Eitsu's Nine Lives (永津の九生) [yuri/GL yokai reincarnation story]

1 - Kuro

A/N: Hey all! Just throwing this here as well, in case you didn't read the story description. There are NSFW scenes involving male/female and female/female couplings. The ENDGAME is yuri, but the MC is bisexual.

Okay, stay hydrated, take your meds, on with the story!

*

NSFW

CW: sex work

***

She knew her name was Eitsu the moment that she opened her eyes.

It didn't mean much to her at first. She was only a tiny black kitten after all, and the majority of her thoughts were taken up with sleeping and when her next feed was. As she got older, though, one phrase resonated through her mind.

I am Eitsu.

She didn't know why, or how she knew. The Kyuo family who owned the mother cat and her kittens called her 'Kuro' after her fur colour, but that wasn't her real name.

I am Eitsu.

Gradually, her interest in playing with her siblings, chasing pieces of string, or catching mice, faded away. Instead, she would regularly be found seated alertly on the shade structures over the doors of the village's houses, staring at things that no one else could see, or climbing the steep village roofs alone at night.

"She's wild," the head of the family said, as he watched the black kitten disappear into the dark while the others wrestled. "When she leaves, don't look for her."

So when a year had passed, and one night, the black cat didn't return, no one looked for her.

She walked out into the village streets and stared at the stars and thought to herself, I am Eitsu.

Then she stood on her hind legs, and her form changed, elongating upwards until in the place of a black cat stood a young woman.

This new human was somewhat boyish in appearance, with hair as dark as the cat's fur, tanned skin, and narrow, golden eyes. She stretched, examined her hands, ran them though her loose hair from the roots to where the ends tickled the base of her neck.

Hm, no clothes. Of course not, she didn't wear clothing as a cat. With fluid movements, she snatched some of the clothing drying on poles outside the house, and put them on. The master of the house was much bigger than her, so the clothes looked faintly ridiculous, but at least she was now fit to walk amongst humans.

"I am Eitsu," she said out loud, testing the sound. Why did this all feel so familiar? Her voice was rough from disuse, admittedly, but she could speak the human tongue of this place.

Her limbs felt a little stiff, but she could walk as though she had been a biped all her life.

She knew how to put on clothes, and she knew she had to wear such things to blend in with the humans.

How did she know? She stretched again. Actually, who cared? She grinned to herself, running a tongue over the sharp edges of her canine teeth. There were so many possibilities available to her now, between cat and human form, and she was excited to try them all out.

With barely a backward glance towards the house where she was born and raised, she trotted away into the night.

*

The first thing she did was look for food.

The village where she was raised was silent, everyone asleep, but three ri away was a larger town, one of the few in the region. A festival was being held for the local deity of harvest, which meant a bountiful food market had sprung up in the streets.