Crackle, pop.
Sparks leapt from the burning wood, casting a ruddy glow over the three trout roasting above the campfire, their skins golden and crisp.
One fish was missing.
Kiyo Seigan remembered very clearly that he had roasted four.
Had someone stolen it?
And who was most likely to do such a thing...?
There was no need to name his first suspect. Kiyo raised his eyes and fixed a scrutinizing gaze upon little Paimon, who was staring at the fish and drooling vacantly.
Sensing his gaze, Paimon looked up with perfect innocence. She licked the corner of her mouth, patted her belly, and asked expectantly, "Is it time to eat?"
"One is missing," Kiyo said succinctly.
"!" Paimon gasped. "One is missing!"
She puffed out her round cheeks in outrage and stamped one little white foot against the ground. "What thief ate my fish?!"
Kiyo continued staring at her with the same suspicion.
"...Why are you looking at Paimon like that?"
Kiyo narrowed his eyes.
"...It wasn't me!" Paimon cried.
"I don't believe you." Kiyo shook his head.
Little Paimon had a lengthy criminal record, especially where stolen food was concerned. He had no faith whatsoever in her character.
Paimon's face turned scarlet. Deeply offended by this attack on her integrity, she stamped her foot again.
"Little Corpse, you know Paimon! If Paimon had done it, there wouldn't be a single fish left!"
She raised her little head and planted her hands proudly on her hips. The yellow firelight played across her face. She looked entirely unashamed—proud of herself, even.
That seemed reasonable.
...Kiyo Seigan nodded.
It really did.
Paimon could not possibly be the culprit.
Kiyo lowered his eyes and turned the same scrutinizing gaze upon the crystalline Salt Ruler.
"...There is something profoundly disrespectful about that look, Mr. Sardine." Lia gave a soft laugh.
"Did the Salty God steal it?"
The words had barely left Kiyo's mouth when he stopped. The Salt Ruler in his hand had begun to melt again. Grains of salt scattered through the air, every crystal reflecting the campfire's warm yellow glow until countless points of light surrounded him in a luminous haze.
"You know..."
Through the mist, he felt a soft, warm breath brush his ear, leaving it pleasantly ticklish. The goddess named Havria leaned close and gently caught his earlobe between her teeth.
"If I wanted to 'sneak a taste,' trout would not be what I ate." Her head tilted, pure white hair spilling across Kiyo's shoulder. Her voice fell low as the chirp of an insect.
"You know that, Mr. Sardine~"
Kiyo would rather not know.
He did not dare move.
"What are you talking about tasting?"
Miss Lumine, who had been fishing in the distance, seemed to sense something. She turned on instinct. Her golden, catlike eyes narrowed sharply, then widened in disbelief, reflecting the figures of Kiyo Seigan and Lia.
Lia's soft hands rested upon Kiyo's shoulders. They stood so close that their breaths nearly mingled.
Right before Lumine.
Right in front of her face.
Her pupils trembled.
"What are you doing...?" Lumine's lips parted. Her voice betrayed no emotion. "Sneaking a taste?"
Lia stuck out her tongue at her in triumph.
"Bleh~" she drawled.
"Sneaking a taste," Lumine repeated without expression.
Miss Lumine began weighing Kamigiri at her waist again. Kamigiri truly was a wonderful name. Godcutter—a blade made for cutting gods...
Kiyo Seigan's head began to ache. All this over one missing fish, and somehow they were at each other's throats again!
Fine. He had stolen it. Happy now?
.
Cool moonlight slowly spread across the last warm yellow of sunset. Dusk closed in from every direction, and Chinju Forest darkened little by little. Layered leaves rubbed together in the evening wind, their rustling song mingling with the sigh of pines across the mountain. The ancient forest was about to fall asleep.
"So," Lumine said after they had explained the situation, "one fish really did disappear?"
"Yes." Kiyo nodded, then turned his suspicious gaze upon her. "Did you see anything?"
"It wasn't me." Lumine looked challengingly at Lia and answered in complete seriousness. "If I had made a move, neither the fish nor the man would be left. I'd have carried them both off."
As she spoke, the tips of her pale ears reddened like sunset over a field of snow.
Just as expected of Lumine. Stealing the fish alone was not enough; she wanted to abduct the man too.
"But..." Lumine paused, then asked uncertainly, "are you sure it was only one fish...?"
"Because I don't see any left on the rack."
Kiyo spun around.
Sure enough, the rack above the campfire was empty. Only a faint aroma of oil remained to prove that the grilled fish had ever existed.
Just as Lumine had said, not one remained.
All gone.
Only one suspect fit the evidence.
"It really wasn't Paimon!" Paimon's little face crumpled. Now she truly had no way to clear her name. She stamped her feet in fury. "It wasn't me!"
Kiyo narrowed his eyes. He remembered the tales of monsters circulating through Chinju Forest.
Could a monster truly be responsible...?
But a monster that stole grilled fish lacked a certain dignity.
"I can't catch any more fish." Lumine drooped. "There isn't a single one left in that little pond. We'll have to go hungry tonight."
Of course there were no fish left.
Lumine had not been fishing at all. She had thrown a massive charge of black powder into the pond. It was not that the pond contained no fish—it contained no intact fish. The water was full of mangled remains and severed fish heads. Those four trout had been the only whole corpses to survive.
"Or we could eat the Emergency Food," Kiyo suggested casually.
"You can't eat Paimon!"
Paimon stamped her foot again. Ever since Paimon, Sovereign of Heaven, had begun cultivating the peerless art of Colorful Sunshine, never had she endured such provocation and humiliation. What terrifying junior dared insult her so?
"We're going to catch the thief!"
"The thief can't have gone far." Lumine nodded, agreeing with Paimon. "Let's split up and look."
...
In many ghost stories, splitting up was where everything began to go wrong.
Having now tested the theory for himself, Kiyo Seigan agreed wholeheartedly.
Night fell completely, and rain began to fall.
He raised his head and studied his surroundings.
The path was buried in dense green growth. Vines ran wild, their pale gray tendrils smothering shriveled trunks. Fine, gloomy rain pattered upon the dark red earth, damp and rank beneath an inexplicably murky gloom.
The deeper he went, the stranger it felt.
Following nothing but instinct, he had wandered here before he realized it.
He should find shelter from the rain.
Otherwise the Lumine® Hairdryer Princess would scold him again.
An abandoned shrine stood not far away.
It had been deserted for a very long time. Ivy covered the outer walls. Flakes of fallen plaster rotted among withered plants, and the whole shrine carried the musty odor of old, damp wood. At its center sat a statue shaped like a tanuki, with a great round belly, a plump face, and an endearingly simple expression.
Kiyo entered the shrine. The moment he stepped inside, the rain grew heavier.
The shrine was ancient, perhaps several centuries old. No one came to worship here anymore. It was not large, though it did contain a small bedroom.
That struck him as strange.
"Is anyone here?" He knocked on the door.
No one answered.
So he pushed it open.
A wind chime hanging from the door gave a lovely ring.
The room beyond seemed like another world from the rest of the shrine.
It was not new. The little chamber was just as old, and wooden windows that had weathered untold years rattled in the cold wind. Yet the room was remarkably tidy.
A maple grew before the lattice window. The room could not contain it, so its branches reached outside, where red leaves swayed quietly in the evening wind.
Though the room itself was old, the maple felt alive. It gave Kiyo the uncanny impression that someone lived here.
The wind chime upon the door gave him the same feeling.
So did the maple tree.
Kiyo crossed the creaking tatami and opened the drawer of a wooden table. A disorderly collection lay within: children's toys of every sort, two worn fox figurines, a little wooden pinwheel, and a yellowed drawing.
The picture was crude and childish. With some difficulty, Kiyo made out two little figures dueling with swords.
What was this...?
His fingertip brushed the childish drawing, and for a moment, he lost himself in thought.
Then his nose twitched.
A familiar aroma had drifted into the room. Kiyo followed it outside and noticed something odd about the tanuki statue at the center of the shrine.
Was the corner of its mouth... shining?
Was that oil?
Kiyo fixed the statue with a suspicious stare and instinctively reached for his sword. For a moment, man and statue faced one another in eerie silence.
"Did you steal them?" he asked.
The stone statue did not answer.
Kiyo drew his sword and decided to give it one cut first.
Only when the flash of steel lit the tanuki statue's round face did it finally cry out.
"I—I am Ioroi!"
"Kill me or carve me up—I shall accept my fate!"
It was a bold and righteous declaration worthy of a samurai. Unfortunately, it did not suit the speaker at all.
Cracks spread across the stone shell. A fat little Bake-Danuki leapt from the enormous statue and revealed his true form.
Two grilled fish were clenched in his mouth, while each little paw clutched another. He strained to stand upon his hind legs, hoping the extra height might lend him greater dignity. But the oil gleaming around his mouth made dignity impossible.
"I alone committed this deed!" Ioroi declared indignantly. "It has nothing to do with my accomplice!"
...A dark line appeared on Kiyo's face.
He had just exposed the accomplice himself.
The terrifying monster of Chinju Forest was this foolish little tanuki. Kiyo felt as though one of his illusions had been shattered.
Yet for some reason, he could not bring himself to dislike Ioroi.
"Why did you steal the fish?" Kiyo asked.
"Because..." The little tanuki looked aggrieved. "No one brings me food anymore. Fewer and fewer travelers come through the forest, even after I spent centuries playing a stone statue at this shrine!"
Playing a stone statue...
"I was hungry." Ioroi patted his round belly. "So I had to steal something to eat. I haven't eaten in days."
Kiyo sighed.
Had it occurred to him that fewer people came to Chinju Forest precisely because he kept stealing things and spreading rumors of a monster?
"You've been here for centuries...?" Kiyo asked curiously. "Have you never thought about leaving?"
"I can't." Ioroi shook his head with conviction. "I promised him I would protect this shrine. I'm not allowed to leave!"
"So Ioroi stayed right here and played a stone statue." He raised his head proudly. "I earned lots of tasty food. Impressive, right?"
He was only a little tanuki, yet his expression was utterly solemn, his round, chubby cheeks set with determination, as though this truly were a sacred duty.
"But he still hasn't come back," Ioroi said.
The person who had made that promise...
Kiyo Seigan considered those words.
Almost without thinking, he ventured, "Could that person have been me?"
The little tanuki tilted his head. He was a foolish creature, and to a tanuki, all humans appeared to have been carved from the same mold. Ioroi circled Kiyo, peering at him from left and right. Only after a considerable delay did realization dawn.
"You look so alike! Exactly the same!"
He blinked several times, then shook his head.
"But it wasn't you. You're much too weak. And that man was older than you—much, much older! At least a thousand years older!"
The little tanuki was talking nonsense again, inventing lies anyone could see through at a glance.
Kiyo smiled and shook his head.
As far as he could deduce, his previous life in Inazuma had been five hundred years ago. How could that person possibly have been a thousand years older than he was now?
"You mentioned an accomplice." Kiyo returned to the other matter that concerned him. "Who is it?"
"Ah." Ioroi looked away. "What accomplice? I don't know anything."
"You won't tell me?"
"There isn't one!"
"Then I'll take you away." Kiyo frightened the innocent little tanuki. "You stole my grilled fish, so I'm going to roast and eat you instead!"
The threat worked remarkably well. Ioroi believed him at once and curled into a trembling ball, his pupils quivering as though he might burst into tears at any moment.
Yet to Kiyo's surprise, despite his terror, Ioroi still spoke in a shaking voice.
"Kill me or carve me up—I shall accept my fate."
"I-I'm not afraid..."
The little tanuki was plainly terrified.
"I can't let anyone see her. I promised I would protect her... Take me away if you must. Just eat me and no one else!"
"Her?" Kiyo repeated, as something occurred to him.
That bedroom...
The red maple growing beside it. The drawer full of children's toys. The childish drawing.
Who lived there?
Behind him came the soft sound of bare feet upon tatami.
Kiyo Seigan turned.
He saw a jūnihitoe, its crimson hem trailing across the floor. Before the lattice window, the evening wind stirred the red maple leaves.