Eh, I'm taking a break from the gloom of writing Bletchley Park, and giving you a bit from later on in the "Faces of the Moon" story. So sue me. Thank you for beta-reading, Michael!

Title: Interlude, With Foxes
Fandom: Card Captor Sakura
Series: Faces of the Moon

Summary: Concerning the adventures of Keroberous and Yue before they met Sakura. In 1970s Tokyo, a psychic detective encounters dangerous women.

Characters: Osaka Joe (OC), Fox Woman, Yue (Jade Platter), Keroberous
Warnings: Original characters, Japanese mythological references, kittens from hell. (I'm fibbing about the kittens.)

Interlude, With Foxes

He set down the nubbly brown drinking bowl on the table, his mouth still bitter from the contents, and looked up at his host. The tall woman's stern, narrow face seemed to crumble and slip, as if she had been wearing a mask whose string had snapped. She shook her head and her black coiffure tumbled out of its bell-adorned pins. She hiked up the chrysanthemum-flower skirt of her robe and a tawny-russet tail swung down and swished dangerously.

Osaka Joe smiled, picked up his fedora hat and carefully put it on his head, rose from his cushion, bowed politely, and pelted through the low doorway of the half-ruined house. "Kero-kuuuun," he shouted, "the diversion is oooooooovvveer." There was no answer. Osaka hopped swearing through the grass and prickles in his stocking feet, looked left, looked right, took a wild guess as to the best way, and ran.

Behind him the woman dropped to all fours and began to lope, her flashing white limbs growing fur and her face lengthening around sharp white teeth and a lolloping red tongue. She grinned as she ran, and yipped: "Yi-ki-ki-ki-kiiii." Around her, from hidden burrows and crannies in the ruins smaller beasts appeared, a wild fierce light in their yellow beast-eyes.

Osaka stumbled across a dry-mountain-water garden, trampling through sandy 'waves' raked only by the wind and scattered with dead leaves and live thistles. The yipping grew louder as the horde of foxes, small and large, came in sight. Osaka thrust a hand inside the battered leather satchel slung over his shoulder and threw a handful of smoke bombs and two vials of aniseed around him. He almost lost his way, tear-blind in the choking smoke, but kept going, leaping from mossy rock to mossy rock, away from the disgusted coughing and swearing of the court of foxes, away from his irate pursuers and towards the high wall that bounded their territory.

Osaka skidded to a halt at the wall. A figure stood upon it, black against the sun, a silhouette of loose dark clothes and short, wind-stirred hair, balancing easily on the sloping tiles.

"Looking for something?"

"Eheh," said the detective. "Five featureless grey rocks?"

The person on the wall held up an embroidered bag, its scarlet cords wound about plump white fingers. "You mean these featureless grey rocks?"

Behind him, the foxes yipped.

"I don't suppose you could let me up, Odango-han?"

The small, plump woman stiffened, green eyes narrowing in a round white face. "Shenme? I do not know that word. Is 'odango' a foodstuff? Can you show me in a dictionary?"

Osaka winced. "Jade Platter-san, I would appreciate it very much if you would help me up, or at least let me pass, if you please." He spared a glance behind him and looked back up, his bright black eyes becoming intent. His voice deepened to a mellowness belied by his small frame. "I could make it worth your while. Later this evening... if you know what I mean."

Jade Platter plucked a loose tile from the slanting top of the wall and shied it over Osaka's head. The lump of green-glazed clay hit the rank ground and bounced up into the lead fox's nose, who recoiled, swearing. It delayed the other beasts, but only for a moment.

"Do tell."

Osaka almost purred. "There could be... curry."

"Ah." Jade Platter indicated polite interest. "With salmon?"

Osaka seized his hat and threw it on the ground. "Ngghh! Don't you know how much fresh salmon costs? Think of the budget!"

"The budget will extend this week. I, your Honourable Secretary, will make it so," Jade Platter said, with an air that indicated baseball bats used in an unorthodox manner if it didn't. She shied another tile.

"Oh, well then." He picked up his hat, set it at a rakish angle, and took the hand she offered, using the leverage to clamber up. He swayed, briefly dizzy at the differing prospects: on his left was a mess of fog, tumbled walls, and wilderness inhabited by angry foxes, on his right a busy city street where the sun glared off the cars passing and crowds of pedestrians walked by in contented oblivion.

"Er, why aren't you with the car?"

Jade Platter looked blank. "Keroberous-senpai is better at cornering."

A gaudy red convertible swerved around a street-cleaning truck and screeched to a halt below them. At the wheel, a small, yellow, animate toy adjusted dark glasses below his own fedora hat. "Hop in, Boss!"

Osaka Joe bowed to the snarling foxes one last time. "I'm terribly sorry for inconveniencing you, ladies. But they belong in a temple!"

NOTES:

dry-mountain-water garden - You know – a zen garden. Supposed to be carefully raked.

odango-han - An odango is a steamed bun stuffed with meat. I wouldn't enjoy it as a nickname either. -han, if I didn't screw up, is the Kansai-ben variant of -chan, an honorific indicating endearment and cuteness. If I did screw up, call it a personal affectation on Osaka's part.

"Shenme?" - "What?"

five featureless gray rocks - Nicked from Order of the Stick