Eitsu walked clumsily to the door that Kana had pointed out. Pushing it open, she found herself in a waiting room, dark wooden benches in rows before a desk, where an old man with a long white beard and black robes sat stamping papers. He looked up as she entered and gestured for her to approach.
Somewhere between her entering and her reaching the desk, she let her human form slough away. She was tired. There didn't seem to be much point in maintain a semblance of normality. She arrived at the desk as a moving enigma of fur and gold and eyes and something that might have been teeth.
The old man took her red slip. “Your name please, Lady.”
“Which one?”
“Any will do.”
“Kesshinichabe.”
“Kesshinichabe-kami... Born in Chup-tuk. Age unknown. Local cat deity. Associations with Luck and Insanity. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask the purpose of your visit, Lady?”
“I'm looking for information. A shinigami... k...” The word would not come. “My love is gone because of a shinigami.”
“It is the role of a shinigami to take those who need to go elsewhere, Lady,” the old man said gently.
“He held her by the neck,” Eitsu hissed. Something dark crept over the top of the desk, sticky and desperate. “And now... now...”
“I see.” The old man extracted a token from a basket before him. It had a tiger's face inscribed on it. “I'm afraid you'll have to wait a moment. Please understand, we have so many people here. Still, I can see that you may have a valid complaint, so you will be placed higher in the waiting list. Please sit... Please wait over on that side. Someone will see you shortly.”
The collection of things that was Eitsu drifted slowly to the benches that had been pointed out to her, arriving in bits and pieces. Several of the humans and some of the youkai seated there nervously scuttled over to make space. A spider-woman blinked her many eyes at Eitsu in greeting, but Eitsu returned nothing.
The lighting was dim, and did not seem to come from anywhere specifically. The ceiling was all exposed beams and peeling lamina. Old petals scuttled across the floor under the power of a small draught of air creeping under the door. Parts of the floor had decayed, revealing sagging fibres and void below.
The spider-woman chittered. “We've met before.”
Eitsu didn't respond.
“The Hyakki Yagyo. You were there with your wife and child.”
Something dark, seething, emerged out of the thing that was Eitsu and seized the spider-woman's face. The spider-woman chittered frantically, fearful and apologetic.
“I'm sorry, Lady! Forgive me, forgive me.”
The old man at the desk pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please, no fighting.”
Eitsu let go.
The waiting room continued to exist in deafening silence.
Occasionally, a name would be called, and someone would stand and disappear through a door. No one ever came back through those doors.
The spider-woman spoke again. She didn't seem to be able to help herself. “I didn't expect to see you here. How did you die?”
“I didn't,” Eitsu hissed back through a dozen throats, not gracing her with a glance.
“I did,” the spider-woman said casually. “And I shouldn't have. I'm going to appeal. I hope I don't have to wait too long.” She examined the token in her hand. “What do you suppose this means?”
The token she held bore the engraving of a dog.
Eitsu didn't respond.
Did time mean anything here? Her heart beat one hundred and ninety-four thousand, five hundred and forty-one times before her name was finally called.
“Can you put in a good word for me?” the spider-woman called after her.
The wooden door shut behind Eitsu.
She found herself in a small, empty room.
Well, not entirely empty. There was a wooden chair in the direct centre of the room.
“Please sit.”
There was no obvious source of the voice, and Eitsu, as she was, couldn't really sit, nor was she interested in doing so. She stayed standing.
“Kesshinichabe-kamuy. You wish to make a complaint?”
“I'd tear Rei apart if I could find him,” Eitsu replied.
“Shinigami Rei... Tell us about his actions.”
“He k...” The word refused to be spoken. If she said it, it became true. If she said it, then Tsubaki was truly gone.
Tsubaki is gone.
“He killed her.” The words welled out of her mouth like vomit. Her tongue tasted bitter and swollen. She exploded into a million writhing shapes.
“Killed? Actively?”
“He... grabbed her... neck. There was a... sound... A cracking...”
Silence. Then, “We understand this is difficult, Lady. But you will need to start from the beginning.”
“What beginning? The first time he murdered me? When I met him again in this life? The moment he appeared before he killed her?”
She was vibrating. She was in pieces. The pieces shivered across the floor in all directions.
“From the very beginning, if you please. When did you first meet him?”
Eitsu spoke into the empty room, bringing forth every moment, his collection of her pelts, the times her life had ended at his hands, the stories of the missing legendary creatures, and Tsubaki...
Was she handing over words, or pieces of herself?
“This will have to be brought to the attention of those higher up. Come this way.”
A door opened before her, where that hadn't been a door before. She flowed through it into darkness, and flowed out of the darkness into another waiting room.
The people in the room were different, but the old man at the desk who waved her forwards looked just like-
“So, I'm here again.”
“I'm afraid we have never met before, Lady... Kesshinichabe-kami, is it? Take this token and a seat over-”
The token melted.
So did the desk.
It was only when the old man himself found that his hands were melting that Eitsu felt the touch of cold metal. Her eyes, all of them, traced the spear up and behind her, to where it was being held by a large, blue-skinned man, with small horns and a single eye that glared down at her. Either side of him, two dogs with human faces snarled and whimpered at her.
An oni. Two jinmenken.
“Lady, we cannot have this kind of behaviour here.”
“But I can be passed from room to room without any problems, is that right?”
“We all have rules we need to follow.”
“Do we? Rei seemed to disagree.”
“I don't know who this Rei person is, Lady, but if he is not following the rules, then he will be punished."
"That's what I'm trying to-”
"Eitsubyou no Mikoto."
"What. Now."
The newest voice belonged to yet another shinigami, a little girl with her long white hair in two high buns. She barely reached Eitsu's waist, but bowed politely and spoke with an adult's voice. "Greetings, Divine Lady. This one is called Mou1網 (mou) - network, but in the context of the phrase 天網 (tenmou) 'heaven's net', it refers to divine vengeance.. I have been instructed to bring you... elsewhere."
"Elsewhere. Am I causing too much trouble for you all?" Like some kind of restless liquid, Eitsu flowed back into a single form, rising until the thing that appeared to be her head brushed the ceiling of the waiting room. Not merely cat or human, her feline face twisted and gaped, her bare-breasted humanoid body spewing dark, writhing fluid that disappeared before it reached the ground.
Mou shook her head. "There is someone who wishes to meet you."
The room held its breath. Eitsu continued to disgorge flowing darkness for the space of a few more heartbeats, before finally relenting and pulling herself back into a single, solid form. She still was not clearly one thing or another, but at least now she had only a single set of eyes to focus on.
"This way, please." Mou gestured towards yet another door.
" If this is another waste of my time..."
"I assure you, Lady, it will not be."
"You'd better hope so."
The rest of the room's occupants watched avidly from where they were hiding under chairs, or in the ceiling beams. The old man at the desk had regained his hands and simply gave her a look of jaded knowing. Eitsu could feel gazes piercing her back as she followed Mou to the open door. The relief in the room was palpable as she crossed the threshold, and she had half a mind to turn back at that moment and scare them all, but she found she had no appetite for it. Not now.
The door closed behind her without a sound.
"Where are you taking me now that you couldn't say in front of everyone else?"
"To the empress," Mou replied immediately. "lzanami no Mikoto has called for you."
For the first time, Eitsu felt uneasy. "What? Why?"
"I cannot answer that, Lady."
They were walking though a long tunnel, narrow, tall, clad with wooden panels. There were no windows. Eitsu wasn't sure if she felt claustrophobic or not.
"Do you know the shinigami called Rei?"
"I do not, Lady."
"How has nobody heard of him?"
"That's easy enough, Lady. There are hundreds of shinigami, all responsible for different areas, and for different beings."
"Such as?"
"Well, for example, I never leave Yomi. I am one of the shinigami who serve Izanami no Mikoto directly. You have met some of the shinigami who act as guards, some who are desk clerks, and then there are those who patrol the mortal world, watching for spirits of the deceased. Each shinigami will have their own particular area to patrol, and some are more... suited to dealing with certain types of spirits than others."
"Rei seemed to be everywhere. He followed us the length of Yamato. He took me with him across the sea to the western kingdoms. In Chup-tuk..." Again, the words refused to be spoken. Voicing them felt like forcibly removing organs through her resisting throat.
"We ask for your patience a little longer, Lady." They had finally come to another door. Mou paused with her hand resting on it. "In order to reach Izanami no Mikoto's throne room, we must pass through the rest of Yomi. You may find this... difficult, Lady."
Eitsu sneered. "As if anything has been easy recently."
"Then... Let us enter."
Mou slid the door open.
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