Come by Night 2: Winter's Moon

Chapter Fifteen - The Koi's Sorrowful Tale - Part Two

Japanese Cultural Note: Shrines and priests are Shinto; monks and temples belong to Buddhism.

*sieza - Japanese way of sitting in the kneeling position

"Wait... his name isn't Isamu?" I do not mean to interrupt, but I am stunned.

"Patience, child," the deep voice chides me gently. "He renamed himself 'Isamu', unable to bear the name his kami bestowed upon him. Mitsuaki grew his nine tails during a thousand years of faithful service. He was educated with the sacred texts, versed in divine philosophy and the arts, including war. Bred to be loyal and true, Isamu was a paragon of his species."

I can see it in my head clearly. Young Isamu in sieza, reading his scroll by the lantern light. Then he's older, clothed in priestly vestments with a sword strapped to his side. He is fierce and beautiful, a sheen of gold radiating outward from him. He stands behind a glowing being I cannot seem lay my eyes on.

I blink. Was that real? Did the koi send me these memories?

"One day his god sent him forth to do battle with a great oni, who was then rampaging the land. Mitsuaki won, but took grievous injury, falling into a river swollen by torrential rain. Children at play found him the next day while their mother was doing laundry on the banks downstream.

The woman was mistrustful, having recently lost her husband to war. Worse, the half-dead creature might be a yōkai. The children convinced her that she would be judged poorly by the gods if she did not help. Later that night, Mitsuaki returned to consciousness in their modest hut.

"The woman nursed him back to health, which indebted him to her. For the children, Mitsuaki filled the void of their lost father. When he grew stronger, the kitsune helped the family until he was able to go home. He expected to be welcomed back, but instead another was serving in his place as attendant to the kami.  He was forgotten while he fought to live and return.

"Mitsuaki was not the same. He did not understand why his god left him to die, and cared not that he survived and came back. No one had come for him. No one cared. Now he was a demoted relic, looked on askance. For the first time, Mitsuaki understood the terrible truth. He only had worth to his god if he performed to the god's expectations. He was an object, a thing that had limited value and was easily replaced.

"Disillusioned and embittered, the shine fox visited the family more often. They needed him, which his kami did not. He performed tasks the father had done to the best of his ability, until one day he came, and the family was gone. Their hut was burned to the ground. Nearby villagers had seen him and run them off for fox witches.

"He searched for them almost a year, eventually finding them begging on a street in winter.  The woman died from illness not long after. Mitsuaki took the children to a shrine, not knowing what else do to. The girl became a miko, and for a time things were well, until she grew into the flower of her early womanhood.

"The shrine priest lusted for her and sought to make the girl his concubine. She did not want him and appealed to Mitsuaki. Immediately, he went to Inari to beg this not come to pass on his friend's behalf. His plea was rebuffed. The priest's status and needs were of greater value than a miko's.  

Mitsuaki was livid. He took her away himself, defecting from his celestial life forever. His grace dwindled, and with it the divinity he once radiated as an extension of his god.  His remaining power was his own, but not limitless. Energy of such magnitude must be borrowed or stolen. Slowly the white fox fell further, resisting the darkness every step of the way.

"The daughter, like the mother, also took ill from an unstable life. She came down with a cough and chills. Mitsuaki could not properly care for her. He hunted, he stole, and sometimes he disguised himself and begged. One day he did so, and a monk recognized the kitsune for what he was beneath the glamour. Suspicious, the monk followed Mitsuaki back to the ruined shrine in which he and the girl took shelter."

That day in the storm flashes through my mind, when the priest and my brother came for me. Poor Isamu. He has no luck with women in abandoned shrines.

"The monk waited until the next day, when Mitsuaki went out. With a select group of townsfolk, he chose to target her for exorcism. They sealed her in a room and suffocated her with incense to drive away the offending demon. Had she not been ill, she might have survived. Mitsuaki returned to find her dead, the monk trying to revive her to no effect. The kitsune lost his mind and slaughtered them all.

"That was the day Isamu took his first heart. Once he supped on man-flesh, he succumbed fully to the darkness and became a demon. In time, he found his way into a clan of yōkai, and this led to the events by which your Isamu had to leave on his current errand. That story I will not tell you. I only speak of that which concerns you directly."

I think it is for the best. I already know more than Isamu would wish. "Is that why he is ashamed?" I ask, musing aloud. "Because he lost his status? It's so unfair! My heart hurts for what happened to him. How can a kami be so cruel?"

"Life is cruel, child. That fact is inescapable, and yet, in this realm, at least, he tries to escape it. Look around. Does this not seem a parody of heaven to you? Made for the lost, the sorrowful and lonely, the pathetic and broken-hearted, all the things that the kyuubi is in what is left of his heart? His actions speak louder for their silence."

I can't stop crying. I feel so sad for Isamu. If he were here, I would hold him, pet his ears, and tell him everything will be okay...

"But it will not be, child," the koi says, reading my mind. "You were not made to be a yōkai, any more than he could be human. In due time, you will wither and fade to be reborn again, while he lives on. Per force, you shall abandon him and break his heart. He will not move on as humans do. Isamu is immortal and your memory shall be with him eternally."

"I... I know. I don't know what to do."

"There is nothing you can do. A yōkai's love is all-consuming. He is fixated on you through no fault of your own. This is the fate from which the priest was trying to spare you. Alas, he arrived far too late, and you did not wish to be saved from the nogitsune. It would not have mattered. You and Mitsuaki are bound soul to soul, and have been since before your birth."