Insincerity

Beneath the night sky, in a village nestled in the wilderness, stood an Inari Shrine that should have long been abandoned. Beneath its Torii Gate, Miketsu listened intently to Oitsuki’s narration.

“So… so I really am trying my best to help humans, gathering faith, not for a moment… not for a single moment did I slack off… This, all this faith is mine… it’s mine…” In Miketsu’s arms, Oitsuki, in her small beast form, looked up at Miketsu with wide, glistening eyes, her voice laced with sobs. Though a strong sense of injustice burned within her, in the end, she couldn't bring herself to utter the words “all this faith is mine.” Reason told her it was absolutely imperative not to do anything that might provoke Miketsu; she was now completely in Miketsu’s hands.

Oitsuki’s power was almost entirely derived from the faith collected in the name of Inari Okami. It was impossible to contend with the true Inari Okami using such power; Miketsu could strip her of all her strength with a mere thought, as she was the legitimate owner of the Inari Okami name.

After listening to the wild god girl Oitsuki’s account, Miketsu sighed inwardly. Having understood the general situation, Miketsu now regarded Oitsuki with a somewhat complex gaze.

How to describe it? This imposter, who had pretended to be Inari Okami, didn't seem inherently evil. She was a rare yokai with an innate high friendliness towards humans, remarkably diligent and hardworking, and possessed strong initiative. However, her character was deeply flawed: she acted impulsively, was overly emotional, disregarded consequences, clearly had a childish mindset, and seemed quite vain.

Faced with such a being, Miketsu had no desire to eliminate her, but neither could she simply allow her to run wild. Miketsu needed to devise an appropriate way to handle her.

Before long, Miketsu had formulated a general idea.

“You’ve used my divine name to gather faith in this village and become a deity. Tell me, as the god of this village, how well do you think you’ve performed?” Miketsu asked, looking at the trembling Oitsuki in her hands.

“I’ve done extremely well, of course! Every moment, I respond to human prayers and grant their wishes. It’s precisely because I am their deity that the people of this village are so happy!” Hearing Miketsu’s inquiry, Oitsuki’s tone immediately shifted, becoming brimming with confidence.

“Oh, it seems you’re quite confident in that aspect.”

“Naturally! I’ve dedicated my heart and soul to this, without the slightest bit of neglect!” Oitsuki declared, her body no longer trembling as she spoke.

“In that case, let’s go and see for ourselves.”

“S-see for ourselves?” Oitsuki responded, a hint of confusion in her voice, facing Miketsu’s words.

…

That night, in a humble farmhouse situated on the more secluded outskirts of the village near the shrine, Miketsu stood with Oitsuki in her arms within its small courtyard. The farmer had finished dinner, offered praise to the deity, and gone to bed early.

“Do you remember this family?” Miketsu asked Oitsuki in her arms, after glancing around their surroundings.

“Th-this… yes, I remember them, very clearly. This family’s oxen often went missing, and I frequently helped them find… er… retrieve them… They just prayed about it again today…” Oitsuki scanned the small courtyard, finally resting her gaze on the empty cattle shed. The faces of the family members as they prayed slowly materialized before her eyes.

“Is that so… In that case, you’ll come with me to the next place.” Having said this, Miketsu continued to carry Oitsuki out of the small courtyard and into a patch of woods beside the farmhouses. Not long after they had walked, the sound of grunting snorts reached their ears.

Not far into the woods, a tall, thick tree stood. This tree wasn’t whole; its interior had been hollowed out, leaving only a thick layer of bark. An opening had been cut into one side of the bark, fitted with a barred gate, transforming the entire hollow tree into a small enclosure. Within this enclosure, repurposed from the large tree, were three or four oxen of various shapes and sizes.

“Well? Look familiar?”

“Th-these are all the oxen I helped that family find… How are they all here? Didn’t they say they lost them?” Oitsuki stammered, her mouth agape, staring at the scene before her with utter astonishment.

“Oxen are extremely important to a farming family. Losing one once or twice might be excusable, but after several times, how could they not learn their lesson?” Miketsu murmured, sweeping her gaze across the cattle pen before her, and continued to speak calmly to the astonished Oitsuki in her arms.

“Let’s go… We’ll visit other places.”

As she spoke, Miketsu led Oitsuki to an open space in the village, a spot where the village children often gathered to play during the day.

“You remember the children of this village, don’t you?” Miketsu said to Oitsuki, standing at the edge of the open space.

“Mmm… yes, I remember them. They often prayed to me to find lost toys…” Oitsuki replied weakly to Miketsu’s words, a hint of guilt in her voice. Miketsu said nothing further. She silently walked to a large rock beside the open space, circled around to its back, and there, strikingly, was a naturally split stone cave.

Illuminated by the moonlight, they could clearly see the stone cave piled high with dolls, small balls, kendama, cloth bags… and various other trinkets and toys, a significant quantity of them.

“These are all mine… Why? They’re just children, why would they lie to me! Didn’t they say nothing was lost?!” Oitsuki exclaimed, her face darkening to a considerable degree, utterly disbelieving as she looked at the scene before her.

“Children imitate the actions of adults; they cannot discern right from wrong or good from evil,” Miketsu simply stated. Then, she carried the stunned Oitsuki away from the open space and headed to the next location.

This time, they arrived at the farmlands on the edge of the village. In the autumn air, rice stalks swayed everywhere, awaiting harvest. The villagers’ fields stretched on, seamlessly connected, yet several plots suddenly stood empty, vast expanses of vacant land. These abandoned fields weren't stripped of their rice; rather, nothing had grown there at all, as if not a single seedling had been planted in spring.

“These plots of land… they’re empty. Have the crops already been harvested?” Oitsuki asked, her eyes filled with bewilderment, as she stood upon the barren soil.

“No, nothing was planted here from the very beginning of spring,” Miketsu said slowly, her voice subdued, from behind Oitsuki. “Because the village has a deity who directly provides rice grains upon prayer, why would they bother to laboriously plant anything?”

When she had heard the villagers’ prayers earlier that day, she had noticed an anomaly: many of the prayers from this village were fundamentally insincere.

As the true Inari Okami, Miketsu possessed the ability to discern the sincerity of prayers. These extremely insincere prayers, laced with ill intent, immediately captured Miketsu’s attention. Why would prayers to an effective deity be so problematic? Bearing this question in mind, she and Makoto specifically investigated these insincere individuals.