While Robin was enjoying his first brush with the world of crime, Beau had already made his way to the outskirts of the main resort area, where the homes and shops were few and far between and the rugged alpine woods surrounding the village grew thicker. If what those twin foxes said when they’d arrived was true, Beau figured the best place to start looking for those promised magical amulets would be outside the hustle and bustle of the main resort area. And if there was one thing Beau was sure of, it was that he was going to rub his horde in his friend’s face the second he got back to the hotel that evening. That would either piss Robin off even more or cheer him up, and Beau knew either possibility would be good for a laugh or two.
On the way out of the village, a group of laughing kitsune children ran past him with their tails waving in the air, clearly having the time of their lives as they climbed the trees and leapt clear over the small creeks and ponds that dotted the area. Their fur was a spectrum of colors from red to whitish-gold, and one or two sported a pair of tails instead of simply one. And the fact that some were dressed in traditional Japanese clothing while others were wore more contemporary outfits made Beau suspect that some of these little foxes had been human children until just a few moments earlier and were enjoying the energy and excitement that accompanied their new forms…
“It’s always the young ones that try it out first, you know. They can always sniff out the amulets our tribes have left behind before anyone else.”
Beau glanced in the direction of the voice and spotted Fumie leaning against a nearby torii gate and watching the young kitsune laugh and play together in the afternoon sun.
“You said you’re the manager of this place, right?” Beau said with amusement as he walked over to stand next to the fox woman. “I figured you’d be stuffed into an office somewhere and… I dunno. Managing?”
“There will be time for that later. I always enjoy seeing our guests’ first reactions to this place,” she replied happily. “It’s always different, and yet it’s very rare for anyone to leave this place unsatisfied with the time they spent here.”
Beau raised an eyebrow at this, with something not quite sounding right to his ears. “So, you have had guests at this resort before? The way you were talking earlier made it sound like we were the first group of people you’d invited here,” he asked suspiciously.
“No, no. Well, not quite. You see, this mountain has been home to the inn called ‘Shinden’ for hundreds of years, and we have had thousands of customers,” Fumie explained, pointing one paw toward the large, ornate guesthouse at the far end of the valley. “But, it’s been… well, I suppose you might say it’s been a rather exclusive establishment. Invitation-only to humans that our Lord Inari has deemed worthy to keep its secrets, along with one or two travelers lost in the mountains every once in a while.”
“Inari? You mentioned that name before…”
“A powerful kami, master of the kitsune and the patron of farmers, craftsmen, and merchants. One of the most beloved kami in Japan,” Fumie explained with a tone of reverence in her voice. “Thanks to Inari-sama’s guidance, the good tribes youkai have been able to manage this inn long into the modern era, but about half a year ago our lord decided that it was time to modernize Shinden and open it up to the public, to let the entire world know of the existence of the kami and the tribes of the youkai.”
“...Not to mention that transformation magic that you mentioned,” Beau added, and he saw Fumie’s tails flit about nervously at hearing that. “I mean, I think that the idea of getting to turn into all kinds of stuff is cool, but it seems a little wild to just spring that on the whole world all of a sudden.”
Fumie began to pace up and down the path a few times, glancing over at the children playing nearby from time to time before finally speaking up.
“You’re right. It’s a lot to take in, but something happened that made Inari-sama believe it was time. And I do not question my lord’s whims, even though they can be rather… well, ‘whimsical’ at times,” Fumie replied with a nervous chuckle. “...May I tell you a little story that this situation reminds me of?”
Beau shrugged his shoulders, unsure what exactly Fumie was thinking, but he slowly followed her to a wooden balcony that looked out over the scenery, with a view down the mountainside that let them see for miles.
“You see that lake down the mountain, off in the distance? Lake Biwa is its name, the largest in all Japan,” she intoned reverently. “The story tells that long ago, in the province of Ōmi, on the banks of this river, there was a legendarily enormous oak tree. So far around was its trunk that a five hundred men holding hands in a chain could not reach around it, so I’m sure you can imagine how tall its trunk rose into the sky and how wide its branches spread outward. Like an enormous sundial, in the morning its shadow stretched all the way to Yamaguchi in the west and as the sun set its shadow plunged the lands to its east into complete darkness.
“So tall and wide was this oak that the sun’s light was blocked out for miles around, leaving the fields beneath it unable to bear food. The people of Ōmi could only survive eating the acorns that grew to the size of a man’s fist rained down upon them like hail at all hours of the day. Truly a terrible existence, I’m sure you’ll agree. And so, the elders of Ōmi traveled to the imperial capital to plead with the Emperor himself for assistance. So affected by the hardships these people was the Emperor that he immediately dispatched his most trusted advisors and an army of lumberjacks to Ōmi to bring the tree down.
“And so they did, returning sunlight to the land and allowing Ōmi‘s farms to flourish and its people to thrive. And from that day forward, no other oak trees that tall and strong were ever known to grow again, or so it is told.”
Beau stood in silence during Fumie’s story, and as the tale ended he waited almost expectantly for something more.
“Umm… Is that it? No twist ending, no moral to the story?” he asked as politely as he could, eliciting a small chuckle from the young kitsune woman.
“What do you think the moral of the story is?” she teased, enjoying the blank look that she usually got from foreigners whenever she tried to share a bit of her culture with them. “Hmm… Well, this is how I see it. Cutting down the tree brought about an end to an era, an era where trees grew to titanic sizes and pummeled people with massive acorns, and in its place there was only a land of peaceful farmers and their ordinary crops. The mythical gave way to the mundane, and there was no way to bring back that sort of majesty.”
“And those farmers who were starving probably appreciated that,” Beau added wryly, earning a nod from Fumie.
“That’s exactly right. Good or bad, when things change that much there is no use in trying to reverse time. No putting the genie back in the bottle, as I think the expression goes. But…” she trailed off, giving the children playing together, with kitsune and human-turned-fox alike frolicking without a care in the world. “Even if you can’t reverse that sort of change, perhaps it’s possible to make another big change like that, right here at Shinden. If the magical can turn into the mundane, maybe the ordinary world can become mystical again. Perhaps in this place, overlooking the same lands where the great oak of Ōmi grew, we can put a little magic back into the world.”
“...You’ve been practicing your sales pitch for a while, haven’t you?” Beau dryly remarked. Fumie only laughed to herself and began to walk back toward the resort’s guesthouse.
“For much too long,” she called back with a wink. “We’re taking a big gamble making Shinden known to the world like this. But if Inari-sama feel like the world is ready… Even if this ends up being a mistake, at least whatever happens next is bound to be interesting, no? In any case, please enjoy your vacation… And if you’re looking for a little excitement, there’s a lovely little shrine about a mile down the path in that direction.”
With a flick of her tails, Fumie gestured to a small path that broke from the main trails, and when Beau glanced in that direction he saw it headed deeper into the dark woods, winding up a few switchbacks to rise into the mountains. And when he turned back, Fumie had already disappeared, her bright red fur only barely visible in the distance walking back toward Shinden’s main square.
“A shrine, huh? ...Rugged hiking, magical adventure, and the recommendation of the charming resort manager herself… Well, that’s a no-brainer, right?” Beau smirked, jogging off down the narrow trail without even a second thought. “Robin’s gonna be so fucking jealous when he hears about all this…”
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Beau was a fit man who made sure to get in a few miles of jogging every morning on top of his exercising in the gym, so the winding hike up the mountainside barely fazed him. He hiked in complete silence, never running into a single other person on the way to the shrine; either the hike looked too difficult for the average vacationer to attempt or the trail itself was too hard to spot in the first place, Beau figured. In either case, Beau felt like he was on a special adventure tailored just for him, and that the prize awaiting him would be just as special…
Fumie had said it was the children who first jumped at the chance to investigate Shinden’s gifts, and let it never be said that Beau wasn’t in touch with his inner child.
After what felt like an hour of trudging up the mountainside trail, Beau finally burst out from the trees and came upon the promised shrine, and even an unsophisticated young man like Beau had to admit to the place’s simple elegance. Worn granite stones paved a small courtyard out of the forest clearing, with smoothed wooden torii gates guiding shrine visitors along a path to the far end of the clearing, where the shrine itself stood. It was a traditionally designed shrine, barely larger than a garden shed, with a curved tile roof and a sliding door that was latched shut with a rusted lock. Stone lanterns and worn statues flanked the shrine, along with a tall wooden monument engraved with some of the tiniest writing Beau had ever seen in his entire life. Even if he knew absolutely nothing about the exact meaning of these sorts of shrines, Beau could tell that every single object in the entire shrine has made with the utmost care and devotion, leaving him with a sense of awe as he began approaching the shrine.
As he began to make his was through the torii, Beau spotted a basin that was filled to the brim with clear, cool water along with a handmade wooden sign (and, luckily for him, a series of illustrations that would help him guess at the sign’s meaning since it was otherwise entirely in Japanese). Taking a small cupful of the water, he carefully rinsed his hands before washing out his mouth, following the sign’s directions as best he could; Beau wasn’t a particularly religious person, but on the flight into Japan Robin had made sure to stress that disrespecting cultural taboos just for kicks was a good way to piss off a lot of people very quickly, so he decided it was better to follow the rules rather than risk offending anyone. In particular, anyone with the demonstrated ability to transform him into whatever the hell they thought would teach him a lesson the fastest.
With the ritual cleansing taken care of, Beau dropped a few yen coins into an offering box and did his best bow to the shrine, his eyes lingering on the latched door leading into the shrine itself. He shook his head to chase away the curiosity he was feeling, knowing that breaking into a sacred place was just asking to be turned into a slug for a few thousand reincarnations, so instead he glanced to the other side of the shrine and saw a flowering tree growing directly next to it. From each branch of the tree was hung a small cloth amulet, just like the ones that Fumie and Kyojiro had shown them when they had arrived at the resort that day, sewn from brightly-colored cloth in every color imaginably and embroidered with a variety of Japanese characters in sparkling golden thread. Beau took his phone out and opened the translation app, but whenever he tried to scan the writing to get a better understanding of their meaning he just got a ‘Poor reception, try again later’ error.
Finally, giving up on trying to translating them, he finally made a decision about what he’d do...