[A: I know Suika Ibuki is supposed to represent Shuten-Douji, but I absolutely am unable to connect them both, so I decided on taking a shot at it using Wikipedia as a information source on Shuten-Douji, depicting him as a Myōjin (It seems to come from some Kyoto folklore.), instead of just an oni. I filled some gaps in the info Wikipedia and the Touhou wiki gave with my own horrible brew.]
The oni's head dug itself out of the ground, using it's teeth to break through the earth. He spat out the dirt.
"Haah, haah... That damned raccoon, telling them I'm not good enough to be brought into town, and those liars, poisoning me..."
The former oni head, now god sprouted a quite ghostly body out of nowhere, and stood up. The only clear part of him was his five-horned head.
"I regretted all of my crimes, so why did that asshole say 'Ooh, you're trash, ooh, you're not good enough for the land of corrupt politicians, ooh, you should bury him in the middle of nowhere, with barely anything to conmemorate the oni king's death.'. Throw a feast over my friggin' head or something, don't leave even my dead body out of the party if you're going to celebrate my defeat."
He sat down on a nearby rock, and sighed.
'How many years must have passed since I died until I ascended to godhood?'
The answer was: not much less than a thousand years. But, of course, he didn't know.
He saw a small shrine with gates, dedicated to him. No-one was around, but, in spite, a smirk grew on his face, happy he was not yet forgotten.
-An uncertain amount of time later-
After returning to the shrine, even if it took weeks to go to Ooeyama, learn that cities had gotten many, many times bigger and more confusing, and come back, he finally felt his feet press against the ground. He was delighted, and ready to clean up the shrine. He picked up an incredibly old broom he found lying around some big colored chests [Trash bins.], and started sweeping.
As the dust and leaves left the stone floor, he felt something he didn't get to experience as an oni. A relaxed life, free of violence, even if he was the one starting fights.
He found a flat piece of stone under his broom, stopped for a moment, scratched his last name and title on it, and hanged it from one of the gates.
'Shuten-Myōjin'
Thin, unrefined strokes formed the kanji. If it doesn't look bad, shitting on someone's chair is an act of love and kindness.
He carried on sweeping 'til dawn, and waited for someone to come at night. If anyone came, they would need to be stupid enough to need a blessing to cure illnesses in the head, and, well, that was the kind of fortune he gave. Shuten did pity people who were too dumb to enjoy the simple things in life.
He dozed off, sitting on the torii, and finally fell asleep.
[A/N: Gods don't exactly need sleep, but let's give this poor guy a rest.]
A closed sake bottle stood on top of the donation box.
As a hornless Shuten-douji lifted himself up from the ground, having fallen from the gate while asleep, and shaking the leaves off him, his eyes were fixed on the drink.
"Oh-hoh-hoh! Missed having one of these around!"
He felt the glass bottle's weight in his hands, having missed the feeling of being absolutely wasted on a hot summer night.
The memories of drinking like tomorrow was the day he died, with his subordinates, teaching his small daughter to drink like an oni, and the laughter that came after the hangovers next morning rushed through his head.
"C'mon, Shuten-san, down the entire bottle in one go! Let the sake hit your guts."
"You don't even have to tell mee, Hoshigumaaa! *glug, glug, glug...*"
"Look at'cha father go, Ibaraki-chan! Yer gonna haf'ta beat him one day if ya wanna take his spot as Drinking King!"
Joyful laughter deafened the horrible vomiting that came after, and noise filled the room.
"Now, let's see what the buddhists have in store for us!"
The smaller men came into the room, and pulled out a wonderfully decorated bottle...
"Hahahahah-aaaahhhhh..." His eyes went from dry, to wet, to crying.
Snot and tears covered his face.
"*hic, hic...*"
"..."
Crying continued for a couple hours. Sweeping came right after.
In the afternoon, he started chopping bamboo to make a sake box (masu), because he knows drinking straight from the bottle is a big no-no. He picked up shoots for something to chew on while drinking.
Bamboo poles fell, one by one. He had cut and brought to the shrine about 20 of them before night fell.
He cut the 'bark' (if you can really call it bark), and, piece by piece, made it into a more-or-less acceptable box. He then carved a fan with rose marks into it, a tribute to his missing daughter. He put in into the river, and 1 gō (~180ml) of water filled the box. Seeing that the water wasn't leaking, Shuten smiled sweetly.
Late into the night, he opened the bottle, the strong scent drifting in the stronghold that he had made long ago along with the stupidly, but coolly named 'Four Divine Kings'. He regretted trusting the priests. As he poured the sake into the masu, the night became longer and longer. Before anyone knew, he was done with half of it.
"Man, it really was divine elixir, huh?" The Former Oni King lay on the floor, tears in his eyes, having remembered his current status.
Faith had been running through his body. Even if he never was a god before, he now knew the feeling of being praised and honored in a positive light due to his current status. He also felt quite drunk, due to the less alcohol tolerant body he now had as a god.
"Who left it there, though?"
A bald buddhist priest walked away from the shrine, having finished the tradition of leaving the divine elixir that poisoned Shuten-douji there every year.
[A/N: This is irrelevant to the more important plot of this fic, trust me.]
-Many years past-
2018. The Shuten-Myōjin Shrine was still as unpopular as ever, and donations, [though more frequent than the Hakurei Shrine's,] were few and far in between. Too bad Shuten doesn't have anyone to act as a shrine maiden to advertise for him.
Shuten-douji came out of his small home in the middle of Mt. Ooe. A myriad accesories stood on his wrists and neck, even if they were just a hundred yen each. A quite worn cellphone was held in his hands, turned off. A half-black, half-white hakama covered his legs, while a blue kimono with a yellow flower pattern covered his chest.
He stretched his arms out, ready to once again start his daily routine.
First thing in the morning- Sweep the path. Can't have any donations without looking at least presentable, can we?
Next, check the donation box. The feeling of finding a 500 yen coin is like digging up a treasure chest, and he can't get enough.
Then, check out the city, hope he looks pretty enough to pass as a female cosplayer, and go to an Anime Merch store to try and get hired as a receptionist. He has been rejected for various months, due to a lack of any legal documents. He won't give up, though.
On afternoons, he either explores the city some more in order to expand his influence by appearing in alleyways, promising to cure mentally ill people; or comes back to the shrine. The schizophrenics are easy to deal with, but psychos and sociopaths are a can of worms he has yet to (and doesn't want to) open.
When he returns to the shrine, he hopes signal reaches it, and if it does, he starts playing F/GO or looking through 2chan. He's addicted to both.
In the evening, he gathers bamboo and bamboo shoots from a local forest, and comes back by night.
At night, he goes to the city to scare some people. He IS a youkai from root, even if his branches are in godhood. It is all in fun, though, and no harm is actually done.
As he made his way through the afternoon, sticking some fliers, advertising his shrine on the alleyway walls, he saw a bunch of piercing, red eyes on the wall in a black void. He had heard of this before.
'If I remember right, this was a 'gap'. Interesting! I didn't believe these existed. Seems like that rabbit-hole thread was worth reading through, but I wonder what happened to the anon who started the thread-'
The handle of a parasol pulled him in, in a comical manner.