The Goddess's Crow and Oni (Sequel to 'The Crow's Goddess')

Into the Netherworld (Part 2)

Third person POV:

Tomoe was at the tea house of the Tanuki's.

"No way, Master Tomoe has returned!" a tanuki girl said.

"We haven't seen him in nine months! I hope he's doing well." another said.

"Sister Hatsune is entertaining him right now, but Master Tomoe is acting strangely." a third tanuki girl whispered to the other two.

"Like how?" the two ask.

"No matter what ahe asks him, he seem distracted and he does is drink. he has already gone through eight whole bottles by himself." the third tanuki girl answered. "It is as if his mind is somewhere else."

Some of the tanuki girls stood by the door and looked at Tomoe.

"Why hasn't he tried to touch one of us?" a big tanuki girl asks. She then takes a bite out of a rice ball and says, "Maybe he is not feeling well."

"He is so beautiful, I could just die!" a blushing tanuki girl says.

"This house can not allow it's customers to drink themselves unconscious. We have to go in, girls." a tanuki said with a serious expression.

They walk into the room and grabbed Tomoe's attention by calling him name.

"Please allow us to join you as well!" the tanuki girl in a dark pink kimono says.

"Let us have fun, Master Tomoe!" a tanuki with diamond hair clips says.

"Sakurako wants to hear the story of your heroic deeds!" the tanuki girl with heart hair clips said.

"Heroic deeds? What do mean Miss Sakurako?" the tanuki in the dark pink kimono asks.

"I heard it earlier from Sister Mizutama. That long, long ago, Master Tomoe and Lady Miki were supposedly on friendly terms with that notorious Yōkai Akura-ou." Sakurako answered.

The five other girls went into shock and Tomoe collapsed.

"What?" one of the girl asks.

"Master Tomoe?" the tanuki in the dark pink kimono asked. She looked close and noticed, "Oh, he fell asleep."

The girls calm down and look at Sakurako.

"So back to this story. You were saying they were friends with Akura-ou, yeah? The same Yōkai that went on a murderous rampage forever ago? How could our Master Tomoe and Lady Miki have anything to do with him." the tanuki in the dark pink kimono asks.

"I didn't know he really existed." the tanuki with diamond hair clips says.

"Okay spill it, what did you hear from Sister Mizutama?" the tanuki in the dark pink kimono asks.

"Does she how old they are?" the tanuki with the red bow in her hair asks.

"Long, long ago, back when Sister Mizutama was a little girl, Akura-ou come to the house where she was apprenticing." Sakurako states.

"It must have been scary. Did he go in to buy a prostitute?" the tanuki in the dark pink kimono asks.

"No." Sakurako says as she shook her head.

For this story, we go back six hundred years.

We stand in a room fill with tanuki girls with scared faces and we see the back of Akura-ou.

"A mass murderer in the guise of a customer..." we hear Sakurako say.

"Is this the houes that's always busy, because of it's beauties?" Akura-ou asks, his bangs covering his eyes.