Inugami were often borne of black magics, of onmyodo, created by the most cruel and unnatural means. They had been banned from society since the Heian period, but that didn't stop people from attempting to create them. Normally they were familiars, a dog-like yokai that often lived in storehouses in water pots. Yet here was an inugami, roaming the hallways with the ire of a mononoke and a grudge against one of those gathered within the room, if not all of them. He glanced at each of them, wondering which one it could be.
Fusa helped prop up Lady Inu, despite the fussing and hissing from Lady Tori. Tsuya helped hold the bowl while Lady Inu drank the medicine.
Lady Inu wrinkled her nose at the taste. "So bitter."
"That will help reduce the tightness in your chest to make it easier to breathe," the medicine seller explained. "The symptoms will not go away until the inugami is slain and its ire is quelled."
"This is all nonsense!" Lady Tori shouted at him. "It's because of people like you that she's sick! You just create diseases and creatures so you can just get more money!"
"I believe that you invited me here after she became sick," he retorted snidely.
"How dare you!" Lady Tori hissed. "This is why I wanted a woman medicine seller!"
He watched her unfazed by her screaming. It was pretty typical for a noble household, honestly. Blame the merchant who had come to help. At times he did have a rather sharp, insolent tongue when he got annoyed, which probably didn't help the situation. If it hadn't been for the mononoke, he likely would've sold some medicines and left.
Yet as she shouted at him, she was holding some truth back. She was resisting saying something but that last statement was pretty incriminating.
"Do you hate men?" He stared at her intently.
She stared back at him with a fury in her eyes. She definitely didn't want him here, and now he was prying into her history in an attempt to find the reason for the inugami's ire.
"It all happened with Lord Akimitsu!" Tsuya blurted out.
"Tsuya!" Lady Tori screeched.
"Lord Akimitsu?" the medicine seller repeated.
"He used to always care for the mongrels in the area, but then suddenly he died!" Tsuya babbled on. "There were only a few then, but there was always fighting about them in the house when they thought we weren't listening! After that, the mongrels just kept showing up and now they're overrunning the town!"
"Tsuya! I will have you fired!" Lady Tori hissed.
Tsuya began to sob loudly in response, quickly clamming up.
"Sister, please," Lady Inu pleaded with her. "Akimitsu's death was hard on all of us. It was so sudden and unexplained."
"Oh?" Something about this Akimitsu was key here, he quickly reasoned. Everyone wanted to speak about it but Lady Tori seemed to be the factor preventing them from doing this. She would certainly hinder him in his investigation of the inugami that was terrorizing the place, but everyone would talk eventually, especially faced with an angry mononoke.
But Lady Tori would absolutely be a troublesome one. Even after facing the inugami, she still stubbornly threatened everyone and refused to let him know any information. Regardless, he continued to pose the questions necessary to put the mononoke to rest. "How did he die?"
"He was found one morning leaning over the body of a dead mongrel in the rock garden," Fusa answered for them.
The medicine seller glanced at Lady Tori for a second, observing her reaction. The lady was intently glaring at him in return as if her stare could literally kill him or send him back to where he'd come from.
Fusa's response lined up with what he'd observed when he first arrived at the place. There were scratch marks disturbing the rock garden, mostly surrounding the cracked rock at the far end. The mongrels had definitely been there. "Was he buried in the rock garden?"
"He was… buried on the hillside," Lady Inu replied with short breaths. "It was where the… the mongrels liked to gather there….. He always favored them."
The medicines weren't doing much to affect Lady Inu's condition. While she did exhibit signs of an inugami possession, medicines should be able to at least lessen the effects. The mononoke was stronger than he'd expected. He reached forward to place a seal on her body but was quickly thwarted by Lady Tori once again. She was really becoming a hindrance, and there was something about her touch that bothered him. He couldn't quite put a finger on it just yet. "Do you want her to suffer so?" he bore his teeth at her.
Lady Tori stared incredulously at him as she noticed the hint of fangs at the back of his lips. "Just what are you?"
"Just a humble medicine seller," he responded, shaking his hand free of her grip. Pulling an ofuda from his sleeve, he placed it on Lady Inu's kimono above her heart. As the ofuda paper activated and displayed the black then red mystic writing, the lady's breathing finally began to stabilize.
Lady Inu breathed deeply, finally able to catch her breath and not cough barks. She hadn't quite released the medicine seller's sleeve from her grip. Still holding onto him like she would suddenly fade away if she let go. "Akimitsu was our elder brother, the head of this household before his death. He cared for us so much."
"As if," Lady Tori scoffed. "He only cared about those mutts and screwing around."
"He was stern, but he kept our house prosperous," Lady Inu insisted. "He made sure we were always cared for financially. Without him, this house would wither like it's doing now."
"You were always blind, Sister," Lady Tori pointed out sharply. "We can run this house just fine without greedy men like him."
"He always shared with us," Lady Inu insisted some more.
"And kept the most for himself and his band of samurai!" Lady Tori screeched. "He could care less about us after father died! He just wanted everything for himself like a damn spoiled brat!"
So there had been samurai here. That explained the squeaking floor boards typical of a samurai house. It likely had been the same since the warring era, trying to warn the lord and his samurai of a potential ninja attack. Ninja weren't exactly his concern at the moment as there was something far worse lurking about the house. "What happened to the samurai?"
"That's none of your business!" Lady Tori pointed an accusatory finger at him. "You're like them, all of them! Just a greedy bastard wanting more money!"
It was all becoming clear. Her ire for men, her accusations that he wanted to squeeze them for more money, why all the servants were only women. She believed that all men were inherently greedy and evil. "What truly happened to Lord Akimitsu?"
The lady seemed on the verge of snapping which either meant she would clam up or start screaming at him. With the way she was acting, he began to suspect that Akimitsu's death wasn't an accident at all and that Lady Tori was somehow involved in it.
She reached across Lady Inu and backhanded him. That wasn't quite the response he expected.
"Mr. Medicine Seller!" Tsuya exclaimed.
Standing up, Lady Tori stepped over her sister and grasping the medicine seller's kimono with both hands at the collar and bringing him up to his feet. "Insolent man!" she hissed at him.
He wasn't much taller than her without his geta, but she was tall enough to shout nearly in his face. He'd been manhandled before but never quite like this. Something about her grip on his kimono sent his senses into a tangled mess. The woman was definitely human and he was quite certain that she wasn't a second mononoke to contend with. But something about her touch felt unnatural.
"Tori, please stop!" Lady Inu begged her sister. "He's just trying to help!"
"Nonsense!" Lady Tori spat, shaking the medicine seller by his kimono collar. "He's just like them! He's like all of them!"
"Sister, be reasonable!" Lady Inu reached for her sister, but the stress she'd endured by the sickness had caused her to collapse and fall short. Fusa helped support her fallen lady. "Something happened to Akimitsu to cause all of this! If we can just find out and try to stop the mononoke from destroying what we have left of this house!"
He felt like they were on the verge of the truth, given that he would survive the vigorous shaking and the strange tingling of his senses at the back of his mind. Neither the ofuda nor the scales had indicated the inugami's return, but he could feel something supernatural pulling at him.
"I already know what happened!" Lady Tori screeched, suddenly shoving the medicine seller backwards.
He stumbled a bit but quickly caught his footing, stopping to stare at her with a hint of surprise. She certainly was violent, but she'd finally confessed to knowing what had happened to Akimitsu. Surely this would lead to the truth and reason and he could finally put the mononoke to rest.
"Sister?!" Lady Inu yelped in surprise. "What happened?"
"I killed him myself!" Drawing her hands backwards at her sides, Lady Tori thrust them forward, the force from her hands throwing the medicine seller backwards and into the shoji door.
Now he understood why his supernatural senses were firing off. Lady Tori could use black magics. "Well this is unexpected."
...
Author's musings
The medicine seller's description of the inugami at the start of the chapter is the real legend of the inugami. It's quite an intriguing yokai and one linked to black magics. The Heian period is an earlier period in Japan (several before the story's Edo era) marked by long-lasting peace but also strange habits like never cutting your hair.
A lot of superstitions believed to create yokai through black magic was banned during the Heian period, but people would supposedly still practice it. It was said that someone caught practicing black magics would stain their family's honor permanently and potentially cast them out of society.
