The Other World

Chapter 12 - Kitsune

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has voted for this story on the inkitt fanfiction novel contest! (Please keep voting if you haven't at inkitt dot com slash fandom2, scroll down to find The Other World.) As a token of my appreciation, here's another chapter early :)

A little girl wandered the forest, crying for her parents. Chihiro appeared before her and took the girl by the hand. She did not have the body she was used to. Her hands were older and the skin cracked and hardened from wind and cold, and her body beneath the heavy robe she wore was weary. The girl's hand, still chubby with baby fat, felt smooth and soft on her own. She bent before the girl and wiped away her tears with a bell-shaped sleeve, and then led the girl up the mountain. The girl would not survive. Her parents weren't coming back. They couldn't afford to feed both her and her baby brother, and they'd wanted a boy. The girl was too young to understand. Some of them, a little older but still only seven or eight, came knowing what was happening. Knowing they were being abandoned by their loved ones. The parents were sometimes crying, too, as they said goodbye to their daughters, leaving them in the care of the mountain spirit. Sometimes they left the old ones as well. The grandparents who were too old to work for their keep.

The spirit of the forest spent all of her time crying now, and never came out, so Chihiro wandered the forest day after day in her stead. She couldn't take them all in. She could only comfort them and release their spirits in their sleep, as painlessly as possible.

Chihiro woke to darkness. She sat up slowly, the dream burning bright in her mind. She thought she knew who she had been, in the dream. It wasn't the first time she'd seen through his eyes. It had felt the same this time, only wearier. He was older. And the girl, the forest spirit in his mind, whoever she was, she was sick. I have to find them. It's not his fault, or her fault either. The man who committed suicide, it's too late to save him. And the girl on the mountainside just now, it's too late for her too. But the mountain, and the forest. Maybe I can still help them.

Chihiro put her hands out and felt around her. Her fingertips met a rough stone wall. As her eyes adjusted, a single thin line of light appeared beneath what she could only assume was the door. Beyond that door, there were voices. One of them sounded male.

"You have done well, my dear, to bring me the girl." The voice was soft and cold, sending shivers down Chihiro's spine.

"Thank you, Master," said a meek voice. A woman's voice.

Master. That was Akuma talking, then?

"I am not finished," the cold voice snapped. "You left witnesses. You were fully aware that there were witnesses, yet you did not take care of them as soon as you were aware of their presence."

He must mean Yumi and her boyfriend, Chihiro thought. Please let them be okay.

"But they were innocent!" the woman protested.

"They saw," the cold voice hissed. There was a little strangled noise, then the thump of a body hitting the ground. Chihiro muffled a gasp. Over the woman's ragged breathing, the voice continued, softly: "It is no matter. Their memories have been erased. As your reward for bringing me the girl, I will indulge in your silly notions of innocence." He spat out the word 'innocence' like it was poison.

Suddenly, his voice was sweet again. Chihiro found this even more frightening than when the voice was cruel. At least the cruelty was honest. "What are you doing on the floor, my dear Kitsune? It's time to prepare the spell. She'll need it within the hour, and we want to take good care of her, don't we?"

The woman picked herself up with a rustle of silk. "Yes, Master." She walked away, her footsteps uneven and echoing slightly. Stronger footsteps strode off in the opposite direction.