Pets or not… 2

[En route stop, Akama Jingu, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture]

A light scent of sweetness wafted in as Alex found himself alone in the middle of a large Japanese tatami room where the shoji doors with its divided wooden squares of rice paper screen closed.

A recessed space, a tokonoma, located at the far end of the room, opposite to the entrance, displayed two eerie lanterns with greenish flames softly illuminating a scroll of painted foxes dancing around the moon light.

Last he recalled was Antoku looking at the armored Taira warriors and calling his name, to which he responded with a "yes?".

Ahhh fuck. Alex clutched his head in panic. The hung scroll of foxes gave him the creepy feeling of being trapped with a fox spirit.

Antoku must have mistaken his answer for an agreement to see his pet. He deduced from the painting, the pet would be a fox.

Alex backed away from the strange painting and shuffled over to the nearest Shoji door and slid it open. With caution, he popped his head out, surveying an empty wooden walkway with the closed shoji doors of rooms.

He heard the melodious strumming of a biwa, a Japanese lute from the opposite room, closed in privacy. The strumming stopped and a mournful, deep singing voice of a man resonated through the walkway.

Alex retreated into his room and slid the door close. Complete silence pervaded, like being in a soundproof room. He slid the door open and heard the strumming of the biwa again.

Slender dark shadows flitted across the plain rice paper screen doors in the other rooms with the sounds of girlish laughters mixed with the gruff words from a man. Alex's eyes caught sight of a slim, elongated, and curved silhouette on top of the outline of a table against the opposite room's screen.

He closed his door quickly, recognizing the elongated item as a long-sword, a tachibana, used by the Japanese warriors of old as a close quarter weapon.

A hand gripped his shoulder, digging its fingernails into him. Before he could yell, another hand muffled his mouth.

"Calm down," Shamoji whispered into his ear. "There are fourteen ghosts over in the other room."

Alex nodded dumbstruck at the change of events, and Shamoji removed his hand from Alex's mouth, shaking his head.

"Where's Yata?" Alex asked in a low whisper.

"I sent him to the car." Shamoji beckoned Alex to follow him to the tokonoma.

Alex pointed at the space and said, "that's a dead end."

"This is a kitsune, fox spirit, type of illusion," Shamoji muttered as his arm with reached out to Alex with his open hand.

As soon as Alex grasped his hand, Shamoji pulled him with such force into the painting, sending him flying face first, smacked into the bonnet of the Lexus. Alex felt no pain, but his mind was swirling into a maelstrom of confusing, colorful images.

"Your pets are impressive. Where are they from?"

Alex could hear Shamoji talking, but his eyes could only make out blurry images of those present.

"Oh, the three Inari shrines nearby. I like them. They play with me all the time," Antoku's cheerful voice spoke.

"Um, is he okay?" Antoku asked. "I hope they didn't get too rough."

Rough? Alex thought as he slowly pulled himself up from the bonnet, while his vision sharpen to form an image of Yata wearing a condescending grin at the back passenger seat. The only rough one was Shamoji.

A slap on his back made him jump off the metal hood. Shamoji threw his arms around Alex's neck and pointed to him. "He had a great time with your pets."

Antoku opened his eyes in delight and jumped around Alex, clapping excitedly. "Come back more often! We can play with my pets."

"Um… I… um," Alex glanced nervously at a smiling Shamoji. "When I come back with him."

"Cool! I can show you more next time! There're the crabs!"

Alex pointed to the Lexus and muttered. "I better get going. Thanks… um."

With a bow, he fled to the front door, opened it and jumped into his seat, slamming the door shut.

"Shouldn't have said yes," Yata said.

"It's an accidental yes, as in if someone calls my name." Alex protested.

"Next time, use 'here' not 'yes'," Yata replied as Shamoji opened the door and got in with a yawn.

"I told you so," Shamoji drawled, as he brushed off the fox fur stuck to his clothing, which vanished in the air, as Alex rolled his eyes. "Damn foxes leave their fur all over the illusion."

"Fourteen angry Taira ghosts. Heike, as we call them. How was the singing by Hoichi?" Shamoji asked.

"One of their ghosts can play the biwa? Didn't the Japanese then consider musicians as the lowest of all ranks on the social hierarchy then?" Alex said. "The Taira are like the elite…"

"Hoichi the Earless isn't one of them. He has a shrine up there," Shamoji pointed towards the corner of the shrine. "The minstrel who can make the ghosts weep, that's the legend."

"Earless ghost?"

"Just an illusion of ghosts. That tells you how much they enjoy his performance, enough to replay it all the time. Hoichi himself went down the Sanzu path a long time ago."

"But didn't you say if they get a shrine?"

"His case is different. Before Akama Jingu was Akama Jingu, this whole place was Amidaji temple, dedicated to Antoku. That shrine of Hoichi is more like a tombstone rather than an actual shrine," Shamoji explained as he drove out of the shrine parking lot.

Alex turned around to look back at the boy emperor waving at them while the Taira warriors surrounded him, bowing to them.

"Say, the bottles of sake?"

"Given to Ōwatatsumi's shrine when you were stuck in the illusion," Shamoji replied. "Although the Inari foxes have been nice enough to you."

"NICE? They trapped me with Hoichi and fourteen ghosts!"

"If they were nasty, they would have placed you in the room with the fourteen ghosts," Shamoji pointed out as he made a turn at the junction towards the ramp.

"Are they as powerful as Jiuwei?"

"Yes and no," Shamoji said. "They are in service to the primeval beings and restricted in that service by the regulations of their master."

"Isn't Jiuwei in the service of Kanghui?"

"I don't know what agreements they may have. Both are from the old continent. However, Jiuwei told us that Kanghui, or rather Kyōko of Yasu Mawari, as we know her, used to be a powerful being with an influence over four, or was it five, primeval beast kings."

Alex understood which ones he was referring to: Taotie, Taowu, Qiongqi and Huntun. Why did Kanghui refer to them like a pet cat if they were so horrific? He could only wonder.

"What's the difference? A beast king and a primeval being?"

"Not much except they usually keep to their territories refusing to shape-shift, refusing to join factions, and are often too powerful for us to fight head on."

"Which are the ones known to Takamagahara?"

"Seiryu, Byakko, Genbu and Suzaku. Their territories are the four quadrants of the cosmos, high up beyond this planet or even the entire systems of planets. Knowledge of their presence came from the old continent."

Alex recognised the names of the ancient four directional beasts.

Seiryu is the Azure Dragon of the East while Suzaku is the Vermilion Bird that ruled the South, followed by Byakko, the White Tiger of the West, and Genbu, the Black Tortoise of the North.

They originated from Chinese mythology, Seiryu was Qinglong, Zhuque was Suzaku, Baihu as Byakko and Xuanwu as Genbu.

Like the four beasts of perils, Taotie, Taowu, Qiongqi and Huntun. Why were all these primeval beasts grouped in fours?

Alex could only ponder about the significance of the number four.

"Soon, you can meet the infamous Yamata no Orochi," Shamoji changed the topic as he sidled in his driver's seat once they went up the ramp back into the expressway back into the monotony of more mountains and the scattering of human towns and villages below. "Hiikawa or Hii river, is where Takamagahara imprisoned him."

"Imprisoned for trying to eat maidens?" Alex recalled the story of Susanoo, the noble Amatsukami of Takamagahara, fighting Yamata-no-Orochi to save Kushi-inada, a maiden from being devoured.

"If you believe that bullshit," Shamoji spat as he swerved right around a truck going down the long, winding expressway around the mountains. "Yamata-no-Orochi isn't so scary, it's the damn politics of the whole hidden dimension that is scarier, worse than the human politics, which is already bad enough."

"How so?"

"The ranks set by primeval beings determine who becomes the patsy and who becomes a pet. The weak are pets, the dumb are patsies, ripe to be used," Shamoji replied.

"What do you call yourselves, then?" Alex asked.

"The opposition party which holds them at ransom like in the human world," Shamoji said while Yata snickered. "For our rights to be naughty anywhere we wish. The only reason not to destroy rice fields here or the farmers is only sake."

"And KFC?"

"That too, but KFC doesn't rank as high as sake," Shamoji replied.

"Why?"

"Know why the human call alcohol 'spirits'?"

Alex shook his head.

"Easier for us to influence humans when they are drunk. Easier for them to be our pets when we order them to do something."