“Where did they go Ikiru?” I asked him as I made my way back towards the docks.

Someplace that we can’t follow, He responded. I’d never heard him this defeated before.

“Ikiru, you have to tell me. We have to stop them.” I pressed. There had to be a way.

It’s useless, there’s nothing we can do about it, he said, they’ve passed into Yomi, the underworld.

“Ok, so if they got there how do we?” There has to be a way.

You don’t get it, getting into Yomi isn’t the problem.The problem is leaving it again… That’s what this ritual will cause famine and plague when she returns. Without this blood magic, you can’t get out. 

“Who is she? If the problem isn’t how to get in, where can I find an entrance?” I pressed, undeterred. I knew we had to stop it.

His sister, and his wife… she died, and he’s been trying to get her back since… but if he does her reign of terror will begin again. Only their blood magic during the summer solstice can do it. I should have guessed it was him! How could I be so stupid! Five-hundred years and I’m still as much of an idiot as before! 

“Ikiru, I have to go to Yomi and stop them. Where is an entrance?” I tried to press him further and keep him back on track. “Where is it?”

They’re everywhere. You just have to look for places of suffering and darkness. Or tears in the earth where Yomi is closest. But it’s too late. Even if you could go after them, and defeat both Inazagi and Ooruchi you wouldn’t be able to leave, we’d be trapped there, and I’m not going back.

“You’ve escaped before then?” I asked him, “How?”

You don’t get it, do you? Yomi is not a place for the living, just as this world is not a place for the dead. Sometimes they cross over into each other, like yin and yang, but… it’s not where they belong. I have to live in a vessel. Only a god or daemon can cross without harm, you wouldn’t last down there… unless…

“Unless what? What can we do?” If there was any chance, I knew I had to try it. I wasn’t letting the world end on my watch, plus I was a wanted man at this point, what did I have to lose?

Go home first, I have an idea.