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Warning: This story contains transformation, growth, ascension, macro, mega macro, giga macro, etc. all the way to reality-smothering levels and hourglass expansion.

---

The Fox Priestess, by DragonMasterX.

A typical day in the life of a shrine maiden— known as miko— involved several tasks to ensure the purity of her shrine atmosphere was spiritually welcoming. Spirits usually abandon those who don’t believe, and belief is transmitted via devotion. And there was no one in the hills more devoted than Yuriko Kamari.

The steps to Inari-sama’s statue are dirtying up again. Time to sweep them up!

_ _

Yuriko was the lone miko tending to the shrine of the goddess Inari. One needed only to travel to quaint little villages in the hills with terraced rice farms to find the likeness of the fox deity enshrined in order to secure divine bounty. And there was no village quainter than Kome Valley.

There haven’t been many visitors, but I must tidy Inari-sama’s offering box. Some peach incense will surely bring fortune to us!

Hill-side and with little over a hundred inhabitants, Kome Valley was once known as a busy little community, as well as sought after as a getaway spot with its hot springs. However, a couple of bad back-to-back rice harvests had started rumors about the village being haunted by malcontent spirits, leading to a decline in commerce and general interest by the larger surrounding settlements.

Freshen up the omikuji fortunes so they are presentable. I need to carve out more wood for the omamori charms as well…

_ _

It didn’t seem to matter how many slips of paper Yuriko tied around the rope hangers. Good luck amulets piled up in the shed day in and out because there were no visitors to buy them.

Ever since the head priest had passed away seven years ago, Kome Valley had descended into an almost soul-sapping quietude.

As the young grew older and were overcome by restlessness and boredom, they would leave the village and join the neighboring communities, or even move out to the bigger cities farther away from the hills.

Anything was better than living in the sticks with a bunch of kids and old people witnessing the inevitable decline.

Oh, Inari-sama. Please bless everybody’s day today as well. I, too, will do my best for the sake of Kome Valley!

_ _

Sentiment aside, there was little Yuriko could offer to the valley, much less an almighty deity. Seven years ago, she was still a prepubescent girl learning the way of priestess hood. Priest Ji had taken good care of her and the others at the shrine.

The old priest’s wish had been for everyone to grow and experience the world, which was why year after year since Priest Ji’s passing, monks and mikos alike joined the numbers of those who had walked out of the valley.

And then there was only one. Yuriko had nowhere else she belonged. And she never quite felt she had matured enough. Her charms had never turned out as good as the others’, her cleaning could use some more work, even her festive dancing required refining!

Yuriko was devout in spite of her incompetence. The valley was her home and its people deserved peace of mind. It was hard keeping track of everything, especially on her own. But Yuriko did not want to give up. Surely if she stayed behind to become the best miko she could be, the goddess— the megami — would take notice.

Surely.

---

One morning, one of Yuriko’s neighbors showed up to the shrine with a small offering of bread. Kanza was an elderly baker living with his wife near the water mill. His modest patch of wheat kept him in business and he came to pray to Inari, despite the megami being associated with rice, every other Saturday.

That Saturday was no different, but Yuriko noticed something in the way Kanza appeared to be limping on the way up to the statue. After respectfully waiting for the old man to finish his prayer, she called attention to him with a polite greeting.

“Good morning, Yuriko-chan. Sorry I didn’t greet you earlier; I must’ve let my foul mood blind me to my surroundings,” he took a pause, wrinkled face scrunching up further into a big grin. “Or I really am getting old and did not see you, ohoho!”

With a patient smile, Yuriko acknowledged her neighbor. “It’s quite alright, Kanza-san. Lovely morning, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Quite right, quite right, child. And I see you’re still hard at work even today. Has it been too rough on you? Taking over the shrine all by yourself. I’m surprised you didn’t leave with all the others!”

Kanza had always been a talkative neighbor, but that was fine by Yuriko who enjoyed small talk. With a humble bow and nod, she answered: “It’s been hard, Kanza-san. Thank you for your concern, but I couldn’t leave the shrine. I owe it so much.”

The old man appeared even older for a moment there, his shoulders sagging as he let out a little sigh. “I know. Ji-san took you in as an orphan and raised you like his own. Sometimes I forget his passing must’ve affected you the most. But you’re still young. Is it alright for you to stay here with a bunch of old people? The valley isn’t what it used to be.”

Patient as ever, Yuriko set her right brown eye and left amber eye on Kanza before smiling softly at him. “Please don’t talk that way about our home, Kanza-san. I’m sure this bad spell will be over soon! Now,” she paused to take a breath before continuing with a frown of concern on her face, “You said earlier something was bothering you. Is there something wrong?”

“Bothering…” Kanza softly repeated, as if mulling over his memories for something that seemed quite distant. The second pacing step to his right which made him wince seemed to do the trick. “Oww. Yes, that’s right. It’s embarrassing, but this old fool stubbed his toe on the way here, haha. And if that wasn’t enough, I just realized I seem to have misplaced my wallet!”

“Oh no, that’s terrible!” Yuriko said. “Was there a lot of money in it?”

Kanza scoffed. “Pah! What was inside would insult the goddess if nothing else. But you see, there was this…” he stopped mid-sentence, waving away as if dismissing the whole. “Ah, don’t worry. I already ramble on enough every time I come here, child.”

It must have been something personal, Yuriko thought and agreed not to pry. “Will your toe be alright? Do you need me to help you back home?”

“No no no,” Kanza waved dismissively again, this time down with both hands. “Young lady, I’m not so useless I can’t walk on my own just yet! But thanks for worrying. You actually remind me of my wife in a way. Can’t even mention the injury or she’ll worry herself sick, though!”

“Sounds like she loves you very much, Kanza-san. Try not to make her worry too much, won’t you?”

“Haha, that nagging sounds familiar as well. As long as she doesn’t find out I was drinking late last night though I’ll…” the bread maker mumbled on the low at the end.

“What was that?” Yuriko directed a kind, aloof smile at the old man, pretending like she hadn’t heard a thing. Kanza seemed to perk up, realizing his proverbial foot couldn’t have been any closer to his mouth.

He cleared his throat. “Ahem! Thank you for all your hard work, Yuriko-chan. Before I leave though, forgive me for asking, but might you be skipping meals? Even with your kimono and hakama on, I can tell you’re on the skinny side.”

“I don’t go hungry,” Yuriko admitted, though her eyes did glance down at her small frame. She had never truly stood out among the other mikos, or any other of the girls in the village for that matter. Given she was just an inch over five-foot fall, Yuriko only really started getting noticed once there was no one but her left in the shrine grounds.

“Well, if you say so. We always have fresh bread at home, so don’t be afraid to ask for some if you’re running short, alright?”

“You always say that, Kanza-san. Thank you!” Yuriko gave him a short bow this time.

“No no. It’s the least we can do for the one who appeases the spirits. But look at me rambling on and on. I better go home before the wife starts to worry.”

Visits like Kanza’s were far and between every week, but Yuriko relished them each time. Outside of errands for the shrine and food, she would go long periods of time without talking to the other villagers.

Later the same day, around noon, Yuriko found herself sweeping the steps under the shrine gate. The Inari Shrine had been built at the plateau of its hill, a fork in the crossing leading to where Yuriko was cleaning. One could get a pretty good view of the village downhill from the shrine gates, and every day Yuriko would take a moment to feel the breeze and cast her eyes over the rice terraces which looked like a staircase of pools. She had seen this same sight so many times throughout the years but it never failed to take her breath away.

Except there was a moment Yuriko’s attention was drawn to something else. Out of the corner of her eye, something in her immediate vicinity continued to blind her at an angle. Curiously the miko approached the bunch of rocks used to keep the sign in the crossing upright, surprised when she found one of them was the opposite of misshapen. It was a perfect rectangle and flat, like a small brick. In its center lay a bit of metal which was what the sun kept reflecting its light at her. Holding her broom aside, she knelt down to pick the object up in her hand.

Yuriko realized what it was almost immediately upon holding the thing up. Leathery exterior, metallic clasp keeping it closed. “Could this be Kanza-san’s…?” she shook the wallet experimentally, confirming the wallet’s lack of weight corresponded to its largely silent voice. “Maybe he stubbed his toe here and dropped it then!” she conjectured, quickly stuffing the wallet in her sleeve. “I’ll have to bring it to him immediately to ask if it’s really the one he lost.”

---

Yuriko believed the shrine needed to be kept clean and orderly not just for the spirits but also for people to want to come visit. She would go down to the village every so often to pick up supplies, loading them up on her cart.

It was a long walk down the hill to the village and she wasn’t very strong so her cart needn’t be too loaded by the time she had to come back up.

She certainly didn’t expect her supplies being buried under a monstrous amount of bread when she paid a visit to Kanza’s domicile.

We insist!

Yuriko couldn’t convince them to stop hauling sweet buns and bread loaves into her cart no matter how much or how fast she bowed. Kanza and his wife seemed adamant about the growing mountain of sweet buns they kept shoveling in there.

“Please, this isn’t necessary. I didn’t come return your wallet for any sort of reward, sir!” Yuriko assured them. Even though the thought the shrine could have used a substantial monetary donation did pass through her head. The gate needed a new coat of paint and some planks in the shrine had to be replaced.

“Nonsense, Yuriko-chan!” Kanza’s wife was a short and stout woman, and three times as loud. “Just look at you. You could stand to eat some more. Have you been starving yourself with those strange monk diets? You didn’t tell me she was this skinny, dear! Isn’t the poor girl looking sickly to you?”

As a faithful, Yuriko was usually a perseverant individual, but perseverance didn’t seem to matter when being faced with concerned senior citizens. Her cart was just on the cusp of toppling over by the time they stopped sharing their sweet-scented, frankly appetizing bounty.

Even though she had no idea how she was going to pull this all up to the shrine, Yuriko was simply happy to have been able to help.

While his wife left to look for traditional herbal medicine for Yuriko, Kanza approached the latter. He was much calmer now, wearing the gentle smile of a proud grandfather. Hunched over, he looked smaller than ever to even Yuriko. “Yuriko-chan, thank you. Really.”

“Sir?”

“This old thing…” Kanza looked down at his wallet, sliding his thumb and pushing the clasp off, which finally opened his wallet. He was looking simultaneously wistful and forlorn. “We usually use coin purses. You can’t get one of these here. It was a gift from my son, you see. It’s been twenty years since he left Kome Valley. He doesn’t write much, but his latest letter came with this fancy wallet. I’ve even kept the letter and his childhood drawings neatly folded in here, see?”

Yuriko’s expression softened as she looked over Kanza’s son’s old drawings. The paper was well-worn with strong marked lines where it had been folded and unfolded multiple times. Although the then-child’s line art exhibited no remarkable quality, the artist’s feelings for his family were transcendental, like a window to the past. “It’s beautiful. Is that supposed to be you, Kanza-san?”

“He sure got my good looks right, don’t you think?” the old man laughed at the big-nosed stickman. “But seriously. I’m still proud of the boy even if he left the village, us. To think I was so careless with all of his precious gifts… What I’m trying to say, child, is that I’m truly grateful to you for returning this to me. I see now that you deciding staying here, despite our village’s humble circumstances, is no small blessing.”

Warmed over by those magnanimous words, Yuriko felt herself blushing. “Kanza-san, you’re truly making me sound like some sort of hero. If you truly want to thank someone, thank Inari-sama for bestowing me with the gift of true sight! Without it I would most assuredly mistaken your wallet for a rock!”

“Oh, yes. Earlier I was praying to Inari-sama for the well-being of my family, but I see now that I should also be praying for your good health as well,” Kanza said. “It’s just as well, mikos look after us, but who looks after the mikos?”

Smiling, Yuriko gave one last bow to the old man. “Thank you for your kindness, sir. I must leave before it gets too late. Please give your lovely wife my regards.”

Inari-sama is watching. She’s allowing me to help others.

The road back uphill was its very own beast, but that was where Yuriko’s perseverance triumphed. By the time she had returned to Inari’s shrine, the muscles of her legs and back were begging her to lie down.

Thanking the bounty of bread, she allowed herself a generous portion for dinner. But not even after indulging to repay her tired body with the necessary nutrients could Yuriko see a dent in the sweet-scented tower she had laid down on a mat.

An idea occurred to her. Certain shops in the marketplace down below where she procured supplies from sometimes engaged in trades when money wasn’t available. With the lack of donations, Yuriko wasn’t exactly swimming in cash.

Perhaps she could exchange some of the excess in the marketplace the next day in return for some rice and other amenities. Surely it would be better than waiting for it all to spoil before she could pack it all away herself!

I wonder if Inari-sama is a fan of sweet buns? I should make an offering before I turn in for the night.

---

Kome Valley’s marketplace wasn’t what it used to be. Almost a decade ago, merchants from all over would come to the base of the hills to set up shop. Competition allowed visitors to acquire exotic goods at agreeable prices while the two inns a few levels above were stuffed with tourists and even some of the merchants who couldn’t be bothered to sleep in their tents. Commerce used to be good before the rumors. It was now a shadow of its once bustling cobbled floors.

Making money relied on a neighbor needing something they couldn’t immediately procure themselves, after all. And in a traditional village such as this, everybody knew how to do most of the necessary things. Commerce just didn’t have a chance to thrive without tourists.

And yet the villagers continued on, because that is what human beings do.

More than a marketplace, it was now a mostly empty plaza down there, with the three local shops spaced out between one another. An apothecary, a smith and a drapery. Traditions were deeply rooted in Kome, and unless your child was a rebel star-struck by the lure of the big cities, they’d remain to run the family business.

It certainly seemed like those three families would be enjoying bread and sweet buns for their meals for the rest of their day.

With her trusty cart loaded with dyes, materials, cloth and even some old tools the smith had been able to spare, Yuriko was ready for maintenance; and she even had a few sweet buns left over for lunch! Perseverance, fortunately for her, also meant good bartering skills.

On the way back however, her contentment was interrupted by a sharp sound. So distracted had Yuriko been that she dropped the handles of her cart with a start when she heard what her ears identified as a strange scream. Strange because it was not like any scream humans usually made.

Steading herself and pulling her cart along, Yuriko felt compelled to investigate. A short search led her to the bottom of the steps leading up to the residential area, where she saw three children— barely into their teens— gathered at a corner. Judging by the way they were positioned and facing the cobbled walls, she was able to tell that they had cornered someone, or rather, some_thing_.

“Stupid smelly animal! Give it back!”

“It jumped you so fast, too. But now it can’t escape. Get it, Gouta!”

“Gouta-kun, I don’t think it wants to give it.”

“I’ll make it give it! It’s mine!”

Drawing closer to the irate kid and his two friends, lording maybe two inches over the tallest among them, Yuriko’s eyes met the culprit. It was a small, thin yet fluffy animal with a long soft tail curled around its defensively postured form, and pointy ears folded in with eyes darting anxiously at the three giants before it.

The one called Gouta had his young face twisted with anger, with his female friend trying to calm him down and his male accomplice encouraging him like shoulder angels and devils, respectively. In his hand, Yuriko noticed a lightly jagged rock whose end appeared tinted with red. The shivering fox’s exposed left haunch had its fur painted in very much the same color around the thigh.

The fox was wounded, which explained how three children had managed to catch up to it to the point of cornering it like this. Gouta seemed angry about what the fox had in its mouth and it was clear this violence was only going to escalate. Monk Ji’s words played back inside of her head.

Don’t forget, Yuri-chan. Foxes are cunning, but if one happens to be injured or cornered, it might unleash fury greater than a predator twice or even thrice its size on its foe.

_ _

This fox was both injured and cornered. Yuriko stopped thinking and stepped between the fox and the children, arms outstretched in defense of the animal. “Stop this!” she said.

“Hey! Get out of the way, lady!” Gouta shouted angrily, waving that rock in his hand.

“Gouta-kun!” said the little girl to his right, “It’s the miko from the shrine!” she tugged at Gouta’s sash uneasily, “You’ll get in trouble.”

“She’s right, Gouta,” said the boy to Gouta’s left in a defeated tone. “She’ll tell on us. It’s what she does…”

“But it’s not fair! It still has my bread! You guys got to eat yours. No fair!” Gouta turned to his friends, stomping the ground like a kid does when throwing a tantrum. Yuriko swiftly took the moment of distraction to look down at the shivering vulpine, finally noticing a piece of bread sticking out from the side of its snout. Even in this situation, the animal didn’t seem keen on releasing what it had stolen.

It wasn’t the first time a wild animal took something that didn’t belong to it, nor would it be the last. But Yuriko couldn’t let the child get attacked by a fox feeling threatened, or worse, allow the child’s anger to brain the animal in the head with the stone. “Um,” Yuriko had to muster up in order to speak out loud at the children; her heart still racing after she had cut in to the action so fast. “Gouta-kun, right? You lost your snack. How about this?”

Gouta and the other two turned their attention to Yuriko who was reaching into her bag. All three noses twitched to the faint yet unmistakable fragrance of cooked dough and sweet bean paste. Gouta’s mouth hung open with a bit of drool. “I-is that… a sweet bun?” he asked.

“Mhm,” Yuriko nodded, mentally relieved that she seemed to finally be dealing with a kid, not a future fox murderer. Gently she stretched her arm out, offering the treat to the relaxing child. “I’m sure your bread was tasty, but so is this one.”

Readily taking the bun in his free hand, Gouta looked at it and gulped. His two friends looked at him with jealousy but also shared relief.

“Isn’t that great, Gouta-kun?”

“That’s even better than our snacks!”

“Yeah but…” Gouta appeared sullen, even if pacified. “It’s not fair that thing gets to take my bread. It’s a pest and dad says pests are better off dead…”

Yuriko let out a sigh. “Gouta-kun,” she knelt down and looked up at him, trying to speak softly. “Fox-san here is probably hungry, like you. But they weren’t given a snack, like you were. It’s no excuse for stealing, but are you really going to take its life for what it did? With that rock, maybe?”

Gouta looked like he had seen a ghost all of a sudden. He squirmed when he gave the bloody rock a second glance, and finally dropped it to the ground with disgust. “No,” was the word he wanted to say, but embarrassment made him choke up instead.

“Just this once,” Yuriko smiled to Gouta, and directed the same kind expression to his other two friends, “Can we forgive fox-san? In the future, you will keep an eye on your belongings. And for now…” she paused to reach back into the bag hanging from her arm. Each kid got a sweet bun, with Gouta getting a second one to make up for the bread he did not get to eat. “You may have these.”

“Woah, me too?!”

“Thank you, miko-san!”

“And I will not be telling anyone about this,” Yuriko promised, tilting her head sideways with the smile of a complicit older sister, “Alright?”

Grins all around. Gouta was nodding rapidly with the first sweet bun already half-stuffed in his face. Once dismissed, the gang ran away celebrating their newly acquired doughy bounty, like adventurers who had just been blessed for their quest ahead. “Thank you, weird-eyes lady!” one of the kids’ voice trailed off as they disappeared around the corner.

From a young age, Yuriko had been used to her heterochromia being what most children focused on, so it didn’t bother her any more. At least they hadn’t called her short.

Standing back up with a sigh, Yuriko turned to look down at the curled up fox. It was still letting out scared little growls, still hanging on to that piece of bread for dear life. Still worried for its injury, she decided to give it some space and knelt in front of it. “It seems like Gouta-kun is stronger than he looks,” she said with a little huff, wondering if she should have lectured him some more. His regret seemed to have been genuine. “I wonder if there’s anything I got that I can use to treat this… Oh!”

No sooner than Yuriko had begun reaching for her cart, the fox, seemingly convinced of its opportunity to finally flee, darted off with a muffled yip. “Wuh-wait! Fox-san!” Yuriko yelped after it, grabbing her cart to give chase.

The poor thing’s leg appeared to limp even as it sprinted away; there wasn’t a lot of blood, but the blow certainly had afflicted it. And whereas Yuriko wasn’t intending on forcing her help on it, she was concerned it might get into an accident and make things worse; she just couldn’t leave it alone.

The chase had ended at the woods at the bottom of the hills. Yuriko found herself with her cart surrounded by trees and deciduous foliage. Even in the samey-looking background, the miko wasn’t worried. She had a pretty good sense of direction, so navigating her way back out wasn’t going to be an issue.

Normally, keeping up with a speeding fox is next to impossible especially when burdened. But with the fox’s limp, Yuriko had managed to follow it all the way to its burrow.

And there she saw it. The fox and the piece of bread, both finally on the ground in the burrow.

It was a mother of two, her litter still fairly young, and clearly thankful for the meal their parent had managed to procure for them. Yuriko sighed and dropped to her knees again.

Mother fox was curled up again, but showing no sign of stress in front of the human. Once they had finished the piece of bread, the cubs gathered around her to attempt comforting her with their soft warmth, peering at Yuriko with wary curiosity. Occasionally, the mother would lift her leg and she’d lick where she had been wounded.

“It looks like you might be fine after all, but you shouldn’t tempt fate like that,” Yuriko laughed at herself for talking to the foxes. But it was no less inspiring to learn of the lengths at which parents go for the sake of their young, even in the animal kingdom. “I think I’ve had enough sweet buns, myself. I wouldn’t want you to go hungry and try to take from Gouta-kun again, after all.”

In a considerate effort not to violate the fox’s home, Yuriko ripped the bag she had been carrying her food in two and set it just outside the burrow like a mat, leaving the rest of her bread there. After dusting her red hakama off and plucking the last dried leaf away from its fabric, she offered the silent fox family a smile and a wave. “Take care of yourselves.”

Going out of her way to help animals wasn’t something the late monk had taught Yuriko.

He had been the type to teach respect for nature such that men and women did not interfere with the ecosystem. But Yuriko didn’t see what she had done as breaking the rules. She hadn’t given the food to the foxes, technically; she had merely abandoned it outside their burrow.

It was the argument she no doubt would have given her adoptive father had he still been around to reprimand her for chasing a wounded fox through the woods.

As the hypothetical back and forth played in her head, Yuriko saw herself seizing the debate with one phrase.

We all need some help every now and then.

Words Ji had spoken more than once. And Yuriko believed in them hard enough to defy his wishes when necessary.

With a quiet smile of satisfaction, she left the woods and prepared to pull her cart back to the hilltops.

---

Carpentry was something Yuriko had taken an interest in only recently. It was amazing what one’s focus could shift to when necessity arose, and even more amazing how quickly one’s ineptitude was revealed through an ill-equipped pursuit.

After weeks of getting nowhere in the repair of the shrine’s walls and a number of injuries related to poorly aimed hammers, Yuriko had decided to meet up with the marketplace smith in order to get some pointers.

It had been raining lately, so Yuriko took care when descending to the bottom of the hill. Some steps were uneven and they could get dangerous when wet, as Kanza’s wife would often remind her; personal experience no doubt.

Thinking of her reminded Yuriko she had never accepted nor thanked her for the unsolicited medicine Kanza’s wife had offered to get for her. “That was rude of me,” she thought. “But it’s been a while, and Kanza-san hasn’t mentioned anything about it on his latest visits. Perhaps it’s best I don’t…”

It was during that soliloquy that the distracted miko that she forgot where she was going and ended bumping into an unforeseen obstacle.

“Oh! Miko-san.”

Already having completed her descent, Yuriko had crashed into the back of one of the villagers. “Ah, forgive me! How embarrassing, I wasn’t…” she fell silent mid-apology as she realized there wasn’t just the one person, but a whole multitude of them. Or well, what passed for a multitude in Kome Valley.

Between elders and children of various ages, no less than two dozen people were gathered there. The group seemed too preoccupied to regard Yuriko, and before she could ask the question she had in mind, the answer made itself evident.

“I’m telling you, you got me figured all wrong, kid!” the voices at the center belonged to an adult male. Not one Yuriko was familiar with. Peering past the others was difficult with her height, but she could hear some mumbling by the older folk around.

“That Gouta’s going to get us all in trouble, I swear.”

“But those people look suspicious. I wish they’d leave.”

“Gouta-kun…?” Yuriko recalled the boy and his friends from the incident weeks ago. It was too soon to forget. She excused herself and waddled through the group of people, which wasn’t too difficult with her size. And there she confirmed the youngster was standing there alongside his male friend.

“Shaddup! I know your type. You’re scammers and bullies!” Gouta yelled at the top of his lungs, pointing accusatorily.

“Yeah, you tell ‘em, Gouta!” yelled Gouta’s friend to back him up.

Across from them were two adult males. Both significantly tall, with at least three heads over young Gouta, which meant they were by and large giants to Yuriko as well. One was stouter than the other, whereas the leaner one had spindly fingers and a scar under his right eye. Both were dressed in protective leathers, both with weapons holstered in their belts. The stout man looked to be carrying a longer blade whereas the bony-fingered one seemed to have access to a pair of daggers.

Travelers Yuriko, and likely nobody else in Kome had seen before.

“Young man, please,” said the spindly man in a calm voice. “What my associate and I provide is a service. For you see, we protect. We don’t bully anyone other than evil yokai threatening the peace of your precious little town. Now, please run along. There’s a good lad.”

“The hell I will!” Gouta yelled. Yuriko knew she should be sharing the elders’ worries, but something about the little one’s spirit made her hide her smile. The boy was a troublemaker, but he also was brave; certainly had inspired his friend beside him. “We saw you last night and what you did! You’re bullying and scamming people out of their money!”

The mumbling around Yuriko grew louder, but it could not supersede the sudden tension in the silent air. After a pregnant pause, the spindly man continued. “And what exactly did you see, boy?”

“At the rice fields!” Gouta said.

“Yeah, the rice fields!” his friend backed up.

“Your friend was pretending to be a yokai! I saw him taking off the fur coat.”

“Brat.” Grumbled the stout man before he was shushed by his partner.

“What was a boy like you doing at such late hours? Don’t you know yokai roam around and have an appetite for rascals?” the spindly man smiled. “Your village has been haunted for years. We’re doing you a service. Is it not right to ask for compensation?”

“Everyone knows yokai don’t exist!” Gouta insisted, further distressing the crowd. Those in the group whispered about prayers and reprimanding the boy’s parents. “Plus, isn’t it a big coincidence we start seeing one a week ago which is when you two showed up at the village? You two are a pair of big fat liars!”

“I’ve been missing a lot…” Yuriko thought to herself. Whatever amusement she had been feeling until now vanished as she started seeing these men’s eyes sharpen and their brows furrow down at Gouta. The stout one’s stare displayed quiet rage. The spindly one seemed to be losing his patience with the kid.

“Listen to me…”

“They’re liars, everyone!” Gouta turned to the crowd, pointing at the two suspicious men. “They’re liars and scammers!”

“Scammers and liars!” the friend echoed.

“You want to be quiet now, kids.”

“I saw them the day they jumped Hanzo-san at the terraces!”

“One pretends to be the monster and the other chases him! It’s all an act!”

“They scared him off and then they started demanding money! It’s a scam!”

“Bad men! Liars!”

Even Yuriko felt compelled by the tale. She could hear the old people muttering to themselves. Hanzo, one of the rice farmers, walked forth and confirmed what the kids were saying. “I was embarrassed at first, but the yokai wasn’t as terrible as I thought it had been. Thinking back, it really was rounder than one would imagine an evil spirit to be, much like that stout fellow over there…”

“See? Bad! Liars!” Gouta’s anger was infectious, with the couple of men growing visibly stressed by the stink eye they were getting all of a sudden. An infection whose proximity best affected his friend, who rather than echoing out his thoughts had decided to step forth and make demands.

“You’re going to give back all you took and leave now, posers—”

Thwack.

_ _

Yuriko gasped.

The smack had been loud, dry, and sat the suddenly dazed kid on his behind. It had also smacked the crowd’s muttering to a dead silence.

“Benimaru!” Gouta cried after his floored friend.

“Told ya to shaddup, brat.” The spindly man’s voice grunted. He shook his open hand twice before settling it down by his sheathed dagger. “See what ya did? Got up all’n my nerves, that’s what ya did.”

Hanzo stepped back. Everybody else in the crowd did the same. Kids were pulled back. Yuriko didn’t move because she was still paralyzed. The slap Benimaru had received still rung in her ears, so she couldn’t imagine how badly it must be for him. “He’s just a child…” the miko thought to herself, pupils retreating as fear and anxiety gripped her heart.

“You hit my friend!” Gouta shouted, standing in front of Benimaru while balling his hands into fists. “I’m gonna beat your ass, old man!”

“Old man?” the spindly thug repeated, spitting at Gouta’s feet. “Don’t ya old farts teach yer brats any goddamn respect?! Maybe I gotta teach it to him for you.”

Yuriko saw the stout man smirking quietly to himself, gripping the sheathe of his sword. She could already play out how this might escalate when the spindly man started cracking his knuckles with a threatening grin.

That wasn’t the kind of grin an adult should be making at a child but the expression of a sadist ready to ingrate themselves with somebody else’s pain. They could not let this escalate.

Rebelling against all sense of self-preservation, her legs were already moving before she could form the next thought.

“Who’s this bitch?” scoffed the stout man. “I hate her eyes.”

“You’re… the weird shrine lady!” Gouta gasped as Yuriko stood between him and the larger men.

“Careful, little lady,” the spindly man approached, suddenly looking several times taller now that he was directly in front of Yuriko. “Mood’s shot. And when that happens, my patience with kids and women is no good.”

Yuriko didn’t budge. Not for lack of fear either; her legs were about to collapse under their own weight. She didn’t know what she was doing. She had not thought of a plan. All she could do was answer her own anger. “You hit him. You hit Benimaru-kun.”

“Huh? That the kid’s name?” the spindly man looked past Yuriko at the dazed child and then back at her. “Serves him right. Taking that tone with adults is no good. Gave him and the other brat so many choices to shut their traps, but they don’t listen too good, do they?”

“He’s a kid!” Yuriko raise her voice. “You could have seriously hurt him! Have you no shame?”

“ Careful, I said. ”

Yuriko flinched with a start, having a hard time to even swallow her saliva down. “Puh-please…”

“What was that?”

“Please just leave,” Yuriko said. “You’ve already made your point, sir.”

“Ha…!” the spindly man looked back at his chuckling partner and they both laughed together. He directed his attention to Yuriko once more, “I don’t think we’ll be leaving yet, sweetheart. This village’s boring as fuck. Hear me, you old fogeys?” he shouted at the cowering crowd. “God it feels good to drop the act. Your food’s bland. You have no entertainment. At least you’re easy as hell to dupe… but now, I’m not so sure I wanna keep playin’ mister nice guy.”

Metal was drawn. Gasps all around. “Gairu’ll be collecting all y’all got. And once we got it, how about you show us some proper hospitality, little lady? After all, you’re the only piece of ass worth looking at around here. Lucky for me you decided to step up, hmhmhm…!”

Yuriko felt the spindly man’s disgustingly boney fingers under her chin. Her eyes quivered, but she couldn’t cry.

How had this come to be? These brigands invading their quiet little village in the hills. Safety had never been a concern. Wasn’t their village protected? Where was Inari-sama? Had she failed in appeasing the megami after all this time? Had it not been enough?

Yuriko had never felt this threatened in her life. But she couldn’t give in to the fear. She had to do something! But all that something amounted to was slapping away that gently groping hand away from her face. Unfortunately, when it came back, it was decidedly less gentle.

Thwack!

“Shrine lady!” Gouta’s despairing yelp seemed to fuse into a grunt.

Yuriko’s world seemed to go upside down for a moment. The stinging pain in her cheek was instantaneous, like a bolt from the blue. She was knocked down after toppling over; no doubt when she had impacted against Gouta who had been standing behind her.

“Even I felt that one, Zairu,” Gairu, the stout brigand, laughed in his deep voice. He was collecting the fearful villagers’ ‘donations’.

With her head still ringing, getting back up to her feet was impossible. It was all Yuriko could do to kneel back up. Before she could do much else, her instincts kicked in and she found herself hugging the cowering Benimaru and Gouta down to keep them away from the sharp blade Zairu was holding in her direction. “Don’t hurt them!” she pleaded.

Sliding the blade of his dagger under Yuriko’s chin, he forced her to tilt her head back up, forcing a whimper out of her. “Gairu here hates the feisty ones. Me? I love putting bitches like ya in yer places.” Zairu grinned, “Don’t ya worry yer pretty little head. We’ll just be taking all you hicks got. Killing kids ain’t my style, trust me. But if ya get too feisty, I might have to get rough. That loudmouth’s been awfully quiet, speaking of.”

“All my fault…” Gouta quietly sobbed in anger, holding onto Yuriko’s sleeve alongside Benimaru. The blows and the sword and daggers had been a rough wake up call for the two; who despite their boldness had been kids after all.

“It’s okay, Gouta-kun,” Yuriko said, immutable in spite of the sharp dagger holding her chin up. “It’ll be fine.”

“No, no it won’t!” Gouta broke down, snot and tears streaming down his face. “You’re hurt. These bastards are going to… they’re worse than I thought! And we… I…”

“What? Wanted to play hero, didja?” Zairu snickered, “Boy, lemme tell ya something these wartbags are too senile to teach ya. Heroes don’t exist. It’s every man out for himself out there, and you? Well, y’all’s just fair game. And speaking of games…” he licked his lips while locking eyes with Yuriko. “I plan to have a lot of fun with you, sister.”

Yuriko’s eyes closed. She had never learned how to fight. She hadn’t any idea how to change the minds of those tainted by this level of evil. But she didn’t want to fail. She didn’t want to fail Gouta or Benimaru, or the other villagers, or Kome Valley itself. All she could do was plead.

Inari-sama…

_ _

“Now get up, pretty girl, you’re coming with—”

A sharp yet oddly familiar shrieking noise cut through Zairu’s command. Before Yuriko’s eyes could fully open, she felt the sudden absence of the dagger under her chin.

When her vision focused, she saw the spindly man staggering backwards with a large mound of fur attached to his left arm.

A couple of blinks settled the image for her: Maw biting down on Zairu’s forearm, the fox held on as he flailed and let out annoyed grunts.

Yuriko unfailingly picked up the growls from the creature and recognized it. It wasn’t just any old valley fox. It was the fox. That small yet notable scar on her haunch was unmistakable; the mother fox had arrived to help!

In his shock, the spindly bandit had dropped both daggers to the ground. “Fuck! Get off ya stupid beast!” Zairu turned and turned, spinning in place as he attempted to knock the fox off his arm. “Gairu, slash this pest off me!”

“What the hell are you doing?” Gairu laughed, dropping the sagging bag of coins and valuables to the floor before approaching his partner, sword in hand. “Stand still unless you wanna lose an arm, dumbass!”

“Hurry up!”

“Careful, fox-san!” Yuriko yelped in horror as the sword came down. The fox mother seemed to have picked up on the oncoming attack, letting go at the right moment to dodge what would have been a fatal slash.

“Nice aiming, asshole!” Zairu hurried to pick up the dagger closer to him. “Gonna skill this rabid furball myself!” he grinned cruelly down at the growling fox as it bared its fangs.

Yip!

Yip! Yip!

_ _

“Huh?” the bandits looked up. No sooner than their heads had tilted skyward, their vision darkened when they were assaulted and their faces kicked in by four little paws each.

“Gak!”

“Fuck, my face!”

As Zairu and Gairu both held their scratched faces with their respective hands, they ended up crashing into one another.

“Watch where you’re going!”

“Same to you, idiot!”

“It’s them!” Yuriko’s heart raced, eyes sparkling with hope as she saw the mother fox being joined by her two cubs. They had grown in such a little time, but they were still considerably smaller than their parent. Yet no less fierce.

“These valley hicks got trained pet foxes?!” Gairu growled through the pain in his face, gripping his blade and cutting the air in anger. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll be leaving with fur coats on top of everything else!”

“Leave the big one to me!” Zairu grabbed his second dagger, his new scars glowing red. “I ain’t getting humiliated by these fleabags!”

Mother fox barked, and the kids each ran to opposite sides, seemingly retreating before looping around for a back attack which Gairu intercepted. At the same time, the older fox launched itself at Zairu, who knocked her away. The fox family certainly wasn’t built for confrontations with armed humans, which worried Yuriko. However, their cunning was rewarded the moment Zairu began to boast.

“Hah, not so tough noaah…!” the spindly bandit stumbled forwards as his partner crashed into his back again, “Told you to be careful, Gairu!”

“Sorry, it’s these two little…!” Gairu was a large fellow. He could fell three men before the fourth even got past his defenses. But the fox cubs were running circles around his legs. For fear of stabbing his own feet he had started stomping the ground in an effort to crush them, but after the first five misses his arrhythmic sequence had him tripping over himself backwards.

And that distraction cost Zairu a bite in his thigh. “Get off me! Grrraaaah…!” he said, and the fox mother granted his wish, but took half of his pants in her mouth as payment.

The tide of the battle was changing. It was enough to return hope to the villagers. To Yuriko. Her legs were regaining strength. People were alternating between booing the brigands, cheering the foxes and laughing at Zairu’s reluctant nudity.

“The hell are you laughing at, you stupid peasants— ow! Who threw that?!”

It was hard to identify exactly who had been the source of the projectile, but it was remarkably easier to know where it had come from when pebbles and larger rocks started flying from the suddenly irate crowd.

“Go away!”

“You’re not welcome here!”

“Bandits! Hooligans!”

“Blackguards!”

“Perverts!”

“Leave! Leave! Leave!”

All of a sudden, everybody in the plaza had found their courage. Yuriko watched Gouta and Benimaru dart forth from her sides, and with renewed courage went on to kick away the bandits’ weapons as they dropped them. Between their constant humiliation, animal biting and stoning, the brigands were no longer in control.

Yuriko saw a rock by her feet.

In general, not just by doctrine, she was very much against violence.

However, much like dear departed Ji’s lessons, sometimes one had to leave room for exceptions. Months of practice at skipping stones had given her a good control of her wrist technique. When she saw her chance and Zairu turned her way, Yuriko let loose of the pebble, striking him square in the forehead with such precision that he stumbled back onto his partner.

“Got him!” Yuriko celebrated, pumping an arm in victory. Though she soon found herself covering her mouth in concern as she saw Zairu faint against Gairu, who had to carry his partner out of the village in a hurry. “Whoops…!”

“Screw this place!” Gairu was heard yelping as he attempted to outrun the hail of pebbles striking him and Zairu on their way out.

It was a loud cheer for Kome Valley. They had all worked together with the foxes to drive the evil men away. Without weapons and without their stolen valuables, it had been a complete defeat. Beaten by children, old people, a miko and a trio of foxes. Those brigands would surely skip the continent.

“That was one heck of a throw, shrine lady! Gosh, you really are weird!” Gouta said, getting forehead finger-flicked by Yuriko. “Ow.”

“Don’t call people weird, it’s not nice,” Yuriko lectured.

“Buh-but you’re weird. You saved the fox the other time, and gave me sweet buns even though I was acting out, and now you saved me again…” Gouta rubbed at his forehead.

“Um…” Benimaru came from behind Gouta, looming embarrassed. “We caused you a lot of trouble, miss. Sorry. And thanks for the rescue.”

“Yuh-yeah! Thanks for the rescue!” Gouta hurried to add, bowing to Yuriko.

“You didn’t cause any trouble, kids,” Yuriko fanned her hands down, looking confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Wuh-well,” Gouta started. “We really thought we were going to expose the bad guys and be heroes. We just…”

“…we didn’t know they were going to be that bad!” Benimaru finished. “It just was so unfair. They were being mean and dishonest and Gouta here said we should help the village. Since you helped us with our problem too back then.”

Gouta’s cheeks went pink and he did his best to avoid eye-contact with the miko. Yuriko couldn’t help but smile. “You two need to come to an adult next time and let them know. One day when you grow up, you’ll take on all sorts of adventures. But right now things like these are too big for young heroes like you two,” she said, putting her hands on both Benimaru’s and Gouta’s heads to ruffle their hair.

“We tried, but they wouldn’t believe us…” Gouta mumbled. Some of the old people in the crowd seemed to be looking down at their feet. Yuriko only briefly looked at them before regarding the kids again.

“In that case, how about next time you come talk to me?” Yuriko said. “We can all work together. Just like Fox-san and her children helped us just now!”

“O-oh… right!” Gouta looked away from Yuriko and approached the cobblestone walls. The fox family had been perched there for a while, observing the commotion from a safe spot. “Fuh-Fox-san…!” he shouted up at them, frowning embarrassedly. “I’m so sorry! And thank you!” he said. “Please come get bread anytime you’re hungry!”

“Me too!” Benimaru hurried to Gouta’s side. “We’ll feed you and your kids too! Thank you so much for all your help!”

The fox cubs yawned and joined their mother, who upon tilting her head once decided to turn and hop away with her kids. Gouta and Benimaru waved them good-bye together.

Hanzo, the rice farmer, came up to the spectating Yuriko’s side.

“Our rice harvests have been so bad in the last decade. At first I really thought there was a yokai in the terraces,” the old man told the miko. “But I was so scared I ended believing those two. It was too embarrassing to admit I might have been conned, but now I know I mistrusted and we all almost paid a steep price for it.”

“Hanzo-san, I don’t think it’s fair to pin all the blame on you,” Yuriko gently soothed. “Those two were truly horrible men.”

“True enough. Thank you, miko-san,” Hanzo said. “But one thing is bothering me. How did you get those foxes to show up when you did?”

Yuriko opened her mouth before she had the words ready. The miko had not stopped to think how the foxes had heard her call for help, for she had not screamed. Had they heard someone else perhaps? “Maybe Inari-sama… sent them?”

“Inari-sama…” Hanzo mouthed off, eyes widening as if he had hit upon a realization. He was followed by another villager. And another. And another.

“Inari-sama protected us!”

“The village was saved by Inari-sama!”

“The spirits have been appeased! Oh, glorious day!”

“Thank you, Yuriko-sama!”

“Yuriko-sama, please continue with your hard work!”

“Yuriko-sama…!”

“Wuh-wait,” Yuriko felt a tinge of embarrassment at old people using high honorifics on her. It didn’t feel appropriate considering she wasn’t a head priestess. Sure, she was the only miko who remained in Kome Valley, but this was too much too fast. “I’m not…!”

“You’re my hero, shrine lady!” Gouta shouted.

“Yuh-yeah, you’re so cool!” Benimaru added.

It was the first time the young miko had ever been put on the spot like this. It wasn’t a feeling she disliked per se, but it was definitely making her feel weird. And sensation so alien it made her subconsciously reject it at first.

On the other hand, she reasoned this could only be good for the general faith. People were loudly uttering Inari’s name after what seemed to have been a long time. There was just so much the devotion of a singular miko could do for a deity.

Yuriko’s chest was swelling with pride and it seemed like butterflies were flying in her stomach. There was no question she had indeed been trying her best.

Accepting a little gratitude couldn’t hurt.

---

That same night offered the first clear skies in a long time. The moon was in a shiny, large crescent. After washing her dirty clothes and putting them out to dry, the miko had decided to treat herself to a bath in the hot springs behind the shrine. It was large enough for just two people at once, but she was there alone since nobody visited the shrine at night.

“Aahhh! It feels so good.” Yuriko exclaimed in pleasure as she soaked in the hot water. She had let her brown hair down to her back, and she was using a wet towel on her head to help with overheating. The moon hanging above her was like a beacon shining over the hills, granting its mystical sparkles of protection upon the land.

The young miko still couldn’t believe what she had gone through earlier. It had been something out of a nightmare. And yet it had all worked out like a dream in the end.

Word about the brigands’ plot and the altercation from earlier spread like a wildfire among the main gossipers in the village. Soon everybody knew about Inari’s guardian foxes, and despite her initial protests, Yuriko had been attributed with their timely appearance.

A miracle, they called it. A short three syllable word often utilized by those who emerged right from an otherwise dire situation. Three syllables which meant so much more to someone like Yuriko, whose faith had always been tested. Three mere syllables which had brought no less than fifty people to form a line at the currently vacated hilltops to pray and donate what they had not prayed and donated in years.

What Gairu had gathered in their bags, Inari’s offering box now contained. Not one of the villagers objected.

Yuriko had never had to count so much money, or heard so many quiet murmurs of their goddess’ worshippers as they prayed together. She couldn’t help but feel a tingle of joy spreading warmth all over her body with every donation and each word of gratitude the shrine received. Her efforts had finally paid off.

Children asked her for fortunes, with adults asking for charms to adorn every household with, which they were glad to make more offerings for in return.

And the smith, Benimaru’s father, had offered to take on the renovation of the shrine— her home — at no cost when the kid told him the miko had saved his and Gouta’s life.

Hanzo brought what rice he could offer. Even Kanza and his wife came to offer words of cheer and sweet buns for afternoon tea. The latter had insisted Yuriko take her medicinal herbs after seeing how battered by the earlier confrontation she was. With the amount the pushy old lady gave her, there would be no fear of serious wounds or bad coughs for a while.

Looking back, Yuriko had never had a busier morning and afternoon in her life. It only made sense that the looser the hot springs made her muscles, the more cognizant of her physical and mental exhaustion she became. To avoid slipping into the water, the miko turned around, folding her arms over the edge of the bath.

Onsen weren’t merely a way to relax for a miko. The hot springs were charged with purifying salts and herbs meant to help with the bruises and help soothe mental fatigue.

Even with her eyes slowly closing, relaxation was hardly there though. Something kept bothering Yuriko. It was an itch, a persistent one at that, one which kept making her feet fidget around underwater until something made her suddenly stop and reopen her eyes.

Her feet had just brushed against something that hadn’t been inside of the hot springs before. But there was no one around with her.

It occurred to Yuriko that the thing was actually what was brushing against her. An animal? There were no pests in the shrine; she had seen to it. Of the few wild species present in the hills, none of them preferred the springs.

Finally, she turned around to face the anomaly. Rising steam made it hard to identify anything but her fair white skin underwater. There was also a foggy, cloudy thing at her back, which reminded her of the source of her itch. But before Yuriko could reach down to give herself a quick scratch, she felt the water stir.

“Eek…!” a splash frightened her. Yuriko quickly turned around, but so did the cloudy underwater object. “I knew it. There is something here after all… Ack!” she jolted up and away from the edge of the bath. Pain had shot up from under and behind her, as if she had just crushed a body part with unexpected pressure by accident. But the pain wasn’t quite in her back, and it wasn’t her butt either. It was somewhere in between.

“Oh, I see.” Yuriko stopped worrying when the phantom limb swished to her right side, finally floating up and becoming definable to her eyes. “So it was just my tail I pressed back there. What a relief…” she relaxed like someone who had just found a missing piece. And then, immediately, just like someone realizing they had an extra piece that did not belong, she jolted with a scream.

A TAIL?!

_ _

Splish-splash went the long, soft, snow-white appendage. Water seemed to drip off as the tail fluffed up, swaying to and fro as if with a mind of its own. Yuriko’s paralyzed eyes couldn’t quit staring. It was a tail. A real honest to goodness tail had sprouted from her human tailbone, and it wasn’t a monkey tail. It had to be at least the length of one of her legs; no, a good few inches longer.

“I grew a tail.” Wasn’t a thought most people have in their lives. It was all the way up there with: “Where are my ears?!”

Yuriko’s attention had turned to her reflection on the water’s surface after her tail had accidentally fanned some of the steam away. That additional appendage seemed novel now that her hands couldn’t locate either of her ears. Plain skin was all that had been left where her ears had been. But something was stranger still. Even without the external parts where the human auditory system begins accepting sounds, Yuriko could hear the light nocturnal breeze, the splish-splash of her tail against the water, and of course, her own voice.

And then she saw them hiding under her wet towel. Moving her hands from the sides of her head to the very top of it, Yuriko tentatively lifted the right side of the towel to expose the truth. And the truth was just as fluffy as her new tail. Perhaps she had not felt the itch due to the hefty cold towel, because if she had, she would’ve noticed the large, pointy ears which had grown above her head.

Upright, pointed and triangular. Thin, almost transparent skin covered in white fur, with abundant fur keeping anything other than sound going in. “These are mine…?” Yuriko asked in disbelief, furrowing her brow as her panic was wholly replaced, or perhaps simply buried, in confusion.

Folding the wet towel in once more to hold it between her new ears, Yuriko felt almost entranced by the tufts sticking out of her slender new ears. “So soft…” With an experimental prod, Yuriko let out a squeak as she felt her ear fold in response. “And sensitive…!”

An animal tail and a pair of ears, both looking, she judged, out of place on her. And yet with the way they reacted to her touch, and how they responded to her will, she felt control of them coming natural to her. It was going to take some getting used to.

Swiveling her new ears was something she had never been able to do with her human ones. Depending on the angle and how erected they were, she found she could focus on making sounds clearer. They weren’t any louder or quieter, but she found they were easy to pick out from all others.

Her tail on the other hand was a bit more difficult to lead. Yuriko felt like it was an appendage guided more by instinct than it was her thoughts. Simply waddling around in the bath however allowed her to realize its sway accompanied her movement, as if it was complementing her motion.

Sure, it hadn’t been able to stop her from clumsily crushing it earlier, but at least if this was the way it worked she wouldn’t have to be worried about it getting tangled up anywhere.

Yuriko was so absorbed with her new body parts that she had completely blanked on a different yet no less notable aspect of her transformation. It was a much slower one however, and it did not itch. Yuriko only noticed it because a lone passing cloud had decided to come and go, introducing darkness which lifted with the grand shine of the moon above. “My hair…” Yuriko gasped, brushing her wet locks over her hand.

As strands of brown hair spilled between her fingers, the thought that she had never thought much of her fairly long mane came to mind. Chestnut color, she remembered one of the other mikos had once called it. She had also complimented it for being straight and pretty. But the thing was, while the strands were still brown, the roots were as snow white as the fur coating her new appendages. Color seemed to drain from Yuriko’s hair, making her go from chestnut to what was more accurately a silvery white under the glow of the moon.

Yuriko stared at her reflection once more. And whereas the combo of ears and tails now were a perfect fit with the color of her hair, she couldn’t feel excited for it. “What’s happening to me…?” the miko’s fear had returned. “Am I growing old?” she brought her hands over to the fair skin of her cheeks, pressing them in, up and down. “No. Is this some sort of curse?! I look…I look like a monster!”

Panic began to settle in. Frustrated, Yuriko’s hands hit the water to disperse the accursed image of that beast girl— that kemonomimi— looking back at her. But when the girl on the water returned, she still had the white hair and fluffy ears. Yuriko had the face of a doll, with subtly rosy lips and big almond and amber eyes. Even lacking certain feminine attributes other women had in abundance, she had learned to love these other aspects of herself. That was why the new ones were so striking, so shocking, so… scary!

“No!” Yuriko yelped, her voice breaking off at the end as she made a grunt of effort to climb out of the bath. She had to go back to the shrine, check out every scripture dealing with afflictions and known rituals. Clearly something had gone very wrong. There was no time to lose. There was—

Yip.

There was the mother fox sitting down before the wet and naked Yuriko. The vulpine seemed solemn, yet staring with what seemed to be concern for the miko.

Where are you going like that? You will catch a cold.

Yuriko glanced down at her exposed body. The nipples on her petite breasts were starting to stiffen against the late night breeze. The fox mom had a point.

First, Yuriko reached for a big towel which she had been keeping on the ground next to the bath. Second, she dried herself up, taking a great deal of extra care with her sensitive new ears and tail. Third, the robed up, taking a little extra time as she figured a way for her tail to pop out since it was causing the clothes to ride up with its added volume.

Finally, Yuriko freaked out.

“Did you just speak to me?!”

It’s not the first time.

“But how? Wait, you’ve been talking to me?”

Indeed, young one. I have words of gratitude for you.

“Gratitude?” Yuriko repeated, blinking her eyes repeatedly. Was she really having a conversation with a fox?

Gratitude for your selfless acts. You tirelessly work for those around you, even expecting no reward.

“It’s my job, though. As miko…”

I see. A miko is one who devotes their life to the heavens. Yet you’re prepared to lay your own life for the sake of another. That is not what all mikos do.

“Maybe so… But it was the right thing to do!”

Righteousness. Wrongfulness. Who’s to say? Devotion to others is what you’ve shown. And in return, their faith now rests with you.

“You mean the villagers? They prayed at the shrine before…”

But not with their hearts, like you do. Their souls are now as one, pouring spiritual energy into these hallowed grounds. You achieved this, and for that, I have gratitude.

_ _

There was a deep silence. Yuriko had to sit back at the edge of the bath to collect her thoughts, but a sharp pain made her jump. “Ow!” With a shift of her hips, she swept her tail to the side to get it out of the way this time. “I can’t get used to this. Fox-san, how is it that I can understand you now? I couldn’t, before.”

Your heart has grown. As one devoted to the same God, it’s only natural for it to be able to hear my messages.

“Hold on, the same…” Yuriko’s eyes opened wider as she stopped herself. “Do you mean Inari-sama?”

I am a kitsune. Our kind speaks for the megami.

Yuriko freaked out again. But this time, instead of shouting, she immediately left her seat and went down to her hands and knees, pressing her forehead to the ground in reverential prostration. “I’m so sorry, please forgive my rudeness, holy kitsune-sama!” she said, her tail erratically swishing from left to right with barely contained excitement. Yuriko had to rein it back with a grasping hand. “I had no idea. It took me so long to realize! I… I’m speaking to an envoy of the goddess herself!”

You need not humble yourself, child. If anything, I now realize you never truly heard my and my children’s thanks for your kind offering before. I trust our assistance earlier was of help to you.

_ _

“You probably saved my life, and the whole village as it was! We owe you, kitsune-sama! I… I was so scared,” Yuriko stammered as she recalled the earlier events, peering up at the fox from her prostrated position. “For a moment, I doubted.”

That I would help you in your time of need?

“That Inari-sama was going to listen to me. I… things have been so rough for Kome Valley. It seemed like it all was going to keep getting worse. I worried my inexperience might have angered the spirits and… Sometimes I even doubted she was even around.”

The megami is always listening. She is a part of humanity after all.

“A part of humanity?”

You chose to represent her as a patron and a guide, but you do not yet realize her potential rests within you all. It is belief that makes a God real.

_ _

As Yuriko slowly sat up to better get a look at her interlocutor, she realized her tail hadn’t slipped off her hand and she hadn’t crushed it between her bottom and the back of her legs. She could no longer feel it. It was gone. “Huh?” the miko lifted her robes to double check, and even nudged herself closer to the bath to check at her reflection. Chestnut hair was back, and so were her skinny, small human ears. No sign of the fluffy ears either.

The other part of my message is a warning, brave miko. Humanity is easily tempted into bringing harm to others, often by despair. This despair has been the source of grief for these hills for quite some time now. And it seems to be gathering, becoming stronger of late. It will take your newly awakened faith to fight back and conquer it.

_ _

Yuriko felt the weight of the kitsune’s words tear her away from her relief. While she turned away from the bath to address it, she realized the fox was gone, but her voice continued to echo in her mind.

The rice fields. The evil spirit responsible for this infestation is there. Continue to ignore it and it might just grow to engulf this village.

“Wait—” Yuriko stood up and walked where the fox had been standing. She looked all around to no avail. “What source? What despair are you talking about, kitsune-sama?”

It is up to you now, young one. You must rest for tonight and make for the source as soon as possible. Call upon Inari’s power. Make it yours, for the sake of those you wish to protect.

“But wait! I have so many questions!” Yuriko raised her voice to no effect. “The tail, the ears, the—” she stopped. The kitsune was truly gone now, and something deep within Yuriko made her consider this might be the last time she would see this envoy.

It’s common for divine messengers to visit the faithful and devout. The kitsune is just one of many, yet their messages should not be taken lightly. Yuriko couldn’t just ignore that warning, no matter how ominous and scary it had sounded. She was the shrine maiden of Inari. Kome Valley and everyone living in it was her responsibility now. It wasn’t the time to doubt herself. It was the time for action.

---

When Yuriko woke up the following morning, she felt refreshed.

The conflict with the bandits and the large amounts of people she was unused to regarding at the shrine during the day. The supernatural anomaly and encounter during the night. Each event seemed to have happened weeks apart with how heavy they had been. No matter how dreamlike some of those seemed, they all had happened to her in the same day.

Surprisingly, all one needed to recuperate from excitements both small and large was a good night’s sleep.

As Yuriko’s morning routines began, she couldn’t help pausing every so often. When walking and becoming aware of her steps, when combing her hair, when sitting down for the first tea of the day. She would check herself in the mirror to make sure the beast was gone and all that remained was her plain, brown-haired self. Despite her anxiety, she felt certain inexplicable wistfulness for the strange form. But she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of distractions. People were already coming by the shrine.

Villagers were being especially courteous even after the previous day. They brought more offerings to the shrine in exchange for blessings and talismans, which helped with Yuriko’s relief. In their own way, her neighbors’ renewed faith was serving as a way to further convince the young miko on what to do.

She spent lunchtime dusting ancient tomes and perusing Ji’s aged scrolls. Opening drawers and rummaging through old tools and things whose names escaped even a resident like herself. In her short life, Yuriko had never heard of Ji speak once about purification rituals or exorcisms, processes by which evil spirits are driven away. So it came as a surprise to her when she hit upon a scroll which identified yokai as well as the necessary items monks looking to exorcise them required.

Fortunately for the clueless Yuriko, the scrolls were illustrated as well.

Either way, it was a grand amount of information to soak up, and most of it was confusing. Tiers and classifications, and sub-classifications. Yuriko would grow wrinkles by the time she finished studying all of it, even with the pictures.

If the kitsune was to be believed, and she believed, Yuriko knew she had no time to waste on academics. It was the time for action.

Plus, the only tool available to her that was shown in the scroll was a juzu; a loop of prayer beads. It fit neatly around her dominant hand, and supposedly meant to ward its user from evil yokai.

After memorizing the sutras related to the juzu, Yuriko felt much more confident.

Focus, Kamari Yuriko. You’re the only one left who can do this. You owe it to Kome Valley; it has suffered enough.

_ _

And that evening, when the lord Tsukuyomi— God of the moon— was hovering high in the air providing his blessings of light, the lone miko crossed the hills into the rice terraces.

Each plant in bloom welcomed her; safely submerged in water yet small in size. It seemed that no matter how much care was put in the planting and maintenance processes, they would grow no bigger than a scant few inches, with only a few ever reaching a foot in height.

The water was clean and clear, the soil nice and fertile, the seeds healthy and sturdy. It was the air that was tainted. Now that she was here, Yuriko could tell.

It was like the kitsune’s words had awakened a perception in her vision that hadn’t been there before. And what Yuriko could sense was foul indeed. It manifested as black and purple colored fog, wispy trails of it saturating the air of the rice terraces. And they kept going all the way down to the base of the hill. With her hand tightly gripping the juzu, Yuriko gulped.

Evil energy is born from unwanted thoughts such as those dealing with anxiety, fear or envy. While people end up purging those out, the tainted psychic potential remains. Being no longer bound to an individual, it seeks to become whole again, gathering in one spot where it can build up.

Kitsune-sama said the source is around here. If I’m to perform an exorcism, it should be there, right?

The energy is usually invisible to the naked eye unless one is aware it is what they’re looking for. It also has a particular stench unlike anything and yet just like the combination of everything the mind naturally registers as unpleasant. A sickening scent that prompts one to shield their nose on instinct.

It’s so foul and acrid. I’ve never smelled something so strong in my life. It’s just so… impure.

_ _

Years of uncertainty, resentment and impatience had allowed those orphaned thoughts to find wicked comfort with each other. A once small coalition of echoes which had grown into mountainous wailing. And Yuriko was finally seeing its physical form from behind.

An arachnid of colossal size sat at the center of one of the rice fields, six of its eight gruesome legs digging into the soil while the two at the front seemed to be digging something out. Its hairy torso alone was twice the size of a fully grown man, with a mane of wild red hair billowing in the late night breeze.

“It’s eating of the rice, or is it…?” Yuriko cautiously thought. Her legs were paralyzed with shock at what she was witnessing, so all she could do was peek from the edge of that particular field. From the side she could see the creature’s face vaguely resembled a battered old man’s, its eyes unfocused and its cheekbones grotesquely stretched. No less than three rows of sharp teeth were exposed each time it opened its gluttonous mouth.

“…huNgGR…” it growled.

Yuriko gripped her juzu. The words of the sutras had been replaced by completely empty space on the parchment in her mind. What was she doing here? Why was there a massive spider in the rice terraces? Yes, she had met a kitsune, but Yuriko had never considered what a real evil yokai might be like. And yet the foulest of mist had not driven her away. Its putrid scent had not made her turn her nose. She had acted like a fish before bait. Hook, line and sinker.

“…hungryyy…” its growls intensified as it gradually poked its deformed face from the water. “So. Hungry.”

“Legs. Please move. Legs, move.” Yuriko was holding her scream in; the one action she absolutely could not allow her nerves to trick her into performing. If the evil energy had been suffocating before, now that it was clear what it was emanating from, it was unbearable at this point. “Please.” She mentally begged herself, using her hands to tug at her left leg like someone who had been convinced they had a limb made of concrete.

The spider monster was a truly horrifying beast, and yet Yuriko would not avert her eyes from it. Morbid curiosity forbade her from looking away. It was a thing that wouldn’t stop groaning, which one would naturally assume was from pain, but nothing indicated the creature wasn’t enjoying itself. Its jaws had been clamped down on something, a sliver of light which had been torn off the water. All rows of sharp teeth were masticating on it, grinding the morsel into its distended maw where it would be loudly gulped down. But nothing was more disturbing to Yuriko than the moment it slowly started to pull its head back and kept going past the point a human’s neck would have been broken.

That blood-curdling bone-cracking snap had sealed the miko’s fate. It had seen her.

“Hyuu…” it stammered amidst loud smacks. Every sharp, spindly leg splashed water around it as the creature spun its body around 180 degrees, followed by its head turning right side up once more. “Hyuu-man? Nuhhh…”

Still Yuriko couldn’t scream. She wanted to, but there was a knot at her throat, like the one that forms when one’s choking up right before breaking down to cry. Juzu beads struck the dirt when they fell off the scared miko’s arms going limp. It was advancing towards her; every step putting her closer to oblivion.

Its voice gurgled as it approached, gradually becoming more intelligible. “Hyuu-mans… Humans. Abundant evil energy. My strength grows. But humans don’t despair. Not like before. Why is this?”

Yuriko couldn’t believe the disgusting beast was attempting to communicate with her. It had the twisted face of a human, so perhaps it was capable of intelligent conversation, she thought. It was so freaky, and its aura so menacing. Yuriko felt like she was dealing with a predator, not a potential friend; every instinct was yelling at her to run away, to run for her life. Her life was in danger.

But could it be possible? It had asked her a question. Was this her chance? Could she negotiate with it? Hope was untying the knot. “Humans despair because bad things happen to them,” Yuriko tried to keep her answer simple for fear of offending it; but seeing as though it was only staring at her, she decided to add: “We help each other to overcome the bad and…”

“You. YoouUuuuuu…” the spider interrupted with a groan, “You… help humans not despair?”

A breakthrough? Yuriko’s heart was racing; she thought it was going to pop out through her throat. Honesty seemed to the way to go; perhaps it really was a curious creature? She went for it: “I’m a miko. It’s my job to help others with their troubles. My name is Kamari Yuriko. What is your…?”

“Miko… MikOOooOooo…!” roared the beast in what Yuriko could readily anticipate was ire. More evil miasma seemed to seethe from its body, “Kill you. Eat you, make humans full of despair! Feed me. Feed Tsuchigumo. I eat you AAaaaaAAall!” the spider screeched as it leaned back, flailing its frontal legs while making dangerously sharp swipes at the air.

“Man, thish sake’s the good stuffff…” Kanza was having trouble finding his way back home. He and his drinking buddies had been going behind their wives again, prancing around under the moonlight with bottle in hand and a song in their heart. Whatever that song was, it kept getting slurred to unrecognizable gibberish amidst drunken laughter. Yuriko wouldn’t dare look away from Tsuchigumo, but she certainly hoped those merry old men had a sudden epiphany and turned around.

Any thought of curious beasts and empty platitudes against prejudice seemed to poof in Yuriko’s head as if they had never existed. This creature looked and was evil. The kind of evil that was looking to murder her and murder everybody in Kome Valley with the same amount of mercy as a spider a fraction of its colossal size. “Of all the times to be drinking out behind your wife’s back, Kanza-san…!” Yuriko groaned in frustration inside of her head. At this rate the yokai wouldn’t hesitate to tear her apart and go after the defenseless villagers.

But what could she do? Yuriko collapsed to her knees, crushed by the pressure of the situation. She considered herself a good miko. At least good enough to have won the faith of the people back. But she was no exorcist monk. She had clearly overestimated her ability to deal with the supernatural. She was useless in a situation like this and yet…

“And yet… I have to do something!” Yuriko told herself. Adrenaline was running high. Her body would still not respond the way she needed it to. The most she could do was feel how much she was shaking in fright. Those spider legs were like sharp blades at the end. “Can’t I do anything…?”

Foxes are cunning, but if one happens to be injured or cornered —

Impotence. Yuriko felt useless. “This is my limit as a human being… I can’t do anything about a demon!” she admitted to herself. But that admittance wasn’t born out of despair. It was a different emotion driving at her at that moment when the proverbial sword of Damocles hung so close to her neck.

“Hoo-haaaahahaha! Don’t I look like a handsome yokai with these chopsticks like this? Look at me!” Kanza cheered with his drinking buddies who laughed at his antics. At least right until one of them pointed out a strange light far into the rice terraces.

“DIiiiiEEe, miKKoooOoo!” Tsuchigumo’s blades impacted against something sturdier than flesh. Something their sharpness could not cut. “Wuhhhh-whaaaaaat?!” the evil yokai rumbled in confusion. The pillar of pure white light erupting in front of it had repelled it. Tsuchigumo weren’t especially perceptive outside of their usual hunting activities. Like most supernatural creatures, they fed on strong human emotions. However, the emotion rising into the sky wasn’t fear, or despair, or even a tiny shred of doubt.

—it might unleash fury greater than a predator twice or even thrice its size on its foe.

When the light dissipated, the demon saw a changed miko. The outfit she had been wearing seemed to have been consumed by the burning light she had been engulfed in, revealing her slender and petite body which was now standing to face Tsuchigumo. The miko now had a long fluffy tail and her ears appeared to have gotten covered in fur and moved to the top of her now white head. “Kuhh-kuhhh…” it began to crawl backwards as it stammered its words. “YoUuuuu…! AaAAaaare…!”

Yuriko’s right arm outstretched in the direction of her enemy, palm open. Her body glowed a divine alabaster as beautiful as the moon’s. Her furrowed brow and curling eyebrows were transmitting willpower, and yet that youthful doll-like face didn’t even wrinkle. Instinct driving her actions, Yuriko focused all of her pent-up rage at the end of her hand.

“Wuh-what’s that…? Is that… a monster?!” Kanza and his buddies had finally made it close enough to make out the Tsuchigumo, which normally should be invisible to their eyes. Except their drunken stupor was allowing them to see what those sober would have missed entirely: A beautiful young girl with fox tail and ears facing off against a giant spider monster. It was straight out of a legend.

Yuriko couldn’t forgive this demon after it had threatened her home. The people she cared about with all of her heart. She no longer felt useless. Empowered, each of her eyes glowed their blue and yellow colors especially bright as she said aloud: “Disappear!”

“Kuhhh-KitsuneeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAH!” Tsuchigumo writhed as light engulfed it, its shriek reverberating throughout the valley for all that could hear it. Nothing of the once enormous spider demon was left behind but floating, amorphous wisps of light. The same as the kind of morsels it had been dining on earlier.

And staring at the little lights, Yuriko gently twisted her wrist, holding her palm up for the wisps to dance their way to the tip of her fingers. “These are…” she trailed off, feeling their weightlessness contrasted by the strong power they emanated. It was Hope. Hope for the rice fields to yield like they once did. Hope for the land to respond to Hanzo and the others’ hard work and care. Hope which had once been engulfed by insecurity which had grown to ravenous despair. And it was now free.

Yuriko flicked a bit of Hope down onto the field in front of her like somebody shaking dew off their fingers. She did the same with the ones closest in proximity, and distributed the rest among the terraces. For a solid minute, the fields were glowing white. “Even after all this time, they still hoped…” Yuriko smiled to herself as she came to understand. People don’t despair without hope. There’s always a little bit of light even in the darkest of places.

“It’s a miracle!”

“The divine fox is upon us!”

“Inari-sama…! Oh, beautiful Inari-sama! I always believed!”

Snapped out of her introspective moment by the loud calls from the three drunkards she had completely forgotten about, Yuriko realized there were three men standing a few ways across from her. Certainly close enough to see everything. Everything.

“Kyaah…!” the foxgirl threw her arms around her naked body and turned away, instinctively obstructing sight of her nude form with her fluffy tail. She had to leave; and hoped she could run fast enough to lose those three. Without looking back, Yuriko ran around the hill until she was out of sight and could no longer hear Kanza and the others, at which point she hurried back home where her first order of business was to get a fresh change of clothes.

Yuriko’s worries had been two-fold. First and foremost, she was way too humble about her appearance to go frolicking in the nude, especially around her neighbors. Secondly, they had clearly been venerating her because they thought her appearance made her look like a holy fox, but Yuriko knew what she looked like: A kemonomimi. Those sober enough to see her would think her a monster! She couldn’t afford to cause a panic, not if there was a chance for this transformation to end like it had before.

Deciding to be optimistic, Yuriko remained vigilant at the shrine in case anybody did show up.

After warming up with a pristine kimono, she briefly considered poking a hole into her hakama to allow that fluffy tail of hers out. In the short time she had to get used to it, the transformed miko had come to enjoy the company of that long extremity. Soft and warm to the touch, and making her feel awkward when thinking this authentic fur belonged to none other than herself.

However, she couldn’t haphazardly ruin her clothes even for the sake of comfort; if somebody walked in and saw Yuriko sticking a tail out, there would be questions. And that’s why she also decided to put a ceremonial hood on, bundling her hair to hide it alongside her ears inside.

Yuriko would wait this out. Last time it had barely lasted a few minutes. Everything would be fine in the morning, surely.

Surely.

---

Even though the men never came to the shrine at night, Yuriko had reluctantly found the dreaded flaw to her plan. The transformation would not come undone like it had the night before the previous one.

It didn’t matter how much she tried pressing her tail in, or how many times she pushed down on her ears, they would not disappear nor relocate; and being parts of herself the increasing pressure only led to hurt herself in the process.

With her hair seemingly permanently stuck at that clear snowy-white, she gave up on ever going back to normal.

Unfortunately, there was no time for her to stay depressed over it. Dawn broke and her ears, muffled as they were under the hood, were already picking up voices outside. And they were calling for the miko.

Saliva briefly caught in Yuriko’s throat. Right. Her job as a miko; the one defining trait by which everybody in Kome knew of her. That old thing which seemed so utterly insignificant in the face of manifesting holy powers to combat frightening spider yokai with and transforming into a half-human half-fox. What was stranger, though? A miko with a new sense of fashion, or a miko suddenly missing?

Much as that being the one day she did not wish to meet with people, Yuriko really had no other choice.

Fortunately for Yuriko, the hood did not attract much attention. Over the few hours she had spent with it, she had also developed enough control of her tail to keep it tied around her waist to minimize the amount of bump it created in her hakama. People were too frantic to regard her appearance, anyway.

The villagers had arrived in a mob the likes of which, with a couple pitchforks and torches here and there, would’ve made a real monster upset. Children, young adults, old people; all of them gathered at the foot of the shrine. But they weren’t irate or even upset. Hanzo was leading them.

“Yuriko-sama!” the rice farmer hailed her. She stepped down as normally as she could to join the crowd. “You won’t believe it! It’s a miracle!”

“A miracle, you say?” Yuriko almost stumbled upon her words, gently smiling at her neighbor. She had never had the need to hold down a secret hefty like her own, so pretending ignorance was not her forte. Knowing exactly what was going to be said made it especially challenging to remain suspenseful.

“The rice fields! Evil spirits! Inari-sama!”

Hanzo wasn’t as old as most of her neighbors, but he was so winded that in his excitement he was barely making any sense. Yuriko could almost picture him running from the rice terraces to every single domicile and waking everybody up to round them like a herd of sheep in order to bring them here. He seemed to have been holding the announcement, too, for there were a multitude of confused eyes, more than Yuriko could count.

Again, she offered a gentle smile and patiently said: “Is there something wrong with the rice fields, Hanzo-san?”

Kanza and his friends waddled out of the crowd to join the panting Hanzo. The old bread maker had the word this time. “Yuriko-chan! It was amazing. Awesome! The most incredible thing ever! Inari-sama herself… she exorcised the evil spirit haunting our village!”

Kanza’s voice carried the news Hanzo had been struggling to deliver and every pair of ears at the shrine seemed to be softly massaged by a balm most soul-soothing.

“—Inari-sama?”

“Inari-sama appeared.”

“Our village is haunted no longer?”

The first few reactions were unexpected. Yuriko heard murmurs equal parts uneasy and unsure, but few of them had anything nice to say. Despite thinking himself a great deceiver where his sake habits were concerned, few in Kome Valley didn’t know of Kanza’s little group’s escapades. They weren’t the kind to stir up trouble, but his declarations certainly lined up with what one expected an old man would say he saw one night while smashed off his gourd.

“It’s true!” Hanzo, whose breath had finally caught up with him, reached into his coat pocket and dazzled people the largest shoot of rice anyone had seen in a decade. Wild gasps bounced off each other like a small-scale dramatic storm of which even Yuriko was a participant to. She was no farmer, but the plant Hanzo had brought looked vibrant, full of life, and definitely larger than the little shoots she had come to be used to seeing in their low-yield terraces.

“How is it that it’s so big already?” Yuriko was the only one questioning it in her mind. She could recall the wisps of hope she had returned to each framed field, equally distributing the bounty Tsuchigumo had taken for itself. “Could it be they’re being nurtured by the love and care that’s gone into the soil for all this time—?”

“Yuriko-sama!” the call from Hanzo snapped her out of her thoughts. “We must pay our respects to Inari-sama. Better, louder than ever.”

Overwhelmed by the sincerity and passion in Hanzo’s voice, Yuriko initially hesitated. But she did not contradict him. “I think you’re right, Hanzo-san. We must be grateful to Inari-sama’s divine intervention.” She spoke.

Turning to the masses excited by these developments, Hanzo continued. “We must offer all we can, everyone! Inari-sama has shown us she favors us. We’re under her protection, even if so far we’ve barely shown her our devotion!” he paused, putting a hand to his heart and turning back to Yuriko. “Yuriko-sama, forgive me!” he said, “I was one who did not believe. Until recently, I was so dissatisfied by the result of our toiling that I allowed myself to drift from our megami. I could not see real yokai for fake ones. From this day forth, I will forever devote myself!”

Yuriko took a step backwards. Hanzo was clearly a lot more intense than he thought he was. But she couldn’t fault him, as evidenced by her smile. Uneasy as she was, the miko was smiling. How could she not? The goddess was being praised, by a heart which had been bared for all to see no less. No amount of worship could compare to the lightning a truly vulnerable soul could produce.

But what truly unsettled Yuriko was how easy she could discern the sincerity. An abstract concept to be sure, yet one whose abstraction ended at his lips and took the form of a haze in front of the man’s mouth. Hanzo’s words seemed to carry with themselves a pearlescent air which seemingly no one but Yuriko could see.

It wrapped around her, touching her face, seeping in through her outfit, caressing her every inch before seemingly dissipating. Unlike the heavy miasma the demon of yesternight had produced, this was like a sweetly perfumed, gentle spring breeze. It was as mysterious as it was familiar, like a warm hug received exactly at the point one needs it the most.

When a great many others in the crowd joined Hanzo in prayer, Yuriko could see their auras gaining a similar color to the rice farmer’s. Even if they were uttering their words in silence, murmuring or outright offering their prayers aloud, Yuriko could hear them echo. She could sense their gratitude, no matter how small, produce that quiet yet powerful mist which was starting to permeate the shrine.

“It’s their faith…” Yuriko deduced, looking left, right and overhead. She had seen and experienced a great deal of new and fantastical things in the span of just a few days. But so far, seeing that pearlescent aura cover Kome Valley like a sparkling aurora had to have been the most beautiful spectacle. It truly was a shame only she could see it, from the looks of things.

The aurora wasn’t just visually stunning; it was also strangely stimulating to her. Yuriko could feel herself tingling all over just thinking about it. Heart aflutter, she suddenly realized she was full of elation: “I’m so happy. It’s like my chest is going to burst from joy!”

It suddenly didn’t matter that she hadn’t had a wink of sleep overnight. Yuriko felt stronger than ever and full of vitality; feeling almost as if she could run down to the bottom of the hill and back up multiple times! Energized as she was, Yuriko wasted no time in engaging in her duties at the shrine, joining the others in prayer.

She was so used to praying in solitude that doing it as a group felt like quite the change of pace. And while it wasn’t as distracting as she had expected it to be, Yuriko all the same felt something was off. At first she had attributed it to her fitting her clothes on badly; an understandable blunder considering the addition of her tail. But the tug she felt wasn’t only in her midsection. “Did I grab one of my older kimonos?” she wondered to herself mid-prayer, glancing down at her shoulders. “As long as I can keep my ears and tail hidden, it should be alright,” she silently encouraged herself.

---

Yuriko had not considered the long-term ramifications.

Ever since that fateful morning, the shrine was bustling at nearly all waking hours of every day now. The once quiet and reserved miko was now exercising her eloquence like a dedicated athlete goes for their daily run without missing one session. Yuriko was finally seeing volumes people come and go, asking her to lend an ear, visiting Inari’s statue to pray and leave offerings, even purchase her handcrafted amulets and talismans by the loads.

Some of the villagers came by simply to greet their shrine maiden, occasionally asking about her well-being and if anything was needed in order to make Inari’s shrine a better place for the good spirits. Extra hands always came in handy, Yuriko told them. And soon the renovations the local smith had offered to help with were coming along at a much faster pace.

But that wasn’t all.

As the days went by and their high-quality rice started circulating the outside markets once more, so had the rumors of the miracle that had facilitated Kome Valley’s resurgence. Curiosity brought back those who had left to the neighboring settlements, reuniting families and estranged friends. Merchants, adventurers and even simple wanderers stopped by to mingle and even offer a prayer at the famous shrine.

Yuriko did her best to keep up with it all. Her shed had quickly become emptied out with the shrine’s amulets being purchased in exchange for monetary offerings. The coffers were overflowing. Inari was being venerated like the major deity she was. Yuriko could not have been happier, even if she was busier than ever now.

“Yuriko-chan!” Kanza had brought his wife to the shrine during a late afternoon. Most of the crowds had left by then.

“It’s so wonderful to see you two.” Yuriko gave them a short bow, perhaps the hundredth, that day. But her smile was ever present, and never forced. She took a sweet bun which Kanza’s wife offered her with her thanks.

“It’s amazing how much this place has changed in just a few weeks,” the old stout lady said.

“And all of it thanks to our dedicated miko-chan!” Kanza nodded to himself, before continuing, “You’ve been working non-stop. How is it that you can be this perky? I’d drop dead from having to speak with more than five people a day. Hoho, you can never underestimate youth, can you dear?”

“Be sure to eat well, young lady,” the wife said. “Oh, but I see you’ve been taking better care of yourself, haven’t you? That’s a good girl!”

Yuriko could hardly resist the lure of the sweet bun; more the scent of freshness than anything. Sometimes she was so busy she found herself skipping a meal until dinner time. But what the concerned old lady said made her take another good look at herself while she munched on her treat. The miko had been noticing it lately, but she seemed to be filling out, which was the opposite of what she had been expecting given that there were days she wouldn’t eat at all. When her kimono had grown tight enough to be uncomfortable, she felt fortunate the other mikos of larger clothes size had left theirs behind when they abandoned the village, so there were other outfits for her to try on.

You knew you had put on some weight if someone like Kanza’s wife pointed it out.

At first, Yuriko hadn’t been too worried. She had always thought she was a bit on the thin side. However, that relaxed attitude changed on a particularly busy day for the shrine.

With Kome Valley’s tourism becoming revitalized, they were starting to get visitors from the surrounding big cities. People would expect to see traditional sights, and Yuriko had been wanting to try her sacred dance which she had been working on until recently.

It was during that same dance that she finally noticed the public’s attention was on her; intensely so. Both locals and newcomers followed her dainty arms as she gently glided folding fans through the air, and their faith, as usual, poured forth.

It could have been the volume of people present, or the fact Yuriko was being a lot more physically active than usual, but the tug of her tight kimono was starting to become as annoying as a particularly persistent itch. She wasn’t just imagining things: Her clothes didn’t fit. And they had become progressively ill-fitting with every passing day.

“What’s this strange feeling…?” Yuriko thought as she danced to her heart’s content in spite of her doubt. It was hard for her to be worried when all these people’s attention was on her. Their faith. Their worship. It was no use pretending otherwise. “It’s coming at me.”

Indeed, the spiritual power gathering at the shrine was being channeled through and being absorbed by her. It had been that way ever since Hanzo had become the first one to swear his devotion to Inari.

The seams at her kimono were starting to pop. Yuriko’s shoulders were pressing up against the fabric. She could feel the loose sleeves of her upper and bottom clothes becoming less roomy, with her red hakama going from gently mantling over her feet to hanging a precarious quarter-inch above the ankles. The miko’s outfit was riding up. Even her sandals and socks were feeling tighter.

Mesmerized by the performance, people didn’t see what was going on with her at first, but because of it, their adoration flowed out in constant. Yuriko could feel it: The strange tingling sensation spreading warmth over her. It was exactly the same as the energizing niceness delivered upon her by worship, but this time, there was nothing to revitalize. She felt satisfied, no need for food or sleep. Yuriko’s overjoyed heart raced to process it all, but it simply was unable to keep up with all that had been pouring inside of her. And thus the problem had become evident: Her body was too small to contain the welling power inside of her. And therefore, the solution was simple.

Yuriko’s body needed to be larger in order to contain all of that energy.

Becoming aware of what was going on scared Yuriko. But at the same time it was an excitement heretofore unknown to her. Her performance was becoming more labored as she felt her muscles tighten, but she still powered through. All that energy, her body swelling, fabric tightening around it. What an inexplicably exhilarating rush!

The miko felt caressed all over, from toes to hidden ear-tips and from the inside out. Her body pushed and her clothes strained. It was the most evident on her kimono, the top of which was starting to bulge with newly grown flesh. Yuriko found herself clumsily missing a few steps because of her chest. Clearly, this phenomenon which was shrinking her outfit around her seemed to be more intense in select parts of her body.

“Ahh— My breasts feel so warm…” Yuriko murmured, stealing a few glances below to confirm what she was feeling. The scant few inches of height she had added through the last few weeks paled deeply in comparison to the current bloating of her bust. Like loaves in an oven, her breasts were rising; expanding and forcing the once neatly folded front of her kimono to part aside.

Soon, clothes simply meant to cover her didn’t merely fail at their job, but they had been repurposed to fit around the increasingly rounder, heftier tits the young adult was now sporting. After all, there were two of them, and they weren’t growing just up and down and outwards, but also sideways. Soon, breasts which had never so much as brushed skin together were neatly squishing, pushed onto one another as they competed for room on Yuriko’s chest.

With the top of her kimono filling out so nicely, a cleft inevitably formed. And just as inevitably, the stares of those more interested in the dancing miko’s figure than her traditional dance were drawn to Yuriko’s cleavage like a bear intently focusing on a dripping beehive. But surely that was forbidden in those hallowed grounds; developing feelings based on impure thoughts for a modest shrine maiden, right?

Modesty seemed to be the one thing in increasingly short supply for this particular miko. Her dance had evolved from amusing and spiritually cleansing to unintentionally erotic and attractive. One could see it in the movement of her hips, which had become wider in tandem with the subtle few inches her legs had added. Loose hakama weren’t the best for revealing the lower body of the feminine form, but with the way Yuriko had come to ascend to the height of an average woman, the hakama fit for her previous height was making her reveal more than intended.

No longer of forgettable petite stature, she had grown womanly enough to make her once humble figure jump out at the audience with the way her new curves pressed against ill-fitting garments.

All of this from the constant worship of that circle of people watching her. It was enough to make Yuriko’s heart beat faster than usual as she did her best to retain normalcy through the challenge of stepping in undersized sandals, tight socks and a hakama and kimono combo that might pop free at any given moment. She knew this was wrong. And yet, somehow, she just didn’t care.

In terms of asset gain, Yuriko’s puberty had come and gone like a weak breeze struggling to carry a single autumnal leaf. Compared to that, this phenomenon had been like getting double-kicked by the world’s most brutal mule. Except it didn’t hurt at all. And she couldn’t help but answer to its honeyed siren call. Yuriko had liked it and couldn’t deny she didn’t want more of it.

So absorbed into the divine tickling she was receiving she was that, understandably, she could no longer pay attention to the sensation at the base of her tail. With her enlarged behind pressing it against the inside of her hakama pants, the tail couldn’t wag to its regular content. But that doesn’t mean it was out of the action, for it fluffed up, its fur increasing in volume, filling out more and more of those lifting pants until it had grown large enough to have doubled in size.

The loud shocked gasp coming from the crowd directly behind Yuriko did nothing to deter her. She didn’t even register it. People were pointing at the tail which had doubled. Literally doubled, for its happy little wags had become so energetic it had caused it to split in two, sliding out from under the ridden up red garments.

In similar fashion, Yuriko failed to take note of her elongating hair which was also gaining volume. The snow-white mane she had so carefully rolled and bundled to hide under her hood had become strong, growing out like a stubborn weed refusing to give up its time in the sun.

First, people saw her hair cascade over her shoulders, propped over the notable shelf of her enlarged bust. If they hadn’t yet perceived it, they were now sure of all that cleavage. Next, the hood started getting pushed off by whatever of her mane could filter through. Finally, what had once been shoulder-length hair had grown into a straight waterfall of beautiful, silky white locks hanging at the small of her back, rocking in the air as it followed her dancing motions.

In the end, as the two-tailed, longer-haired Yuriko gracefully stepped one last time to finish with the sacred dance, the audience saw that hood slide off her tall fluffy ears. Perky, cutely twitching every other second, and definitely as eye-catching as everything else.

Panting softly at the end of her choreography, Yuriko couldn’t take the smile off her face. What a wonderful feeling, she thought. Even more wonderful than the first time she had seen the hill getting bathed in people’s faith. Her heart was still racing. Everything felt extra sensitive thanks to the ill-fitting clothes around her enlarged proportions. She would need to go get a larger outfit soon.

“My word…!”

“Are those real?”

“I don’t see any trick. They must be!”

“Those inhuman ears are so fluffy!”

Yuriko’s ears twitched to the constant murmuring coming from the crowd, splaying as the murmurs grew in loudness. She blinked a few times, dragging a hand to the top of her head where she felt her longer hair and exposed ears. Her heart skipped a beat all of a sudden, her eyes going wide in shock at the realization of her blunder. “Oh no.” She thought, tails lifting up straight in shock. Yuriko looked down in confusion at her duplicated appendages, but before she could even think about it she started to see people’s pointing fingers focus on her. This had been exactly what she had been trying so hard to avoid!

The jig was up. Everybody present now knew the miko to be a human with the parts of a different animal, a fox girl— a kitsunemimi.

“I…” Yuriko was having a hard time coming up with the words to address the faithful. It was like she and the crowd of people had become frozen by their mutual shock. After having spent some of the happiest minutes of her life during her performance, it all had turned awkward all of a sudden. Yuriko felt like a little girl who had been caught trying to hide a wild animal as a pet. Except the animal in this case was herself.

“Guhh—” A little moan escaped Yuriko’s lips, breaking her free from her stupor. She could still feel the other sensation, so familiar and ever so delicious even now. It was still intense enough to make her toes curl, the subtle and slow growth making her socks rip with sharp toenails cutting holes through. “It’s still affecting me?” she balled her hands into fists, tensing up and blushing as unlike before she was feeling a lot more self-conscious.

“It’s the divine fox! Like the one who defeated the evil spirit!”

“The kitsune is here, Inari-sama’s messenger!”

“Inari-sama herself has appeared before us!”

“She’s so beautiful…!”

“Wuh-what?” Yuriko blurted out in confusion, still shivering all over as she struggled to contain the surging emotions and power swelling inside of her. Yuriko had indeed been expecting screams and a commotion with people running away from a fox yokai, but one person had yet to leave. The crowds weren’t afraid of Yuriko: They were absolutely taken in by her shiny and otherworldly appearance. And, more importantly, their faith in Inari was only growing faster with the revelation, instead of the other way around.

“I knew it!” Kanza’s voice could be heard from far away into the masses of approaching people, “I knew I’d seen a beautiful fox girl the day of the exorcism! To think, our very own Yuriko-chan…! An incarnated megami!”

Incarnation. A popular notion rooted in the belief that both the divine and the demonic may trespass from the spiritual world, an immaterial plane, into a body of a dweller of the material realm in order to better interact with the world of mortals. Yuriko thought about it. She had met a kitsune, and she had not referred to herself as Inari. She herself had turned into one, but surely this didn’t mean it had made her into the kitsune, did it?

“Blessing us with her holy presence. I feel so grateful!”

“Please, Inari-sama! Continue blessing us poor folk!”

“Us, too, please! The woes of the city are too much. We only wish to worship and serve you, goddess!”

Before her personal space had been violated, people stopped their marching and dropped to their knees, forming concentric circles of prostrated people which only flustered her further. “Nuh-no…” her voice trembled, lips quivering as she did her best to restrain herself. What that resulted in was an awkward little smile as her brown eye twitched. Yuriko was tingling all over again. She could feel an overly abundant volume of faith feeding into her as she started inching upwards faster than before, now noticeably enough that she could feel her body stretching. Amidst the pleasure, she managed to plead out: “…I’m not Inari-sama, she’s the one who deserves your worship and adoration, everyone!”

Pointing at Inari’s enshrined statue did little to dissuade the mass of villagers and tourists. In fact, the clumsy motion of her arm had only managed to make the sleeve of her kimono sever from its damaged shoulder. With the torn sleeve sliding off her arm, Yuriko then realized that she was growing much faster than before; already approaching six feet tall. After having lived her whole life looking up at nearly everyone else, it was concerning to think of them looking up at her!

“Yuriko-sama!” it was Hanzo’s turn to speak again. “I’ve been a fool! To think it was you all along that had saved our poor rice fields. The yield, its every grain, all of it owed to you…! Thank you so much! Thank you!”

“It’s true I exorcised Tsuchigumo but…” Yuriko trembled as she felt her hips flare out against her hakama and her breasts further swell out against what had essentially become a push-up for her oversized rack. Between her new proportions and her ascending height, none of the clothes were going to survive much longer. “Ahnn… I did it with the might of Inari-sama.”

“You brought down justice upon those abusive scoundrels, and saved my son!” the smith’s voice echoed, “So far I’d been praying inwards, but now I wish for everybody to hear how much gratitude I have for you, Yuriko-sama! You honor me for having let me lead the restoration of your glorious shrine!”

Yuriko let out a cute little groan as her figure surged with size. The sash around her waist had reached its limits, no longer elastic enough. It had been tightening more and more without seeming stop until now, when it began to fall apart rather spectacularly. “I was only trying to protect the children from getting hurt…” she paused to take a little breath. Amidst tiny little gasps, Yuriko felt her body enlarging past six-foot tall, her kimono blowing open which forced her to use her hands to pull the hems back in together. She couldn’t stop her tails from wagging like crazy. “I-It was Inari-sama who sent those benevolent foxes to our rescue…”

The daughter of the apothecary, a beautiful maiden, added: “But surely those foxes wouldn’t have come that day if it hadn’t been for you, Yuriko-sama!” she clapped her hands together, “I saw you saving the little ones’ mother from a misunderstanding! I’m full of shame. At first I was convinced you were just fixating on strays, but you truly bless everybody, and in turn, the spirits have blessed you! Forgiveness, your ladyship, you truly are divine!”

It didn’t seem to matter what Yuriko said or how hard she tried. The more she tried to push away the notion of her divinity away, the harder people believed. And that belief was no complex thing at all. People had convinced themselves that the shrine maiden and her patron deity were one and the same. Humbled beyond belief by the people’s generosity, Yuriko found she could no longer rebuke their words. And as more people heard of those selfless feats, more people joined in the prostration, thus increasing the potency of their worship. It didn’t matter if they called her by her name or Inari; it had the same effect.

The megami is always listening.

_ _

The mother fox’s words began to echo in Yuriko’s mind as she attempted to calm the masses down. At this rate, she was going to outgrow her clothes and be left in the nude.

It is belief that makes a God real.

_ _

“Nnnfff…!” Yuriko’s tails began to fluff out again. The power was truly too much. All of these wonderful people believing in her, empowering her, praising her!

Her curvy foxgirl body exploded out of her clothes.

Everything came apart with a terrible shredding noise. With the kimono splitting down over her back, her hakama caught in the swell of her plumping hips before the pants had managed to drop off, leading to them remaining on until they too were shredded by the expansion. Already damaged socks finished turning to mere tatters around her ankles and feet while the weight her body made her feet smash her sandals apart.

Those witnessing the change saw their adorable kitsune goddess squirm in pleasure as she shed her shrine maiden clothes in order to bless them with her gorgeous new appearance. And it was quite the lovely sight indeed: Tall beyond the largest adult male in the crowd, Yuriko had grown past seven feet tall with a figure that certainly backed the divine claim. Slender, womanly legs had grown long and sturdy with subtle musculature, supporting the curvy kitsune woman’s body. With the hakama finally out of the way, one could see the jutting out of Yuriko’s hips which had gained considerable width, the flare extending well past the shoulders. Plump, thick thighs on the front and a rather bulbous, perfectly peach-shaped rump sticking out behind. The audience’s eyes drank every detail of her lower body from sharp nails to the trio of tails at her back.

Her upper body was no less impressive. Many stopped at her waist, which narrow as it was offered the inquisitive eye with the appearance of muscle tone at the abdominal region, which Yuriko herself might have been able to see had it not been for the utterly enormous chest which was now in her way. Even after everything that had happened to her already, it was unbelievable to see and feel her once inexistent breasts having grown so large they had become the size of a regular person’s head, each.

“So heavy…” Yuriko allowed herself a small shivering moan as she brushed one arm under the immense jugs, flesh dimpling under pressure, spilling under and above her forearm as she uselessly attempted to hide them from everyone. With the final vestiges of her kimono falling off, her attention turned to her arms when she finally noticed a fair amount of muscle tone which had never had place there. Yuriko wasn’t just a tall bombshell, she looked like she had been physically training as well! “I’ve changed so much. But it feels so good,” she thought to herself as she looked down as if Yuriko was attempting to look at the old version of herself struggling to be eye-level with her current self’s navel. She had always been self-conscious about her size, but she had never thought she’d enjoy watching herself blimp out in this way. “I don’t want it to stop…” she murmured.

Experimenting with her tails’ flexibility, she curled one up at the front to keep herself as decent as possible while she tried not to look too embarrassed by how unwieldly her immense rack had become with her arms struggling to keep at least her nipples hidden from view. Yuriko gave her faithful a longing stare, but it wasn’t necessary. They did not stop. And the more fervent their worship, the bigger she grew.

“Nnnghhh…! Muh-more is pouring in!” Yuriko let out cute little squeaks of delight as she grew taller faster. Her feet sunk into the dirt, pushing it aside around her toes and the balls of her feet. Villagers grew progressively distant as her height advantage increased. Two of her three tails swished from side to side in sheer delight as Yuriko continued to expand, going from merely being an amazon among humans to truly looming over each and every last one of them. “Yuh-you’re making me so big, everyone…!”

Those delighted yips coming from the swelling kitsunemimi were like music to the masses. All they wished was for their goddess’ pleasure. While normally one would be concerned by the sight of a rapidly growing naked woman, Yuriko’s naturally cuddly appearance and meek disposition coddled people to the idea that there truly was no danger involved. How could it, when it was their goddess— their protector— who was showing off her incredible power to them? All that mattered to them was Yuriko’s satisfaction.

Eight, nine, ten feet tall. Yuriko felt the satisfaction, but also embarrassment. Not just from her public nudity, but also knowing that to these people, she had become a goddess. And it seemed like their belief was for her to be as large as possible!

Twelve, fourteen, sixteen feet tall. Yuriko’s body quaked prior to each growth spurt, making it seem like she was swelling in pulses. People had to sit up and begin craning their neck back to look up at their adorable and sexy deity. Yuriko was starting to lose sight of those closest to her by way of her tremendous cleavage becoming an obstruction, but even she could formulate an idea of how truly enormous she was becoming. “My legs alone are longer than any of them are tall,” she shyly shifted a foot back away, but found herself snapping in place suddenly. No matter where she looked, there were people in the way, people who might get hurt if she stepped in the wrong direction. “I need to be careful! But don’t they realize what’s going on? Are they not scared of me even now…?”

One look at the enamored public was all one needed to understand that there was nothing Yuriko could’ve done to make any one person in that crowd believe she could do wrong at that point. And still she was terrified of testing that theory. So Yuriko decided to wave a little hand at her admirers while very carefully and slowly pivoting on the ball of one feet, making sure to address as many as she could all at once, “Suh-sorry to be a bother, everyone, but could you give me some room?”

Not the kind of divine proclamation one would expect from a literal giantess. Not even a command. But a soft-spoken polite request.

“Look at the way her ears wiggle!”

“Aw, she’s the cutest! Who knew Inari-sama would be so adorable?!”

“It’s not just her ears, look at those massive tails of her! I wish I could take a nap on them…”

“Make way for her greatness, already!”

Yuriko’s cheeks flushed a deep red. Gratitude was one thing, but the worship of her physical appearance was something she still was not used to, and it seemed no less effective as a means of making her grow. It was amazing how captivating she had become to the opposite gender: There was not one man, and in some cases women, who didn’t find themselves staring at or otherwise admiring the goddess’ proportions. Between her gigantic breasts and titanic behind completing a perfect hourglass, there was also her flawless porcelain skin speaking of untold smoothness, the undeniable softness of tufty fox tails and ears, and of course the right amount of muscle tonality to support such immense curves. Whether one was attracted to her or not, there really seemed to be something about Yuriko for everybody. And at the front of it all was the youthful face of a girl: Not a queen, not a warrior princess, not even a princess period. A pretty girl with a pretty face and eyes of sapphire and amber. Even women who felt hopelessly outclassed by the kitsunemimi’s attributes couldn’t hold it against her, and found themselves admiring her all the more for her humility!

Rumbling all over, Yuriko grew another five feet taller with her shadow stretching well over the crowd. The people in the sector leading up to the gate shrine decided to move to the sides and finally open the circle for Yuriko to walk out of if she needed. And she had a need to stretch her legs; she had been standing still for what seemed to have been hours now!

“Thank you, every-whoa…!” Yuriko had intended her first step as an over 20ft. tall giantess to be as delicate as possible, but she hadn’t taken into account the grand shift of perspective that came from having been mostly staring downwards at small people and her frankly hypnotizing cleavage all this time. Everything seemed to go askew for the inexperienced Yuriko when she brought her gaze away from the masses and towards the village. Her gigantic feet thudded heavily on the floor, making people jump into the air from the impact alone. Unused to the weight of her wobbling flesh, Yuriko struggled to find balance until she inevitably tangled upon herself.

Thoom. Thoom. THOOM.

---

Before Yuriko came tumbling down, she was fortunate enough to be within range of the shrine gate. Her hands found purchase on the top of it just in time to get off with merely scraping her knees along the ground. Which to everybody else present looked like giant sets of footprints leading into a major drift of dirt where their deity had slipped.

“Mnnnghaaaah…!” Yuriko gasped in relief. But her face was still redder than a tomato. Even she could tell the entire valley had shaken after her little stunt; she didn’t want to think what would have happened if she hadn’t softened her landing! “Oh my! I’m so sorry!” she called back at her followers, tails dutifully guarding her fat rear as she inadvertently covered the shrine gate in her squishy rack.

There were knocked over stands and upended carts brought by the merchants as well as wheelbarrows the carpenters used which had gotten tossed over alongside their materials. Yuriko wouldn’t stop apologizing as she worked to upturn everything and set it back to how it was before her blunder; it was like watching a girl hastily cleaning up her room before she was chewed out for being messy.

The word “cute” was ubiquitous in the masses collective thought. There was no other way to define that colossal fox with enough power to crush them all trying so hard to put everything back in place after what had really just been a minor incident.

“Thu-there! There it’s…” Yuriko was about to assuage everybody’s worries when something suddenly caught her attention. She had to turn away from the public, hugging the shrine gate tightly as her ears perked up. She didn’t like the sound she thought she had heard. And her nose twitched to a smell most foul coming from downhill. “It can’t be!”

With Yuriko’s rapidly evolving form, the sheer amount of spiritual energy she had been outputting had not gone unnoticed by those hungriest for it. Luring unwelcome visitors to Kome Valley, Yuriko had unwittingly become a giant beacon for those coveting the power the masses had conferred to Inari’s incarnation.

“What happened to Inari-sama? She looks more upset now…”

“Did we offend her? I wasn’t staring at her glorious behind, I promise!”

“Hey, look, what’re those black blobs approaching…?”

“They’re going straight for Inari-sama!”

The black blobs amassed outside the shrine grounds. They weren’t any one demon, but multiple individuals wrapped in chunks of seething rage. Their incessant yet unintelligible growls were enough to send a chill down Yuriko’s spine. “Tsuchigumo. But there’s something wrong, it’s more than one, it’s… it’s like a swarm of them!”

They gathered with stunning speed, smashing together, blending flesh and teeth and bone in a grotesque display until there truly was nothing to see but a massive singular blob larger than a building. Yuriko stared up unsure of what she should do. “There must be hundreds, no, thousands of yokai in there. But I’m so big now, am I strong enough to…?” she looked down at her hands before holding them out. Before she could concentrate however, the writhing black mass started to throb, swell and finally burst on its own. “Eek!”

Yuriko braced as a disgusting slimy liquid splattered over her and a good chunk of the area around. When she lowered her arms, she didn’t see an amorphous blob, but a sharp, utterly enormous pair of blades stabbing the ground. Following the sharp-pointed appendages all the way up, Yuriko took notice of the multiple legs, the swollen insectoid abdomen, and something else which caught her off guard. From the giant arachnid’s top sported not a head but a humanoid torso. Feminine in figure, with supple breasts, long arms and the black-haired head of a beautiful mature woman. “You’re not Tsuchigumo,” Yuriko concluded.

“I am Jorogumo,” the woman introduced herself as she wrapped her arms around herself. Pouty red lips pursed together as she glared at Yuriko. “Kitsune, we finally meet. Destroyer of our sibling.”

“I knew it. You had to be related to him!” Yuriko was reminded of her fateful encounter and grew even warier than before. This time however, she stood up to her feet, caring little for her exposed nudity. “If you’re here to cause trouble for these people, I advise you to—”

Jorogumo’s massive swinging leg struck Yuriko’s side with the strength of a locomotive, sending her hurtling sideways down the hill. The demon then began to march on into the shrine, crushing the gate under her numerous sharp pointed legs, soon filling the main grounds as she approached the worried crowds.

“What is this monster? This she-beast knocked Inari-sama out just like that!”

“Are we doomed?”

“Inari-sama, our goddess, help us! Save us please!”

“Look at you, pathetic little morsels.” Jorogumo giggled haughtily, slowly sliding her tongue over her plump lower lips as if savoring the anticipation. “Squirming and despairing already for me. A mutt is no God. Your souls belong to us now.” The demon certainly didn’t seem one to mince her words; for she already opened her frontal legs out and reared in for the definitive strike that would allow her to reap an acceptable sacrifice of flesh. But unlike before, her attack missed the mark, instead sinking into the ground which still caused it to fissure all around the point of impact. The spider looked back with a grunt.

There was Yuriko, her arms wrapped around Jorogumo’s bloated abdomen. The spikes growing out of the carapace dug into Yuriko’s skin, but that didn’t deter her from using all of her available strength to pull Jorogumo back. “Leave them alone, please!”

“Still conscious? So, it wasn’t a fluke that allowed you to defeat one of our own.” Jorogumo started turning around, kicking one of her sharp legs back which prompted Yuriko to release her in order to dodge. The spider was facing Yuriko now. “This region belongs to our clan, little fox.”

Panting, Yuriko made sure to stand her ground. To those watching, it was like watching two building-sized animal-women of voluptuous body speak. The kitsune said: “Kome Valley doesn’t belong to you. It can’t! It’s our home and we all worked hard to make it as nice as it is! I won’t let you claim anything, Jorogumo!”

“Then try and stop us, kitsune!” the spider woman swiped again, but this time Yuriko stepped out of the way. The vixen was no fighter, but she tried to recall what she had done back in the rice fields and held her hands out. Once again, before she could focus, the spider interrupted her with a forward tackle.

“Ooogh…!” Yuriko felt the wind get knocked out of her as she felt herself get dragged away by Jorogumo’s bodily impact. Together they razed the road leading into the shrine with Yuriko landing on her back on the residential level. Feeling the first house crunching under her back, the only thought that cheered Yuriko up was that she knew everybody in Kome had gathered at shrine grounds.

“Weakling,” said Jorogumo while topping Yuriko. “But if I must praise you for anything, it’s your ability to charm humans. They are preciously ripe, flowing with an abundance of hope. What will happen to them once they see their beloved ‘goddess’ head get lopped off, I wonder, mm?” she asked, holding a bladed leg to the vixen’s neck. Jorogumo was salivating.

Yuriko’s pupils shrank as fear naturally took over when she felt the edge so close to her skin. With Jorogumo weighing her down, she was pinned and there was no escape. Fighting past her fear, Yuriko said: “I didn’t charm anyone. People hope for a better life, and they work hard for it. They deserve as much help as I can give them!”

“Inari-sama!”

“Hang on, Inari-sama!”

“Don’t let this bitch spider win!”

“Little pests…” Jorogumo clicked her tongue in annoyance as she turned towards the screaming people back in the shrine. They were still cheering for their defeated deity, hoping for the best. The sentiment disgusted the evil spirit, but not as much as when she started feeling the ground below her rumble.

Yuriko had begun growing again, bulging out from underneath her slightly larger foe. As the vixen was empowered by her people’s faith, Yuriko felt newfound strength coursing through her veins. She didn’t waste the opportunity with Jorogumo being distracted to free her arms before digging both hands onto Jorogumo’s humanoid side. With untold physical power, the spider was sent flying further downhill. As Yuriko scrambled back up to her feet, already closing in to 30ft. tall, she glanced at her open hands in shock. “When did I get so strong?”

Now that she had a moment to see, Yuriko could appreciate the muscle tonality of her body had improved. Her biceps seemed to be jutting out a little, becoming properly notable whenever she flexed her arms. Even her shoulders looked to be sagging a little less. She could feel her marked abs on her middle now, and even her legs seemed to have thickened up a good deal; she could feel her kicking strength had improved as well.

Returning to her hands, she slowly opened and closed them again, turning her attention back downhill where Jorogumo was already standing back up. This isn’t the time for doubt, Yuriko thought, pressed for time.

The two giantesses clashed at the bottom of Kome Valley. Jorogumo’s many deadly options forced Yuriko to keep her distance, but the spider could no longer pin her down now. The entire village quaked and rumbled with every move. “If only I can get up close, I know I can finish this!” she told herself, mustering her courage up and going for it.

“Where’s all this bravado coming from all of a sudden, little fox?” Jorogumo teased as her frontal legs danced like daggers in the air, “You were cowering just a little while ago. Why don’t you let me kill you so I can free you from your suffering?! Hehehe!”

Disgusted by the barely disguised sadism in the woman’s twisted face, Yuriko steeled herself further and managed to strike one of the legs away with a horizontal sweep of her arm. “I’m still afraid! But I’m even more scared of what’s going to happen to my beloved neighbors if I let you win! They are counting on me, Jorogumo!” she said, wrapping her arms around the spider’s leg before driving it down into the ground like a stake.

Jorogumo let out a scream: “Guuaaah…! Bitch!” as she felt the pressure from Yuriko’s fingers break the leg’s bones. In reprisal, she swiped directly at Yuriko’s face with her remaining frontal leg blade, making her foe squeak and retreat in pain. “Yes! Take that! Scream you little three-tailed whore!”

Yuriko felt blood trickling from the gash under her eye; she had almost gotten herself blinded with her gambit, but it had paid off. Jorogumo couldn’t move for the time being, and that’s all she needed.

“Do you think this is over, kitsune?” Jorogumo lifted her human arms in the air, opening her hands. In the next second, the skies began to darken with swarms of Tsuchigumo rapidly approaching. “There is no end to us, to our hunger. We will devour you, this village, until there is nothing else left!”

“I’m sorry.” Said Yuriko, finally at focus. She couldn’t allow Jorogumo’s taunting dissuade her. Everyone else’s safety was her concern, and their safety required her not to fight, but to exorcise the evil spirits. Evil spirits which had come after her to exact revenge and put everybody in danger. This was her responsibility alone.

With her hands held out at the spider woman, Yuriko’s divine white aura started swelling forth.

“No, you don’t…!” Jorogumo was about to jump at Yuriko to interrupt her yet again, but she was held back. Not by Yuriko, but herself. The leg which Yuriko had badly damaged had also been used to anchor her to a single spot. Realizing the kitsune’s plan far too late, Jorogumo started to holler out at her siblings: “Quick! Make yourselves useful and dig us free!”

Yuriko could see the multitudes of demons starting to gather at the ground, using their powerful limbs to smash rock around their big sister’s immense, staked-down leg. But they weren’t going to make it in time: She was ready to unleash her attack. “You’re not welcome here!” Yuriko decreed. Light poured forth from both of her hands, creating twin streams of holy energy that grew in size, intertwined and became an even larger beam of blinding power. It cut through the air like cannon fire, blasting Jorogumo and the smaller Tsuchigumo in its immense radius which spanned at least fifty feet from side to side, while it kept going for what seemed to go for miles into the distance.

“I-it burns…!” Jorogumo cried as divine fury consumed her, “It burns! Curse you! Curse you, you top-heavy fox biiiiiitch…!” the creature and her siblings’ writhing became invisible under so much light.

Yuriko panted, her arms finally falling limp to her sides, the smack causing her voluminous figure to jiggle all over. When the light dissipated, she was relieved the only thing that remained was the hole Jorogumo’s leg had been driven into. Flecks of hope floated freely in the air, which Yuriko collected in her cupped-up hands. But before she did anything with them, she turned around and returned to the hilltops.

The faithful had been anxiously waiting for their goddess’ victory, and were rewarded with her magnificent, even larger, more muscular visage looming over them. Crowds exploded with cheer and excitement, and gratitude filled the air. Yuriko couldn’t have been more pleased, even if she did feel bad for all the destruction her scuffle with Jorogumo had caused. That’s when she thought of using this stray hope she had gathered. “All of this, from different parts of the region,” Yuriko murmured, looking at the shiny flecks in her palms with a sigh, “It looks like Kome wasn’t the only place that was having it rough. And yet people still hold out for better times. It just gets so overwhelming, sometimes…” she turned to the destruction in the residential district.

When Yuriko focused, it was like time wound back in the area where she had fallen earlier. Scattered materials and rubble moved as if possessed of their own free will, joining back where they used to be, rebuilding the house which had been smashed and repairing the damage of surrounding ones. The roads shifted and became even again, with the hills turning slightly greener. “Better!” Yuriko said with a smile. There was not a trace nor a scar from the battle wound she had received on her flawless skin.

“It’s one miracle after another!”

“She saves us, she protects us! Our lives for the goddess!”

“Worship Inari-sama, the protector!”

Yuriko’s ears twitched to the hollering of the villagers, her neighbors, the merchants, the tourists, the wanderers and those who had returned to Kome. She shivered all over, eyes going half-lidded as she started to expand once more. In seconds, she was so large that Jorogumo would’ve had to look up at her while craning her neck back. Yuriko’s feet were starting to get too big for any road to fit them, so she had to step around the hill where people would see her immense bosoms rising like squishy morning suns as the now 50ft. tall deity eclipsed everybody in Kome with her colossal size.

“It’s… it’s too much, isn’t it…?” the giant kitsune brought a hand up to her cheek to hide her fluster, giddily chewing on her pinky. She giggled as her expanding mammaries clashed with the hillside and began to spill onto the outer grounds of the shrine. One, two, three, four fluffy tails wrapped around the shrine’s hill like a protective mother embracing a child. “I’m getting too big for you all. Aren’t you scared of how huge I’m getting…?”

As expected, there was no negative. Yuriko had truly become the people’s beloved goddess and it was no use to pretend otherwise anymore. These people she shared Kome Valley with, they had always been under her charge. But now she had the power to ensure their safety, peace and prosperity. It felt like nothing was beyond Yuriko’s reach now. And yet…

With one glance away from the vibrant hills, Yuriko’s eyes cast far beyond the horizon. What about other people and communities, like those where people curious about her had come from? Surely, they too deserved happiness, safety, a chance to flourish with their efforts being rewarded.

That night, the entire village got together in celebration of their incarnated goddess. Beautiful Inari, they called her. Food, drink, dance and music, all in her honor. An honor she was more than willing to embrace, for the path of divinity was one Yuriko was no longer afraid of. She accepted her role both with grace and humility, making no uncertain or hollow promises, and only asking of her followers to live their lives with the empathy necessary to coexist. Nothing extraordinary was necessary to render tribute to her, but she still accepted any and all selfless gifts and words of prayer.

With every passing day, Yuriko’s religion grew stronger and more numerous. Kome Valley began to look smaller and smaller to the constantly swelling kitsune, whose features continued to climb alongside her height. Curves exploded with mass as her bountiful breasts commenced the domination of her muscled torso while her hips flared out further away from her in order to accommodate the perfect blend of fat and muscle that her perfectly round ass had turned into. With tasteful amount of hard muscle, Inari’s avatar had also become a five-tailed avatar of feminine beauty and power.

Soon hundreds of feet tall, Yuriko had gone from inhabiting the hills to using the unpopulated ones as chair as she addressed her faithful, finding them increasingly endearing the smaller they became. It was like they were tiny little children, and she was their mother watching after them. But Yuriko knew it would be selfish to keep this power of hers at Kome Valley. She had been debating it earlier, but it no longer felt right to force everybody who wished to see her to come to Kome and overpopulate the area for her sake. So instead, Yuriko decided to take off and spread her visage for the entire region to see. Much as her original followers did not want their goddess to leave them, she assured them they would never be alone so long as they continued to call to her.

Her stride took her away from the hillside and into the plains. Yuriko wasn’t the most graceful when lugging about her immensity. When one is so large, one always comes close to crushing everything under foot. Forests, lakes, settlements; they might as well have been shrubberies, puddles and make-believe toys for children to a 500ft. woman.

But she had noticed it when leaving Kome: For fear of stepping on the little people or destroying the village, she had decided to take the road going through the rice terraces on a hunch. It didn’t matter how hard she stomped, her divine aura would reconstitute what she had damaged in her stride and leave it much sturdier than before. Her power had been rising in so many ways!

Word of the giant five-tailed fox woman was soon in everyone’s mouth. The country became revolutionized with the idea that God had descended upon them and that she was a doll-faced and drop-dead gorgeous kitsunemimi. And although far too large to properly converse with any one individual now, Yuriko could sense believers’ thoughts, their worries, and also their yearnings and hopes. Where there was community, she was drawn.

Yuriko would kneel and offer what blessing she could in order to provide succor, and in turn, more would join her flock. With additional worship, her size simply continued to explode, more and more, until her radiant beauty made the fact she sometimes eclipsed the Sun a non-issue.

It was a feedback loop. The bigger Yuriko got, the more visible she was to the rest of the region. With greater power, the number and potency of her blessings continued to develop, allowing her to bring prosperity to those wanting and bringing a bounty of rice where famine was commonplace. And as belief increased, so did the almighty kitsune.

With six gorgeous tails trailing behind the mountain-sized goddess, Yuriko further became convinced of her ascending divinity as the miracles she wished to provide on those that needed it began to happen on their own. She no longer had to be conscious of where she stepped, for the land itself would harmlessly shift and make sure the roads were always safe for humans and animals alike through her regional tour. The presence of evil had all but vanished from that beautiful country, for it could not fathom Yuriko’s godly aura which continued to smother it before they could rise again; automatically exorcising yokai unwilling to coexist.

Yuriko stopped the country tour next to its largest mountain, surpassing even its sheer height with her current size of over two and a half miles. She leaned down on it with a playful squish of her colossal bust, arms crossed over it as she kicked her legs behind her. “I’m probably the only one who’s ever seen it like this,” Yuriko mumbled while looking all around. “It’s such a beautiful country. Even amidst turmoil and bounty, it deserves to flourish and bloom just like our sturdy rice plants.”

But that wasn’t enough for Yuriko. It couldn’t have been. Not when it was possible other parts of the world could need someone like her. A protector who brings fortune and bounty and asks for nothing in return but in the belief that she can provide what they need.

Yuriko had decided the whole world should know of Inari.

---

The journey started by heading west on the country. With legs so long they pierced the heavens, Yuriko’s strides allowed her to cover ground at an unprecedented pace. Her clumsy steps were a thing of the past now. No longer ashamed of herself, and empowered to the point her gargantuan assets felt unobtrusive, Yuriko was strutting now. Hands on hips, proud of her swaying and bouncing; the vixen was no longer that meek little miko who sometimes failed at getting people to notice her. Embracing her new identity as Inari had been the most liberating experience of her life. And she was just getting started.

Hefty footfalls shook the country where Inari strode. What her feet accidentally crushed immediately reconstituted via her passive will.

Deep ocean waters separating her country of origin with the rest of the surrounding continent were treated as a welcoming mat, for the goddess did not sink.

Inari had become powerful presence already without the need to introduce herself. There were so many days one could go without being able to see the biggest woman in the world rise to mountain-dwarfing size even across country borders. The truth was that by the time Inari had crossed over, her religion, its teachings and the news of the other country’s drastically improved living conditions had permeated the continent and beyond. And these foreigners naturally became curious, looking up at the sky to find that overabundance of woman looming over them, her beautiful feet briefly blotting out light as she rose them for each gargantuan step.

It’s not like they could pretend the goddess did not exist. They could’ve expired the moment she crushed them under her weight, but they were able to confirm that benevolent Inari had not wrought rage or malicious intent. She was no competing deity, but one willing to extend her wonderful reach to them as well.

Even if Inari did not speak the same language as every other human in the world, the intent behind those who opened their hearts to her was crystal clear. Excessive anxiety, fear and uncertainty wasn’t good for anyone. Not all countries bred evil spirits in the same way, but leaving those suffering unchecked for too long would no doubt create new monsters in one or another way.

Thus it was that Inari resolved to pay a visit to each and every new country heretofore unknown to her. And wherever she went, she attended those who needed it, spreading the seed of hope while purifying the badness holding their potential back.

And everywhere new she visited, she did so significantly larger, even more impossibly beautiful-looking each time. A Venus-shaming youthful beauty with luxurious white hair billowing with the air being destabilized by her aura. Seven colossal tails which each could hide an entire nation under its wonderfully soft fluff. Inari had already become a legendary personage no one could ignore in her travels.

From inhospitable wastelands, canyons and deserts to lush forests, glades and beaches, Inari ingratiated herself with all the world had to offer. Her journey wasn’t merely teaching others, but also herself. Learning what people had and what they needed. How cultures defined and found their motivation. Inari would not be a replacement for their values the same as how she would not be the sole answer to their individual troubles, but she would be the support they needed on trying times. She would be their hope when it seemed all but lost.

Goddess and mortal kind understood; an implicit yet no less official contract formed. Inari began to receive an influx of power, this time coming from more than hundreds of thousands of people. And while she had yet to cross further west through the sea into the other continent, its people had also called out to her. They also wished to be brought into the fold, and Inari did not forsake them.

With prayer and worship coming from every direction at once, Inari closed her eyes and allowed herself to become a conduit for mankind’s desires. They did not want someone to rule them like a tyrant, nor did they need a magic entity capable of solving every issue before it happened. What mankind truly wanted was to be able to live just a little less scared. And Inari, answering to her own awakening motherly instincts, saw this as the pleading of a frightened child whose one wish is to not be alone. How could she refuse them, when she was in the perfect position for it? The world need not suffer anymore.

Thus began the strongest growth spurt yet for the foxgirl. Without the need to hold herself back, Inari tossed her head back and let out a moan of delight as all that suffused energy ran rampant through her enlarging body. Every breath she took seemed to push her numerous miles taller all at once. Her expansion could be observed from multiple corners in the world. That lovely, exaggerate hourglass figure was stretching out in all directions, making the very continent she was standing on shake.

The eighth tail had manifested, and with it, Inari rapidly approached over a thousand miles in height. Mountainous simply didn’t do her justice anymore. This leviathanic creature of beauty had evolved beyond a simple deity and her form was getting burned into the people’s collective mind eye. They would never be able to forget her, even after she grew far too big to be fathomed by mortal brains. Inari could not stop now.

“More power. Bigger. I must be bigger than this!” Inari howled with need, arms curled back. As her elbows sank into the sides of her squishy mounds, she began to squirm some more. Everything felt so much better when she was expanding, as if she was part of some sort of natural flow. It compelled her to give in, and she did so gladly. As Yuriko, she hadn’t had the chance to find the enlightenment of discovering her place in the universe, but as Inari, all she had to do was seize it. It wasn’t just what she wanted after all; the whole world was asking for her protection at this point.

Bigger and bigger the fox grew, her yips of delight and needy moans crossing through the planet and back. From two thousand miles tall she doubled in size, the planet gradually shrinking out from underneath her. “Bigger!” she said with such earnest desire that it turned into a demand. And the demand was answered by her body with another rumbling spurt. She swelled into the stars above, the world’s pull growing incredibly useless at holding her down any longer.

The rush was an incredible injection of pleasure for a being with the mind of a mortal. Ascended or not, Inari was still Yuriko and Yuriko was still herself even after everything that had happened to her. And the truth was that she had never given herself the chance to truly experience the orgasmic bliss this process kept subjecting her to. And there was no longer a need for her basic desires to be held back, not when she had the guarantee her divine powers would keep things safe.

“Biggerrrrr…!” the levitating Inari cried out as she arched her back. Her arms spread out and she tossed her head with a big grin. Her colossal butt hit the continent as she slowly drifted away yet grew blindingly fast. Seven thousand miles. Eight thousand. Nine. Ten! Already a vixen of planetary size, Inari would not stop swelling! And she wouldn’t stop moaning, caressing and stroking herself throughout her glorious expansion; the strongest of her growth spurts until now. It wasn’t blood coursing through her veins anymore, but the raw power of a god. “Yesssss…! More, nnnfff… more!” she chanted, eventually surpassing Earth’s size to the point of being over twice it’s size! And it didn’t look like she was ready to stop at that point either.

But before things went out of control, Inari gently opened her lust-charged, sparkling eyes. Still gradually growing past sixteen thousand miles tall, the foxgirl found herself floating in the emptiness of space. Long, muscular legs went from being curled to stretching out, which was when she found what she had been looking for brushing against their lower side. To stop Earth from spinning away from her, Inari carefully nudged the sphere with one foot and into another, settling it between them for a moment as she adapted a sitting position.

“There you all are.” Inari’s voice was like invisible yet omnipresent honey stroking every one of the faithful’s ears. It was her first time seeing the world like this; looking like a huge ball; which nonetheless continued to steadily dwindle before her. Her hands plucked the planet off her feet, bringing it to her heavenly face.

“I’m here. I didn’t leave,” she assured the world with her best, sunniest smile. “And I will never leave. From now on, you all are my responsibility. I owe you so much!” the goddess said as she pressed her cheek to the world to give it a gentle nuzzle of affection. Control of her abilities had evolved to such a point that the shifting and reconstruction following her powerful interactions no longer had to happen. If Inari didn’t wish it, her planet would not be harmed, not even by herself.

“You’ve taught me so much. I love you all. And I want you to continue loving me as well. My warmth is yours, forever…” the celestial fox’s ninth tail began to emerge behind her as she began to lower the now hand ball sized planet from her cheek to her neck, slowly sliding it further down. Inari smiled as she settled Earth between her world-dwarfing tits, allowing her cleavage to harmlessly lodge it before it vanished from sight with all the constant growth. Gone, but never far.

Purring herself to a placid rest, the celestial kitsunemimi basked in her power, her eternal contract, the happiness of knowing she had found her place in the universe. But was this truly the end of her journey? Her goals lay complete before her. Her children were now safe. Nine-tailed Inari had truly become a goddess and the ultimate expression of the kitsune. Yuriko had never dreamed something like this could be possible, but as Inari she had achieved it, and it was one of the greatest feelings of satisfaction ever achieved.

However, it didn’t take long for her to ask herself a question. And that question was: Is this enough? No, it was not. She could sense them, close and far away. Other planets. Some similar to Earth, others simply rocks of comparable size. Did they not also deserve Inari’s love? Inari wondered to herself, and her body responded.

She enlarged at the speed of light; truly unbridled growth of epic proportions. All the fox had to do was release her divine will, manifesting her yearning to protect those smaller than herself, and thus Inari grew bigger than the biggest of planets. Lady Amaterasu briefly regarded Inari from her home in the Sun as even it was outgrown by the cosmic hourglass with the nine tails. The fox left behind the solar system, but as her swelling form drifted, one of her tails made sure to collect the rest of the planets and even the sun she had left behind to bring along with her. Inari was going to make everything her responsibility; all she had to do was outgrow it!

And so the powerful entity became even more entity. Solar systems became collections of glittering lights decking out her pretty tails. Galaxies were soon outgrown with Inari commissioning them to dance around the orbit of her comparatively diminutive waist. “Not enough!” Inari grinned, ready to accept more power even as her body of unobservable size began to test the ability of the universe to hold her in.

But even the universe had realized that it, too, wished for Inari to become its mistress, its protector. Before it could shatter, the universal boundary instead unraveled just long enough to allow the goddess through. Indeed, even the laws governing the universe she had been born in had fallen in love with her to the point of bending for Inari. Soon, the fox deity found herself with the universe fitting on her palm, but not for much longer. That was when she found out about every other universe existing parallel to her own. “Seeds of creation…” she murmured to herself, seeing the infinite tapestry of the multiverse as some great rice field yearning for the goddess’ blessing.

One after another, Inari brought them closer and assured them her boundless love would reach them all. How could it not? She loved everything in creation, and she hoped everything would love her back. It wasn’t about playing favorites; it was a symbiotic relationship basing off the initially implicit truth that Inari would always be. And thus implicit became absolute.

In outgrowing the multiverse, the concepts of time and space warped around Inari, the great mother. Reality had not been created to host a creature of this magnitude, an ego so ambitious. So when it was outgrown, all it could do was enjoy being smothered by an ever-increasing bulk of softness, and the ten most wonderful tails to ever span the entirety of creation. In such an embrace, Inari would reign both infinite and eternal.

Just like Yuriko’s love.

The End.