Save Me From The Monsters (TomoeXReader) • Completed •

The Land God

This chapter is dedicated to iiTomoe for both voting and commenting on my story! Thank you so much for your support!

Chapter 11: The Land God

12 years later

Word count: 1093

"Tomoe! Hold still or it won't be straight!" I say , holding scissors in my right hand and Tomoe's hair with the other.

"Why are you cutting it anyways? It's not like Mikage is here to see." Tomoe says, attempting to squirm from my grasp.

"As much as I enjoy braiding your hair while you sleep, Mikage likes it short." I say, a smile playing on my lips.

"YOU BRAID MY HAIR WHILE I'M-" I laugh and place a hand over his mouth

"It was a joke, fox." I say, snipping of the last of his out-grown locks.

"There I'm done." I say, pretty pleased with myself.

Tomoe turns to me and sticks out his tongue.

Suddenly I feel a warmth that spreads outward from my chest to my fingertips, and the familiar warm smile of Mikage fills my mind. Tomoe and I look at each other with wide eyes as realization hits us. The scissors fall from my hands. By the time they are clattering on the floor Tomoe and I have sprinted to the front of the shrine.

Tomoe practically throws his foxfire at the exit, blocking Mikage from leaving.

"Where have you been all this time?" He says, surprisingly calm. However I can tell that he is seething with rage. "You made us take care of a godless shrine for twenty years!" He says raising his voice.

"I'm going to kill you!" He says lunging at the source of Mikage's presence.

I hear a high pitched scream and Tomoe freezes,

The miasma cleared enough to see a young girl, cowering below Tomoe. She looks human.

Tomoe turns to me, pointing behind him.

"This isn't Mikage." He says calmly. I leap from the shrine to where he stands. The shrine spirits walk up to the human girl and point to her forehead.

"Look, the mark of the land god is here on her forehead, exactly where it should be." Onikiri says.

"And she has Mikage's spiritual energy too." Kotesu pipes in.

Gods the shrine spirits are back too?

Confusion washes over me. How did she get the mark of a land god?

Her hand shoots up from her crouched position, grasping what looks like a map.

I snatch it from her fingers.

I pass it to Tomoe, who stands beside me. It is undoubtably Mikage's handrwritting.

No one I have ever met has such the horrible chicken-scratch handwriting as Mikage.

"Who are you." I ask the girl as Tomoe looks over the map.

@@@

"I am the familiar of Mikage, not this human." Tomoe says. "If Mikage made her the land god, it's unlikely that he will return. Therefore I have no place here." He says, looking at me as if to say 'let's go'

I wish I could agree with him, but I don't think I could leave the shrine for good even if I wanted to. The shrine is my home.

It is where Mikage and Tomoe saved my life.

It is where I became Mikage's familiar.

It is where Tomoe became my friend.

It is where I fell in love with the stupid fox that stands before me.

Without the shrine, with out Mikage and Tomoe, I have nothing.

Tomoe must see the hesitation in my expression because he grabs my wrist and pulls me along with him.

"We're leaving." He says as he drags me away from the shrine, through the shrine grounds and toward the east.

"Tomoe wait." I say nearly a mile from the shrine. I wrench my hand from his grasp.

"I can't leave the shrine." I say, as he turns to face me.

"Don't be ridiculous, there's nothing left for us there." He says, trying to take my hand again,

I dodge his grasp.

"Tomoe, no matter what you say I can't leave the shrine. I don't know what it is to you, but that shrine is my home. Let's just go back." I plead.

"And become that human's familiar?" He scoffs. "That shrine means nothing if Mikage isn't there!" He shouts, indicating with a pointed nail in the direction we came from.

My mind snaps to the first few years after Mikage left. Tomoe and I would drink sake on the porch, just as we used to do with Mikage Beside us. Tomoe seemed distant. Letting me braid his hair and place Sakura petals on his still figure until a breeze blew by and carried them off into the night. He would inevitably fall asleep, his head usually resting in my lap as I braided and rebraided his white hair.

I didn't get much sleep back then. I mostly looked after Tomoe, until he started shutting me out.

"I'm sorry Tomoe. I wish it didn't have to be like this. I don't want to lose you, but I can't leave." I say.

Anger coats his face.

"So what will you do, become her familiar?" He asks.

"If it means I can stay at the shrine. What about you? What will you do? Spend your days in the red light district, drinking until you forget your own name?!" I shout, my voice coming out louder than I expected.

"Anything is better than staying in that rundown shrine with some human."

Anger consumes me and I lunge at him. We scramble on the ground, fangs bared and claws out, until I pin his shoulders to the ground.

"That is our home Tomoe! We both would be dead if it weren't for Mikage. He gave us a home!" I shout, feeling blood on my temple and seeing the mark of my claw across Tomoe's nose.

"You can let those memories crumble with the shrine, but I don't want to forget a single moment of it." I shout. Tomoe throws me off of him and stands to his feet. I land on the ground with a thud. He turns his back to me.

"If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me." He says.

"I'll be waiting for you." I say.

"Don't make the same mistake we did with Mikage. I won't be returning." Hey says, leaping into the air and out of my sight.

Tears stream down my face as I watch him disappear, hoping that I will see him again.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my book.

Love you all

xoxo

Harleighkinz