Flash fiction, fantasy. 1200 words.

O-Gosai’s blood dripped onto the damp pavement when they stopped, briefly, to rest. Blood and rain soaked her kimono, and her breath came out in little pants. O-Sattou knelt down to sponge the bleeding with her tongue, only to have her cheek slapped harshly.

“Not here,” growled O-Gosai. She took a shaking breath. “Look about you, child.”

O-Sattou rubbed her cheek, for O-Gosai had a mean left hook. “There is no-one else around, Mother. And I did not think a town would be here, in the middle of—of his territory. He, he was always most careful.” She wiped new tears away on the back of a wet wrist.

“Stop weeping,” said O-Gosai curtly as she stood up again. She offered a hand to O-Sattou, who still knelt, crying into her sleeve, the very image of mourning romance. O-Gosai snorted, and pulled her up.

“It is so strange,” sobbed O-Sattou as they moved again, turning down a street.

“Did you never wonder why he always skirted this area?” asked O-Gosai. She stopped, and clasped O-Sattou’s shoulder. “He will be avenged.”

O-Sattou looked up, and blinked black eyes incredulously.

“Mother, this is a pet shop.”

O-Gosai sighed, and patted O-Sattou’s hand. “Just try your best to be human,” she said, and pushed open the door, causing a small bell to ring.

Behind the counter, a woman in her twenties sat on a high stool, lost in a magazine. O-Sattou stared around the small shop, which was crowded from floor to ceiling with cages and tanks, carpeted platforms and small beds. She did not see any foxes, but she did see rabbits and mice, birds and cats, even a few dogs lounging in open carriers. Her knees weakened when she saw the last, but while they looked curious, poking their noses in her direction and sniffing, they neither barked nor made any move to attack.

O-Gosai briefly checked the absence of O-Sattou’s tail, then politely said, “Lady O-Nōtsu. I, O-Gosai, bring you… news.”

The woman looked up and smiled. O-Sattou looked deep into O-Nōtsu’s eyes, and could find no inkling of fox soul.

“And how can I help you?” asked Lady O-Nōtsu, guilelessly, it seemed to O-Sattou.

O-Gosai bowed, and O-Sattou followed her example numbly.

“Lady O-Nōtsu, there is a stray that needs to be taken care of,” began O-Gosai.

O-Sattou lost her briefly-regained composure and wailed. “No mere stray killed my husband! It is Denkiinushin, former hound of the Heavens, cast out in thunder but a few days ago by the Jade Emperor. That monster has eaten my husband of four tails, as if he were of no consequence!” She wept into her sleeve again.

“Quiet,” hissed O-Gosai into O-Sattou’s ear, to no great effect. O-Gosai looked apologetically at Lady O-Nōtsu. “Please excuse young Sattou. She is greatly affected by the situation of this poor animal.”

Lady O-Nōtsu stood up, moving as fleetly and elegantly as a fox, and headed into the back room. O-Gosai smoothed O-Sattou’s hair, wondering if the lady was really up to facing a newly created, and thus greatly angered, demon. O-Nōtsu had not been seen in action for a rather long while, as her people counted time; and legends, O-Gosai knew, had a way of wearing themselves out.

After few minutes, Lady O-Nōtsu appeared again, with a nylon gym bag over one shoulder, from which wafted the scent of bacon treats. It was all O-Gosai could do to not embarrass herself then and there, while O-Sattou stared, nearly salivating until O-Gosai slapped her again.

“Show me where he is,” said Lady O-Nōtsu.

---

Wherever they walked, the town continued, empty streets lined with countless buildings. O-Sattou smelled that they were on the right trail, leading back to the location of the horrible scene that replayed over and over across her eyes and ears and whiskers; but she did not understand why she couldn’t recall it happening in a town area.

O-Gosai seemed confident, and that O-Sattou clung to.

O-Sattou knew when they arrived, because the smell choked her.

In a wide alley, Denkiinushin towered over them even as he sat on his haunches, his hide a pulsating neon blue. Cruel eyes, lit by constant arcs of lightning, seemed to recognize O-Sattou. His blood-flecked jaws, larger than entire shop fronts, opened as the lion dog threw back his head and laughed, thunder breaking across the sky.

O-Sattou fell to her knees, but O-Gosai stood glaring Denkiinushin down, her face as unyielding as a stone fox at Inari’s temple.

Lady O-Nōtsu headed into the alley, removing the sack of bacon-treats from her gym bag.

Denkiinushin grinned, every tooth taller than her by far. “And what have we here?” His voice made O-Sattou’s very teeth ache. “I’ve devoured one kind of beast on this forsaken Earth already. Will it be so easy to crunch the bones of another?”

The Lady shook her head. “Poor dog. Did someone treat you badly?” She shook the yellow bag enticingly.

Denkiinushin roared at the insult, and O-Sattou tried to grip the rough cement beneath her hands. “Do you not know who I am?” his voice boomed again, shaking the very streets.

The Lady made quick sucking sounds. “Come here, boy. Don’t be so frightened. Poor little beagle. Who would hurt such a good boy?”

Denkiinushin’s mighty paw scythed through the air, the wind of its passage whipping the hair of O-Gosai out of its bindings, so that it flowed wildly behind her.

And then her hair fell back to her waist.

O-Sattou looked up from behind trembling hands. For a brief moment, she saw an enormous fox with a halo of nine tails, and then the vision was gone.

The alley was entirely absent of gigantic blue lion dog. Instead, a small brown and white beagle, looking surprised and uncertain, was being collared by a kindly Lady O-Nōtsu. It sniffed some treats in her hand. O-Sattou stared at the tableau, her mind hazing over, and she wondered why her heart had been shattered at the death of a mere fox.

Then O-Gosai grabbed O-Sattou’s hand and dragged her away, running hard in spite of a wounded leg. They did not stop running until they were well into the woods, and the town gone from view.

At long last they collapsed against a fallen tree trunk. O-Gosai pushed O-Sattou’s face towards her with a paw, and looked deep into the widow’s eyes.

Presently, O-Sattou’s eyes returned to liquid black, and tears for a dead husband filled them once more. O-Gosai sighed in relief, and tried to lick the blood-matted fur of her leg.

“Let me do that,” said O-Sattou. O-Gosai let O-Sattou’s tongue massage and wash the wound, wincing slightly at the pain.

After a while, O-Sattou said, “What was that, Mother?”

“That was O-Kokonotsu, she of nine tails. Her insanity is useful at times, but the power of her belief is overwhelming.” O-Gosai gave O-Sattou a meaningful look. “If I had not fled with you in hand, you would have soon believed yourself but human.”

“Oh,” said O-Sattou. She shuddered. “That is terrible magic.”

“Indeed it is, child,” said O-Gosai, closing her eyes. “Indeed it is.”

Tags: denkiinushin, flash fiction, kitsune, o-gosai, o-notsu, o-sattou

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