Spoiler alert!
Main characters.
Nekomata - a female bakeneko/cat deity with a forked tail, who wishes nothing more than to retrieve and protect the mansion she has lived in for many decades.
Law - a traveling doctor, who wishes to settle down and own the very mansion that once belonged to Nekomata.
Summary!
They both meet each other under unusual circumstances. HE was part of the crowd, while SHE was about to get her head chopped off.
It was the early 17th century. A time were many demons bumped the night fearing the day to come, because it was the time when humans run amock the most.
There was once an age when demons could take pride in their hereditary and enticed fear to the point where humans covered away in their homes even when the sun still lingered up above. But that was a long time ago. Now the scales were tipped. The humans found ways to fight back using strong seals and what not. No longer could demons prowl the night like they used to. Even more so, they were now mostly enslaved and treated as expandable tools.
The sun was already setting for the day. Yet a gentleman sat in the library skimming through a very old, you could even say ancient, book. It contained information about several cat deitys, but the young man was only interested in one particular type. Finding the right page, he leaned in closer to the book for better visibility, after all, with the sun sinking deeper into the earth, lighting became scarce and the small candle beside wasn't giving much of a glow either. However, not feeling discouraged by it, the man quietly mumbled out the books contents. There was no one around anymore, so no one could be distrubed by such a childish act.
''A Bakeneko ("monster cat") refers to cat yōkai/demons with supernatural abilities. There are a number of superstitions that detail how ordinary cat may transform into a bakeneko. Bakeneko then haunt and menace their household.
A bakeneko with a forked tail is referred to as a nekomata ("forked cat").
According to Japanese folklore, a cat may become a bakeneko by meeting any of the following three conditions: 1) living over 100 years of age, 2) reaching one kan (3.75 kg or 8.25 lbs) in weight, and/or 3) growing its tail too long, which, according to myth, may fork into two. This particular kind of bakeneko is referred to as a nekomata.
Once transformed, bakeneko gain a range of paranormal powers. These powers are used to haunt the household they live in. They include: menacing (even eating) sleeping humans, walking on its hind legs, flying, talking, creating ghostly fireballs, leaping over a fresh corpse, turning it into a zombie, shapeshifting into human forms.
They may use their shape-shifting powers to live a life as a human would normally, sometimes by taking the place of a member of the household after killing and consuming them in their sleep. They may take the form of a person they intend to kill or harm. Other stories tell about how a bakeneko may sometimes shape-shift into a beautiful girl, so that their owner would be able to marry them and have children.
Bakeneko also have the ability to eat anything in their way, regardless of size or edibility. This includes humans. Their main food is poison, particularly a certain snake unknown to humankind.
Bakeneko are also sometimes said to have the power to enter someone's dreams.
Bakeneko prefer to eat large birds, not small are very fond of eating cattle as well, since cattle are a big meal and they are easy to catch.
Legends
There are many legends about the bakeneko.
One famous bakeneko story is about a man named Takasu Genbei, whose mother's personality changed completely after his pet cat went missing for many years. His mother avoided the company of friends and family and would take her meals alone in her room. When the family peeked in on her they saw a cat-like monster in the mother's clothes, chewing on animal carcasses. Takasu, still skeptical, slew what looked like his mother and after one day his mother's body turned back into his pet cat that had been missing.
Yet another story tells of a poor old couple who kept a small cat. Since they were unable to bear children, they came to treat the cat as their child. After the old man fell sick, a mysterious woman appeared on their doorstep, claiming to be the cat and swearing she would repay their kindness. She brought the couple much wealth; in some versions they were happy just to have a daughter. One of her admirers happened to see her in her true form so she pleaded that he not tell anyone. A few weeks later he broke his promise telling a fisherman and passengers on a ship what he'd seen. A vicious storm arose and the woman appeared in the clouds overhead. She grew into a large cat and killed him.
Another story is about a cat owned by a high-ranking geisha. Every time she would try to go to the toilet, the cat would claw at her robes to keep her away. Because of the cat's strange behavior, the geisha killed it. But as she began to use the toilet, the ghost of the cat killed a snake that was lurking nearby.
Benevolent bakeneko
Not all bakeneko are bad; in some stories they are faithful and good-hearted to their owners. Three stories in particular tie benevolent bakeneko to the legend of the famous maneki neko.
One such story is about a bakeneko named Tama. Tama's owner was a very poor priest who lived in a rundown temple in Setagaya, west of Tokyo. The priest would tell Tama, "I'm keeping you in spite of my poverty, so couldn't you do something for this temple?" One day the daimyo of the Hikone district, Ii Naotaka, was standing under a tree to avoid the rain. Naotaka became aware of a cat beckoning him to a temple gate. As he began to walk the tree was struck by lightning. Afterwards, Naotaka became friends with the temple priest, and donated lots of money to have the run-down temple rebuilt. When Tama died, the priest built a grave for the cat; eventually, a shrine was built within the temple grounds dedicated to the "beckoning cat". Gotokuji temple still stands today; the nearby Gōtokuji Station on the Odakyu Line was named after it.
There is a story of a woman and her daughter,who seeing a wealthy young man traveling alone,decided to rob laid out some food in a tent,gave him a robe to wear and secretly put some sleeping powder in his before he drank the drink,a deep sleep came upon the woman and her they woke up,they saw a large tiger wearing the robe and eating the fled away and returned much later to see that the young man and the tiger were only tracks leaving the tent were those of a tiger.''
He closed the book feeling that this newfound knowladge was more then enough to go by. It was a good start for what the young man had in mind.
A/N: As i have a habit of doing, the first chapters meant to give a taste of what the story is about, hope you enjoyed it.
Oh, and, as you probably guessed, the contents from the book are from google. XP