She tied the recently gathered straw from a forest clearing, handling it skillfully between her bony, dirt-soiled fingers. She frowned, focused on braiding the strands together, interlacing them. She tied the end tightly, burning it in the fire in front of her tiny hut. That way the loose ends would not unravel with the humidity.
Rin analyzed her work on the straw curtain she used as a doorway. The night following the end-of-summer festival brought stronger winds and thunderstorms, lightning was crashing through the surrounding area, and then the sky collapsed. The storm had lasted for hours and, lucky for her, the roof of the tiny house remained intact. She fixed her own hut almost every day after almost losing it last winter to the snow.
And if she didn't have a roof during the next winter, she would have nowhere to spend the three freezing months of the season. That's why it was so important, even if it lasted all day, to fix points of vulnerability.
Satisfied with her handiwork, the almond-eyed young woman straightened up, massaging her sore back after hours of sitting in front of the fire. She tied the curtain in the place that ideally should have been a door, testing to see if it was tight enough. A proud smile took over her lips, and she smiled, placing her hands on her waist as she contemplated the day's work.
She looked up at the cloudy sky as she threw dirt over the campfire, putting it out. Gray clouds threatened another storm later, officially ending the summer. It was always a time of great fear for Rin, as she could accumulate little stockpiled food in her little house. The need to steal became much greater with the scarcity of food around the forest. She entered the crooked house and picked up the wooden bucket along with the two straw baskets, heading towards the lake amidst the mountains of the region.
Her bare feet sank into the muddy earth, still wet from the rain the night before. Her toes sank between the rocks and bushes, leaving small footprints behind. Her nagajuban was still stained with the fat from the yakitori, all of which she had devoured with great delight, and if she didn't wash it quickly it would probably have insects in the fabric. She couldn't afford to lose the only underwear she had, otherwise she would be walking around even more naked than she was.
She waved to the foxes she usually saw on her way to the lake, as she did every time she went there. They ran to the almond-eyed girl's feet, keeping pace with her as she walked down the hill among the rocks, surrounding her happily. Smiling amused, she stopped to pet them quickly. They had grown accustomed to his presence in recent times, but it hadn't always been that way.
"Maybe they know about my connection with Inari-sama," she thought happily, her faith renewed in the fox-god of prosperity. Was Inari-sama a bit tricky and clever? Yes, but in the current circumstances she found herself, those qualities sounded wonderful. No one would help her get food anyway, much less warm her on cold winter nights.
Cleverness was all she needed.
The foxes continued to follow her along the usual path to the lake, abandoning the rocks of the forest and giving way to the lower bushes and some pine trees around them. She noticed that the animals stopped near an ancient Buddhist tomb, completely cracked by time. She stopped walking, looking puzzled at the foxes.
This was unusual. Usually they would accompany her to the water and stay there for a few minutes before saying goodbye. The four foxes seemed quieter too, come to think of it. They walked around the Buddhist tomb as if on the lookout for something. Frowning, Rin approached them quietly and crouched down, offering her finger for them to smell and lick afterwards.
"Something wrong, Inari-sama?", asked the almond-eyed young woman, one of the few times she used her shy voice for any kind of communication. Talking to animals and plants made her feel much less alone in this world that ignored her.
The foxes licked her for a few more seconds before they left, going back the way they had come from, from the rocks. Rin tilted her head to the side, still crouching behind the ancient tomb, trying to understand what the foxes had sensed. Before long, voices in the distance echoed across the lake, similar to the amused giggles she had heard the last time she had gone there. She frowned, wondering why people were in that place after a storm that had lasted all night. It was a lake too secluded for local people to go to, and it probably belonged to a bathhouse or teahouse nearby.
She crawled through the mud to a slightly taller bush that would hide her better, placing her wooden bucket near the edge of the lake, leaving the straw baskets still hidden inside the bush. She removed a branch from in front of her to get a better look at what kind of movement was going on at the shores on the other side.
"The white tent," she observed, narrowing her gaze.
Men who appeared to be soldiers, or samurai because of the glow that glistened from the intricate black armor, were moving around carrying some spears with cloth tied to them. It seemed that an emblem was painted there, but it was too far away to try to understand what I saw. One of them was standing beside the big tent, standing at posts, from what it looked like. Rin scratched her eyes for a few moments, not understanding what she was seeing. It seemed strange that anyone would camp in that place, let alone someone important.
She shook her head, quickly losing interest in them. Nothing else was happening, other than they were far enough away not to notice his presence. "Inari-sama is always good to me," she thought contentedly, sure of her faith. The foxes had warned her, and if it weren't for them, she would be in more unnecessary trouble at the moment.
She had still been lucky that they hadn't discovered that the Yakitori thief from the festival was her.
Inari-sama had also been kind to her, putting Ohime-sama* in her way. If she ever ran into her, she would thank her for her kindness. She would be without her head on her shoulders if she had been caught after stealing the Yakitori in broad daylight.
She sat down on a fallen log over the lake, still hidden by the many surrounding bushes. She removed her kimono and nagajuban, dipping them in the water and rubbing her bony fingers against the fabric. The blood from his moon was beginning to fade, not having much else to wash from fabric that afternoon. With each cycle it seemed to bleed less, formerly being five days until it dwindled to one day. There were times when the moon cycle didn't even come. The less she ate, the harder it was for the moon cycle to appear.
She finished washing her clothes, spreading them out among the bushes without much trouble. She placed her feet in the water, getting used to the extremely hot temperature. Even though it took hours to get to that lake, it was still better for washing her robes and bathing than the river the village used to use for these tasks. She dipped all her long black hair into the water, making it float like black ink spilled on parchment. She sat down on a rock, relaxing her muscles and closing her eyes, thinking about what she would do for dinner. She had found some mushrooms near her crooked home, so she wasn't exactly desperate for food today. She had collected them that morning, leaving them in one of the baskets she had hidden in the middle of the forest in case someone stole her things while she was gone.
The children in the village loved to do this, and all the adults still encouraged it, much to her annoyance. She could still remember the day the chief villager's son stole her beat-up furisode and tried to tear it up in the middle of the village. She hit him in the face with a slap and got her furisode back, however the adults beat her severely afterwards. Rin didn't usually follow the passing days with much anxiety, as each new day was a new challenge to survive, but this had been recent. Her eyes fell on the slowly healing bruises on her ribs, below her rounded breasts.
She let her body sink into the lake slowly, walking over to her favorite place to relax, throwing her weight against the large slime-covered rock. Those were ancient rocks, just like the cemetery. Rin wondered what had happened in those surroundings for so many gravestones to be erected. Her knowledge was nil about basically all things that did not involve survival.
A noise from the forest reached her ears, coming from the same path she had taken to get to the lake. Her body stiffened in alertness, hiding amidst the dark water and the moss that lay on the surface. She could hear the sound of footsteps coming down the cliffs of the hill. She threw a quick glance at her clothes drying away, as well as the baskets of straw in the bushes. Whoever was on the other bank would not be able to see her things, but whoever came from the way she came would definitely notice her things.
Before she could think of what she should do, three men entered her field of vision, too busy shifting their feet away from the ancient Buddhist tombs cautiously. Widening her eyes as she spotted the figure of Nabeshima-san, the well-known guard of the city walls closest to the village, she took a few steps back to hide behind a large pine tree fallen over the water. It had probably been struck by lightning last night, snapping the trunk in half, showing fire marks and burning wood.
The other man coming right behind was extremely familiar to her, being the chief villager of her village, Ikejiri-san. The exact same one who had kicked against her rib after she had hit his son's face. Rin bit her lower lip, frightened.
It was the first time she had seen the chief villager after the beating, and surely seeing him in Nabeshima-san's company only indicated that they had had clues about the Yakitori thief at the festival. "Not that it would be too hard to piece together the obvious," she thought covering the entire surface of her body in the water, leaving only her eyes and nose outside.
"So this is where that little mouse comes from, huh?", observed Ikejiri-san with her high-pitched tone of voice, still paying more attention to respectfully dodging the cracked graves along that lake shore. His hakori and hakama were the same grayish color as Rin's, but of an infinitely better quality and much cleaner. The tiny eyes of the chief villager, filled with wrinkles and folds, scanned the surroundings. With his posture bent as usual, it seemed that Ikejiri-san had a small hill on top of his spine. "Her kimono and nagajuban are here, Nabeshima-san."
The third man coming up behind was completely unknown, although the sword attached to his hakama was much scarier than Ikejiri-san. He was younger than the other two, standing silently in front of the graves around the lake as if praying for them for a few seconds.
Rin swallowed hard. He was a ronin*.
There was no emblem on his robes or sword, plus his armor was incomplete and partially aged with time.
Nabeshima-san approached the damp robes drying themselves on the bushes, making an effort not to lose his balance and slip on the muddy earth on the banks of the lake. Leaning his weight against one of the rocks near the bushes, the guard touched her nagajuban with a small, sideways smile on his lips.
He knew that nagajuban.
"She must be nearby", commented the ronin after finishing his prayers for whoever was killed nearby. Rin very much doubted that people died naturally in the current circumstance that life presented itself to her. "Or in the lake."
Ikejiri-san nodded slightly, crossing his arms. He preferred, unlike the other two men, to stay out of the mud. Perhaps the title of chief villager was of great importance to him, and getting his geta dirty to go after her was simply not worth the effort. Rin knew this type of man. They were the most aggressive on their nights in town especially since they didn't see her as a human being, just an object of their pleasures.
"These tombs here", Nabeshima-san began, looking around with a raised eyebrow, interested. "are they her family's?"
Ikejiri-san shook his head, denying it.
"They are youkai tombs", answered the chief villager, from the top of his geta away from the mud. "Very old, they were here before my family founded the village. We don't know what happened to her family, but our patience has been wearing thin with her presence. A bad influence on our children and women."
"Indeed", Nabeshima-san agreed, still with his attention on the tombs. "These youkais... are they really dead?"
"Apparently, although no one from the village is coming here to confirm it", replied Ikejiri-san, who looked up at the grayish sky, full of heavy clouds. The sun's rays slowly weakened on the horizon. His lips curved up in annoyance. "I wouldn't stay here overnight if I were Nabeshima-san. We should be back in the village soon."
Youkais.
So the graves that Rin always passed quietly almost every day belonged exactly to youkais, although no one knew if they were entirely dead or just resting their former souls during the day. Come to think of it, she had never spent an entire night at the lake. Only to hide after stealing the stock from the teahouses nearby.
"Okay, Ikejiri-san", Nabeshima-san agreed, still looking out of the corner of his eyes at the tombs covered with plants and mud, worn away with time. "He's afraid", she analyzed surprisingly amused. It was interesting to see that men like them were afraid. "Well, with the storm brewing she will have to return to her hut soon."
"Nabeshima-san will be treated as our honored guest tonight...", began Ikejiri-san nodding respectfully "...and we trust that this inconvenience will be resolved as soon as she returns to the village. Let's not be in a hurry. She has nowhere to run."
Ikejiri-san and the ronin turned their backs on the almond-eyed young woman's belongings, climbing the hill of youkai tombs cautiously, respecting them with slow, calculated steps. Nabeshima-san continued with his eyes nailed to her nagajuban, thoughtful.
The ronin, looking back, must have read the guard's thoughts.
"She'd better not know we came her", he advised calmly, looking around. "She must have put on a spare kimono and gone out to look for food."
Nabeshima-san sighed, having his plan to embarrass her discovered.
"He was going to take my kimono and nagajuban, leaving me naked", the young woman reasoned, disgusted at the guard's intentions. Besides the fact that they were after her, and whatever they would do once they found her, he still wanted to see her even more humiliated than she was on a daily basis.
Lucky for her they didn't know that there was no spare kimono.
"Right", Nabeshima-san agreed, giving up his 'brilliant' idea. He looked around for a few seconds, and when he noticed the presence of the huge white tent on the shore on the other side of the lake, he frowned. "There is a camp on the other side. She might be there."
Ikejiri-san, already a few steps away from the lake shore, looked at the place that Nabeshima-san was observing.
"That's the edge of the village, that's already the property of some tea house", explained the chief villager.
But Nabeshima-san didn't look convinced, scratching his chin under the set of hakama and hakori of the same black color, signaling that his rank in the town guard. Fushizu-dono's family emblem was stamped at the height of his breastplate. Fushizu-dono was the Daimyo of those lands.
"We could check if they have any information about her", he suggested insistently, making Ikejiri-san a little less patient with the guard. His ceremonialistic countenance slowly faded because of Nabeshima-san's attitudes.
"Youkais", stressed the chief villager seriously, drawing the attention of the other two men immediately, "The teahouses in this area are youkais."
All resistance from the town guard dissipated before them as they listened to what Ikejiri-san had to say. Apparently they were all afraid of youkais, although Rin had never seen one in her life. "Not that I know of, anyway," she reflected, watching the three men move away from the lake shore and begin to climb the hill of ancient tombs carefully. Without a word, Nabeshima-san gave up and walked away, without looking back, much less at the white tent on the horizon in the distance.
She listened to the sounds of their footsteps growing distant until they were silent in her ears, indicating that they were far away. She waited for some time in the water, motionless, just to make sure that they were really gone and that this was not an act. The sun's rays gradually weakened, and when Rin decided to move towards her belongings, she noticed that her clothes were already completely dry. She put them on quickly, lost in her thoughts about what she should do next.
Going back to the village was out of the question, because the way Ikejiri-san was talking, they had practically agreed to kill her or worse. She preferred not to elaborate on that thought so as not to frighten herself even more, her fingers were still trembling with the tension of seeing them looking for her. Her fate was grim in the hands of those men, though she still didn't understand why the ronin was accompanying them.
"I wonder if they are afraid to walk in this area", she thought puzzledly, looking at the tombs of youkais, now getting lost in the darkness during the dusk. The last rays of sunlight were gathering in the sky, tinging it with purple hues, as well as Ohime-san's impressive hikizuri*. She dressed quickly looking around, noticing that the camp on the other shore was now lighting large fires around them, now with much more movement than before.
"Then they must be youkais", Rin contemplated, tying the obi on her back, different from what she usually wore. To signal how she supported herself, she had to wear the obi on the front of her body, according to the prostitution rules the Daimyo had established a few months ago. It made her life easier since those who came to meet her already knew what she wanted, but at the same time it excluded her since everyone knew what that almond-eyed young woman did.
She needed to leave the village.
She checked that her three coins, the only money she had, were still in her nagajuban pockets, relieved when her fingers touched them. She took a deep breath with her hands on her waist, feeling her heart racing in nervousness. She didn't know where to go. She didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to eat.
A big flash lit up the sky, the stars appearing in the distance as the sun hid on the horizon behind the mountains. Tears welled up in her hazel eyes and a lump formed in her throat. Her long black hair, now wet, was tied back in a loose bun with the help of a wooden comb. Her breathing became unsteady as the tears streamed down her cheeks and onto the ancient tomb below her.
Her eyes widened when she heard a low whistling sound behind her, although there was no one with her a second ago. She turned around in fright to see if it was just her imagination, and came upon a young man apparently in his sixteenth year. He was thin and wearing a loose-fitting furisode on his chest in red printed with white carpets, a majestic kimono, although he was clearly a boy. His face was not visible, hidden by a fox mask usual in the temples of the region, his long red hair cascading down his back.
He was floating slightly above one of the Buddhist tombs, sitting on them.
"That was close, Rin-chan", he commented, in a jovial and relaxed voice. Several foxes ran down the hill, four of them the same ones that had accompanied her to the lake. Then something clicked in her mind, remembering that they had stopped exactly above that tomb before leaving.
"Is that the youkai resting here?" she wondered internally, analyzing him intently.
She realized that he expected an answer.
She cleared her throat, nodding then bowing respectfully. This must have been amusing to the fox youkai, since she could hear him laughing under his mask.
"I... I was hiding…", she answered timidly, looking back at him. Completely relaxed on the tomb that was probably his, he lay down and rested his head on his hand, his attention still focused on her.
"Those humans don't mean well", he warned her as the darkness of night settled between them, with only the illumination of the large campfires on the other side of the lake.
"I... don't want to go back to the village...", she began slowly, still getting used to the sound of her own voice, crouching down in front of the fox youkai's grave, playing with the animals that had lain there. He offered his hand to one of the foxes to play with, who licked it friendly "...they are going to kill me."
He nodded briefly, mysteriously.
"Or something worse, Rin-chan," he considered, then sighed, "There are things worse than death, which is nothing more than a rite of passage from this world to the next. Rin-chan knows what humans are capable of."
"I know," she cowered at the foot of the tomb, taking one of the foxes in her lap and stroking it, "Youkai-san, what should I do?"
"I am not a youkai, Rin-chan," she explained patiently, playing with one of the foxes, "This is a youkai cemetery, as you have heard, but I am the protector of these mountains, this lake, this forest. I am the one who hears your nightly prayers. I am the fox of foxes."
The girl's face lit up in the darkness, haunted and amazed at the same time.
A rare smile took over her lips, in ecstasy.
Inari-sama.
"He really listens to me," thought the young girl, gratefully. Several temples were erected to the fox-god, honoring him with incense, bonfires, festivals, and large shintô gates. Of all those who paid dearly for his favors at the temples, it was to Rin that he appeared. In the middle of nowhere, completely alone.
Abandoned.
"I always knew that Inari-sama walked with me" she commented happily, feeling the tears come quickly to her eyes, running down her cheeks, flushed with emotion, "I always knew I wasn't alone."
He nodded slightly again, maintaining his air of mystery.
"I show up for those who need me, but depending on the situation I let the wheel of fortune turn, because not everyone deserves help," he explained, playing with the foxes, offering one of his fingers for them to bite lightly. "Don't wait for those who don't want to come back, whether they are your family or not. These men plan to take you to a place of suffering, not death, although the second option is more dignified. The teahouse that Rin-chan usually steals from will be empty tonight, everyone is at a big celebration at the Daimyo's castle in these lands. Go, Rin-chan... and don't look back, don't linger in places where your voice is ignored."
And just as he appeared, his figure dissipated into thin air, leaving only the foxes on the ancient tombs, running around the almond-eyed young woman.
Little did she know what would soon follow.