Trial Of Yoshimune

Chapter 11. Muzaka

Foot prints made a tiny path through the snowy mountains. It sometimes took a small roundabout as if the person who made it was drunk, but sadly this wasn't the case. The child had long white hair that resembled that mane of a lion, he was pale and malnutioned up to the point where his cheeks were not supporting any fat that they should've, making them look hollow. His eyes were very lightly coloured, if you'd looked right into them, you'd be able to make out the colour to be something between blue and grey, perhaps silver. His clothes were tattered and torn, which wouldn't have been possible for the obviously a spirit unless he wasn't in his full strength.

As he kept walking, he'd remember the hoots of the people, the blasted mortals, who'd killed his mother, an Inugami named Kagura.
His father he'd never known, but he already loathed the oni passionately for leaving them behind.

He didn't know where he was exactly going, but he knew that something, someone, was beckoning him to it's way. The Inugami within him growled in anticipation, impatient of what was coming, while the oni was covering in the protective stance, afraid to see it.

The half breed came across a tall staircase, which looked over him threatening, challenging, him to climb it. And so he did. Stair after another he'd walk until his tired legs couldn't take another step forward. Resting his feet, the child kept crawling up the stairs, each of them scratching his knees and inflicting more bruises. But he was the son of Kagura, he'd rather die than give in.

Finally, he was at the top of the stairs, exhausted. With his last powers, the child managed to drag himself under the shrine gate before he fell flat onto his stomach.

Before his vision blackened, he could've sworn that he saw an angel with porcelain white skin, black long hair and red eyes. He'd hear an alarmed voice of unidentified gender, the sound of the feet stomping on the snow, creating their own crunch like sound, closing in.

Jun sat down in front of the elders of the tribe, serious look on her face as she listened to them. The room that had been secured for the meeting was traditional Japanese room, with the slide doors opening to the garden. In a tiny basket slept the adoptive daughter of the young Inugami, tsuratsuraonna whom she'd named as Hitomi. The infant rested easy there, silently as always. True to her kin, she only made sounds and showed emotions that were needed within the situation.

The elders weren't pleased with them staying near the daiyokai Yoshimune, didn't want to be tied to him on the lands that once belonged to them.

She calmly listened to the complaints and arguments of each of them. Noted the atmosphere and calmed it down accordingly. For just like her father before, she too was a holder of orange Ki with dashes of blue. But like her mother, she also carried the yellow within, creating the perfect balance between each trait. Allowing the blue Ki flow, she calmed the elder and stood up.

"I see your view on the matter, and I partially agree", her voice flowed smoothly in the air, the voice which no one were sure to which gender it belonged to, that was how you'd know of the person being one of the Dai.

"However, these are our lands, have always been, and Yoshimune has agreed to allow us to still be the Gods Kanto-shin. Therefore we stay. He is only the ruler of Edo-shin in his own eyes, lower in rank of us and although he is the rightful Lord as given the title by Okami Daio, he has pledged us, the Inu, to take up the Mantel of the True Lords of the region. And as he has bestowed this power upon us", she turned to the elders who were frozen to their seats, "The Inu shall stay in their homelands. As the Shrine of Yoshimune is also the Shrine of Jun as well as the Shrine of Chihiro. Yoshimune shall be the one who handles the official things of a kami, being present at the Shrine upon being called by the men, while we are free to go on as we always have".