The Ice Blossom’s Mark

“Be good now and come here, kitty kitty kitty!”

The cat ignored him completely and went on licking its paw, perched on the branch of a lone cedar rising out of the snow.

Maybe it only understands Japanese?

“Oi! Kochi, kochi, kochi, Neko-chan!”

The cat kept licking, utterly unimpressed.

Wait, -chan is the feminine suffix, isn’t it? What if it’s a tomcat?

He cleared his throat and tried again.

“Kochi, kochi, kochi! Neko… uh… -kun?”

The cat finally looked at him, somewhere between puzzled and curious.

Then it stretched, leapt down from the tree, and padded off through the snow, down the slope.

Hale scratched his head helplessly and glanced back toward Fuji’s summit, now far behind him.

“Great. I actually followed this fat house cat all the way down to the treeline for nothing…” he muttered.

A sharp, indignant voice rang out behind him.

“Hey! Who are you calling fat, nya!?”

Startled, he spun around, looking left and right, but there was no one there.

“W-who said that?”

“And for your information, the proper honorific would be -sama!”

His eyes dropped, and to his astonishment, the plump white cat from before was sitting right there, glaring up at him.

“T-the… cat talks?”

He stumbled back, tripped over a root, and landed flat on his back, staring dumbstruck at the cat.

“What kind of stupid question is that?” the cat snapped. “You were talking to me first, weren’t you?”

Hale gaped at her, speechless.

Despite everything that had already happened, the storm, the cave, Koori, his mind simply refused to accept a talking cat.

The cat didn’t bother waiting for an answer. 

Instead she raised her chin and strutted off again.

“Tch… foolish humans… always thinking they’re special. Whatever happened to respect, nya?”

Hale stared after her in disbelief, until a sudden stab of pain shot through his right wrist, cold creeping beneath his skin like ice.

He yanked his arm up.

“Ungh… what's happening?”

The mark on his wrist began to glow, blue light pulsing beneath the skin, as if reacting to the snow it had just touched.

“It’s… glowing?”

He brushed his fingers over the shining lines, the chill radiating from them shimmered faintly in the sunlight.

“The mark of the mountain! Why do you bear it, nya!?”

The cat was suddenly right in front of him, her nose only inches from his wrist.

“The mark of… what?” Hale stammered, still reeling from the fact that the cat could talk at all.

“It's not yours to bear!" the cat snapped. “It belongs to Koorisakuya (氷咲耶) the Ice Blossom, daughter of Konohanasakuya-hime.“

Wait. Is she talking about Koori?

“How dare you carry such a mark? Speak!” the cat pressed, her tail flicking sharply behind her.

Hale blinked twice.

“Well… there was this girl. I think I got it from her. But her name’s Koori, and she didn’t say anything about someone named Kono... whatever."

“Konohanasakuya-hime!” The cat hissed in annoyance, still inspecting the mark.

Then she sat back, tail swishing lazily through the powder snow, lost in thought.

Gods, marks, talking cats… I can’t believe any of this.

“You’re not an ordinary cat, are you?”, he asked cautiously.

She tilted her head slightly.

“Very perceptive, human.”

“And… what exactly are...”

“I am Fuji-no Neko-gami, nya” she cut him off sharply, “guardian of the Fuji-no Jukai.”

Her tail flicked once, as if to chase away boredom, then her gaze dropped back to his wrist.

“…And you’re going to die soon.”

Hale jerked upright.

“W-what do you mean, die!?”

Neko-gami began to circle him, her paws silently walking on the snow.

“The mark you carry will spread. First your arm, then your shoulder, then your whole body. Until you’re nothing more than a rather unflattering ice sculpture.”

He went pale, his heart pounding in his chest.

“I-ice sculpture!? Isn’t there anything I can do? Maybe Koori can help me.” He glanced from the mark back toward the summit.

Neko-gami laughed, loud and mocking, her sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight.

“Koorisakuya? She’s the one who gave you that mark in the first place! You better forget about her, nya.”

Hale stammered, shoulders sagging.

“Then… what am I supposed to do?”

The cat sat down before him, tail curling neatly around her paws.

“I could help you… though I’m not entirely sure why I should, after being called a fat house cat.”

Hale lunged forward, hands raised in a hasty apology, forcing an awkward laugh.

“That was a misunderstanding! If I’d known I was talking to a true deity, I’d never have said such a thing, oh great… Cat… Neko… uh, Kami!”

Neko-gami stared at him for a long moment, as if weighing whether he was worth the effort.

Then she just padded off through the snow, downhill toward the treeline.

“Come along then, human, before I change my mind,” she called over her shoulder.

Hale was speechless for a while, then scrambled to his feet and hurried after her.

“Um… right. Coming!”

***

They walked for a while along the slopes of Fuji, Hale struggling to keep pace with his four-legged guide as she led him down hidden trails, deeper into her domain.

Before long they reached the edge of a forest, where a dense, unmoving fog hung thick between the trunks.

“Fuji no Jukai,” the cat murmured. “The Sea of Trees.”

Hale nodded silently, though something about the place made the hairs on his neck stand on end.

She finally guided him toward a gnarled old cedar.

Between its roots stood a small Shintō shrine, the stone weathered and cracked, with paper streamers hanging stiff with frost from the sacred rope.

“Here,” the cat said. “Place the hand with the mark upon the shimenawa.”

“Shime... what?” Hale asked, confused.

“The rope, you fool! Place it on the rope!” Her voice had lost all playfulness.

Hale hesitated, staring at the glowing pattern on his wrist.

“What happens if I do?”

“Then you’ll live, nya.”

Her voice had turned cold and commanding.

He stepped closer, leaning over the altar as unease spread through him.

Then something flickered in his mind. A memory, like a distant call.

Don’t listen to the cat. She lies.

Hale’s heart skipped a beat while Neko-gami was watching him, her face unreadable.

“How... how do I know you’re telling the truth?” he whispered.

A moment of silence, then her tail twitched once.

“Do you know if she is?”

The question struck deeper than he expected and his throat tightened.

What if  Neko-gami is right? What if Koori was the one who lied? 

“Do it,” Neko-gami urged. “Or you’ll be nothing but ice before the day is done!”

Hale looked down at his trembling hand, the spiral mark burning bright on his wrist.

“I…”

No. Koori didn’t seem deceitful to me.

He started to pull away.

“Now!” the cat hissed.

Hale froze. “N-no, I don’t think that's...”

But before he could finish, a white blur shot forward.

With surprising weight, Neko-gami leapt up and slammed her paws against his wrist, forcing it down onto the shimenawa.

The sacred rope trembled and the paper streamers rustled.

“What are you doing!?” Hale shouted.

“I helped you decide,” she purred, before she added in a mocking tone, “That’s why I despise you humans. So very fickle and indecisive, nya.”

Light erupted from the mark, crawling up his arm in glowing spirals until it reached his shoulder.

The stone beneath his palm vibrated as if something beneath it were awakening.

A gust of wind tore through the forest, whipping snow into the air.

“What’s happening?” Hale shouted.

A blinding beam burst upward from the altar and the force hurled him backward; he hit the ground hard, snow exploding around him.

Pain pulsed through every muscle, and when he looked down, the mark still glowed on his wrist, unchanged.

“Neko-gami!” he cried. “What have you done?”

But she was nowhere to be seen.

The truth sank in, that she’d never meant to help him.

“She... tricked me", he muttered.

Only then did he see a figure lying a few meters away, motionless, half-buried in snow, frost crystals shimmering in her long, dark hair.

“Koori…?” he breathed.

A laugh echoed through the forest, deep and menacing, and beside the shrine, a creature rose, towering like a tree.

Its fur bristled; strange symbols blazed across its body, and sharp fangs protruded from the corners of its mouth.

“So long,” it hissed, “so long I have waited…”

Hale stumbled backward. “Neko-gami…?”

”At last, I am free,” she said, her yellow eyes sparkling with delight. “Thanks to you, foolish human.”

The fog surged over her and swallowed her whole; only a single line seeped out like a menacing whisper:

“Now there is much I intend to… correct...”

Then she was gone.

Hale turned toward Koori, who still lay motionless in the snow.

His head was pounding, his vision blurring, darkness closing in around him, while the fog crept closer.

And he knew, somewhere beneath the fog, something old had been unleashed.