Chapter 23

Kaede had finally regained her composure, but it took a couple of cups of warm tea provided by the monks and poured by Isshin himself for her to feel like herself.

“I don’t understand. There was something in the bamboo…” Kaede whispered, afraid that she imagined the whole thing.

Isshin took her teacup from her and poured a third serving for her, as Yurika looked on in concern. Gakuto had gone to sweep the garden and the perimeter of the temple, hoping to find what Kaede had seen.

“Kaede-chan…” Yurika said, sitting next to her friend, patting her arm gently.

“What did the figure look like?” Isshin asked, the seriousness in his voice drawing Kaede’s attention.
“I don’t know quite how to describe it… it felt like an all-consuming darkness that owned the shadow of the bamboo itself. It looked right at me and then it looked at the bell…” Kaede said, bringing a hand up to her face, covering one of her eyes. “When I felt its gaze on me, I felt like I was being swallowed up in a void of blackness…”

“Did you see its face!?” Isshin said, his voice grave.

Kaede nodded slightly as Yurika’s eyes met Isshin’s, a slight realization setting in.

“You don’t think…?”

“Kaede-san, what did the face of the creature look like?”

Kaede looked between the two of them, not sure why they were being so cryptic. “It was wearing some sort of mask. Like one of those ones you’d get at a matsuri, it was shaped like…” She looked down, squinting her eyes as if she was trying to bring the image back to her mind’s eye. “...a dog. The mask wasn’t black like the shadow itself. If it had been anywhere else, I’d have just thought it was a decoration.”

Isshin looked from Kaede to Yurika, their eyes meeting, before he gave a slight nod.

“The Hound.” Their voices said without a single shred of doubt.

“Pardon me, but… The Hound?” Kaede asked, somewhat reluctantly.

“The Hound of Canaan.” Yurika said, stepping in front of Isshin and looking directly at Kaede. “Some say it is a malevolent spirit of someone who drowned off the shores of Tsuiraku a long time ago. Others say it is the embodiment of all the villagers who have died in natural disasters, their various unfulfilled desires binding them together to form a mass of blackness. A few of the older villagers say that it is the real form of the guardian spirit statue that disappeared from the shrine on Mt. Ochiru about one hundred years ago. Regardless of what it is, seeing The Hound is meant to be a premonition of sorts.”

The old monk nodded slightly, seemingly satisfied with Yurika’s summation.

“I don’t understand… why was it here then?”

Yurika and Isshin exchanged glances before shrugging and gazing out into the garden.

“There’s no telling, Kaede-san.” Isshin said. “However, I can say that there has never been a report of The Hound showing up within the grounds of this shrine.”

He turned to look at the three bells before turning back to Kaede, his hand rubbing his chin as he furrowed his brows.

“It seems that you’re on the edge of something incredible, young maiden. What exactly, I can’t be sure, but if you run across the shade of Tsuiraku again, please let me know.”

Yurika’s eyes shifted from Kaede to Isshin and back before she stood up, facing the monk.

“Master Isshin, now that you’ve heard Kaede-chan’s story, can you tell us if you have any special mirrors in this shrine?” Kaede was still holding her cup of tea, looking at the two as Isshin rubbed his palm up his cheek before shaking his head.

“No, there has never been anything of the sort here.”

Yurika slouched, letting out a long sigh of disappointment.

“However…” She perked up hearing the monk continue. Kaede set her cup down and leaned forward, looking up expectantly at Isshin.

“I do believe the other two shrines have mirrors. I can send up a message to Inari and Ieyasu to meet with you three.”

Kaede and Yurika exchanged a quick smile before both of them bowed gracefully to the old monk.

“We’d appreciate that, Master Isshin!”

Gakuto was standing just outside the front foyer, his sheathed blade gripped firmly in his hand, as Kaede and Yurika exited. His gaze was sweeping across the grounds, despite no one being out there with the rain still pouring down.

“I searched everywhere I could think of, Kaede, but I didn’t find anything out of place.”

Kaede tensed up slightly, before shaking her head. “It’s okay, Gakkun. I didn’t expect you to. I’m honestly not sure of what I saw as it is.” Her hand, clenched around the handle of a simple parasol that the head monk had lent to her, was shaking but Gakuto pretended not to notice.

Yurika, holding her own borrowed parasol, explained what Isshin had told them about writing a letter of introduction to the respective heads of the other two shrines.

“Do you think we could make it up to the shrine in the foothills? We still have some time before the first evening chime.” Gakuto said as both girls opened their parasols. Kaede deferred to Yurika, not just because she was the local but because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue their investigation for the day.

Yurika shook her head vehemently at his suggestion. “Even if Master Isshin sent the letters by some sort of magic network that only the monks have, I wouldn’t recommend it.” She pointed at the darkened sky. “First of all, while the path up to both shrines isn’t all that treacherous, it isn’t well-lit so with the sky looking like that, I wouldn’t recommend it. Also, while this is a pretty light rain by Tsuiraku standards, there’s a lot of places with some loose ground on the ascent. We get all sorts of rockslides during even light storms, so everyone is strongly discouraged from ascending and descending the mountain during any rain, unless there’s an emergency.”

Gakuto didn’t hesitate to agree with Yurika’s assessment and turned to Kaede. “I guess we’ll have to make our way up there tomorrow morning, if the storm clears up?”

Kaede nodded meekly, biting her bottom lip. Yurika gave her a sidelong glance, fully understanding her apprehension.

“Kaede-chan!” Yurika said, leaning close to the oiran, smiling softly. “How about you and I take a nice long bath when we get back to Nagato?”

Kaede smiled slightly at Yurika, nodding. “That sounds like fun!”

Gakuto tilted his head at Yurika, his impression of her growing once more at how well she got along with Kaede. The island girl grinned at him as she stepped past him, whispering: “Don’t worry too much about Kaede-chan right now. After all, it’s not every day you meet a mythical being…” before she led Kaede back towards the shrine’s entrance.

Gakuto sighed, leaning down and picking up the parasol the monks had provided him during his search.

“I’m not exactly sure what you mean by that this time, but it certainly seems like Kaede is meeting a different one every day now…”

Isshin had quickly set to writing out the letters he promised to the two young girls and was just finishing the one for Saishu Inari, the head priestess of the Secluded Shrine located in the foothills of Mt. Ochiru, when he had an epiphany.

“That young man, Gakuto…” He looked up at one of the candles flickering in the slight breeze coming in from the garden. “...he was the splitting image of Ryuta.” He laughed to himself, turning to another slip of paper to write on.

“There’s no way that wild man settled down though. It’s already a miracle that Ryuho found Yukiko… Though, if Ryuta did find himself a bride, I’d very much love to meet her. Anyone with the patience to tame that feral brat would almost certainly become a deity in their next life.”

He chuckled loudly to himself before dipping his brush in ink and continuing his writing.