illphated
### **The Flight of Yatagarasu**
The storm raged across the heavens, a celestial tempest of swirling gold and deep blue. Beneath it, the world trembled. The rivers churned, the forests bent, and the very air crackled with a divine energy few mortals could endure. It was a night of change, of shifting fate.
Then, from the chaos, it emerged.
Yatagarasu.
A shadow streaked with fire, its three legs outstretched as it soared between realms. Its feathers dripped ink, each drop igniting sparks upon the wind. Its eyes—three burning stars—pierced through the chaos, seeing not only the storm before it, but all storms that had ever been. All that would ever be.
The bird descended, talons brushing the peak of an ancient mountain where a lone traveler knelt in the rain. The traveler, a man weary from years of seeking, lifted his gaze. He had walked the land in search of wisdom, in search of a sign. He had crossed deserts that whispered secrets, rivers that sang of forgotten kings, but none had given him the truth he sought.
Now, Yatagarasu had come.
The storm around them stilled. The air grew heavy with something deeper than silence. Yatagarasu spread its wings, and in the shifting strokes of color and light that wove through its form, the traveler saw visions—cities rising and falling, rulers crowned and overthrown, the endless dance of order and chaos. He saw the folly of man and the patience of the gods. He saw his own place in the endless web of fate.
The crow cawed once, a sound that split the sky. And then, like ink dissolving in water, it was gone.
The traveler, now changed, rose to his feet. His journey was not over. But for the first time, he understood.
He would walk not as a seeker, but as one who had seen.