Yukiko ran up the steps of the small shrine next to the old town shopping district. The last golden blot of sunlight was fading over the horizon, and the shadows of twilight clustered tightly around the stone statutes and wooden structures. The place felt silence and empty, and the stillness made Yukiko's footsteps on the hard stone pathway seems especially loud in contrast. The shrine had long since been abandoned by any formal caretaker, and it showed in the faded paint and crumbling facades of the building and surrounding hillside.
Yukiko took in a breath as she moved deeper into the shrine. During the day she loved to come here to be by herself or pray to the local kami. She also visited the shrine at night, but for entirely different reasons. Most people, including Yu Narukami, had to work up their courage to come to the place in the dark. It looked far too much like the setting for any number of horror stories, and local superstition warned that kami or other shinto spirits liked to abduct anyone who trespassed in a sacred space such as this. But Yukiko had become rather fearless of such things. She had a passion for fairy tails and ghost stories, and indeed there was a time when she would have welcomed the intervention of a god to spirit her away from her mundane life. That particular wish had blessed died in recent months thanks to her shadow, but it had been replaced with an even more fearless attitude towards the place. After all, any space in which the supernatural could manifest to threaten her was also a space in which her other half could turn it to cinders. Or so her reasoning went.
Of course, hundreds of cats biting and clawing at her was another matter entirely! The cats had backed off when she began running for the shrine, but they hadn't exactly disbursed. As Yukiko took a moment to catch her breath, she could hear them at the bottom of the hill. Some were soft mews almost like a whisper, while some were loud yawls that rang through the night. What she was certain of was that they were getting closer, and louder, and more numerous. Her heart was pounding as she imagined every feline in Inaba slowly gathering around the edges of the shrine. Despite herself Yukiko shivered. A fog had been threatening all afternoon. Now the infamous mists of Inaba seemed to be thickening, rising in perfect time to the sun's departure. And as the shrine became a tiny island surrounded by an ocean of vapor, the screams of the cats grew more and more frenzied.
Yukiko looked left and right. If the cats decided to advance, she had no means of escape. She clutched her fish to herself tightly. Her heart was beating faster and faster. The sounds of cats seemed to whirl around her like a hurricane. She trembled slightly, expecting any moment for the legion of cats to emerge from the mist and vent their wrath upon her. She was so on edge that the sight of the woman in the white kimono inspired a little shriek from her.
"Hello, young lady. Are you all right? You seem rather anxious."
"I...I..." Yukiko stammered in confusion, suddenly realizing that the cats had abruptly fallen silent. "Who...."
Suddenly a new round of yawls and screeches erupted from the shrine entrance. And above the din an energetic series of grunts, screams and 'hai-yas' echoed through the night. From the mist emerged a silhouette. Yukiko barely recognized Chie. Her clothes were a chaotic mass of shredded cloth, covered with dirt and splashed with blood, her arms and legs covered with nasty scratches. Given the atmosphere, she could easily have been mistaken for an oni.
"Chie!" Yukiko said, rushing to her friend's side.
"Hey, Yukiko...." Chie said, wobbling on her feet and sporting a listless smile. "Glad your safe."
So saying, the brown haired girl practically collapse to the ground. Yukiko awkwardly caught her, forcing both girls to their knees.
"Chie! No! Oh, why did I leave you behind? Your bleeding! All because of this stupid fish!"
"Hey. Don't...don't say stuff like that." Chie said, swaying in her arms. "You..worked hard to get that fish, right? You jumped right in and took it back from all those furballs. I can't just stand around and...let something important to you go undefended! Even as...useless as I am...I can still do that much..."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Yukiko chided, her voice full of worry. "I didn't want anything like this to happen!"
"'Is nuthing. This...is what the hero...does when...the mob goes after the girl." Chie said.
"Chie..." Yukiko began.
"Excuse me." The woman in the kimono said.
"Huh? Oh, yes! C-can you please call an ambulance? My friend was attacked by wild animals! They could have carried a disease!"
"I'm afraid I can't help with that." The woman said softly. "Perhaps you should ask the fox?"
"Oh...OH! Yes! The leaves! Thank you so much-"
"Before that....would you mind sparing some food? My children are hungry."
On the wind the cats began to scream again.
"Oh! I...I'm sorry to hear that. All I have is this fish."
"As luck would have it, my children only eat fish."
The cats were growing louder.
"Yukiko...who is this lady?" Chie asked, blinking heavily.
"Oh, umm...I've seen her in the shrine from time to time. She comes here at night. I..I'm sorry ma'am, but I don't know your name." Yukiko said.
"Very few people do." The woman said with a smile.
"Hey...wait...I've heard rumors about this..." Chie said vaguely. "Aren't you...supposed to be a ghost or something?"
The woman in white laughed. "Some would say so."
"And...and Yu said something about this too...that when he gave you fish more cats started to appear around town. Does...that make you some kind of cat spirit??"
"That is another rumor, yes."
"Or...are you really the fox? Are you a kitsune?" Chie continued to babble.
"Maybe. Or maybe I'm just an ordinary woman wanting to feed her children. It all depends on what you want to believe." The woman in white said with a smile.
(The authors personally believes that it is damned annoying that Golden doesn't bother to explain what the hell is up with this chick, thus forcing him to remain vague on the subject and toss off some of his personal theories. Anyway...)
"Well...well whoever you are, you leave Yukiko's fish alone! She went through a lot of trouble to get that..."
The cacophony of cats erupted all around them.
"Are you certain that's your answer?" The woman asked with a thin smile.
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