflated."
Aiko nodded slowly.
"Yamatsuchi-Ushi was originally something completely different. Something we don't have a record of. Something that only exists here."
"And the Nijie," Takeshi said. "They were erased from later records. Or they were never part of the official story. Just a local detail that got lost."
"Or the shrine contains a completely unknown local mythology," Kenji said. "Something that never spread beyond this valley. Something that died with the people who believed it."
No one could reach a conclusion.
Theories piled up. Possibilities multiplied.
But none of them could be proven.
None could be confirmed.
Aiko finally closed her laptop.
"We need to find someone who knows the old story," she said. "Someone who remembers. Someone who was taught."
I thought of the village elder.
His house at the edge of the village.
His tired eyes.
His careful silence.
His warning:
Some things are better left forgotten.
I didn't say his name.
***
I sat quietly while they worked.
Aiko typed.
Takeshi organized photographs.
Kenji reviewed his recordings, frowning at the data.
I watched them.
And I realized something important.
The paranormal investigators weren't just chasing ghosts anymore.
They had started with rumors, with stories, with the kind of legends that spread online and attracted curiosity.
But they had found something real.
Something that existed before the current village.
Something the villagers didn't want discussed.
Something that had been hidden—or forgotten—or deliberately erased.
They had found Yamatsuchi-Ushi.
The being beneath the earth.
The Being who slept.
The Being who was listening.
And they had found the Nijie.
The Rainbow Painters.
The ones who painted promises after disaster.
The ones who had been erased from history.
Something about that bothered me.
Someone had erased them.
Someone had decided that the Nijie should be forgotten.
Who?
And why?
I looked at the photograph of the ancient shrine.
It was still open on the screen, the image of the rainbow arching over the mountains, the small figures painting, the dark presence behind it all.
It was only the photograph.
The carving.
Only the play of light and shadow on the screen.
Or at least—that's what I told myself.
I looked away.
The investigators kept working.
The night grew darker.
And the mountain waited.
What will happen next...
Find out in the next chapter, same place, same time.
