2. Rituals, or A Mouse Cult.

Story by RenG on SoFurry

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#2 of Ito's Travel Blog

The second portion of Ito's Travel Blog, featuring Morally Dubious Village People.


Time had become impossible to measure and although Ito had asked at least a hundred questions, he had been left without answers. Mice came in rotations. The dark made it impossible to recognise faces, though he'd learned to differentiate them through their affections. Nameless though they were, he could feel a strange sense of familiarity as a round-eared silhouette knelt at his heel, pressing a small, already stiff cock up firm against his bare foot. He knew the two who settled against either of his sides, not because their acts were so unique, but because this pair bit and suckled his chest with an aggression that was characteristically all their own. Most memorable of the menagerie was the one portly young mouse, who settled between his thighs as always. Thus far, he had been the only mouse able to swallow the entirety of Ito's length, the others always finding their limit somewhere along the midpoint. A consequence of their size. The tallest mouse that he had seen, not that he could see much, measured only about as high as Ito's belly. Mind, Ito hadn't had much time to stand over the past few - it must have been days, but again, he had no way of knowing in here.

The mice kept him seated with their near incessant affections, affording him only just enough time to rest when he needed it. A comfortable prison, perhaps. He had spent near the entirety of that time propped up on a veritable throne made of wool and fur, with mice pressed in snug against him, massaging, stroking and sucking their way over his body. He'd done all he could to learn where he was, what they wanted and why any of this was happening, but he'd earned few answers. Occasionally his attendants made a request, or offered to do something for him, but when he demanded to know where he was, they'd always answer, "soon." He was becoming exhausted, both with 'soon' and in a raw, physical sense. Boasts aside, no man could last under such attentions forever, and he'd filled so many mouths, stuffed so many throats. He'd even fallen asleep with his cock lodged in the neck of the one over-eager mouse, who now bobbed happily along that same length as though nothing had happened at all. When he inevitably did fall asleep, the mice seemed to stay with him, huddled to his bare body, each comfortably awaiting the arrival of the next batch.

Ito thought that this was it, that he would spend the rest of his days in dizzying monotony, with teeth around his nipples and hands massaging his balls forever. Mercifully, that expectation ended that... morning, was it? It seemed like a morning. A new mouse, one with a strange silhouette, made his way into the tent, hailed by a rush of cold and a brief glimpse of the white-capped mountainscape outside. The new mouse hesitated by the doorway, removing what Ito suspected may well have been a robe. Then, once bare, the mouse approached. At first he thought it could have been the elder, who had spoken to him what seemed like a month before. As the little thing came nearer, he caught sight of his features and saw that, no, this mouse was young and lacked the elder's easy smile. In fact, this particular youth appeared almost shocked with what he beheld, and Ito reflected briefly on the time forever back when he too was startled by the sexual proclivity of the mice. Then the youth bowed, albeit seemingly only to Ito, as the others ignored him. Ito strained to hear his voice over the sounds of stroking, suckling and soft moaning.

"Good morning, mister Tanuki," the young mouse said before he rose. Then, donning an uneasy smile, he went on to explain that, "I am your personal attendant, Sota."

Although one mightn't have thought it to look at him, sprawled out with a small horde of eager 'lovers' playing at his every limb, Ito had spent the past few days in an idle sort of frustration. One that became marginally less idle as he addressed Sota. He asked, rather rudely too, "do you mean these here are public attendants? I've been sharing all along?"

"No," Sota answered, paused to think, then quietly elaborated, "they're here to... Well, they're here for your comfort. I'm here to prepare you for our rituals, to explain, and to make it easier to accept matters, should that be necessary. I think the best way to start would be with a bath, mister Tanuki."

Somehow being saddled with incessant affections had made Ito a little blind to the associated mess. What was one wash of cum across the chest when there had been so many already? He nodded briefly and lifted his arms from the backs of the mice around him, motioning them away as best he could, feeble though his motions were. The mice didn't move. They bit, sucked, licked and stroked, but it wasn't until Sota bowed and asked them in his quiet, excessively polite manner that they offered Ito space. For what seemed to him to be the first time in weeks, Ito staggered to a stand. The size of the mice struck him. He'd been held captive by a smattering of people no taller than his midsection, and in all that time, he'd not been tied up, either. He murmured something unflattering at the expense of the mice. Sota gasped, covering his own mouth with his fingertips. The other mice were marked with Ito's old cum, naked and far too familiar with the round-bellied old tanuki's body. They simply laughed off the insult.

Sota bowed his head until he could recover his composure. Then he cleared his throat as delicately as he spoke, offered his little hand up to Ito and said, "it'll be cold outside. We've prepared a cloak for you. Please." Albeit a touch reluctantly, Ito grasped Sota's hand between a few of his fingers and allowed the diminutive young mouse to lead him. He found his footing was uneven as he strode, but he kept pace with his attendant's little legs well enough. They did indeed find a cloak cut and woven to Ito's proportions by the door, as well as sandals, which Sota insisted on. "It's very cold outside," the mouse warned again, "and this will make the ice a little easier. We'll be fast." Once he saw that the tanuki was ready, Sota opened the tent curtain and allowed Ito his first proper look at his surroundings. It was night out, but he could see by the various fires that the mice had lit. To him, the simple braziers seemed almost impossibly bright, a consequence of being shut in his dark little prison for so long.

The wind cut through his cloak almost instantly, and only a few moments later, it was through his thick coat of fur. He shivered, and Sota of course noticed. Ito looked down to see the little mouse struggling to suppress a smile at his expense. Frowning, Ito asked what was funny, though he didn't expect an honest answer. Nevertheless, Sota proved perfectly sincere when he explained, "you're fat. It's supposed to protect you against the cold, isn't it?"

"Well, if you believe the old myths, and I'm sure you people do, it's supposed to represent my, er... prosperity? No, decisiveness. That was it, I'm sure."

"Prosperity would be your, ah... Your balls, yes," Sota nodded anxiously. It was surreal to see somebody embarrassed by anything remotely sexual now, after spending who knew how much time with mice sliding along him. Ito simply shook his head while Sota led him through the village, past less familiar mice, all of whom appeared to be watching Ito. Ito noticed firstly that these people lived decidedly rustic lives, with attire that proved decades out of date and an obvious lack of electronics, and secondly that they were all men. Traditional lives, perhaps, with women locked away in their animal-skin homes? Ito decided to put the thought aside. Sota led him down a narrow path on the far side of the village, through to a forested plateau.

"Of course," Ito laughed to himself, albeit somewhat joylessly. "What village could exist without a hot spring in a bamboo forest?"

"There isn't much bamboo here, actually," Sota answered, though Ito had surely been right in the hot spring assumption. The mouse cleared his throat again. He was fumbling with the hem of his sleeve, Ito noticed, though he'd kept his hand in Ito's throughout the walk. "We usually just heat our water in the village, but I thought, well... I thought that after everything, you might like some privacy."

"I appreciate it. Honestly. I've never been swarmed like that. Yes, swarmed is the right word."

Sota nodded. Together, they made their way through to a clearing where, just as Ito predicted, they found a reasonably sized pool surrounded by rocks. Steam rose from the water, promising warmth at last. Eager to be out of the cold, Ito wasted no time approaching. Only when he was by the pool did he realise he'd been tugging Sota along with him. The mouse offered no complaint. Instead, he recovered his composure and said, "you'll need to take off your robe. We'll clean you off before you sit inside."

Ito nodded, and did as he'd been instructed. Sota searched for a few moments until he found the necessary bucket and ladle nearby. The two stood together at the head of a hill. Sota appeared strangely modest as he lifted water with the ladle and poured it over Ito's belly and midsection, cleaning the over-loved tanuki's by now thoroughly well-used frame. As far as he could reach, anyhow. While the mouse cleaned him, Ito asked, "so what is happening, anyhow? You can't tell me that all of this is natural."

"It used to be. Master Touma wanted to tell you everything, I'm sure, but it's all so complicated... This mountain is one of the last homes of yõkai. Or yõkai who remember the oldest ways, maybe? You're a yõkai, too, but not one who remembers. You wear a silly suit and write for an internet." There was a brief silence. Once more, Sota poured warm water across Ito's thighs, while the old tanuki watched him, frowning. As an afterthought, Sota added, "you frown, too. You're supposed to smile. To show that you're a friend."

"I'm not sure if I am a friend. Firstly, yõkai aren't real. They're just old stories." That drew such a frown out of Sota. The little mouse pouted his lip and set his eyes downward, but he didn't interrupt. Such manners, this one. Ito went on. "Secondly, you've all abducted me, and you've been doing all sorts of sexual nonsense without my consent, which happens to be highly illegal you know. And thirdly, er... Oh, you haven't let me leave, which I suppose is more an addendum to my second point, but nevertheless."

Before he offered a retort, Sota bowed and offered an uncomfortably formal apology. Or perhaps the apology was appropriate, considering the severity of what had been done. Though, frankly, Ito didn't feel at all outraged. Frustrated, yes, but for whatever reason, he'd become rather complicit with his own abduction. Once he stood straight again, Sota did his best to soothe Ito. He said, "the yõkai are real. Kotodama, the kami, souls and magic. It's all real, of course, only hidden away behind your silly sciences, your bullet trains and your capsule hotels,"

"I'm sorry. How do you know about those? You were calling my blog 'an internet' a moment earlier."

"We talk to hikers sometimes," Sota answered, clearing his throat briefly. Then he bowed and apologised again, as if he should be sorry for Ito's interruption. "Um, I was saying... Oh yes. Every one of our oldest beliefs are real in some way, including that some tanuki are yõkai, blessed with abilities of transformation, among other things. You are young, so you do not know,"

This time, Ito apologised more profoundly as he interrupted. Guilt, maybe. He corrected Sota by saying, "I'm forty five. Hardly young, hm?"

"I am, uhm... I believe I am seventy nine now. Master Touma is almost nine hundred - if he were a fox, he'd be a mess of tails. The youngest in our village is almost sixty years old."

"And you all look as young as you do because you're yõkai?"

Sota nodded, and Ito shook his head. A mouse cult, the tanuki decided. He had been abducted and molested for days by a mouse cult. Granted, the mice were oddly diminutive, moreso than any other mice he'd known, but... No, a pygmy mouse cult made more sense to Ito than the existence of ghosts, gods and monsters. By now, he was clean enough, and so Sota led him back to the hot spring. He settled inside the water, resting his head on the rocks. Sota knelt by his side, the mouse folding both small hands comfortably in his lap. When Sota believed that Ito was prepared, he continued, of course without any sensible evidence. "Your abduction. That is what it is, and I do feel horribly guilty. Many of us do. I know that doesn't make it right, but you must understand, we need you, mister Tanuki. We - how do I put this properly. I'm sorry, it..."

"You need my balls," Ito wryly observed. He glanced up in time to notice Sota nodding. Ito closed his eyes again, letting out another mirthless laugh. "It alays comes back to the balls, you know. My cousin tried to start business as a moneylender, playing off the old promissory note nonsense from the stories. I think he's doing something with modern art these days."

"Modern art is garbage," Sota joked. Maybe it was the strangeness of his circumstances, or maybe he was more tired than he realised, but Ito found himself laughing. Sota pressed his thumbs together. There was an awkwardness building in his thoughtful silences now. "I will be honest. We are preparing you for a ritual. You will not be harmed, but it mightn't be... it mightn't be agreeable to you at first. Please remember, I'm here to assist you in whatever you need. If it becomes too much, I will do what I can for you."

"Of course," the old tanuki nodded, though he took both Sota's warning and pledge with a grain of salt. Everything that had happened was impossible, and he'd become exhausted with strangeness. For now, Ito was content simply with warmth of the bath. "So this sexual nonsense continues because you're 'harnessing a tanuki's power,' then?"

"That's, er... That is a part of it, yes. I'm sorry. I must sound like master Touma, but you'll see soon. The first ritual is tonight. Once the experience has opened your mind, you'll understand."

* * *

The walk back to the village proved considerably more pleasant than the walk away. A wash and time away from the tireless affections of his doting mice were precisely what Ito needed. Sota answered what questions he could. The mice had always been on the mountain, he said. More distressingly, he insisted that the mice had been created by the kami as servants. Some in other regions of Japan guarded shrines while others, as Sota quietly confessed, were better suited as food for more incredible things. Ito decided not to press that particular line of thought, though it left him frowning again, to say the very least. Ito wasn't sure if he ought to have felt dread or comfort in returning to the tent that had housed him for however long it had been. He settled for relief as they entered to find things rearranged. There was more light now, and Ito could see the fur-and-fleece throne for what it was. Truthfully, it did look comfortable, especially with the collection of slim, naked mice seated around it. For all of his frustration and suspicion, a base part of Ito simply enjoyed having his cock sucked, and each of those mice appeared eager for it.

The elder from Ito's first evening was present, adorned in a formal robe. He and his own attendants knelt comfortably to the side, before a saucer filled with a strange, clear fluid. For the ritual, Ito supposed. The elder instructed Sota to take Ito's cloak. Sota bowed, answered, "yes, master Touma," and went to do precisely that, leaving Ito bare again. Any self-consciousness the tanuki had possessed before was absolutely absent now. The round-bellied old thing made his way across the tent to settle down in his throne again, where just as he expected, the surrounding mice folded into tend to him. Two familiar mouths settled beneath his arms and against his chest, sucking and biting his by now over-sensitive nipples. Comfortable hands settled between his thighs, stroking his cock and massaging his balls. Of course the sensation wasn't unwelcome, as who would object? What bothered Ito was how natural each stroke and bite was beginning to feel. Even the mice massaging his feet were an ordinary piece of affairs.

Sota knelt by the elder, and for a few strange moments, no one spoke. Master Touma allowed Ito that much time to settle in. Then he said, "we are here for the first ceremony of rebirth." Something to do with fertility, Ito assumed. Of course. Magical balls. He rolled his eyes, though no one saw, and chose to wait the evening out. Master Touma motioned to one of his attendants, who stood and collected the saucer. Then the elder said, "the tanuki will drink, and his mind will be made open."

"You're giving me LSD now?" A fair assumption. The handful of mice who recognised the name chortled, though none answered. Ito hesitated. Having a seemingly endless string of mice prepared to toy with his cock was one thing, but this struck him as more dangerous. Still, who knew what the mice could do if he resisted? He watched as the one carrying the saucer came nearer, debating whether he should attempt to escape, but even with the cloak he'd die out in the elements alone. Perhaps, he thought, it wouldn't be so bad. He allowed the mouse to feed him the contents of the saucer and found that it tasted precisely like water. He could feel nothing at all, but he waited for the sudden impact of hallucinations all the same. Sure enough, as master Touma began rambling on about yõkai this and old traditions that, Ito started to feel oddly relaxed. Weight and tension left his muscles, and the by now customary feeling of hands smoothing through his fur was somehow heightened, as if they were touching him more deeply than before.

There was a sudden laugh from a mouse to his side, and he looked down to see that he was drooling precum. No, that wasn't why the mouse laughed. Their hands appeared oddly smaller around his cock than they had before. Maybe he was hallucinating after all? Every stroke drew out a slight shuffle, a flex of fingertips or a curl of his toes. Once again, his breathing had become ragged. The mice seemed not to mind, continuing on with both their affections and their ritual unhindered. He was an object here, an article, and not the subject as he had expected. His balls were the important part, as he had deduced with Sota.

Sota. For whatever reason, he found his sight drawn to the one particular little mouse. He saw his attendant frowning at his hands, milling knots with his robe. There was something about the way the boy pouted. No, there was something about his soft-seeming fur, slight frame and the genuine modesty he'd shown while they bathed. Something real and less a matter-of-affairs than the treatment of the other nameless mice.

Another noise drew his attentions back to the mice surrounding him, and then to his crotch. There was no mistaking it this time. It must have been a hallucination because the only other possibility was that his cock had become several inches bigger. His balls, too, appeared rounder and firmer. One of the mice, the familiar chubby one who'd spent most of his time between Ito's thighs, dove down in an attempt to swallow the head. Greedy thing, Ito thought, but he observed as the only mouse to swallow the entirety of his length now couldn't fit the bulbous head past his lips. Ito shuddered, bothered by that one grounding sight, before one of the portly mouse's peers pulled him back. There was a brief murmur of, "he mustn't cum," among the mice tending to him. All of a sudden, Ito wanted nothing more than that simple, explosive release. The thought of not being permitted to was as disturbing as it was unfair.

The rambling went on throughout the tent. Ito only caught every fifth or sixth word that Master Touma spoke, but the mice gathered throughout the tent listened on with rapt attention. Ito heard the phrase, "bring him," and thought that he'd be moved. Instead, a trio entered the tent. Two held a third by either arm. He thought he could make out a struggle, but his eyesight had become blurred and his mind wasn't as fast as it ought to have been. The rambling continued, and Ito made out such disconcerting words as "villain," "purification," "offering" and "rebirth."

Then, by his side, he heard a simple, demeaning, "not big enough," which he assumed had to be in reference to his cock. He peered down and saw that it had become ludicrous. Bigger than any nonsense video he'd ever seen on the internet, let alone any man he'd been with. He watched on as the chubby mouse bent forward again, running his familiar tongue along Ito's now bothersomely unfamiliar length. It took an alarming amount of time for the mouse to travel from the root to the tip, and yet they were all murmuring that he needed to be bigger. One of the keener attendants stood, positioning himself behind Ito's throne. He reached around to catch the tanuki's chin, then pointed his eyes back to Sota. Over the din of the suckling, the moaning and the brush of fur, over the protest the one mouse put up and of course master Touma's lecture, Ito could hear one voice.

"Think of him," the mouse holding his chin murmured, breath hot against Ito's ear. "You saw him, didn't you? Naked? No, he wouldn't have shown you. He's untouched, you know." Another tongue joined the first around Ito's length. He could feel lips seal to his skin, suckling. "Pure, set aside just for you. Imagine the wonder in his eyes when he tastes you for the first time." Hands kneaded and massaged his balls, eager and demanding in equal portion. The hands seemed to be getting smaller against his flesh with every passing moment. "The curve of his back and his little squeaks when you fuck him. Cradled against you, begging you for more..." Ito's jaw fell open and he made such a noise, a sort of growl that reverberated through the whole of his chest.

Sota looked up in time to catch Ito's eye. The mouse smiled for an instant, then realised what he was watching and looked back to his hands. Ito could've sworn he saw the faintest red wash in the cups of the mouse's ears. He wanted that.

He became aware that the mouths had moved away from his cock, and he could feel a strange pressure against the head. Setting his eyes forward, he saw that he'd grown to tremendous proportions, his cock towering as tall as any of the mice. Drunk on whatever that fluid had been and sheer physical sensation, Ito didn't question that. What he did question was the sight of the two pressing the face of the third against the impossibly oversized head of Ito's length. He tried to voice some protest or complaint but the mouse behind him bit his neck, distracting him.

He watched on as the offering's head disappeared into his length. He wanted to be frightened, but the sensation simply overwhelmed him. He'd never experienced similar. A sheer rush of pleasure that forced Ito to kick at the knee. His eyes sealed shut and he thought oddly of Sota, imagining the mouse's narrow hips, the soft white insides of his bare thighs, the image of his tail and toes both curling as -

More of the offering was forced into him, and Ito cried out in strange delight as his cock stretched to accommodate the mouse's shoulders. He forced an eye open to spot the offering's bare kicking feet suspected a few inches off of the ground. The two others, the guards or whatever they were, collected the offering's thighs and hefted his body up. He was fed into Ito by inches, and all the while the tanuki could feel the mouse kicking, struggling and squirming. The added friction made all of it almost too much to bare, but with something so sizeable lodged inside of him, Ito simply couldn't cum. He was forced to endure as, with shove after shove, more and more of the mouse disappeared inside of his length. Soon his flesh began acting on its own, squeezing around the mouse in an effort to force him back out. Instead, it seemed to drag the mouse further and further in, until all that anybody could see of him was a pair of protruding little feet and the writhing, lashing end of his tail.

With one final shove, the last of the offering entered Ito's length. Ito struggled for breath and tightened his hold 'round the two mice at his sides 'til soon their backs must have hurt. They didn't complain, instead sucking hard at his chest, as if to offer another sensation he might focus on. Even their well-rehearsed affection couldn't offer comparable pleasure. The mouse's kicks, his desperate search for leverage in an impossibly smooth, slick, pliable pillar. There was no getting back out, at least not like that.

He sank further and further, until one of the mice commented that he could see an indentation forming among Ito's balls. They crowded to look as the offering fell into Ito's waiting sack, where he pressed and struggled against Ito's scrotum. The handprints were faintly visible through the thick fur lining. For the mice, the spectacle had reached its end. Master Touma raised his hands and declared the first evening of the ritual over. Mice stood and started to file out. Ito could faintly hear them beginning conversations as they departed. For him, the evening would continue. He could feel the mouse's struggling, as every motion forced pleasant friction. Enough of his senses returned for him to be mortified, not only at what had just happened, but over how wonderful the sensation had been - and that this sensation was. Worse, that he sincerely enjoyed taking the mouse bothered him in ways he couldn't articulate. There was a rightness to it, as if both of their purposes had been fulfilled. The mouse within him continued to struggle and squirm.

He became peripherally aware of Sota, who had come to kneel beside him. He could feel the mouse's small hands settle over one of his own, heard a murmur but not the words. Then his attention was brought to Master Touma, who smiled through his round-rimmed spectacles and announced, "your mind is open now, isn't it? You see."

"This isn't happening," Ito answered breathlessly, though frankly, it was rather difficult to deny everything he could see, hear and feel. Sota's hands tightened around his own.

"It is. This is the beginning. This is how we are remade. It has been so long since another yõkai has been here to do this for us." As he spoke, the elder approached. He set his foot down on the struggling mass within Ito's over-swollen balls, compressing. Ito buried a moan in his throat. "You must rest. You must show discipline, restraint. Do not waste him."

"Waste him? He's - he's going to die, isn't he?"

Sota interjected now. Hurriedly, the soft-spoken mouse insisted that, "the yõkai of the mountain do not know true death. We are only... He will come into here," and now Sota leaned forward, lifting a delicate hand from Ito's to settle it over a portion of his entrapped fellow mouse. "He will become a portion of you for a time, and then you will allow him to be reborn through another body."

"That is why you must not waste him," Master Touma nodded. "No matter how tempted you become. Else we may lose a part of him."

"I don't understand," Ito confessed. It was so hard to think through the feeling of writhing, of struggling, but those motions were mercifully becoming slower as the moments went by. He chose not to think on the implications.

"You will," Master Touma smiled. He settled more of his weight forward, atop Ito's balls, though it didn't seem to do any harm. The old mouse patted a hand against Ito's cheek and said, "this is the way things were, before your damned iPhones. Trust in your instincts. Now, Sota will stay with you to ensure you practice discipline, and we will leave you to rest."

Ito wanted to complain. He wanted to argue. He wanted to leave, and he wanted to do everything he'd done tonight over again. Confused, exhausted and overcome with unnatural (or perfectly natural, perhaps) impulses, Ito simply sat. Sota's hands settled against his own again, a comfort. Master Touma bowed politely and departed, leaving Ito to his attendant and the squirming mass between his thighs.