Snowblood

Chapter 12: Questions And Answers

Kitaro was not quite sure why he was there, but he knew this: when your goddess appeared to you in a vision and told you to go somewhere, now, you did it. At least you did it if you were smart, and he was smart. 'There', in this case, was the icy cavern on Mount Hakkoda where the last and only remaining Yuki-Onna dwelled, and all around him were the most powerful and important yokai, the supernatural beings of Japan.

He felt out of place. He was out of place, a kitsune, or fox-spirit, less than four hundred years old, with only four tails to his name. Yet for some reason, there he was among the likes of Nurahiyon, the leader of all yokai, who looked like a little old man who had a head as tall and big as the rest of his body.

Next was Sojo-bo, leader of the Tengu, the bird-human yokai, all fierce warriors and the internal police force of their people.He  had the beak, eyes and wings of a raven on a human body.   Of course there was Setsuka, the Yuki-Onna, as this was her home. She was a tall, alluringly beautiful woman with long black hair, skin as white and perfect as fresh snow, and blue lips.  

Finally there was Inari,  his goddess and the goddess of all kitsune, and She had chosen to manifest as a lovely young human girl who just happened to have ten fox tails and  a pair of fox ears, all of her the same shade of ivory gold, suffused with a divine radiance. 

Oh, and then there was him.  Centuries younger, infinitely less powerful, and without a clue as to why he was there. He hunkered down in his fox form, not daring to shift into human shape. Besides, it was warmer that way. The cave was freezing. He could see everyone's breath in the air. 

Everyone's, that is, except for the Yuki-Onna.

"She has returned to Japan," Setsuka said. "Yukime, the descendant of my daughters, blood of my blood, my heart's own chosen child, who I nursed at my breast. Yestere'en she returned, and I long to see her above all things."   The words were sweet and maternal, but the way she said them raised the hackles on the back of his neck.  It was like being stroked with a feather that turned out to be a razor sharp blade made to look like a feather.

The Yuki-Onna was far too thin, and the kimono she had formed for herself out of ice, snow, and frozen fog could not conceal that. Then again, it was well known that she had been insane for at least two hundred years. The problem was that there always had to be at least one yuki-onna, so Setsuka couldn't die until there was another one capable of housing the spirit of snow. That meant Setsuka had been the Yuki-Onna for over a thousand years, when she ought to have been free after at most, a hundred. It came of being at least half-human; their mortal part wasn't able to handle immortality psychologically.

"It is confirmed?" Nurahiyon asked.

"By myself," Sojo-bo bowed. "As you know, some forty years ago, I opened a dojo in Tokyo and have been running it  in human guise. I call it the 'Tengu-sama' dojo," he chuckled. "I trained Yukie-san in martial arts, and so when she planned to return, she called her old teacher to say hello. I sent my juniors to watch the airport, and they reported to me. She also brought a consort with her, an enormous foreigner with shoulders so broad he looks as if he wore a yoke under his coat, except he doesn't."

"She must come here," Setsuka insisted. "She must come here at once."

"That too is confirmed," Sojo-bo told them. "Not that she will come at once, but that she will come here. I asked her what places she was going while she was here, and she said that after three weeks in Tokyo and one week of traveling, the last week of the trip was going to be spent here on Mount Hakkoda, skiing."

"Ski-ing?" the Yuki-Onna asked, sounding puzzled. "What is that?"

"It's where they strap long boards on their feet and slide around on the snow with poles," Kitaro surprised himself by explaining.