Lady Kitsune’s Fox Garden

03: Nutri-Green - It’s Definitely not Made of People

“Ah yes,” Niwashi smiled, sipping a mug of the tea she had lovingly brewed from the leaves of a thousand-year old Bonsai tree she had collected back in Yggdrasil, that had merged with her world tree. “Jade Green Tea, my favorite. Thank you darling~” she whispered to the little plant that had offered up some of it’s leaves for her.

She was fond of plants. She loved them much like her own children. Back in Yggdrasil, she was known to speak to them and enjoy them within the safety of her shrine.

Speaking of said shrine, she was quite fond of it’s history as well. In fact, it was quite an amusing story.

The shrine was one from a grand event known as Sakura Falls that the Devs had come up with for everyone playing the Druid class. A harvest festival that gave the Spiritual Farmer class, and allowed for further class progression along said path.

Many mini-games were to be had related to the act, and then there was a grand party held with all the collected goods. And once the party was over, the Devs claimed that anyone could take anything they wished from the area, so long as they could fit it in their inventory.

Of course, she just happened to be leaning against the shrine at that point, which was empty of players. It showed up in her menu as an item, which she immediately stole, along with all the ingredients and special items within.

Then, she absconded post-haste. As in, she fucking ran like a bitch.

After that, she spent the next few months being hunted by someone named Blue-Planet of Ainz Ooal Gown until he mysteriously just disappeared, with her mother stating that sometimes trash needed to be dealt with when they next spoke.

She felt bad about such things, but she knew better than to question her mother if she said something was necessary. There was sometimes things… Where was she again? Right, her mother Inari was quite a wise and silly foxxo, and surely knew best.

Her shrine was finally settled, integrated into the world tree as the tree slowly settled into the world as well. It seemed to mingle with another, older tree that was supporting the world, and slowly reach out to intermingle with the other worlds of the older world tree as well.

Something told her that there was an intelligence there, guiding it even as her Sakura Shrine was made into the heart of the trees, a little realm that stabilized slowly over time. A fact she was quite fond of.

Flowers grew along bushes, berries slowly ripening and tomatoes growing in her little farm. But she needed something more. Something more spiritual than Flaming Cherries or Tumbling Strawberries.

It was at this moment that she caught a scent on the wind and realized that she was about to receive a Visitor.

~~~~

After a long night of fucking Inari into unconsciousness, Yasaka traveled with Kuro to the location of the Kami Realm… Which just so happened to be Cherry Blossom Wagyu Farms, just outside Kyoto.

Yasaka was straining as it was to keep the Kyoto Leylines stable from the very tip as she was, slowly carving out a new branch of it just so that she could remain as the pressure valve that kept the Dragon Vein from bursting and causing untold damage to the world as a whole. She needed help at some point, something like what the Norse had for their Leyline nexus, or she would never be able to take a vacation to Australia.

She was also still sore from her night with Kuro and Inari, and was pretty sure her knees and hips weren’t supposed to be this sore, let alone her back. But she didn’t complain. They needed a way to ensure Inari didn’t immediately rush off to meet the new fox the moment she smelled it, and declare a Tofu festival on the spot. Such things were fun and delicious yes, but the last time such a thing occurred, the damage was so great that the world was still recovering.

It took a lot of magic and favors owed to gaslight the world into calling it the Dotcom bubble instead of “The Great Tofu Crisis”. It did result in there being enough Soy products to put it into pretty much everything though, so that was a bonus. Soy was delicious after all.

Yes, she was aware that she needed to focus on the task at hand, and meet the other Kitsune. So, she shook her tails a little and kept moving.

“Mmm. Wagyu,” Kuro commented, wings fluttering ever so slightly as she stared at the ranch’s herd with more than a little hunger in her eye. No one had forgotten the Wagyu incident which exposed her sher gluttony for the delicacy.

She had eaten enough meat that it had taken them a century to pay off the debts to the farmers! Such a cheeky bird.

Ranch owner Takahashi Mori came out to greet them at the edge of the ranch. He and his family had known the yokai for years, having been once a great spiritual clan of Japan, if one that had faded. They, with their ranches and farms, supplied fine beef and the occasional other livestock to the yokai who had… bloodier, tastes.

“Greetings, Lady Yasaka, and… Kuro,” he began, first starting out very polite and warm before turning cold and angry as he recognized the Yatagarasu. “You know you’re not welcome here, crow.”

“It was one time!” Kuro argued.

“The herd was decimated! We nearly lost one of the finest beef bloodlines that day because of your hunger!” he roared.

“And as a result, your family became the wealthiest Spiritual Farmers under the Sun, and were granted Divine Cows from Amaterasu. That your family still managed to squander your fortune is the result of your own failings, not that of my subordinate,” Yasaka sniffed, dismissing his attitude entirely.

Takahashi looked like he wanted to argue, but bit back his response. “Very well. I will attempt to look past her presence. What brings you to our humble ranch today, Lady Yasaka? Would you care to sample some of our latest stock?” he asked, ignoring Kuro entirely after his remark.

Out of the corner of Yasaka’s eye, while Takahashi wasn’t looking, she saw Kuro stick her tongue out.

“Perhaps I will purchase some for my daughter and I for dinner tonight once I am done with business here,” not stating that some meant enough to feed her servants as well, if he had enough in stock, but also not hiding her interest. “However, I have come her for another matter in this case.”

“Oh? Is something else amiss? I’m afraid I’m not sure what else could merit your renowned attention, my lady,” he said, genuinely sounding a little confused.

“It seems my subordinate had discovered an evil spirit forming in the dung pile on your farm, due to improper disposal methods near an old shrine,” Yasaka mentioned with a sigh, her chest heaving as she realized what she was going to tell him would make what was potentially her cousin sound mentally deranged. “As a result, a nine-tailed Kitsune daughter of Inari decided to set up shop in the kami-realm attached to the shrine, to cleanse it and ensure that your beef farm is not lost entirely. Be thankful that someone with such powerful senses as a Kitsune, was willing to build her home in your literal pile of shit, to keep your family from being cursed with a fate worse than death.”

“Yeah, it was getting pretty bad in there. Another few days and it would’ve reached criticality and malevolent shit spirits would have been coming out to rip your souls straight out of your butts,” Kuro added her two cents ever so helpfully.

Takahashi Mori opened and closed his mouth several times. It was only after a solid minute of staring, starting to speak, and stopping, that he finally got out a coherent sentence. “… In my shit pile?” he finally asked.

“Indeed,” Yasaka nodded. “In your shit pile.”

“Is your cousin okay? I have rooms I could share with such a guest, not…” he said, once more struggling to find words.

“That is what I am here to find out,” Yasaka admitted, an exaggerated drop of sweat rolling down her face to show her exasperation.

“I, okay, right. Let’s go, uh, take a look, then,” he said, sounding utterly confused at the entire conversation as he led them to one big pile of shit.

There were clearly remnants of an old Shinto shrine, buried under generations of cow feces, leaves, and other miscellaneous composting things that she could not identify. And yet, a path had been opened into the Kami realm, wooden stairs forming around the side of the shit pile as roots dug happily into the composting crap that was settled into the shrine. Flowers bloomed with a strong scent, mostly masking the smell of dung, but it was clear she would need to offer stronger smelling flowers.

“It seems she has grown us a set of stairs into her realm,” Yasaka sighed, shaking her head. “How… considerate.”

“Are we sure she wants visitors right now? She seemed friendly when I met her, but uh, thinking on it, she has a shitmat instead of a visitor mat. If there was ever a subtle meaning to be found, it’d be there,” Kuro observed.

“I will be honest, seeing this, I am only now considering this is real and not a hallucination from bad beer. Did… did a kitsune of your status really set up shop here in my ranch’s dung pile? This is a kitsune’s prank, yes? Hahaha,” Takahashi laughed, still very much sounding in disbelief.

“Well, I don’t believe it is a mere prank in this case,” Yasaka said, noting how even she sounded a little stumped. “I think this is a genuine attempt at making a den, from the feel of the magic. But let’s go inside and make sure she’s alright, and not mentally deficient, shall we?”

~~~~

Takahashi Mori felt like he’d taken LSD.

His expected day at the ranch had been to get one of his highest value customers, Lady Yasaka herself, and maybe show off the herd, let her sample the normally very expensive beef, and then make a whole boatload of yen before he called it a day and fucked his mistress for a celebration. All in all, a fine day he had planned.

Instead, he followed the leader of the Yokai and his family’s generational nemesis, that gluttonous crow Kuro, into a literal shit realm somehow located in the pile of shit the cowhands disposed the farm’s manure into. They produced far too much of it, and they tried to compost some of it, but it was a lot of work.

It wasn’t his fault the pile had grown so big. Honest.

The realm beyond was…

He’d had doubts the ‘shrine’ had been anything but a random stone in the wilderness with some inscriptions. Japan had tens of thousands of those. You tripped over them, for crying out loud.

Yet, the realm he stepped into smelled of verdant green and the overwhelming perfume of flowers, and the shrine itself…

Well, it was a shrine to end all shrines. He’d been to several big ones, like the Fushimi Inari shrine, and this laid waste to those in sheer scale. Furthermore, it seemed grown into and around a forest of huge trees that dwarfed anything he’d ever seen.

It finally clicked. A nine tailed Kitsune had genuinely come here, one with, if he had to guess, at least a little divine heritage from Inari herself.

And she had made the entrance to her grand realm in his ranch’s pile of shit. With a big honking sign that read Lady Niwashi’s Shrine hanging over it. The thought felt like sticking a stick in a bicycle wheels, like throwing a wrench in gears in his head. It was so incongruous as to feel like a toddler adding onto a masterpiece.

“Huh, she’s been fast. When I was here it was rain and storms and angry cow spirits. This forest is brand new. Man, I could get some wicked high perches up there,” Kuro the Devourer, destroyer of his family’s first great herd, said.

“I can see that,” Yasaka nodded, moving up to stand in the central courtyard of the shrine and tilt her head, her foxy ears panning towards a specific part of the shrine.

After a moment, she opened me mouth and scremmed. That was literally the only way to describe the sound. It was eldritch, and strange, and he somehow knew that she was asking if the other fox was busy, offering a greeting, and mentioning politely that she had guests despite no words being said.

A laugh was her answer, as a beautiful woman exited the shrine and smiled at them. “Well then, you may as well come in. I was just making some more of my favorite Jade Green Tea.”

Kuro stuck a finger in hear ear and rubbed a little bit. “Ooh, tea. I wonder if it’s the good stuff?” she said, walking in afterword.

As for Takahashi? He lingered.

“I think my ears are bleeding,” he said to no one in particular before following them in with a sigh.

The interior shrine was just as opulent and grand as he’d expected from the outside, with lacquered wood, statues of various gods and…

“Is that Thor? What, what is he doing in here?” Kuro asked the unspoken question. “I mean, if he’s your thing, he’s your thing, just, uh…”

“I mean, his muscles are quite nice,” the Kitsune blushed a little. “I may prefer a more feminine form, but I can appreciate good art.”

They passed on other distinctly not typical shrine things, but he supposed that may have made some sense if this was her home. Besides the other odd statue or even Greek esque vase lying around, he also saw pictures. Beautiful beaches, oddly stiff looking pictures of Niwashi with other beings at mundane to mind bending locations like the the end of the universe. That’s what it was literally called and half the picture looked like reality was fractured even as Niwashi did a pose.

Finally, they got to a sort of tea room, where Niwashi gestured at them to sit. Takahashi Mori plopped his butt down hard enough to make it clap, but to be frank he was in ‘obey higher ups’ mode at this point and intended to say nothing if not spoken to. Lady Yasaka and Niwashi could both tear him apart with their eyelids if they so wished.

Kuro…

He’d still go for her throat even if it would be futile to get revenge on his family’s disgrace centuries ago.

Although, sitting there, he couldn’t help but process the poster. “Nutrigreen!” it said, with a green looking bar of what he presumed was food. The tagline read, “We promise it’s not people!”

Weird.

“I haven’t stocked my cupboards with any food yet,” the Kitsune stated pleasantly, “But I have plenty of tea. Jade Green Tea is my favorite, because it’s sweet, warm, and fills your, um, belly.”

With that, she pulled out some porcelain cups and poured them drinks, which surprised Takahashi on multiple levels. For one, he expected to be the one to be made to serve the yokai lords tea. For another, while graceful, she followed none of the tea ceremony traditions he knew of.

Still, it was a very nice jade color, so they all took a sip.

“Bleh, this is, why is this so sweet!? It tastes like artificial sweeteners designed in an industrial hell-scape who forgot what actual real flavor and sugar were? WHY AM I SUDDENLY FULL?” Kuro asked rapid fire.

Yasaka sniffed the tea, sipped it again politely, and put it down. “Well, I’m certainly no longer hungry,” she noted diplomatically.

This was soda. This was just vaguely ‘green’ tasting soda and that was the best description he could come up with. It was about as sweet as the average crush soda, in his experience.

He’d expected more from a nine-tailed Kitsune.

“My apologies,” the Kitsune stated. “But I’m afraid it’s all I have until I can harvest some plants for a proper meal.”

“…You poor thing,” Yasaka wiped a tear from her eye. “I’m sure Inari will bring you some Inarizushi when she stops by, and some real tea. In fact, I will insist that the farm here send you food daily as tribute for saving them from the consequences of their actions.”

Takahashi said nothing. He’d come to accept his ranch was up shit creek without a paddle, and if push came to shove, the rest of the Mori clan would push him off a cliff if they had to to survive. It’s what he’d do, after all.

“Very well, I’ll ensure one of the cooks brings up a daily meal for Lady Niwashi,” he said, already planning the logistics and mentally noting to bring some quality ingredients up to get on her good side.

The tea aside, a spiritual farm could do some amazing things. If she got some fodder growing, he might be able to get some from her and get the divine blood in his herd strengthened. This would make them even more valuable in the magical world, not just the mundane.

“Well, this was certainly a… productive… meeting,” Yasaka tried, but her tails gave her away. “Unfortunately, I will need to return to the Leylines, as they are growing strained in my absence. Perhaps another time?”

“Of course!” Lady Niwashi responded. “See you later!”

Takahashi Mori said goodbye, and could only conclude this was the weirdest day of his entire life.

…

It would only get weirder from that day forward.

~~~~

AN:

HiddenMaster: Poor Takahashi here, getting all the whiplash.

But otherwise, a very fun chapter to write and set up Niwashi’s home, meet some important people, and do a little worldbuilding.

Kitsu: Indeed! We will have more shop aspects soon, ut first she kinda gotta get seeds and grow them to sell. Which means she needs to convince someone to give her some seeds.

Cue Mommy Inari rolling in with 7 different types of spiritual rice seeds or some shit lol.

HiddenMaster: Indeed.

Also fun fact, my car issues got worse again. Interior door handle on passenger side fell off, just buh bye now. This is on top of the other issues I’ve had, like the power steering seemingly coming and going and having a definite leak I can’t seem to get fucking fixed, some starting issues, worrying sounds in general from the engine, and trying to drive the blasted thing in 100+ degree heat with no AC to speak of.

Oh, and the fucking doors are basically broken. Driver side screwed up, outside and interior, lucky window even works. Have to climb in through the passenger side, which aslo only opens from the outside. Soon won’t even be able to fucking get in the damn thing at this rate.

I need a new car.

So yeah, if you have the spare cash to support me or Kitsu, it’d be really appreciated. And hey, we take commissions so we could write a story of your own. So please check out our carrd’s below.

HiddenMaster’s Archive: https://hiddenmasterarchive.carrd.co/

Kitsu’s Foxxo Shrine: https://aikoakyoshi.carrd.co/