Filing a Complaint

Standing atop the shrine's Torii gate, Miketsu watched with curiosity at the two young girls in the crowd below on the sando. They were whispering among themselves and pointing toward the shrine's interior, and she observed them intently.

These two girls possessed strikingly similar appearances, and their physical age seemed to be no more than twelve or thirteen by human standards. However, their unusual yellow hair alone signaled that they were not ordinary humans. Around them, pilgrims passed to and fro, yet not a single one spared them a glance; no one noticed anything amiss about them, as if they simply did not exist.

Miketsu knew this was due to the boundary gap. These two girls were not in the human realm, but in the divine realm, just like herself. They were deities, and they carried an aura similar to Oitsuki’s—they were two wild gods.

Deities from elsewhere? What were they doing at the Inari Shrine? Had they come for Inari Okami—for me? But I'm right here on the Torii gate; being in the divine realm, they should certainly be able to see me. I'm standing so high up and in such plain sight, so shouldn't they have noticed me long ago? What are they still whispering about? Why do they keep stealing peeks into the shrine? Are they looking for something?

"They... are two wild gods, Lady Uka. But why would wild gods come here?" Standing beside Miketsu, Tsuruha spoke up, her voice filled with curiosity as she watched the two young goddesses talking nearby below the gate. "I'm not entirely sure either. Perhaps we should go down and listen for ourselves." With that thought, Miketsu leapt directly from the Torii gate, landing gracefully on the ground. She walked slowly toward them, unnoticed by the crowd, and began to catch the sound of their voices.

"Hey, Sister, do you see her? Is Lady Inari inside the shrine?" the girl who appeared slightly younger asked her companion, who was peering intently toward the inner grounds. Judging by their mannerisms, they seemed to be sisters.

"Hmm... I don't think I've seen her yet. There's so little we can see from out here. We'd have to go inside... but beyond the Torii gate is Lady Inari Okami's domain. Entering without permission might be... inappropriate..." The elder sister seemed to give up on her peering and spoke to her sister. The two young goddesses discussed the matter, appearing quite troubled by the dilemma.

"Then again, even though we traveled all this way to Heian-kyo to find Lady Inari, we don't even know if she's at the main shrine in the capital. Generally speaking... the high gods should all be in Takamagahara, right? The chance of them appearing in the human realm is very slim..."

"Yeah... thinking about it carefully, just rushing over here was a bit rash... This—this is all that person's fault! They are just too much!"

"Exactly... we were so focused on exposing that person that we just hurried here, without considering whether we'd actually get to see Lady Inari Okami..."

And so, the two sisters grew increasingly dejected as they talked, to the point where they considered turning back before even entering the shrine. This caused Miketsu, who had been watching from the side, a bit of a headache. Finally, she couldn't help but speak up.

"Is there something you need from Inari Okami?"

"Waaah!" Unprepared for someone to suddenly address them, the two sisters jumped in fright. Both cried out with wide mouths, nearly losing their footing and tumbling down the stone steps.

"You—you can actually see us!" the elder sister exclaimed in shock, staring at Miketsu, who had appeared beside them out of nowhere.

"Are you... that extremely disrespectful Miko who was standing on the Torii gate earlier? Can Lady Inari Okami's Mikos actually see gods?" The younger sister's reaction was slightly more composed than her sister's, though she was still very surprised.

A disrespectful Miko? Miketsu's lip twitched at the comment. It seemed they had mistaken her for her own shrine maiden. Was their spiritual vision not advanced enough to distinguish the specific realm of the person they were seeing?

"Ah... excuse me, but you've gotten one thing wrong. I am not a Miko..." Miketsu said to the two rather airheaded goddesses before her.

"Not a Miko?" Hearing Miketsu's words, the two goddesses were momentarily stunned. They suddenly realized that this "Miko" before them was just like them—ignored by the gazes of all the humans around them as if she didn't exist. A human Miko residing in the human realm couldn't possibly cause such a phenomenon. At that moment, a realization dawned on them.

"Y-you, could it be that you are..."

"Lady Uka is the Inari Okami you are looking for. She is right here," Tsuruha said directly from Miketsu's side. The sisters' expressions froze on their faces.

"Lady Inari Okami... EEEHHH!!"

...

In this land, becoming a god is actually quite easy. Anything in existence can become a wild god if it gains a certain amount of faith. Therefore, compared to the High Gods residing in the heavens, the scale of wild gods is immense. They are widely distributed and numerous, leading to the phrase "Eight Million Gods." However, the vast majority of them are very weak, and the boundary between them and yokai is often blurred. Their inclination toward good or evil can shift on a whim.

Today, the ones who had come for Miketsu were a pair of wild god sisters. The elder was named Aki Shizuha, and the younger was Aki Minoriko. Unlike other wild gods, their origin was somewhat special; they were deities born when the seasonal power of autumn accidentally acquired faith. Compared to wild gods who were formerly yokai, they were a purer condensation of faith, worshipped by some as the God of Autumn Leaves and the God of Harvest. They were autumn spirits given life by faith, and since their birth, they had fulfilled their divine duties to the best of their limited abilities, living stable lives on a modest amount of faith—until recently.

Inside the Secret Realm behind the Inari Shrine, Miketsu sat on a tatami mat in a small pavilion. A low table stood before her, and on the other side sat the Aki sisters, each with a cup of tea, sitting rigidly and nervously.

"So... you're saying there's a yokai using the name of Inari to collect faith?" Looking at the sisters across the table, Miketsu took a sip of tea and asked slowly, following up on their earlier statement. Hearing Miketsu's question, both Aki sisters nodded in unison.

"This yokai looks like a mix of a wolf and a rabbit, calls herself Inari Okami, and has been continuously expanding her following. She's even snatched many of your original believers, causing your harvest of faith this autumn to decrease significantly?"

The Aki sisters continued to nod like chickens pecking at rice.

"You couldn't beat her in a fight, and you didn't want to watch your faith keep dwindling, so you decided to come directly to me to file a complaint?"

After Miketsu finished speaking, the Aki sisters looked at each other and then bowed their heads in shame.

Seeing this, Miketsu let out a long sigh. It was already crystal clear who the yokai the two sisters were talking about was.

It was definitely Oitsuki—the wild god Oitsuki whose claim to the name of Inari she had acknowledged last time...

Miketsu hadn't expected Oitsuki's business acumen to be so high. Last time, Miketsu had only mentioned it in passing, and the girl had immediately stopped limiting herself to her own village, expanding her faith-gathering range. She had even gotten into a fight with other wild gods over it—and apparently won!

After sorting this out, Miketsu couldn't help but sigh inwardly. These two sisters had lost a fight and come to her to tattle, making it feel as though she were Oitsuki's parent.