"A mononoke?" Ama questioned. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"A supernatural being borne of strong negative human emotions," the medicine seller replied simply.

Ama frowned, pulling the medicine seller and the man with her into the room and shutting the door. The guests outside didn't need to hear their conversation. "We had the onsen blessed by a priest a week ago."

"Oh~?" the medicine seller questioned. "Was there trouble?"

"The rumors of yokai in the nearby forest spooked some guests," the man replied. "Simply precautionary measures."

"I see," the medicine seller noted.

"Not to be rude, but who are you exactly?" Kayo questioned from behind the medicine seller.

"Ah, pardon my rudeness. I am Tsurumatsu, Ama's husband," he introduced himself with a polite bow. "We run this inn together."

Kayo glanced between the two. Ama was excessively beautiful. Perfect hair, perfect makeup, ideal body shape. Compared to her, Tsurumatsu looked like a doorstop. "I'm Kayo, and this is-"

"A priest's blessing will not keep a mononoke out," the medicine seller changed the subject back to the mononoke at hand.

"Stop interrupting polite introductions!" Kayo fussed.

"Yes, yes," he grinned slightly, rather amused at her priorities.

Ama looked terribly concerned, despite their antics. "What do you mean that won't work?"

"Something has created this mononoke," the medicine seller replied. "Something here."

"I don't like what you're implying," Tsurumatsu frowned.

"I am not here to judge," the medicine seller stated simply.

"That's just how mononoke are created," Kayo confirmed. She peered at the door, hearing shuffling down the hallway. She knit her brow in concern. It could just be someone shuffling by or it could be the mononoke. He hadn't set up any seals yet, but the mononoke hadn't done anything to truly attack yet. It simply caused squabbles over food or what it thought was food.

But mononoke didn't always make sense. The medicine seller had been saying that since the very first time they'd met, but recently it was sinking into her mind more and more. The futakuchi-onna made that definitely clear. It had mostly sought food from within the floorboards, one that Tsuma seemed to enjoy.

Kayo stared at the colorful patterns on the medicine seller's kimono for a moment. This mononoke was borne of negative human emotions. It could be like the cruelty towards those girls that ultimately created the last mononoke, or it could be worse. It was hard to fathom what humans hadn't done at this point, but the medicine seller had likely heard them all.

She had to focus on what the medicine seller had told her in the inn. This line of work relieved the soul from suffering. It ended the mononoke's pain. She still couldn't see the result, but she was glad to know that all they eventually were free, even Lady Tamaki and all those who had become candles.

That futakuchi-onna had just gotten to her, reminding her of the cruelty towards Lady Tamaki.

But as he'd say, people were capable of terrible cruelty but they also could be capable of great good. She could help those who were wronged and try to be that human who could do good.

"Has anything unusual happened here?" the medicine seller questioned. "Perhaps an accident?"

Tsurumatsu huffed, but Ama answered first. "Nothing at all. There were some reports of unusual birds in the trees nearby but nothing else. Unless you mean this could happen if someone scraped a knee."

"Quarrels?" the medicine seller pressed.

"Well, there was this married couple a few months ago that had a squabble," Ama replied, "but they apologized after a good soak cleared their heads."

"Missing food?" the medicine seller questioned.

Ama paused, looking off to the side in thought for a moment. "No missing food."

The medicine seller waited patiently, noticing Ama was considering something.

The onsen lady paused for a moment before speaking. "We purchased a new sake from the local shrine a week ago. When there were rumors of people eating strange things, we had the priest come and bless the place."

There it was. The true reasoning for the priest's visit. While protection charms weren't exactly uncommon, especially in remote areas, the insistence that it was preventative seemed out of place. Ama was at least seemed more willing to speak than her husband. Perhaps there was more she wasn't saying.

The medicine seller's attention turned to the closed door. Something on the other side clawed at the walls. The door suddenly yanked open, a visitor in a white yukata reached into the room with drool and soap bubbles rolling down her cheeks.

"Sake!" the girl shouted as she leapt forward with her hands fixed in a stiff, clawlike manner with the digits bent sharply.

The medicine seller held his hand out, the taima sword answering his silent call. The bell jingled as he swung his arm forward, meeting the girls clawed hand. "What has caused your anger?" he questioned the mononoke.

"A leek!" she exclaimed, reaching for the taima sword.

Yet the magic the sword possessed repelled her, causing to take several steps back.

"I must have it!" she repeated insistently.

Kayo stared. The girl was rather insistent on grabbing the taima sword and eating it. She couldn't imagine that the sword would be too happy with that sort of thing. Quickly she turned, shoving their medicinal work to the side and rummaging through the chest. Salt? Ginseng? Gunpowder? Definitely not that last one. Phosphorous? Sure it was the middle of the night, but that wouldn't help either.

Then she found something that might. "Here! Eat some orange peel!" She chucked the peel at the girl. The peel was bitter and sharp, hopefully something that would snap the girl free of whatever was going on. At the very least, it could help get the taste of soap bubbles out of her mouth.

The girl snatched up the orange peel, quickly gobbling it up.

Kayo gasped, shocked as the girl wasn't the least bit fazed.

With the taima sword still outstretched, the medicine seller turned to stare in Kayo's direction.

She stared back at him. "Did I do something wrong?"

He shook his head. "Move," he calmly replied. Drawing his free hand back towards him, he gathered ofuda papers and flung them at the medicine chest.

She dove out of the way, avoiding the papers. She wanted to get angry at him, but he'd warned her this time. It only took screeching at him a few times to get him to warn her. But his actions weren't the most surprising thing. Ama suddenly started drooling as well, reaching towards the medicine seller like one would reach for pork ramen.

"Come, Miss Kayo," the medicine seller instructed, gently waving his hand to push the girl in the doorway backwards into the hallway.

She didn't question the instruction, scrambling to her feet and stumbling behind him into the hallway. She pulled at the edges of her yukata, picking them up so she didn't trip. "Wh-what's going on?"

"This mononoke is capable of possession," the medicine seller explained. "I believe it is tanuki-tsuki, possession by tanuki." The taima sword chattered in confirmation.

"T-tanuki?!" Kayo yelped as another onsen visitor leapt out of one of the rooms and nearly snagged the back of her yukata. "They're not going to grow giant magical testicles, are they?!"

The medicine seller smirked, amused. "Tanuki-tsuki causes those possessed to eat, not grow extra appendages."

"Thank the kami, but I wish they wouldn't try to eat me too!" Kayo yelped as a hand grasped her from one of the doorways. A younger woman with a towel wrapped around her body grasped Kayo's arm with an iron grip.

The medicine seller skidded to a stop, turning and summoning ofuda to his hand. The tanuki had possessed nearly everyone in the entire onsen, now Kayo included as drool began to form at the edges of her lips. He was completely surrounded by possessed hot springs visitors, all hungry for anything they could grasp.

"Why aren't you affected?!" the mononoke howled through one of the visitor's mouths.

"What has angered you so?" he evaded the question.

"What are you?" the mononoke demanded through another visitor. "Why are you unaffected?!"

"I can help you be free from this suffering," he evaded the question again.

"Never!" the mononoke hissed through Kayo. She leapt forward, giving the medicine seller a shove. "They'll just keep eating until they all die!"

He didn't always care for humans. They could be such a fickle creatures capable of terrible atrocities. Yet Kayo suffering the same as the rest had hit a nerve with him. He grasped her wrist tightly. "I will relieve your suffering."

The mononoke's rage was strong, filled with anger or regret or something in between. It wouldn't be relieved of its suffering so easily, nor would it surrender. It had every intention to continue on its path of destruction for whatever wrong done to it.

"What is your truth and reason?" he demanded.

The tanuki writhed, attempting to wriggle free of his grip. "What are you!?" Finding it impossible to free itself, tanuki-Kayo rushed forward, pushing him through the open doorway and over the balcony railing. It would not be relieved of this misery. Not yet. It had something it needed to do. No strange medicine seller nor his taima blade would get in its way. Not when it was finally this close.

The medicine seller could see the balcony quickly leaving his reach as they barreled over the railing. No amount of magic that he possessed could make him fly, especially not with a possessed Kayo bearing down on him, hands and knees and all. Quickly tucking the taima sword into his sleeve, he summoned ofuda in between his hands, he created a net beneath them both as they careened into the darkness below.

...

Author's musings

In many legends, tanuki are known for their rather large, magical balls. Yup. Giant magical testicles and I mean giant. Some legends tell of them using their balls to fly. Some they bounce on them. Any shrine to tanuki, you're bound to see statues with some serious balls.

Thankfully tanuki-tsuki does not involve the possessed literally growing a pair. There are a number of forms of possession but perhaps the most hilarious is insatiable appetite where the possessed will literally eat anything within their reach. Here, that happens to be soap, a rock, and even the taima sword.