: City of what…?

Mei told Kurou she was going to take him to a place that should have answers, and so that's what they're doing as they stand in front of a train station.

"You know you're being extremely ominous, right? And out of all the years I've lived in the country, I didn't think there was a train station."

Mei chuckles, and a train screeches to a stop in front of them. The doors open, inviting them to get inside. Mei walks in first while holding two boxes with talismans on them. Kurou follows behind her, and they finally take their seats on the train.

"This place is somewhere that no humans can cross in without permission. So you're lucky I'm still here to grant you that. I would be prepared though, the place up ahead is where apparitions thrive. It's best if you stick with me, because deity Inari would kill me if something happened to you."

Kurou just thinks she was metaphorically speaking so he didn't comment on it.

"What place is up ahead, if you don't mind me asking?"

Mei looks at him and smiles, and with a dramatic tone she says, "They call it the City of Shadows." She wiggles her fingers dramatically. "Spooky, right?"

Kurou pauses for a moment before bursting out laughing. Mei sighs and rolls her eyes. "Okay, okay. The place doesn't have an official name, so the people there just call it by that name. I don't really like it though." 

Eventually, the train stops, and the doors open. Kurou gets off the train and is greeted by a bustling train station as apparitions move around, trying to make their way to their own destination. It has a certain ominous vibe, as thin fog moves out of his way when he steps off the train. Some of them look like bugs, others have multiple arms and legs. Another one has a really long neck—the list goes on and on.

Kurou follows Mei out of the station, and his eyes widen as he's greeted with an even more bustling city. Neon signs flickered, casting eerie glows of red and blue onto the crowded streets. The air hummed with whispers and distant chimes, the scent of roasted chestnuts and something unfamiliar—something almost metallic—lingering in the air.

As they pass by, Kurou can hear some of the apparitions talking about him as they walk. It seems having a human in their territory might be upsetting them. He quickly walks faster behind Mei.

Mei walks up the long stairs and knocks on the wooden doors. A slit in one of the doors opens, and a bright green eyeball stares at them.

"State your name, and reason for being here." A raspy voice comes from the slit.

"Mei, and delivery."

The slit in the door closes, and the doors open wide. Mei walks in, and Kurou quickly follows behind her. A few people were in the temple, but these people didn't look like the apparitions outside. They looked like regular humans, like deities even.

One of them speaks with a loud voice, almost making sure that everybody in the room can hear them. "General Zhuo from China stopped by in Japan. I thought he said he would come back next month. Seems like there's an emergency in the human world."

Mei suddenly stops in her tracks, her face paling. The person that spoke up seems to have grinned in satisfaction.

"Ah, Kitsune Mei, I didn't see you there. Who did you bring with you? Is that a human?"

Mei looks at Kurou, then at the man. "Don't you have something better to do? I heard Deity Inari disciplining you a few days ago; it seems like you're still back to gossiping, Kitsune Amari."

Amari snickers and, knowing that he doesn't have anything more to say, Mei continues walking. 

Kurou glances back and sees that Amari looks annoyed. Without another word, they continue down the dim corridor. A door looms ahead, talismans pasted all over it, fluttering slightly as if disturbed by an invisible breeze. Mei opens the door and gestures for Inari to walk inside. She then follows in after him and closes the door behind them.

The room has even more talismans than the outside door. The room is dark, and it has doors on both sides of the room, like a prison. Mei walks towards the furthest door down and opens it up.

Kurou can't help but comment, "Is this like a prison for urban legends?"

Mei nods and places the boxes on the floor. She takes off the talismans that are placed on top and quickly rushes out of the room, slamming the door shut before locking it.

"That's a way to call it. This is where we put the well-known legends; all the other apparitions you saw outside are ones that humans don't know about quite well. So they are able to run freely. These ones, on the other hand, the more people that know about them, the stronger they get. It's like feeding their ego."

The lid to the boxes launches off, and black mist comes out until two figures materialize from it. Teke Teke launches itself at the door, but it's unable to do anything, so it just sticks to scratching at it with its long nails. Kashima Reiko, on the other hand, just looks around at her surroundings before staying put. She seems to be smarter than the other yokai.

Mei turns to Kurou and straightens out her school uniform skirt that she's surprisingly still wearing. "Would Inari be here too, or is he busy somewhere else?"

Mei looks at him, and smiles, probably knowing that he would bring him up. "He's actually busy somewhere else, and that's probably for the best. He would definitely discipline me if he finds out I brought you here, but it's best if we find out information on what cut off your aura to begin with. So I like your enthusiasm seeing Deity Inari, but it's probably for the best that he isn't here."

Kurou's mouth opens wide, and his ears turn a bit red. Seeing that he's not going to say anything back, Mei chuckles and takes his arm, pulling him out of the 'prison' room.

After walking in the huge temple for a while, they stop at a room with a sign that says archives. They walk inside, and a room that looks like a library greets them. The room has shelves upon shelves filled with scrolls.

"This is where we keep our information at. The scrolls have information that goes from urban legends all the way down to Amari creating a scene in the human realm when a human wouldn't suck up to him." Mei seems to chuckle at the last part as she stares off into the distance like she's replaying the memory.

Kurou looks around the place; the scrolls are placed in chronological order. He finds a scroll that talks about how one person didn't kowtow in front of one of the Inari shrines at least three times. Kurou laughs. Why do they have this written down?

Mei walks over to him and hands him a scroll. "This one is about spiritual aura. Hopefully, it has what we're looking for."

Kurou nods and opens it. He scans over it and frowns. It just has the same information he already knows about. He closes it and hands it back to Mei, shaking his head before she can speak. She sighs and walks back over to the shelf the scroll came from.

Kurou pauses as he suddenly hears the creaking sound of a door opening. He turns to look at the door of the archives, and a tall man stands there with a long ponytail and silver armor on his body. His features are hard as he stares at Kurou.

Kurou continues to look back at him; the man looks handsome but also looks like he wants to beat up Kurou.

"General Zhuo, how kind of you to visit us from China. I bet the journey here was quite long," Mei suddenly speaks up as she spots him standing there.

Zhuo nods his head but continues to glare at Kurou. "Who is this? Nobody told me a mere mortal would be in here." He spits out the words like he holds a grudge against him.

Mei sighs. "You don't have to worry about him, he's here as a guest of Inari's, but may I ask why General Zhuo came to visit?"

He looks away from Kurou and walks further into the room. "I came here because I need to ask Deity Inari something, but it seems like he isn't here. So I decided to explore the temple and saw you walking in here. I was going to ask when he will be back, but it seems you brought a human with you."

Mei nods. "Deity Inari will be here after he finishes his work in his shrines. It might be a while though, he personally visits his shrines, and there's a lot of them. So I advise General Zhuo to rest in one of our spare chambers on the second floor of this temple until he gets back, or I could pass on the message and personally deliver the response back to you in China."

Kurou's eyes widened. Are they serious about going 1,000 miles back and forth like it's the most natural thing in the world?

General Zhuo shakes his head. "No, I'll deliver the message myself, but thank you for the offer. The thing I need to ask him doesn't involve you guys, therefore you don't need to pass it on for me."

Mei nods, but it looks like she wants to know what he's going to ask Inari so badly. Zhuo even told Mei 'thank you,' meanwhile they just met and he's already getting daggers from the man.

He can't help but mentally ship them together, but they don't need to know that.

"So…can you explain to me why he got in as a guest?" Zhuo points to Kurou and Mei turns to look at Kurou with widened eyes, like she forgot he was there.

"Oh, um…he wants to save a friend, and Inari offered to help him."

Zhou's eyes widened, "Inari doesn't help just anyone though…wait…don't tell me he's..?"

Mei puts a finger to her lips to tell him to lower his voice, then suddenly whispers in his ear. Zhuo's eyes widened. He suddenly turns to Kurou and bows.

"My apologies, I didn't know."

Kurou chuckles nervously and waves his hand. "No worries, no worries! Haha." In his mind, though, he's wondering why his attitude suddenly changed. Zhou straightens back up and nods.

"If you say so, I should probably take your advice and go rest in the chambers upstairs." He then bows to Mei and heads off.

Kurou breathed a sigh of relief, but it wasn't long before he heard a loud noise coming from the front of the temple. He quickly heads out of the archive room and walks towards the front when Mei's hand suddenly stops him.

"Wait, something doesn't feel right. We should probably stay here for a bit. I'll open up a portal so you can hear and see what's going on at the main entrance."

She puts her hands up and traces a circle with her fingers. After a few moments, a vivid image of the main entrance appears in the spot she drew the circle in. Through the portal, Kurou can see a man with long white hair looking pissed. Which must be why the main entrance doors were slammed open.

The golden eyes sweep over the main entrance as the man looks for something. A few of the people in the entrance look at the man with wide eyes, and they shrink back at his presence. Even through the portal's image, Kurou could sense the shift in atmosphere. The people in the entrance shrank back, their breaths visible in the sudden cold.

Kurou couldn't feel it from where he stood, but the way the room's occupants stiffened, their shoulders locking up, their movements hesitant, told him everything. It was like the temperature had dropped with the man's arrival.

The man glares at them as he speaks with a low voice. "Have any of you seen a human in the temple?"

Some of them shake their heads while others nod. Seeing that some of them are nodding, he clenches his fists.

"Has anyone seen Kitsune Mei?" All of them nod at the same time. He smiles coldly as he walks forward, like he has a specific destination in mind.

Kurou looks at Mei, and Mei seems to have been trembling slightly. They both know that they're now in trouble…because Inari has just arrived.