Sumida Ward, Tokyo / Izumo, Shimane – A Tokyo girl dashed to Izumo to carry foodstuff which consisted of each prefectural product to the deity in Izumo,Okuninusi, because Izumo holds the Japanese gods’ summit every October according to the lunar calendar, and the harvests are used for its banquet. The October is called Kamiari zuki which means the hundreds of thousands of gods (Yaoyorozu no Kamigami) come to Izumo to attend the conference while the other parts of Japan are called few existing gods, Kannna zuki. Japanese folklore tells us that the Japanese all over Japan gather in Izumo to discuss how to develop their citizen’s god for fortune and to match marriage partners for the month. The food was used for this year’s summit, and then Kanna was assigned to visit Shimane accompanied by a white rabbit(Inaba no Shiro Usagi) and a demon.
Kanna succeeds in the destiny of the god of running called Idaten, and the mission of the god has been to deliver the harvest from all parts of Japan to Izumo for the summit’s banquet since the mythological age. Her mother had been engaged in the mission before she passed away, and then Kanna Hazuki, 12, an elementary student at Sumida Ward, Tokyo, was assigned to the role of visiting Shimane. They had to arrive in Izumo no later than tonight at 7:00 PM(start time was around noon). Readers might think that challenge was too ridiculous to carry out, yet her mother’s moment, a small green comma-shaped bead(Magatama), enabled the envoy to tell them an actual time but the god’s time in which one day was equivalent to ten minutes. Following the god’s time, they dropped in many Japanese Shrines, Ushi-Jima Shrine in Tokyo, Suwa Taisha in Nagano, Amano-Hashidate in Kyoto, and Inaba Shrine in Tottori, which is the hometown of the rabbit, and Miho Shrine in Shimane to get local harvest for the banquet presented by the gods of the shrines.
However, the incident happened at the Inome Cavern, which the Japanese myth has stipulated the cave as the boundary between the land of the dead and the earthly realm, located nearby Izumo Grand Shrine. Suddenly she encountered the ghost of her mother who wanted to be one of the Japanese gods by eating the spiritual food ingredients. Although the ghost had tried to mesmerize her to deprive Kanna of the foodstuff, Kannna managed to escape from the attack by the phantom. However, the incident discouraged her from motivation and kept her sitting in the cavern with a sob. On behalf of Kanna, the rabbit and the demon tried to reach the goal by 7:00 PM. However, the devil was forced to stop running at Inasa Beach, very close to the goal as the Izumo Grand Shrine, because he had an injury attacked by the ghost in the cavern, and at last, the time was over. At that time, Kanna suddenly appeared in front of them because she had recalled the meaning of her running, in a move that enabled her to run again to the final goal.
Although the envoy delayed the curfew, the Izumo headmaster forgave them and allowed their record valid. Her contribution to the world of goods resulted in bringing peace and harmony to the Japanese archipelago, and its people could enjoy finding good fortune powered by the deities of Japan.