Chapter 9

"What do you mean exactly when saying I can't run away?" Laura asked, tearing her gaze from the village and all the strange beings walking its streets. Instead her eyes bore into the Tanuki's, noticing their strangeness fully for the first time, except for a slightly whiter 'pupil', both of his eyes were an even brown color.

"Ah you see, Onyu, the leader of our village, controls the seal separating us from the Human world." The little animal spirit replied hastily, cowering before the decidedly bigger human. "So only she can allow someone to cross back into the Human world."

"And I assume you won't tell me why you brought me here?" She asked, visibly angered, but no longer directing all of it at the Tanuki before her.

"I don't even know why she wants you, I was just send to find a foreigner and get them to Onyu." The little spirit responded, shying away from the angry woman.

"Well then let's meet this Onyu." Laura declared before picking up her backpack and, after putting it on again, grabbing the little animal at the neck. "Where do we need to go?"

"Around this hut and then just straight to the Castle." the Tanuki explained, taking being carried like a kitten in stride. "It's nice to finally talk to you by the way."

"Well it would have been nice to meet you, except for this whole dragged of to a different world bit." Laura retorted as she walked around the little wooden building, relaxing her grip on the little spirits neck somewhat to make him a tad more comfortable.

Once she finished circling the building she arrived in, the German student saw the aforementioned castle, which took up most of the plateau behind the hut, and even seemed to extend beyond it.

A clear mountain stream cut across the mountain in front of it, with only a small wooden bridge leading to a gate set into the walls allowing people to cross the water, which fell of the side of the plateau to the side of the castle walls, no doubt creating an impressive waterfall. The walls themselves were very imposing, but also quite impressive appearance wise. The stacked stones forming its foundation had no visible mortar or metal work or anything else keeping them in place, while the wooden portion above them was painted a surprisingly bright and clean white color, with red outlines tracing arrow slits and red wooden roofs at their top.

As she walked through the open gate behind the bridge, Laura couldn't help but marvel at this sight. Once inside there were just a couple buildings in the courtyard enclosed by the walls, as well as a second set of walls near identical to the outer once, only the gate leading past these was closed.

From the sound of metal striking metal, and the bright light escaping it, Laura assumed the smaller of the buildings to be a smith's workshop. Deciding to let the one who was responsible for her kidnaping wait a bit longer, the young woman followed the path laid out by wooden disks towards the workshop.

Inside was what appeared to be a middle aged man, if not for the pair of rat like ears and the bit of a tail peeking out below the hem of his Kimono. As he struck the hot metal on his amboss again, the tied back sleeves revealed short grey fur covering his arm from the wrist up.

Turning her attention from the smith to the piece he was working on, Laura was a bit surprised to see a straight sword blade taking shape before her, the smith hammering the tip into the rounded shape she expected on a Katana.

While she was content to just watch and ask about this once the smith placed the metal back into his forge, Takeko spoke up just a moment after they had entered the forge.

"Hey Sumi, how have you been all this time."

Hearing the, probably familiar, voice of the little Tanuki, the smith, apparently called Sumi, quickly finished the tip of the blade with a few swings of his hammer. He began to reply as he put his hammer down on the anvil. "Ah Takeko, it's been what nearly a year by now?" Turning around, the rat spirit was obviously surprised when he saw the human carrying the brown furred spirit. "So you really managed to bring a human here, maybe this will finally get Onyu to not be so wound up about everything, or at least tell the rest of us why she needed a foreigner specifically."

"Hello, I am Laura Rosenthal, and would love to know why I was brought here as well." The human introduced herself before pointing towards the straight blade on the anvil. "If you don't mind me asking, why is that blade straight? I thought japanese swords were curved at least slightly."

"And you even found one with a curious mind on her shoulders." Sumi said with a wide smile on his face as he walked over to a wall, where he pulled out a blade that was indeed curved as Laura had expected. "More what you thought you would see? That is because this blade has been quenched already, which is where the curve comes from." Putting the blade back where he took it from, Sumi also untied the leather apron he had been wearing and walked over to the exit where the other two were still standing. "Now I am happy to tell you more about my craft, but let's not keep Onyu waiting any longer than necessary."

Moving at the front of the group, Sumi lead them to the gate leading to the inner portion of the castle. After a short chat with the bear like guards, they opened the doors for them, and escorted them into the only, rather sizeable, building in this inner courtyard. Inside they found themselves in a rather sizeable waiting room, but instead of taking a seat on one of the many cushions lying around the floor, Sumi walked right ahead and slammed open the doors leading further in.

"Onyu, you got a visitor." He shouted as he waved for Laura to follow him.

As she stepped inside, the human saw a woman wearing a seemingly plain red and white Yukata. While her face, except for her grey eyes, with the same white pupils as Sumi and Takeko had, was hidden behind a white and red fox mask, her white furred fox ears were on clear display behind the masks tiny wooden ears and behind her were what seemed to be a hundred white fox tails that did not stop moving. She looked at Laura and with a voice heavy with age and worry before speaking up slowly. "Ah finally, welcome to my humble home, Laura."

Before she could inquire how this spirit she had never met knew her name, Nine of Onyu's tails had turned into light blue flames, and engulfed the Human. As they did so, all her muscles began to relax, causing her to fall first to her knees and then forward to rest on the floor.

"What did you just do?" She could faintly make out the voice of the blacksmith as he shouted, her hearing feeling muffled as slowly her eyelids began to droop.

"It's our only choice, Yo-tsu will.." Was as far as Laura could understand the response from Onyu as her hearing continued to get worse, right until she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer and drifted of into unconsciousness.