Chapter 147: The Shrine

Chapter 147: The Shrine

November had always made the mountain quieter. The trees had already begun to lose their leaves as the white snow slowly started falling softly over the ground.

Kiyori stopped near a mountain village, a familiar place where she had grown up and learned everything she needed to.

A village for others, but a home for her. Today was November 14th, the very day before the Kagura dance festival.

The first torii stood between two enormous cedar trees, its weathered pillars darkened by decades of rain. Before her lay the path to the Tamayori shrine, swallowed by the dense canopy above.

Hanging low across the archway, a sacred shimenawa rope held white paper streamers that twitched as the wind fluttered them. But it was the stairs that drew the eye—a steep ascent of moss-slicked stone flanked by a wild, bleeding carpet of red spider lilies.

Two Fox statues, who had their eyes closed in long, peaceful, tilted lines, watched her from either side with their heads slightly tilted. They sat on two stone pillars where letters were crafted deep alongside the stone with various mantras and purification chants.

Both foxes held a strange twinkle in their whiskers, looking seemingly warm with an old wisdom that only chanted about how meaningful a life was. A small soft smile crafted onto their lips, that sort of expression that could be mistaken for kindness, but perhaps they were more human than humans.

Maybe in fact, it couldn’t have been something just given by sculptures.

They were not statues to her after all. In her eyes, they were creatures who had simply been sitting there for far too long and had eventually become accustomed to watching humans come and go. Not just the village, not just the country... lives, perhaps.

Nearby, on small shrines and shorter pillars, were more of these statues with different expressions of each; some looked at the sky, some looked at the ground, and some stared in four directions.

Some were small enough to fit into a person’s arms, while some were slightly heavier.

Others were older than anyone could remember, as their stone faces had been softened by moss and rain.

Kiyori had passed them thousands of times. She still knew which one had lost its left ear, which one had lost its legs, which one had a broken tail, and which one had a crack running through its chest.

Finally, the ones where children secretly placed coins beneath their paws during festivals in an attempt to seek secret blessings. She had always watched them doing this, sometimes even asking to see a real fox, believing it’d fulfill their wishes.

Although, she herself, when she was eight, slipped a coin beneath its paws, believing a real fox would become her friend... and somehow, it worked, as she got a fox that came to the shrine.

A small chuckle escaped her mouth as she remembered. Perhaps it also came for blessings, or maybe just to meet its stoned ancestor.

But none of these were truly threatening, presenting a perspective that seemed to make the whole shrine different.

Kiyori passed the stone fox with a small, gentle nod, although the fox stared ahead with the same expression it had possessed yesterday, ten years ago, and perhaps a hundred years before she was born.

But it had never answered anyone, yet people continued leaving offerings at its feet, but they kept talking to them. Of course, she never complained even if it sounded absurd to her, but she eventually began to get fond of it since it always reminded her how precious animals could be. She had eventually learned that disbelief shouldn’t be mixed with disrespect.

Perhaps understanding the value is truly a blessing of growing up. She thought as her steps echoed softly through the silence with a slow rhythmic thock.

Kiyori glanced at the fox statue and spoke softly. "Still here waiting?"

Of course, it didn’t answer, but that warm smile was an answer enough to her, almost welcoming her.

As she climbed further, the sweet scent of kudzu flowers hit her, which carried a heavy, remarkably sweet fragrance that seemed similar to grapes.

Kudzu, a flower with the childlike scent of grape soda and a dense spike of blossoms, glowing a royal, bruised purple in the dawn. At the throat of each petal was a sharp spark of gold, a tiny eye watching from the depths of the green canopy.

Reaching toward the top, she finally found the house as her expression grew happier to return. The long bag in her hand twitched as Kikyo hopped his head out to look around. Kiyori quickly pulled him back into the bag and hushed. "Don’t come out soon."

Before her, nestled into the slope of the mountain peak sat the shrine house. Built of the same ancient cedar as the torii gates below, its wood had weathered to a deep, comforting charcoal-grey over the centuries.

On top of the house, a steep, sweeping roof was designed to let the snow slide off easily. The edges of the eaves had turned dark, weathered as a blanket of ice had begun to form.

In the entrance, a long, polished wooden corridor ran along the outside of the house, elevated off the damp, snow-dusted ground, acting as a bridge between the nature.

From the top of the balconies and porches came the distinctive ringing sound of the furin, also called the wind chime. Of course, without the sound of it, there was no denying a season wasn’t over without them as its quintessential paper streamer fluttered in the breeze.

The veranda of the house featured wooden lattices backed by thick translucent paper, which were glowing faintly with warm, golden light from the indoor fires as a wisp of grey woodsmoke curled up from the chimney, and a stone water basin near the entrance groaned with a soft hiss.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Kiyori knocked three times before entering inside the house and called out. "Grandma. I have returned."

Her gaze lay on the house, which was cleaned perfectly with extreme care, leaving not a single grain of sand or dust.

The statues and furniture were well-mannered. From inside, a warm voice answered her, carrying the undeniable familiarity. "Kiyori, welcome back."

From the doorway, a figure of a lady emerged. The old woman had silver hair with a paper cord wrapped around it tightly. She had a wrinkled, pale face, making it immediately look like the winter moon.

Kiyori ran toward the woman and jumped into her arms. "I missed you so much."

"I thought you wouldn’t return to this festival." The old woman ruffled her hair, making it even messier from before.

"I still returned because I wanted to meet you."

"You came at the right time; we were preparing for the Kagura ritual."

Kiyori nodded and stepped back a step. The Kagura dance... She had a long past, but even as the priestess of this shrine, she never performed it; after all, her ideals never let her perform a dance for a deity that watched sufferings.

She darted her eyes around before her gaze lay on the mask resting on a table, a traditional kitsune fox mask. It was painted in a ghostly white, punctuated only by vibrant strokes of red ink that mapped out the fox’s features. The pointed ears caught the dim light of lanterns, making it seem alive.

It was the same mask she used to wear as a kid. She loved it so much that she had always waited for any festival to come as an excuse to wear it.

Her grandmother looked at Kiyori as her gaze lay on the strange bag, which she had never seen anywhere. "Kiyori, what’s that bag?"

Kiyori glanced at her bag, which Mo Fei had gifted her to hide Kikyo. "This—it was a gift from a new friend of mine."

The old woman blinked and looked at it closely. "It looks strangely expensive."

"You don’t know how he actually complained about it." She chuckled softly as she pulled it closer.

"He must have cared about you, so do you travel with him, and where is he now? I’d have loved to see him."

Hearing that, Kiyori slowly walked in the room and sat down on a cushion and answered. "Yes, we travelled for a while, but... he... is an Ascended."