#The End of Heian

Contents

Fiction-Only. This document is the last of this volume's 25 documents. From Heian's pinnacle to its end, and a bridge to the later volumes.

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#The Last Fragment — The Red Banner Beneath the Water

Beneath the waves of Dan-no-ura, a red banner sank away. Some called it defeat; some called it the funeral of an age. Upon the water, arrows and splinters of wood still floated, but beneath the water another story had already begun.

A young warrior asked in a trembling voice, "Is this the end of Heian?"

The old monk answered as he wrung out his wet sleeve. "What has ended is the belief that the court is eternal. The story of people does not end so easily."

"Then what of the children and the banner beneath that water?"

The monk looked out at the sea. "If their names go uncalled, they become onryo; if they become a song, they become legend. According to what we call them, the night of the next age will differ."

The sea was not quiet. The waves kept pushing up the words of the age that had passed. Heian had ended, yet that night's story touched the water's edge of the next age. And so this volume closes, but the shadow of Heian has not yet returned home.

#Scent — Dan-no-ura

Juei 4 / Genryaku 2, the 24th day of the 3rd month; in the solar calendar, the 25th of April, 1185. The sea of Dan-no-ura (壇ノ浦). Spring light fills the surface of the sea. Yet beneath that light — a single house is sinking.

Upon a warship is an old noblewoman. In her arms — an eight-year-old child emperor. Emperor Antoku (安徳). Kiyomori's grandson by his daughter. The last emperor of the Heike house.

The child emperor asks.

"Grandmother, where are we going?"

The old noblewoman — Kiyomori's wife, Tokiko (時子) — answers.

"There is a capital beneath the sea, too. Your capital."

She takes the child emperor in her arms — and leaps into the sea.

At the same hour, on the other warships too, Heike warriors leap into the sea still wearing their armor. The women of the house follow as well. At every place where they sink — the spring light deepens further.

And so four hundred years of Heian come to an end.

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#From Heian's Pinnacle to Its End

This volume condensed an era of four hundred years into five figures, three yoma, six mechanics, and two scenarios. Tracing the flow of those four hundred years line by line, it runs as follows.

From Michinaga's pinnacle period (around 1000) to the end at Dan-no-ura (1185) — about 185 years. The latter half of the four hundred years is the curve from pinnacle to end.

Behind every pinnacle there is an end.

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#Spiritual Echo — The Shadow of Heian Crosses the Eras

Heian ended, but the shadow of Heian did not. The five figures and three yoma of this volume all remained as shadows in later ages.

The five and the three of this volume — they did not end in Heian. Their shadows reach beyond the four hundred years — and are seen even in the streets a thousand years later.

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#On to the Later Volumes

The successor to this volume fc04 is not Kamakura. How the Heian figures and yoma of this volume carry on as echoes into later ages — that continues into the volumes to come.

#fc02 (Sengoku Gazetteer) — Already Published

The gate of the Spirit Realm opens even wider. The "faint gates everywhere" model of this volume fc04 (fc04-05-06-alt-realm.md) turns, by the Sengoku period, into "opened wide." The Heike onryo remain right there in the Seto Inland Sea — and houses such as the Mori (毛利) come to rule that spiritual territory.

#fc05 (Edo) — A Later Connection

The era when the gate of the Spirit Realm closes? A Spirit Realm variant model of the Tokugawa peacetime. The Sessho-seki is still at Nasuno but is gradually forgotten. Michizane's Tenman-Tenjin settles as a god of learning — and his original aspect as a god of calamity grows dim.

#fc06 (Bakumatsu) — A Later Connection

The period of the introduction of outside divinities. As foreigners enter Japan after Perry's black ships — the "prehistory" of Tamamo-no-Mae, such as India's Magadha and China's Daji, becomes known again. Heian's 9 tails connect to the whole world for the first time in a thousand years.

#fc09 (Fin de Siecle) + fc10 (City) — A Later Connection

The era when the gate of the Spirit Realm opens again. In modern Tokyo — the shadow of Heian wakes once more. The motif of ancestral return (先祖回歸) — a descendant of a Heian figure regains spiritual power through their own bloodline. The 2022 crack in the Sessho-seki is the opening signal of that age.

How the five Heian figures and three yoma of this volume appear again in the streets of Tokyo a thousand years later — the Heian-style prototype of all of it is in this volume.

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#The Last Scene — Dan-no-ura

The sea of Dan-no-ura. April 25, 1185. The high noon, full of spring light.

The last descendants of the Heike house — sink. Kiyomori's son Munemori tried to survive to the end and was taken captive, while the others of the house chose to take their own lives. The child Emperor Antoku, held in his grandmother's arms — to the bottom of the sea.

The last thing he heard was — "There is a capital beneath the sea, too."

Whether it was a lie or a truth, no one knows. Only — it is a fact that, for a thousand years thereafter, when the people of Japan looked upon the sea of Dan-no-ura, they believed there was a child emperor's capital there. The warrior's face drawn on the shell of the Heikegani — that face is the face of a Heike warrior guarding the child emperor — so they have believed for a thousand years.

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#The End of Heian — In One Line

Seimei departed, Michizane departed, and Shikibu departed too. Kiyomori departed as well, and Emperor Antoku departed too.

Yet their shadows still walk the streets of Kyoto.

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#The Tale of the Heike — This Volume's Opening and Close

The quotation fitting for the opening of this volume fc04 is the first passage of the Tale of the Heike — the self-awareness of four hundred years of Heian, and the sentiment of every page of this volume.

"The toll of the bell of impermanence, the color of the sala blossoms — reveal the way (道) that the flourishing must decline."

(A free rendering of the opening of the Tale of the Heike. Original: "Gion shoja no kane no koe / Shogyo mujo no hibiki ari / Sara soju no hana no iro / Joshahissui no kotowari o arawasu.")

This one passage is both the beginning and the end of this volume. The flow of four hundred years of elegance. The toll of the bell at the end of that flow.

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#In One Line

"It was an elegant era. Its shadow, too, was elegant."

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#References

#co

• co-09-adventures/co-09-09-minamoto-specter.md — the Yoshitsune heroic-spirit scenario (a Heian → later-age heroic-spirit model)
• co-04-character/co-04-08-samples/co-04-08-22-heroic-spirit-catalog.md — heroic-spirit catalog (Benkei 6th dan — the model of a Heian figure's heroic-spiritization)

#Within fc04

• all 24 documents

#Other fc Volumes

• fc02-00-00-index.md — Sengoku (a comparison of Spirit Realm models)
• fc05 (Edo) — a later connection
• fc06 (Bakumatsu) — a later connection
• fc09 (Fin de Siecle), fc10 (City) — a later connection

#External Literature

• The Tale of the Heike (平家物語)

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Heian ended, yet the tale of the night touches the water's edge of the next age.