Peculiarities

Sugo Ungo was still quite a long distance from Heian-kyo, requiring Miketsu to travel for a considerable period on Makoto's back. This journey, to be frank, was quite arduous. Spending dozens of hours in such a cramped environment battered by strong winds was far from pleasant; it was certainly not as comfortable as riding a donkey.

Just as Miketsu was drifting between drowsiness and being roused by the cold wind on Makoto's back, faint, indistinct sounds reached her ears. Miketsu was familiar with such sounds; they were prayers.

‘Lady Inari Okami… my ox is lost… please help me find it…’

‘Lady Inari Okami… please grant us some food…’

‘Lady Inari Okami… beasts from the western mountains have harmed people, please help us…’

...

All sorts of prayers flowed into Miketsu’s ears – voices of men and women, old and young. Their sudden appearance jolted Miketsu fully awake, and a look of astonishment spread across her face.

Why were there prayers in a place like this? And specifically directed at me, Inari Okami?

Below Makoto’s flight path lay vast stretches of wilderness. Miketsu was extremely curious why so many people in such a place were praying to Inari Okami, and judging by their voices and the content of their prayers, they all seemed to be ordinary human folk. This greatly surprised Miketsu.

Ever since Inari Okami fell into a deep slumber a century ago, the previously flourishing Inari faith in Heian-kyo and its surrounding areas began to stagnate. The subsequent rise of fox hunting activities dealt a significant blow to the Inari faith.

Inari foxes were the divine messengers of Inari Okami; this was a fact widely known. In the past, Inari foxes were revered among ordinary human folk, even after Inari Okami fell into slumber. This presented a problem for Ishikawa and other fox hunters. After all, hunting divine messengers was an act despised by the world. Doing so recklessly would isolate Ishikawa's group among humans, and their collaborators would refuse cooperation out of fear of divine retribution.

To resolve this issue and legitimize their hunting of Inari foxes, the fox hunters spent a long time propagating the narrative that Inari Okami had abandoned humanity, abandoned her divine messengers, and no longer remained in the world to bless its people. These rumors spread everywhere, greatly damaging the faith and devotion of ordinary folk toward Inari Okami.

Although the Inari shrine families strenuously tried to clarify these matters, they could not stop the rumors from spreading. After all, with divine messengers being hunted and blasphemous remarks circulating, yet Inari Okami did not bestow divine retribution, it seemed to indirectly corroborate the fox hunters’ rumors: perhaps Inari Okami truly no longer cared for the human world.

The fox hunters' constant slandering caused the Inari faith's influence to wane further, until the scene Miketsu witnessed upon awakening was that of few visitors even at her own main shrine.

However, after a series of recent events, this situation underwent a significant change. Firstly, during the Suzaku Seal incident, Miketsu dispatched Tsuruha to rescue the villagers captured by leopard cat yokai for sacrifice. Although Tsuruha did not proclaim Inari Okami's name at the time, once these villagers returned to their human settlements and recounted what they had seen and heard, the elders in their communities identified Inari Okami based on the characteristic of a fox divine messenger. From then on, rumors of Inari Okami's return began to spread, and this rumor spread even more widely after the fox hunters were annihilated.

Although the fox hunters had been completely annihilated by yokai under Miketsu’s guise as Owl, ordinary folk were unaware of this. They only knew that the hunters who arrived every year had met with an unknown mishap and almost entirely vanished, which couldn't help but make people associate this with divine retribution.

With the fox hunters no longer causing trouble, the Inari faith in Heian-kyo began to revive. Starting from autumn, more and more people climbed the mountain path to visit Inari Shrine, restoring it to the usual number of visitors for a normal shrine.

The Inari faith was indeed reviving, and people were beginning to revere Inari Okami once more, but that was limited to Heian-kyo and its surrounding areas. Yet, Miketsu's current location was still quite a long distance from Heian-kyo. Why would there be a significant number of Inari Okami devotees gathered here?

Interesting… it seemed necessary to investigate what was happening here.

“Makoto, stop for a moment, and descend,”

“Understood, Lady Uka.”

Miketsu instructed Makoto to hover at a lower altitude, cruising towards the vicinity of the prayer’s source to observe. She discovered it was a relatively large human village nestled in a small basin in the mountains, and most of the prayers originated from there.

At this moment, both Miketsu and Makoto were in the demon realm, circling in the air without fear of being discovered by ordinary humans. Thus, Miketsu carefully observed this human village, finding it no different from any other ordinary human village. The only notable difference, perhaps, was that a shrine stood in the center of the village—a shrine with quite a number of worshippers. However, when Miketsu saw the sign at the shrine’s entrance, she froze.

This was actually… an Inari Shrine?

A village quite far from Heian-kyo actually had an Inari Shrine? And it seemed to be doing quite well in terms of offerings and visitors?

Seeing the scene before her, Miketsu suddenly felt her mind was a tangled mess. After collecting her thoughts somewhat, she decided to thoroughly investigate this village.

Miketsu had Makoto fly to an uninhabited forest and descend. From Makoto’s bag, Miketsu took out an ordinary kosode and changed into it, putting away Owl’s black robe and bandages. She then retrieved a Turbid Qi Orb she carried, adjusted her own realm to the human realm, and, disguised as an ordinary human, walked out of the forest. Makoto, having minimized her yokai characteristics as much as possible and donned loose clothing, followed Miketsu to the village.

Thereafter, the two began to search for relevant information separately. Miketsu, in the guise of a passing traveler, inquired among the villagers about the shrine.

...

“What? The shrine you mean?” said the woman drying clothes. “Oh, that’s Lady Inari Okami’s shrine, you know. She’s a very efficacious deity.”

“Lady Inari Okami is very efficacious. Last time I lost my ball, Lady Inari Okami found it for me again~” a child playing at the village entrance chirped happily.

“Lady Inari Okami… if you pray to her, anything is possible, you know. For instance, dry wells can gush forth water, clogged ditches can be cleared, and if you ask her for food, you might even find a pile of rice at your doorstep the next day,” a farmer returning from the fields said, nodding.

“The shrine in our village? Oh, that’s a branch shrine of Lady Inari Okami,” an elder at the edge of the village recalled. “It was abandoned for a long time, apparently because the deity had left, but a few years ago, it seemed as though the deity had returned. Prayers are answered from time to time, and so, the number of worshippers increased. After being renovated, it looks new again, and we’re even preparing to hold a festival there soon.”

After initially gathering this information, Miketsu stood completely stunned. It was a while before she snapped out of it.

What exactly was going on with this village?

...