Chapter 16: 15. Friendships found.

Dawn found Inari and Paul sitting on the porch outside the main shrine, watching the sun rise. The guests at what had become a celebration had finally gone home, those that were sober enough anyway: those that couldn’t were sleeping it off in the one or another of the temple’s guest houses. Paul finally understood why a small country temple complex would have half a dozen guest houses.

The faintest sliver of sun peeked above the horizon like a golden sickle blade, gilding every surface, even the slight misty haze in the valley below. It seemed as if the world was painted in jewelled tones, and coated with a fine sheen of pure gold dust.

Paul sighed happily.

“You were right Inari, it is magnificent.”

“I have seen this view every morning for nearly a hundred years now, since I came home. It has never ceased to be beautiful to my eyes. But this morning, I see it with hope in my heart, and I can truly say it has never been more lovely!”

Paul snorted..

“Inari, as your Herald I am forced to say, you are just a bit squiffed.”

“Squiffed?”

“Tipsy, three sheets to the wind, one over the eight… you know, just a little bit drunk.”

“Oh! Squiffed… I like that word, but I am not drunk.”

“Maybe not, but a few more and you will be. As Plato said, strong drink makes fools of most men, and poets of a few!”

“That is very true. I remember one very famous poet to the Imperial court, who it is said, had not been sober since he was old enough to lift a jar by himself, save for the year he was married. In which he wrote no poetry.”

“Must have been some woman to get him to sober up for a whole year.”

Inari laughed throwing her head back.

“She was, my Herald, she was indeed! And he was far too busy to drink, let alone write!”

Paul glanced sidelong at Inari, and grinned.

“Wasn’t you by any chance?”

“Oh, oh no Paul-san. I’m not the marrying type. But it was one of my daughters! She always was a lusty girl. Ah..me.. so long ago now.”

Paul reached out and gave Inari’s hand a squeeze.

“Hey, no getting maudlin now. There’s a bright future ahead, so eyes forward.”

Inari smiled fondly at him.

“Thank you, and you’re right. Sunrises are for thinking of the future and days ahead.”

“Yeahh… and the work that will fill them. Oh man, what have I gotten myself into?!”

“Regrets?”

“Nope! Not one. Well, maybe just one, that I didn’t start sooner. I dithered about coming here for a good six months. But now I’ve met you, not a single one. Je ne regrette rien as the song goes.”

Inari raised an eyebrow, interrogatively.

“Song? What song?”

“Oh, an old French song by Edith Pief.”

“I speak French, I learned it from the traders. Can you sing it for me Paul-san, please?”

“Um, I usually only remember the first verse, but, ok.”

Paul took a calming breath, and closing his eyes, sang. His light tenor echoing across the misty grass..

“Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal
Tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien
C'est payé, balayé, oublié, je me fous du passé”

Paul paused, drawing breath, and then continued singing in a soaring voice as memory lubricated by sake supplied the rest of the lyrics.

“Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal
Tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien
C'est payé, balayé, oublié, je me fous du passé

Avec mes souvenirs j'ai allumé le feu
Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs
Je n'ai plus besoin d'eux
Balayé les amours avec leurs trémolos
Balayé pour toujours
Je reparts a zéro

Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait, ni le mal
Tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, rien de rien, non, je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie, car mes joies
Aujourd’hui ça commence avec toi !”

Paul flopped backwards, lying flat, grinning.

“Ha! Nailed it! Ohh sh.., Inari, why are you crying?”

“Oh Paul-san!! That last verse! ‘All that I care, No, nothing, no, I do not regret anything. Because my life, because my joys. Today, it begins with you!’ I would wish that was true!”

Paul blinked, and realised what he’d sung, and to whom.

“Inari-sama. It is true… perhaps not in a romantic sense. But it is true enough, is it not?”

“I.. I suppose...”

“For that matter, it is also applicable to you as well. Your life is starting again today, isn’t it?!”

Inari blinked, realisation dawning.

“Oh… yes it IS! I’ve lingered in death’s shadow for so long now, I didn’t think.”

“So… we step forward into the future, as friends, equal partners as much as Goddess and Herald. Right?”

“Yes!”

“Oh good, glad we have that settled.”

Paul yawned mightily, stretching enough that Inari could hear his bones creak and his back popping like fire-crackers.

“Sorry, no longer as young as I used to be I’m afraid. Two all nighters in a week is a bit more than I can manage nowadays. I should go and get a nap at least. There’s a ton of stuff to do today, so an early start… but...”

Paul yawned expansively again, trying to cover his mouth. Then looked at Inari sheepishly.

“Again, sorry, that was rude.”

“It cannot be helped, and it certainly sounds like you need to rest, Paul-sama.”

Inari shifted position, sitting kneeling, her legs tucked under her, her back propped up against one of the pillars holding the over-hanging roof up.

“Come, lay your head here my Herald.”

“Wait, what?! On your lap? Is that appropriate?”

“Of course! You are my Herald, I am your Goddess. Is it not my duty to see to you are rested, so you may carry out your duties to me?”

“I think there is a flaw in that logic, but I’m too tired to find it. Ok then. Just for a bit, and because I’m too tired to move.”

Paul lay down, using Inari’s lap as a pillow as he rested on his side facing into the sunrise. Basking in the golden light like a cat in a sun beam. Closing his eyes he could feel the exhaustion rising up like a vast dark ocean tide within him, dragging him down as his thoughts melted like spun sugar in hot water. His last coherent thought was realising with wonder that Inari smelled like magnolia and musk, two of his favourite scents.

Inari gazed down fondly at the tousled black head of hair, shot through with silver threads, resting in her lap. Twining one of the errant curls around her fore-finger she murmured softly to herself.

“Sleep my dearest Herald, you have earned your rest and more. I shall make sure we are undisturbed.”

Inari stretched out with her inner senses, and wrapping the strands of pure bright magic around her fingers, she wove a cats cradle of a spell, one to draw the eyes away from the caster, to make them unnoticeable, unremarkable and forgettable.

For a moment she regarded the landscape around her with her third eye, seeing how strands of magic, long faded to the point of near non-existence, now shone with vigour and renewed life. She could almost taste the purity of the ‘mana’ as Paul had called it, like fresh spring water bubbling clear and cold from the rocks. Utterly unlike the muddied and near-useless energy that had trickled sluggishly up from the ground before. It was as she first remembered the mountain being. A pure well-spring of power that revitalised all around it.

Inari sighed happily, feeling lighter in herself as well, as if some burden of invisible silt had been cleared out from her chi pathways. She almost didn’t feel like sleeping, despite being awake for so long.

But her body tugged at her, and even that reminder of mortal limits couldn’t dampen her spirit. Instead, she settled herself minutely, getting comfortable, and then welcomed sleep like an old friend, looking forward for once to the dreams it might bring her.

---

“Mwhahah! I’m going to suck your blood!”

“Aieee! No… stop it!”

Shoko-san leaned back from the cowering Aimi-chan, and lowered her hands..

“Hey, Aimi-chan… you remember you’re a ghost, right?”

“I know!”

“And I’m not really a vampire.”

“I know, I know! But it’s scary!”

Shoko-san sighed. They were trying to decide what film to watch next, Aimi-chan so far had veto’ed all the ones Shoko wanted, and Shoko had dismissed as boring the ones Aimi had liked.

Outside the party had gotten loud, and while Shoko was technically 80 years old, she didn’t feel like drinking and watching people make fools of themselves. Aimi-chan wasn’t impressed either, even if she had been 14 years old for the last sixty years, she felt no desire to go be a grown-up.

Shoko snagged and started nibbling on another pocky stick, strawberry this time.

“So, whatcha wanna do Aimi-chan? Since we can’t decide on a film?”

Aimi shrugged.

“If I was in the supermarket where I used to be, I’d go watch TV or play on the video games in the electronics section.”

“What’s a vid-e-o game?”

Aimi-chan regarded Shoko in disbelief.

“I’m dead, and I know what a video game is! Where have you been?!”

“Right here! Why…?”

“Never mind. We’d need a computer anyway.”

“Oh! Paul-sama has a computer! Laptop-tan is in his room!”

Aimi looked thoughtful.

“You think he’d mind if we borrowed it?”

“I don’t know, it’s got all his work on it. He’d be very angry if we broke it. I don’t want him cross at me!”

Aimi shuddered, her body turning translucent in a rippling wave from head to toes.

“Aiee! No! Agreed! He’s scary when he’s cross… but, I do know how to use a computer, and if you’re there I won’t even need to use a pencil to press the keys like I used to. You can press them for me.”

“Why did you use a pencil, Aimi?”

Aimi-chan sighed.

“I’m a ghost, if I touch electronics they go bang, pfft!”

“Oh! Lets NOT do that!”

“MmHmm… still, I want to go play.”

“Paul-sama did say we were supposed to amuse ourselves, I guess… maybe it’d be ok?”

A short while later the two girls were creeping through the garden, heading towards Paul’s residence. They were trying to avoid the carousing, and not avoid Paul’s notice, really!

Shoko was just rounding a small shrine to the ancestors of one of the old priests, when she ran into a dark figure. Aimi-chan shrieked as Shoko jumped backwards. The individual also jumped away, then stumbled and almost fell, clutching at the shrine.

Shoko called up a small ball of blue foxfire, illuminating all three of them. Leaning against the shrine was a young girl, dressed in a cherry-blossom Yukata with two small pale pink horns jutting from her forehead above her brows. She stared wide-eyed, the blue fox-fire turning her eyes purple as they glimmered in the dim light.

All three girls sighed in relief, and the one in pink spoke.

“Oh… I was afraid you were monsters!”

Aimi and Shoko exchanged a glance, and Shoko raised her hand slowly solemnly saying;

“Kitsune.”

Aimi copied her.

“Yūrei-onryō.”

The girl giggled, and raised her own hand.

“Oni! No monsters here then. I’m Princess Jiao.”

Aimi’s eyes went wide..

“You’re a princess? Really?!”

“Onii-san is our Clan’s leader, until I’m old enough. Paul-sama says that makes me a princess.”

Shoko nodded.

“MmHm! That sounds like him, no doubt. I’m Shoko, Inari is my mother.”

“Oh! I think the daughter of a Goddess ranks higher than a princess.”

Both of the girls looked at Aimi-chan… who sighed.

“Just a Yūrei.”

She smiled, slowly, her teeth showing shark like;

“I am Vengeance, and I am Death. I am the thing that lurks in the darkness and gnaws on you bones...”

Jiao squealed clutching at Shoko, who was fluffed up and trembling like a leaf.

Aimi laughed, bending double..

“Got you! Seriously… I’m just a ghost. Paul-sama brought me here.”

“Aimi-chan! That wasn’t funny!”

Shoko glared at Aimi, small fists planted on her hips.

“Yes it was! You should have seen you faces!”

“Idiot!”

Shoko bopped Aimi on the head, not hard but hard enough.

“Ow! Hey! I’m a ghost, how did you..?”

“Kitsune! So you’d better watch out. No scaring people and being mean or I’ll.. I’ll tell Paul-sama!”

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“Ok, ok! I’ll be good! Sorry Princess Jiao!”

The young Oni had been watching them wide-eyed. A slow, wide, and highly amused grin spread across her face, and she doubled over laughing merrily, holding herself up on the stone shrine.

Aimi-chan and Shoko exchanged a puzzled look, and Shoko asked.

“Umm, what’s so funny…?”

“You two! That’s what! You’re like a pair of sisters! And Paul-sama is your Oto-san!”

Shoko blinked, looking at Aimi, then started to giggle herself. Aimi pouted for a moment, then began to smile, quickly joining in the laughter.

A short while later and all three girls were gathered around Paul’s laptop, which sat on a low table. Princess Jiao and Shoko were immediately in front of it, while Aimi-chan floated behind them,

taking advantage of her ghostly status to peer over their shoulders.

“…and then click connect… and that should do it.”

Jiao obeyed her instruction, and the little icon changed to a tumbling hourglass for moment, before a dialogue box came up telling them they were connected to the internet.

“Wow! Thank you Aimi-chan! Glad you’re here!”

“No problem, Jiao-tan. Paul-sama has a nice machine! Look at that connection speed! We’re really going to frag noobs tonight!”

Shoko peered up and over her shoulder at Aimi.

“That sounds dirty!”

Aimi giggled, causing her to bob in the air a little.

“Nuh-uh! It’s not, it means beating other players.”

Jiao shook her head slowly.

“Who knew a ghost would be such a gamer?!”

“Not a lot else to do at night in a supermarket, and then there was the games shop right next door. I’d just borrow the games and use the demo machines in the electronics section. Besides, it lets me do my death and vengeance thing without hurting anyone!”

Shoko nodded slowly.

“That’s a good idea. Ok, now can we play?”

“Um, sure, we don’t have anything installed so it’ll have to be free browser games. Do you like puzzles Shoko?”

“Yes!”

“Ok there’s a game I know, it combines puzzles with action.”

Dawn was just beginning to silver the sky outside when Aimi-chan yawned and stretched.

“I’m going to have to go soon… Oh, looks like Jiao’s asleep already!”

Shoko looked over her shoulder and blinked.

“When did it get so late?”

“You mean early. I did warn you those games were addictive. People have played them until they died you know.”

Shoko’s eyes went wide as her ears flattened.

“No way! Really?!”

Aimi-chan nodded solemnly.

“Honest truth. I’ve even had other gamers warn me about being online for so long. I had to lie and say I slept during the day. Couldn’t tell them the truth after all!”

Shoko giggled.

“Nooo, you couldn’t tell them you were dead already! But it would be funny if you did. Hey, Aimi, could you step through the screen so you appear where they are?”

“No… pity though. That’d be funny! Can you imagine their faces!”

Shoko nodded and pulled a comically exaggerated expression of shock and terror, sending Aimi off into peals of laughter.

“Mmwha?”

Jiao sat up, blinking and rubbing sleep from her eyes. Shoko reached out and patted her shoulder.

“Sorry we woke you, go back to sleep Jiao.

“It’s ok… I’m awake now. Don’t want to sleep, it’s light out. I don’t want to waste it.”

Shoko and Aimi exchanged a look, Jiao had told them about living in the mine and not seeing sunlight for weeks at a time.

“Let’s have breakfast outside!”

Aimi nodded to Shoko-san’s suggestion.

“Yes. I can stay up a bit past daybreak if no-one minds me looking all transparent?”

Both Jiao and Shoko shook their heads. Then Shoko added.

“Can you eat like that? I can get us cereal quickly. Paul-sama bought something called coco-pops yesterday.”

Aimi nodded slowly.

“I think so. I’m not sure if you wouldn’t be able to see the food inside me though. But I can try my best!”

Jiao added.

“Can we have something to watch while we eat? Something with music?”

Aimi nodded and guided Jiao on finding some music videos while Shoko poured cereal and milk into three bowls.

“Hey Shoko! There’s a song here called Red Fox, I think it’s about kitsune...”

Shoko peered over Jiao’s shoulder, the thumbnail for the track showed a fox-masked woman in a black kimono with the necks of two shamisen sticking up over either shoulder. Shoko put a bowl of the cereal by the side of Jiao and shrugged.

“Could be, let’s play it and see.”

Jiao clicked on the play button… and for a split second froze as music both familiar and strange thundered out of the speakers, then the singing started and all three girls went wide eyed, Jiao leaning back in shock as Aimi-chan flattened herself against the far corner of the ceiling. Shoko’s tail fluffed up and stood straight out in shock at first. Then she started tapping her foot in time to the music, a smile creeping across her face.

Suddenly she threw her head back and sang with the music, as the lyrics appeared at the bottom of the screen.

“Go!Go!Go!”

Aimi crawled down the wall, and joined in with the alternating chorus.

“Going! Going! Going!”

Jiao stared between the two of them, and found her own feet tapping in time to the infectious, bouncy, raucous music.

Reading the lyrics as they crawled across the bottom of the screen Shoko sang.

“Dressed up Miss Fox,”

Jiao took the backing vocal.

“Check it! Cheer up! Check it! Cheer up!”

Shoko almost couldn’t sing for laughing but managed to get out the next line.

“Waves her twin pony-tails in the air.”

Jiao supplied.

“Fluttering! Cheer up! Fluttering! Cheer up!”

Shoko sang, laughing.

“She pops and vanishes,”

Shoko spun, and vanished herself. Making Jiao fall backwards onto the floor, laughing.

Aimi grabbed the next line.

“Whirling! Cheer up! Whirling! Cheer up!”

Shoko’s voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere in the room as she sung the next line.

“Let her show her various aspects!”

And as Shoko reappeared all three girls sang the repeating chorus of

“Kon!Kon!Kon! Ko! Kon!Kon! Ko! Kon!”

By the time the girls had sung their way though the entire song, sleep wasn’t on their minds any more. Aimi showed Jiao how to find the group’s web site, and they watched the video that went with the song. Aimi looked thoughtful as she went back and read the lyrics, while Jiao and Shoko bounced around the room, breakfast forgotten.

“Hey, Shoko-san! These aren’t relatives of yours are they?”

Shoko stopped bopping and peered over Aimi’s shoulder at the image of the band behind the three front singers she’d called up.

“I don’t know… they could be some kind of Other, maybe. It’s hard to tell.”

Jiao joined the pair, peering at the screen through Aimi.

“They look like Others. But that could be cosplay.”

Shoko glanced over at Jiao.

“What’s cosplay?”

“Costume play, humans who dress up to look like Others. Or other sorts of things. I know some Oni who are good at it too, they disguise themselves as humans so they can go out and get things.”

“Ohhh… Paul-sama asked if I was a cosplayer when we first met too!”

Aimi nodded.

“Makes sense, he’d never seen a kitsune before, or any sort of Other really. He told me I was the first ghost he’d seen too.”

Jiao frowned.

“That’s funny, he’s very good at seeing things that aren’t normally visible. He can see magic you know.”

Aimi looked thoughtful, then her eyes widened as a thought struck her.

“That would mean until he came here, there weren’t any Others, or magic, to see!”

All three girls went wide eyed, and as one turned to look out through the open window at the valley below. After a few seconds Shoko spoke.

“He’s travelled a lot… and there can’t have been any magic anywhere he went.”

Aimi’s voice wasn’t much above a whisper.

“A whole world … and there’s no magic left in it elsewhere. Maybe...maybe we’re all that’s left?!”

Jiao shuddered, and nodded.

“Onii-san said this was our last stand. That there was nowhere else left to go after this. Not that he knew of, and Onii-san knows everything!”

All three girls instinctively moved closer together, huddling at the chilling thought. Shoko drew in a deep breath and smiled.

“But Paul-sama is here. And he can fix it!”

Jiao heaved a sigh of relief as Aimi-chan drifted upwards a bit, nodding.

“That’s true Shoko! Umm.. Aimi-chan, how long can you stay?”

Aimi looked thoughtful.

“A bit longer, I think. I don’t feel tired, but maybe we should finish eating?”

Jiao nodded, and then looked down at her bowl in dismay.

“Yes! Oh, the milks gone all brown, maybe I shouldn’t...”

Shoko grinned.

“That’s the best bit! It tastes of chocolate!”

Aimi leaned down from where she was floating to whisper into Jiao’s ear, who blinked and then nodded, typing something into the computer. Moments later the pounding music of Babymetal’s ‘Gimme Chocolate’ rip-sawed through the air.

By the time the song was done all three were breathless, or speechless at least, and giggling. Shoko was the first to recover, shaking her head.

“I want to listen to ALL their music… but...”

Jiao nodded.

“I know, I’m tired too, and I napped.”

Aimi yawned and stretched, almost fading out of existence altogether.

“Me too! And I’m dead! Why don’t we meet up again later, and listen to some more?”

Shoko and Jiao nodded and spoke together.

“Yes!”

“Sure!”

All three girls laughed, Shoko and Jiao leaning together as Aimi floated upside down above them.

Footnote:

(Red Fox) Official video

(Red Fox) English lyrics

(wiki)

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