Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
--
Buffy gave Willow a disparaging look as the redhead tried to approach with the hair dye again.
"I can't do it," she sighed, clamping down on her nose, "the smell's about to kill me."
"It's not that bad," Willow replied.
"You don't have a dog's sense of smell," Buffy retorted, then she sighed and put her face in her hands, "What am I going to do? I can't go home and let mom see me like this and I definitely can't go to school. The hair and eyes I could explain with dye and contacts, but I have dog ears!"
She twitched her ears for emphasis.
"Are you sure they're dog ears?" Willow asked, "They kinda look like cat ears, being pointy and all."
This earned her a flat stare.
"I'm sorry," Willow said, "…would a Scooby Snack make you feel better?"
Willow smiled innocently at her own joke. Buffy wasn't amused.
"I'm so going to chew up every pair of shoes you own," Buffy responded.
"I'll send you to the pound, missy."
This actually elicited a small chuckle from Buffy.
"Okay, enough dog jokes, seriously. We need to go see if Giles managed to dig up anything through his 'less than reputable' contacts and I swear if you mention bones I'll brain you," she said, noting a mischievous look cross Willow's face at the word dig.
Buffy jumped out up from Willow's bed, allowing the towel that had been hanging around her shoulders to fall to the floor. She had been lucky that Halloween had fallen on a Saturday and she had been able to spend the night at Willow's. The whole becoming some sort of dog demon had been jarring, but it wasn't like she didn't deal with the supernatural all the time and she had already gotten used to the fact that she was descended form a demon.
"Okay, just let me grab a letter I need to mail," Willow said, "I'll call Xander and tell him to meet us in the library."
Willow opened her top drawer and retrieved an envelope. Sitting next to it was a miniaturized version of her wand, which had inexplicably shrunk and grown a chain so that it could be worn as a necklace. Beneath that were her cards stacked neatly. She had dubbed these "Willow Cards," though when Xander asked why she didn't come up with a cooler name, she had no good answer. She had decided to have Giles and Ms. Calendar help her learn how to use them.
"So what's the deal with the letter?" Buffy asked.
"It's, uh, just something, uh, Mom made me write to a relative," she lied badly.
"Maybe you should wear a hat," Willow suggested.
Buffy twitched her ears and sighed.
"These things are going to be really inconvenient," she commented as Willow rummaged around for a hat.
"It could be worse, you could have a tail," Willow said.
"Never say it could be worse!"
--
Giles sighed as he carefully set out the offering. It had taken quite a bit of effort and driving to locate rice, saké, and fried tofu in the previous night after he had found the book to tell him those were the things he needed to summon a kitsune servant of the Shinto deity Inari. He chose the kitsune of Inari specifically because he believed they would be safest.
However, there were a couple problems. Unlike other religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam, Shinto never spread. It was too uniquely connected to the land, animals and people of Japan. So summoning the servant of such a deity to another country would be difficult to say the least and a person not of Japanese descent would find it impossible. Luckily he had such a person with Buffy, but using the low quality items he had managed to gather made it quite an iffy proposition.
"Do you believe this will work?" Giles asked Ryuk.
"It's hard to say," Ryuk said, "The major kami can be pretty stuck up, though since you're just summoning a kitsune I think you'll be all right. You could just ask me about yokai, though."
"I have known you for far too long to trust you to give me the whole truth on any subject, especially something as vitally important as this."
"I still don't see what the big deal is."
"The 'big deal' is that the Slayer is becoming a demon. Something like this has never happened before and we're walking a fine line. I have no way of knowing what the Watcher's Council will do if they find out, nor do I know if I can protect her if they decide she needs to be eliminated. I need answers as to what she's becoming and I don't have to time to search for accurate translations of Japanese texts and I can't translate them myself because the bloody Council apparently felt it wasn't important that I learn any Asian languages."
"Oh."
"Now if you'll…"
"Giles, who are you talking to?" Buffy asked as she walked into the library with Willow and Xander, "We don't have another invisible girl do we?"
The three teens all took seats at the nearby table. Giles noted that Buffy hadn't attempted to dye her hair back to blonde and that she had used a hat and her hair to disguise the fact that she had dog ears now rather than human ones.
"No, I was simply preparing a ritual to summon a fox-demon to give us some answers about your heritage."
"Isn't bringing a demon to us kinda the opposite of what we should do?" Xander asked.
"In most cases, yes. However, these foxes entirely benign, so it should be quite safe."
"Great," Buffy said, "So what do we do?"
"Well…frankly I'm not entirely sure. I was able to find out what to offer, just not how to go about it."
Buffy stood up and walked over to where the offering sat. She placed hands on both sides of it.
"Maybe if I…" she started to say.
Suddenly a ball of blue flame erupted out of thin air. The Slayer jumped back, ready to face a threat. Xander and Willow looked at in awe while Giles watched to see what would happen. Ryuk's smiled widened a little at the thought of something exciting happening.
The fire coalesced into a white furred fox about the size of large dog with nine tails that floated so that it was eye level with Buffy. Small balls of blue flame burned on the end of each tail.
Everyone in the room could only gape at the magnificent creature in their midst. The spell was only broken when the creature spoke, though its mouth didn't move. Unfortunately it spoke in Japanese and only Ryuk could understand it.
Giles cast the shinigami a meaningful glance.
"Sorry but you could never trust me with something this important," he echoed.
It was at exactly that moment Giles was the most ready to attempt the most powerful exorcism spell he knew to send Ryuk straight to oblivion.
Luckily, the fox seemed to catch on. It extended a paw and touched Buffy's forehead. A small leaf appeared where the fox's paw had been, but it quickly disappeared.
This time when the fox spoke, Buffy seemed to understand. She even replied back in Japanese.
--
"Greetings Inu-san," the fox said in a feminine voice, "I am Dakiniten. I was sent by Inari-sama to answer your questions."
Buffy hesitated for a moment. So many things popped into her at once, not the least of which was how exactly did she just suddenly learn Japanese?
"I'm Buffy and I have about a million questions. The one that sticks out most is probably what am I?"
Dakiniten seemed to smile slightly.
"Perhaps I should start at the beginning, the very beginning that is."
Suddenly the library was gone. Buffy and the fox floated in the air above a vast field. Below were terrifying creatures, great and small. Some were indescribable and horrible while others were somewhat reminiscent of living creatures. They were fighting in a seemingly pointless exercise of bloodshed.
"In ages past the world was ruled by the Old Ones, pure demons of immense power," Dakiniten started.
Buffy already knew this, but she listened attentively anyway.
"And in that time there were also the first yokai such as the oni and the kodama, born from the mountains and trees. These creatures were unrelated to the Old Ones, as were the yokai to come after them."
The scene changed. Now they hovered over a vast forest. Small, odd-looking creatures that looked humanoid dolls sat in huge trees. Huge red creatures with thick black hair and bovine horns wearing a loincloth and carrying a huge metal club wandered among the trees.
"And so time passed and there came mortal animals. They were too weak to survive long against the pure demons, but from them came our kinds, kitsune and inugami, as well as others: the hebi, the tanuki, the mujina, the okami, the tsuchigumo, the nekomata, and many others who by strength or trickery secured the survival of mortal species."
This time they were in another forest. There were foxes of various colors with various numbers of tails, huge dogs like the one Buffy had seen when she died, snakes of various sizes hanging from tree limbs, raccoon-like creatures wearing cone-shaped hats, badgers, wolves, giant spiders, and cats the size of horses with two tails.
"And lastly came humans and there were yokai created from them as well, the rokuro-kubi, the yuki-onna, the yama-uba among many."
This time they viewed several scenes. A person with a neck extending several feet into the air. A beautiful pale woman in a vast expanse of snow. A hideous old woman with unkempt white hair and a second mouth on top of her head.
"And the animal yokai watched the humans with keen interest and learned to take on their forms, to deceive, to live among them, or for various reasons."
A three-tailed kitsune placed a leaf on its head and it transformed into a beautiful woman. A huge inugami shrank down and became a man with long white hair. Humans with wolf tails wearing furs and armor ran among a pack of okami.
"In time, the Old Ones lost their hold on this world. Many were killed and sealed away and the others left this reality. However, they left behind imprints of themselves. They bred with or infected humans and animals to produce hybrids, the demons you and your line have long battled. There were also a handful of pure demons left, though not as powerful as the Old Ones. The demons took what would become the West and we yokai moved east to what would become Japan and China."
This time it was night. Thousands of yokai stretched as far as the eye could see. Buffy could see lights from paper lanterns and blue flames like those on Dakiniten's tails.
"We commemorate this migration every year with our Hyakki Yako."
"Okay, so Cliffnotes version is that we aren't demons, we're something else, yokai, right?" Buffy asked,
"That is correct," Dakiniten replied, "Though since you still have half of your human blood, you are a hanyo."
Relief washed over Buffy. Not only was she not a demon, she was still half human.
"So what about my heritage?"
"By that do you mean your actual familial lineage or the Slayer line?"
"Both," she replied after little consideration.
"Very well."
This time they were in a dark cave. In the center of the cave was a teenage girl of about Buffy's age chained to the ground. Three men stood around her, pounding their staffs on the ground. A box sat in front of the girl. As the sound of their pounding staffs grew louder, a cloud of black smoke rose out of the box and surrounded her.
"The humans were in trouble, danger constantly pursued them. So they trapped the essence of a pure demon and they found a girl whose blood wasn't wholly human, but who showed no signs of being something else. A pure human couldn't handle the power. They chained her to the earth and infused her with the demon's heart. It made her strong, fast, and better able to fight back the forces of darkness and the enchantment was woven so that that power would be passed on to girls like her, human but not completely so."
Buffy felt a pang of sympathy for that long dead girl. Not only had they forced her into a short, brutal life, they had violated her soul to do so.
"Shall we go on?" Dakiniten asked.
"Yeah," Buffy replied.
"So we lived in Japan for millennia alongside the humans. Some of us sought to harm or trick them, others sought to befriend them, and many simply wished to be left alone. In time there was an inugami known as the Dog General. He was a great hero to both humans and yokai. He drove off foreign invaders and slew evil yokai and was considered by many to be one of the most powerful yokai of his time. He died after his battle with the dragon Ryukotsusei, only succeeding in sealing him away."
Suddenly they stood in a vast gorge, above them was a huge dragon with a giant claw piercing it.
"He left behind two sons, a hanyo like you named Inuyasha and your ancestor, Sesshomaru. Both fought in many great battles, sometimes against each other and at other times together and they grew to surpass their father in strength. Their greatest victory came when they defeated a truly evil yokai known as Naraku."
Now they were in a small village. Overhead was an enormous spider rolled up into a ball. Villagers stood around looking on in horror as the spider's body began breaking into pieces. Inside the creature she could see several people and yokai, but one stood out. He was very handsome with long white hair, pointed ears, facials markings similar to her costume's but longer, and a blue crescent moon on his forehead. He was wearing a white kimono with red on the shoulders and ends of the sleeves, white pants that poofed out at the ankles, blue pointy shoes, a kind of black armor over it with spiky metal on the top and over his left shoulder, a yellow and blue sash around his waist, and a big furry boa-like thing on his right shoulder. He held a sword in his hand then used it to slice a nasty looking big bad.
Buffy felt her heart leap at the sight. She finally understood her obsessive desire to research him. She had wanted to see what he looked like, to see him in action, to see that he was a noble warrior and not just a monster.
"And so when she grew old enough, he took the human girl he had adopted as his mate and she gave him a single daughter. But in time, the girl grew old and died, as humans are wont to do."
In a small hut there was an old woman lying on mat on the floor. A young woman who looked to be in her twenties stood over her crying, as did Sesshomaru. His grief was well restrained, but also obvious on his face. The old woman smiled and said something Buffy couldn't hear then took a final breathe and drifted away. Sesshomaru said something to his daughter, picked up his mate and left, leaving the hanyo alone and prostrate with grief.
"He took her and gave her a proper send off into the afterlife. Then he disappeared after that and many believed that he was dead-. The world moved on and men came from the West. The Watcher's Council had long been in Japan, but they took more initiative at the end of the Warring States period. They didn't understand that we weren't the same as their demons and so they sought to wipe out the pure yokai through their magic and warriors."
A full moon shone overhead. Buffy and Dakiniten watched as Sesshomaru stepped out the forest into a clearing. He paused in the middle of the clearing and mouthed something.
"What, no audio?" Buffy asked.
"You only needed to ask if you wished to hear what them," the kitsune replied.
"Come out now," Sesshomaru ordered.
Several robed figures emerged from the trees, forming a circle around him.
"You are the ones who have been hunting yokai," he stated, "I have been roused from my slumber by my servant to protect my kind. I will give you one chance to leave this land."
There was no response, only low rhythmic chanting. A glowing circle connected the people the circle. Complex geometric shapes and rune appeared within the circle.
"Very well."
He drew his sword from its sheath. This brought Buffy's attention to the fact that rather than two swords, he had only one, meaning he must have already sealed Tenseiga. He swung the sword, releasing a huge wave of destructive power erupted from it. It struck a barrier and halted. The runes glowed even brighter.
"Fool," said one of the figures, "All that will accomplish is killing yourself faster."
The figure pulled back his hood to reveal a badly scarred face that was missing an eye and a good chunk of nose.
"With the help of these foreigners I will wipe out all of you damned yokai, just like you bastards did to my family."
"You are the fool," Sesshomaru answered, calmly "No human can defeat me."
"Oh, I think you'll find that is quite wrong. I've learned to sense yoki and I've never felt one so utterly perfect. In any other case that would be your advantage. However, this spell will take your own yoki and throw it right back at you!"
Sesshomaru smirked.
"I will show you your place."
His eyes began to turn red was his body grew and morphed into his true canine form. The glow of the circle grew so intense that it seemed like an eerie sort of daylight had filled the area. Buffy watched as his sheer power continued fueling the spell. There was a loud cracking sound and shouts of surprise as the spell was overpowered. An explosion rocked the area the men's magic and Sesshomaru's yoki mixed, creating a blinding flash. When the smoke cleared, there was a crater where the magic circle had been surrounded by charred corpses. All that remained of the daiyokai was his sword.
Another magical circle appeared under the sword and portal opened over it. Out of the portal fell a beautiful Japanese woman with long hair wearing a black kimono. She reached down and picked up the sword.
"Your price is paid," she said.
Suddenly Buffy found herself back in the library with Dakiniten hovering in front of her.
"I trust that answered most of your questions, correct?" the kitsune asked.
"Yeah," Buffy replied, still a bit numb from everything she had just seen.
"Very well, I shall take my leave. However, first I have something to give you."
Dakiniten placed her paw on the table near the untouched offering. Blue fire flared and she lifted her paw to reveal a leaf.
"Press this to your forehead and you will be able to create the illusion of your human form. It is powered by your own yoki so you will need to practice using to do it properly. It will also allow you to summon me if you should ever need my assistance by saying my name while holding it. I wish you luck, Inu-san."
With that, she was gone. Before Buffy even realized it, Willow, Xander and Giles were all right next to her.
"Buffy!" Willow exclaimed, "What happened?! You kinda just zoned out there for a while and we thought it was going to possess you or something only we couldn't move and I was so worried even though Giles said it was safe."
"Breathe Willow," Buffy said, "I'm fine."
"What exactly happened just now?" Giles asked.
Buffy sighed.
"This is going to be a long story."
--
Not long after that Buffy stood over the grave of a friend with Giles at her side.
"I should've known something was wrong with him," she said, "I could smell it, but I just didn't know what it was. I told myself it was just a unique part of his smell. If the brain tumor had killed him, I could've brought him back
"It's not your fault Buffy," Giles comforted, "He made his choice and this is the result. There's nothing you could've done."
"If I hadn't trusted him so much, he couldn't've stolen Tenseiga and Spike and his crew would be dust. If I hadn't been so lax in figuring out my inugami powers, they'd probably be dust anyway. But I didn't know if I could win against them all, I didn't know my limits. Even with Tenseiga back in my hand, I still couldn't pull off the blue wave thing to take them all out at once. So I left him to get exactly what he wanted.
She dug her nails so deep into her palms that they bled. The pain was welcome after feeling nothing but guilt.
"People make mistakes," Giles said, "We're only human, though I suppose that in your case that isn't entirely true."
A hand emerged from the ground. Slowly, Ford pulled himself out of the ground, a fledgling vampire in full game face.
"But we also learn from our mistakes," Buffy added.
She raised her blood coated nails into the air and brought them down in a scratching motion. Crimson blades shot forth, severing his head, both legs, and cutting his torso in half before he turned to dust.
"Does it ever get any easier?" Buffy asked.
"Does what get easier?"
"Life."
"What would you like me to say?
"Lie to me."
--
Willow took a deep breath as she concentrated on channeling her inner power. The meditation techniques Giles and Ms. Calendar had taught her had helped her touch it, but she had been unable to get her wand to grow again.
She opened her eyes and looked over at Buffy who was also meditating with Tenseiga in her lap. Buffy had been having trouble controlling her yoki and maintaining her illusion. At first she hadn't been able to create the illusion at all, but then Giles taught her to use meditation to access her yoki. When she was finally able to do it, the illusions tended to a miss a detail or looked too perfect to actually be human. Only recently had she been able to reach a happy medium and sustain it for any reasonable length of time.
"Xander's back," Buffy said, not even opening her eyes, "He has snacks!"
She opened her eyes and looked expectantly at the door. Since Halloween Buffy's senses of smell and hearing had astounded Willow who felt a bit jealous that she hadn't been able to use her gains at all yet.
"How goes the training?" Giles asked from behind them.
"Not so good," Willow replied, "I just can't get it to work."
"Perhaps there is an incantation or special phrase required to activate it. I have several books on the subject."
"If only it was as easy as 'Magic wand thingy, I'm Willow and I order you to work right now!'"
She felt a surge of power erupted from that inner supply. The wand that had previously been a small keychain had now reverted back to its original form.
"Wow," Willow said.
"Indeed," Giles replied.
At that moment Xander walked through the doors, a bag of various snack foods in hand.
"Did I miss something?" he asked.
"Not much, Willow just made her wand grow with a made up incantation," Buffy replied.
"Ahh, the weirdness that is living in Sunnydale. So, who's up for Twinkies?"
"I believe that investigating Willow's powers should come before cream filled sponge cake," Giles said.
"Party pooper" Buffy accused, "Whoa, someone in the hallways is in a hurry
"A proper set of priorities is…"
"Okay, you guys have to help me!" Cordelia shouted as she walked into the library.
"To what do we owe this after school visit?" Xander inquired.
"I've been like possessed by a dream demon or something," Cordelia declared.
"Why do you say that?" Giles asked.
She sat down at the table and put her head in her hands.
"I keep having these dreams like people are throwing fireballs at me and there's this guy who's after me and there's this other guy who comes and saves me, but then the first guy comes back, only he's disguised as a woman, and then he kills me with a cloud of bugs, which is like ew."
"While understandably frightening, I fail to see how this could mean you are possessed," Giles said.
"I keep having them every night and I can't sleep because when the bug part comes, it really feels like there are bugs ripping me apart. Demonic enough for ya?"
"It could be that someone has put a curse on you. Can you think of someone who might have a grudge against you?"
Xander snorted, "Well that narrows it down to the entire student body of Sunnydale High."
Willow couldn't help but smile. Just the response one would expect from the treasurer of the 'We Hate Cordelia Club.'
"At least they care that I exist," she snarked back.
"I don't wanna make it seem like Twinkies and dream bugs aren't important, but I think Willow has first dibs on Giles," Buffy interjected.
"I believe Buffy is right," Giles replied, standing up, "A test of your power may be in order."
"Okay," Willow responded.
She reached into her pocket and took out the cards. Flipping through them she noticed that several of them would probably be dangerous to use here. Finally she selected a safe looking one: the Flower.
She brought it up into the air and smacked it with her wand and shouted "Flower!"
Instantly they were all up to their knees in flower petals of all shapes, sizes, and colors.
"Oops."
--
A/N: I cut out most of the Ford episode because I really didn't want to just do a copy of the episode, so I just moved on to the end and gave you some hints as to what differences there were.
From now on I'll be using the word yokai to differentiate between Japanese supernatural creatures and Western names. I'll also use the Japanese names for animals when I'm talking about yokai rather than actual animals.
Glossary:
Yoki: Supernatural/demonic energy
Daiyokai: great yokai
Shinigami: Literally translates as death god. They aren't actually a part of traditional Japanese folklore, instead they are adaptations of European ideas of personifications of death, but are nonetheless popular in anime and manga. Death Note shinigami differ from most shinigami in that they just kill people, they don't ferry their souls.
Oni: Usually translated as ogre. A usually evil creature of Japanese folklore that lives in mountains.
Kodama: Tree-dwelling spirits of Japanese folklore. My description of them is borrowed from Princess Mononoke.
Kitsune: Fox spirits. They are usually portrayed as mischievous tricksters who possess people and transform into beautiful women to seduce men. There are also good kitsune who serve the Shinto god of rice Inari. The kitsune of Inuyasha (such as Shippo) more or less fit this description with a few differences.
Inugami: Literally translates as dog god. The inugami (Sesshomaru, Inuyasha, their dad, and Sessh's mom) from Inuyasha are very different from those of folklore.
Hebi: Snakes
Tanuki: Usually translated as raccoon dog, though just calling them tanuki in English is completely appropriate. They are a species native to Asia that look like raccoons, but are actually canids (like dogs, wolves, and foxes.)
Mujina: Badgers
Okami: Wolves (which have actually been extinct in Japan since 1905). Koga and his pack are much less nice to humans than okami are to humans in folklore.
Tsuchigumo: Giant spiders
Nekomata: Literally translates as forked cat. When a cat reaches a certain age or grows to a certain size, they become bakeneko (monster cats). If a bakeneko's tail grows too long, the tail will split in two and it will become a nekomata. Kirara (or Kilala depending on your Romanization preference) really doesn't have that much in common with nekomata of folklore other than being a two-tailed cat that has an association with fire.
Rokuro-kubi: People who can extend their necks at night.
Yuki-Onna: Literally translates as snow woman. The spirit of a woman who died in a snowstorm who leads people astray in snowstorms, freezes them to death, or breaks into their home and kills them in their sleep. They will sometimes spare young or extremely beautiful victims.
Yama-Uba: An old woman who inhabits forests and eats lost travelers.
Hyakki Yako: Translates as Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. An event where every year on a summer night, yokai have a parade through the streets. Anyone who comes across this is said to die.