Spring is here at last. The season of birth and rebirth, when the warming wind is perfumed with the scent of freshly blooming flowers and the last of the winter snow dissipates. A time when the beasts of the wild and men alike are struck by that universal longing for companionship. But in more practical terms, it is the time for planting.
The village in which you live is situated in the mountains, so most of the soil is poor and rocky. It is difficult to farm; it always has been, given the scarcity of good cropland. Even so, you all found a way to make do one way or another. Many choose to supplement their food stores by hunting game or gathering plants from the forest, although fishing from the river is also common practice. People are so accustomed to adapting and getting food any way that they can manage that times are rare when anyone actually goes hungry.
Still, it’s a subsistence existence; your life and the lives of all your friends, neighbors, and clansmen are tied inexorably to the land like an oxen yoked to a plow. And recently, that tie has grown uncomfortably tight.
It is at times like this that you realize that the isolation the mountains provide is a double-edged sword; the very same sheer cliffs which insulate you from invasion can also act as a rocky tomb, sealing you in while you all slowly starve to death. Besides, even if someone could cross the pass and attempt to trade for food, you can’t very well trade what you don’t have; nobody in the village has any luxuries worth selling. The only thing that might come close is the sake that you produce, but you wouldn’t dare ask people to give up what precious little rice they have left so that you could brew a new batch. The fermentation process would take too long for it to be useful anyway; people would be starving long before you had anything of sufficient quality or quantity to sell.
A series of harsh storms has all but decimated your supplies from the bottom up: bitter cold snaps and an excess of rain have killed many of the crops and wild plants in their infancy, prey animals have fled down the mountains in search of better places to graze, and predators have followed them. People are growing ever more desperate as resources continue to dwindle; you have only one chance left.
It is only thanks to the wisdom of the village elders that you even have this second chance at planting in the first place. It was they who saved extra seeds from the previous crop of rice in case of just such an emergency. That is why there was little room for argument when they discussed taking more extreme measures.
It’s not unusual in times of crisis to petition the gods for aid, but you’ve always been of the opinion that gods should help those who help themselves. The fact that you even need to turn to the gods in the first place is a testament in your mind to the degree to which they have neglected your people.
Have you not made enough offerings for their liking, when you all had so little to give in the first place for lack of their “blessings”? Have you not bowed your heads and shown them all due respect, observing the proper holidays despite the physical toll the harvest took on your bodies? Have you not cried and bled and torn out your hair and begged and prayed and pleaded for them to spare the lives of your countrymen from starvation and plague, only to be ignored?
As someone who has always made their living by doing hard work, you resent the notion that some fickle higher power might take it all away on a whim and give it to someone “more deserving” of such a blessing. The idea that someone who has never known a day of hardship in their life would dare think themselves capable of justly ruling over humans is ridiculous.
Gods are born in paradise, with no more pressing need than to sit on their golden throne for so long that it develops a permanent groove in the shape of their divine buttocks; how could they understand the plight of the common man? Of hunger? Poverty? Suffering?
Nonetheless, you have a duty to perform. Ironic though it may be, you have been chosen to take the central role in a ritual sacrifice to Inari, in the hopes that the fertility god will bless the crops and secure everyone’s survival in the coming harvest. You will do whatever is necessary; your pride means less to you than the lives of your fellows. Or so you’ve tried to convince yourself.
You give your house a last mournful look as you totter away to the shrine, fully expecting that you may never see it again.
Like all things in the village, the shrine is modest. It was made by local carpenters and masons with whatever wood and stone was available. It is a tiny, ramshackle thing that would probably be an object of mockery before the people of the outside world, but it is still yours. What better representation of the quiet simplicity of your faith could there be than such a building?
As you approach, the head monk greets you solemnly and leads you inside by the hand, simple black robe blowing in the breeze. The elderly man is silent, but the firmness of his grip tells you enough about how he feels; though he will take no pleasure in it, he fully expects the worst to happen. You can’t rightfully say you blame him.
You don’t frequent the shrine nearly as much as the other villagers, so you’ve developed a bit of a reputation for impiety. No one really knows the full extent of your feelings towards the gods, but they can easily tell that your heart isn’t in it when you go to worship; to a god-fearing community, that’s evidence enough to brand you as an undesirable deviant. That, and one other big reason.
Other than that, it’s not as though you’ve actually done anything wrong; just bending the rules a little bit here or there when it suited your fancy. What’s the harm if you stay out past curfew or take a walk at night? Who could it hurt if you prioritize tending your crops over going to the shrine? Other than you?
If you were to take an even more cynical approach, you might say they were happy to be rid of you, and that they deliberately set you up as a sacrifice for that purpose. You can only brush such thoughts from your head; it’s hard enough to come to grips with potentially dying for someone else’s sake without having to consider if they truly deserve it or not. You simply have to believe that they do. And even if they don’t, you can’t fault someone for what their circumstances drive them to. Just for everything else.
The ritual itself is straightforward: you will wash yourself in blessed water and put on the appropriate ceremonial garb, after which you will be given a special drink which is said to transport your spirit to the realm of the gods for a short time. It will then be your job to seek out Lord Inari and try to earn his blessing however you can while the priest on Earth interprets the signs. If all goes well, you’ll have saved the village; if it goes poorly, you’ll be sacrificed on the spot to appease the ire of the gods.
You’ve also brought a little something extra to help things along as best you can; you plan to offer Inari your own personal reserve of alcohol that you squirreled away for a special occasion. It’s true that you could try to sell it, but the amount you have is just too small, regardless of the quality; you’d barely be able to get enough food for yourself, much less the whole village with just one jug. You won’t abandon everyone, even if it’d mean saving your own hide. You’re better than that. Even if they aren’t.
As you reach the bathroom, the monk bows to you and leaves you to your bath, sliding the door closed behind him and taking the jug of alcohol with him deeper into the shrine. You quickly disrobe, exposing your body to the air. The chill of the evening dew is offset by the warmth emanating from the bath itself; It looks like the other monks must have filled and heated it in preparation of your arrival.
As you immerse yourself and begin to wash, a strange sense of loneliness overcomes you. You’re filled with a frozen lump of anxiety that no amount of heat can relax away, and your hands tremble as you work the soap into a lather. You clean yourself diligently, feeling over each and every scrap of bone and ounce of sinew as though kissing it goodbye. Here and only here, where nowhere else can see, will you allow yourself to cry.
You bury your face into your knees, curling into the fetal position as the full weight of the realization hits. You stay like that for a while, chest heaving with inarticulate sobs until the bathwater goes cold. But more than that, a nauseating mix of regret and resignation assails you, far colder than the bathwater by far.
You can’t pretend that you haven’t heard them whispering about you, or turning and walking the other way whenever you try to approach them. Even among those who are polite enough to keep up the pretense of civility, those judgmental eyes give them away every time; those hollow pits of darkness terrify you far more than any apparition that might stalk the night.
You’ve grown so thin. So frighteningly frail. Your body is eating itself because you haven’t had enough food, and your muscles have atrophied to the point that you couldn’t really run or fight back even if you wanted to. You probably couldn’t even farm in this condition, even if you did live by some miracle. You’re going to die. Whether by starvation or execution, your death is all but assured. Alone. Unloved. Soon to be forgotten.
A tap on the door lets you know the monk has returned with your ceremonial clothes. For a moment, your neck cranes towards the door, teeth gritted and tears still streaming down your face. You open your mouth, in preparation to scream at him. You want him to look at you. You want to carve the image of your terrified face into his memory forever, and to make him feel the terrible weight of your impending sacrifice upon his soul.
But you deny yourself even this, although unintentionally; you can barely breathe as it is after the intense crying, and you just can’t inflate your lungs enough to manage a yell. By the time you regain enough breath to turn around and call out, the monk has already disappeared back down the hall whence he came. You hunch over, letting yourself hang limply over the rim of the bathtub, defeated.
Eventually, the cold gets the better of you, and you emerge from the bath, shivering. Night has fallen, and your prolonged soak in the cold water has leeched what little strength remained in your limbs. You find an embittered smile creep on to your lips as you hastily dry off and get dressed; at least you won’t have to worry about the possibility of getting sick once you’re dead.
The ceremonial clothing is simple: it is composed of a plain white robe and matching pants, strikingly blank of any further adornments. The fabric is soft and thin, easily finer than the flaxen cloth that composes your simple tunic and breeches, but other than that there’s nothing about it in particular that seems special to you.
You draw it as close to your body as possible, trying to conserve heat as best you can, but it seems to be designed to fit loosely; on the other hand they didn’t look much bigger than what you were originally wearing, so it might just be your gauntness of frame that makes it seem that way.
You stagger down the hall in search of the priest and find him in the main chamber of the shrine under the watchful eye of Inari’s statue, hands clasped tightly in prayer. The long shadows cast by the dim candlelight make his silhouette engulf yours, as though he were somehow an extension of the statue.
You take a harder look at it, desperate to eke out every possible second of life that you can and looking for any excuse not to draw his attention. The wooden figure of Inari cloaked in an elegant robe and flanked by kitsune attendants projects an air of passivity and playfulness far removed from the struggles of your day-to-day life as a farmer; the angularity of his vulpine features gives the impression that he’s mocking you, though his face is largely vacant of expression.
You remember when the statue was built, the priest made a big fuss about not depicting Inari as a fox and demanded the craftsmen alter the statue accordingly. Unfortunately for him, the other villagers took a liking to it and overruled him; it always made a lot more sense to you and everyone else for a god of foxes to be a fox himself.
As you contemplate the statue a voice resounds in your mind, breaking the silence and making you jump back, startled. A panicked look to the priest tells you that he can’t hear anything, or at least hasn’t moved to respond.
”Do I have your attention?” it says, exuding a mix of emotions you can’t quite pinpoint. You feel a gust of warmth brush past your ears and a gentle familiarity of tone like that of a lover’s whisper, but the context makes it seem unbearably condescending even though you can feel the first twitches of an impending erection in your trousers. An acrid taste rises in the back of your throat as you try to come up with a witty response that suitably captures your feelings, but all you can manage is a quiet “Fuck you.”
“Maybe if you’re good.” He smarms, adding a hasty “See you soon” before his presence fades away.
You release a breath that you didn’t know you’d been holding as the world returns to normal, and the priest notices you immediately, but you don’t care. That little moment of divine intervention being used to jab at you has pushed you from grief at your own loss straight past acceptance and back to anger. There are officially bigger fish to fry; screw clinging on to every last second, you’ve got an asshole to put in his place, God or no God!
The priest leads you around to the front of the statue, where a special area has been prepared. The jug of rice wine you brought lies uncorked at the statue’s feet, while a different jug, made from a hollowed-out gourd waits before you on a cloth mat. You kneel before the statue without any need for instruction, exuding a ferocious fighting spirit as you wait for the ceremony to begin. The monk’s bewilderment is palpable, but he continues undeterred.
The moment that the monk gives you the signal, you grab the gourd before you and start to pound your drink down. The liquid inside has got a strong bitter taste that belies its fresh herbal scent, but you’ve had worse in that regard as you were first learning how to brew. It is just another addition to the litany of complaints you’ll lodge when you plant your foot straight up Inari’s furry ass. You don’t stop swallowing until the container is completely empty.
Your stomach lets out a gurgle as the last mouthful of fluid splashes down in it, and you realize that this is probably the fullest you’ve felt in months. You can feel your stomach burgeoning with the liquid weight, and you give it a gentle slap in triumph as the monk makes his way over to you. It’s not that you particularly drank a large amount, but even the slightly bloated swell looks that much larger on your comparatively skeletal frame.
”Hurry up, Anon. We need to get you to the bedroom while you’re still conscious. I don’t think I have the strength to drag you.”
You nod your assent and stand as rapidly as you are able. The head monk’s wizened hand takes yours, and he leads you to a small room off to the side of the main chamber, where a simple cot has been prepared for you. A lone wooden chair and an unlit candle lay next to it for the stern old monk who is to keep the nightlong vigil as you sleep.
Meanwhile, a mounting sense of warmth and fatigue has begun to suffuse your body, and your thoughts begin to slow as whatever was in that drink begins to take effect. You expected something in this vein to happen given the taste, but nothing of this order of magnitude. The ability to hold one’s liquor is basically a requisite for anyone who brews alcohol, due to the necessity of tasting the product on the regular, but something is quickly beginning to disagree with you about this herbal concoction.
Your stomach roils as you lay down on the cot, but you resist the urge to try to soothe it with a rub. You can’t allow for any sign of weakness while you’re still conscious; whether you live or die is as much up to the monk’s discretion as it is to Inari’s and you can only control your interactions with one of those two parties.
As your vision fades, your stomach lurches as though the liquid inside can sense your animosity towards the God you’re about to meet. The new position makes it ever more difficult to keep the drink down since you no longer have the aid of gravity keeping it in your stomach, but you manage to hold out. Once you pass out, whatever happens is beyond your control. And pass out you do.
You don’t really snap awake so much as you fade back in, disoriented. The ground, though soft, is slowly undulating beneath you, and your whole body feels like it’s on pins and needles, as though squeezed from all sides. It’s not terribly uncomfortable, but it’s getting hard to breathe, and when you open your eyes, as all you can see is darkness in every direction.
The panic starts to set in as your brain wakes up, assailing you with questions such as: ”Am I dead?” “Is this hell?” “What now?”
You don’t know what you were thinking, really. Picking a fight with a god is an inherently risky proposition, but you didn’t think you’d fail this badly from the outset. Even so, if you have to claw your way out of hell to get to Inari’s palace, you’ll do it. It’s certainly not like you have anything better to do now that you’re dead. But first, you’ve got to escape from whatever this is.
You push experimentally at the walls, only to find that they pull away from your fingertips, revealing little seams of golden light through the cracks. A man’s voice sounds in your head, rich and deep, but with a more reserved tone than the level of irreverent smugness that Inari had. Not that that’s hard.
”It is good that you are awake, Anon. We approach the palace gates. You are expected.”
Before you can formulate a sentence, the squeezing sensation abruptly stops, and the golden light floods back in. Like a bud slowly opening into flower, the walls around you part gently to reveal the grandeur of the heavens one centimeter at a time. This is …
Beautiful. There’s no other word to describe it. Achingly, unbearably beautiful. A mixture of shame and awe washes over you, hot and cloying as you start to process what you’re seeing. The rage and fear you felt earlier is pushed down, momentarily displacing your grim determination.
You get it now, just by looking at the sky. It’s no wonder. No wonder the gods are the way they are. So distant. So uncaring. No wonder they regard you as being so insignificant; you feel the reason why in every blessed ray of golden warmth that hits your skin and every little caress of the wind on your cheek. This is the difference between Heaven and Earth. You aren’t born for this. You don’t deserve to be here.
Which is exactly why you have to be.
As you pass the gates, the kitsune sits and waits for you to dismount. You roll over gracelessly, expecting to hit the ground hard, only to find that the mount you’d been riding cushions your fall with one of his many tails.
”Thanks.” You say, rising from where you landing
“It would not do for you to appear disheveled before my lord.” The fox says, rising to its feet in kind. He turns back to you and smiling slyly before continuing ”To leave disheveled, on the other hand, may be a matter of course…” You’re a little worried because of the contradiction between the levity of his face and the stiffness of his speech, but there’s nothing to be done.
At that, the fox rears back on his hind legs, taking on a more human-like form. He shrinks a little, but mostly just changes the frame of his body slightly in order to walk upright more easily; his bones creak as the joints snap into new places, but he gets through it all without the slightest grimace. Or hint of shame.
You didn’t get a good chance to look him over while you were riding on his back, but he’s not bad looking for a monster. Okay, he’s pretty attractive … in a grizzled kind of way. But you’re not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. If he asks, you’ll tell him the boner is from the friction of the ride.
Human in shape, but monstrous in form, he looks every bit the part of a celestial samurai of an era gone by. Even through his luxurious white fur, you can tell that he’s weathered many hardships; the numerous scars that dot his body are a testament to that. You try not to be too obvious about it, but you can’t help staring as the breeze whips through his pelt, letting you see just how much muscle he has. And he has a lot.
He hums to himself as you watch him, using the motion of his tails to draw your eyes along the contours of his body, flaunting what he has without missing a beat. There isn’t a single bit of flesh out of place, from the cute tufts of fur poking out of his ears to the long whiskers that make him look surprised even when he’s not. A few dark splotches of fur around his eyes give the affectation of eyebrows, but it’s the blackness of the eyes and jowls beneath that paralyzes you. His look carries inarguable presence, and you feel an irrepressible urge to turn your head as he starts to return your gaze.
If you remember the stories right, 9-tailed kitsune like him are over 1000 years old. You can’t even begin to imagine what he’s seen and done in that millennium, or how he came to be working in Inari’s service. He advances a step and takes you by the hand. His voice sounds again in your head, carrying a tinge of authoritative hardness that was absent before. It sets you on edge, just in time for him to make you jump out of your skin.
”I know that you wish ill upon my lord.”
That sentence alone is as weighty as the slam of a coffin door. Your little crusade looks to be over before it has even begun. You steel yourself, struggling even to speak as he lays into you.
”I can see it plain as day, writ upon your soul and graven in the blood of those he has failed to save. You have lost much, and endured much, and I acknowledge that. So does he. It is why you were chosen.”
”W-what?” you say, deflated.
”You are mistaken about many things, but I cannot tell you the full extent of these mistakes for lack of time. Let it suffice to say that my lord bears you no ill will, and wishes to advance your cause in his own way. You would do well to remember that not all battles are won by taking up arms and striking at a foe; if you must fight, you should think carefully as to whom it is that truly deserves your ire.”
”And one last word of advice…”
“Appearances can be deceiving. Especially so with foxes.”
As he finishes, he starts pulling you deeper into the palace and you follow meekly behind, trying to process everything you just learned. The last thing you expected to hear was that Inari was on your side in all this. Is it possible that you’d been mistaken from the start? If he isn’t the reason your people are going hungry, then what is?
Walking along the fine wood path of the outer perimeter, you soon come to a spacious room with a view of an enormous Zen garden; a small field of golden-eared rice grows in the center, surrounded by a nicely-raked plane of pure white sand. In the distance, you hear the gentle babbling of water flowing, though you cannot guess its source or destination. A few large rocks lie scattered here and there at random intervals, the only other objects breaking up the expanse.
The kitsune curls his tails around himself in a make-shift sort of robe, and knocks politely at the adjoining room once he gets to the doorway in the center. You can hear two men talking inside, but you can’t make out what they’re saying. Your guide knocks again, more insistently, and he pulls you back as the door is opened forcefully from the other side and a thunderbolt flies out, scorching a little section of the garden’s sand into glass as it lands.
”I thought you said we were not going to be disturbed!” booms the voice of the man who threw the bolt. Dressed in full armor, the slightly older and much surlier god reaches for his sword, not even deigning to turn around and look at you. Inari gives you a coy smile, but it quickly fades once he looks back to his other guest.
”As you may recall, Susano, I also told you that I was expecting to receive another guest, did I not?”
”You neglected to mention that guest was a mere human, Inari.” The storm god spits.
”A human that is nonetheless relevant to our conversation. Or do you think that he doesn’t deserve to know why his village is starving? And all the other villages?”
You feel a little guilty at this, for failing to see beyond your immediate surroundings; it was so much easier to believe that the gods had singled your village out for some unknowable or inscrutable reason that you never really considered the possibility of a large scale famine. The accusatory nature of Inari’s tone lets you know that he fully blames Lord Susano, but the question remains: why?
”So, is that it, then? You brought him here to insult me? To shame me? You ought to know better than that. Especially considering how close you were to the last person who tried to slight me in such a way.”
You can feel tension in the air as those last few words leave Susano’s lips. Inari’s fur begins to stand on end, but you can’t quite be sure if it’s because of the residual electricity from Susano’s lightning or Inari’s sheer anger; his eyes and markings seem to glow red as though lit by an inner fire, filling the room with an eerie sensation of bloodlust. Little arcs of lightning spring into being around Inari’s head as he growls, teeth bared.
“There is no honor to be found in killing one’s own family, brother!”
”Thou have no more right to call me brother than do the gods of feces, brother-by-marriage. ” Susano snarls. “Were it not for my sovereign father’s decree that there should be no more bloodshed between gods, I would slay thee where thou stand and make a loincloth from thy pelt!”
”Were it not for thy sovereign father’s decrees, impetuous one, an endless procession of gods and mortals alike would be assembled to smite thee for thy crime. Blackguards such as thee deserve no clemency; thy noble lineage alone doth preserve thee from comeuppance. “
“Thou art meaner than the lowliest worm that drops its dung upon the soil; with time and care, one might raise lovely flowers even from such traces of manure- from thee, nothing springs save misery. To call thee feces is an insult to feces.”
Susano draw his sword in earnest, holding it vertically in preparation to strike at Inari with full force. Inari just sits there, totally unflinching, waiting for it.
”Slay me if thou must, and double thy sins; I can do no greater injury unto thy honor than thou hast already done. Thy sister shall receive me into the kingdom of She-who-invites.”
There’s a split second where the world stops as the sword begins its fatal arc, and things go quiet. The attendant who had been holding on to you lunges towards Inari in preparation to shield him from the blow, but something else happens that nobody expects. You rear back and punch Susano as hard as you can in the back of the head just as he starts to swing, sending him sprawling across the floor. He does not stir from where he lands.
You were able to piece it together from the fragments you heard during Inari’s rant. Once it all clicked into place, the anger that had been boiling away inside of you finally found a worthy target. Susano murdered Inari’s wife due to some perceived insult, dooming man and beast alike to starve en-masse. However, because of Susano’s rank and the intervention of his father Izanagi, he has been able to escape punishment from the other Gods.
That only makes the feeling of hitting him that much better; you know that your fist carries the will of all those that Susano has wronged, and that whatever may come, your cause was just. You hear a stunned “Holy shit” emerge from the tangled pile of white fur where the two foxes lay, but you can’t quite tell whose it is until Inari erupts in a raucous peal of laughter that can no doubt be heard by everyone within the palace grounds.
Inari pulls himself up and walks over to you, giving you a firm pat on the back which rapidly escalates into a deep hug.
”You absolute madman! I can’t believe you actually did that!” Inari says, beaming.
You’re not quite sure how to respond, so you just go limp in Inari’s arms as he twirls you around the room. In between spins, you can see the other fox also stand up as you look past Inari’s shoulder. Inari lets you down before turning to face his attendant, speaking to him with excitement evident in his voice without breaking the hug.
”Gintaro, tell the other foxes that they are not to listen in under any circumstance. I need to discuss the matter of Anon’s reward in private.”
”At once, my lord. And what of Lord Susano?”
“Take Susano as close to his home as you can manage without being seen, and leave him there. But while we’re here, I might as well add insult to injury…”
Inari steps over to Susano’s body, and begins to undo his armor, taking you along for the ride as he exposes the fallen storm god’s hairy legs. With surgical precision, Inari pokes Susano in the groin right through his fundoshi, and the taut garment begins to grow slack before your eyes as Susano’s sex organs shrink. Once it is all but featureless, Inari breaks contact and looks at you as though asking for your thoughts.
Gintaro in turn looks to Inari, who motions to him with a wave of the hand. “You are dismissed, Gin. Thank you”. Once he has permission to leave, Gintaro takes the body, wordlessly shutting the door behind him.
”You… got rid of it? Can you do that?”
”I can, but that wasn’t what I did. It’s just… small.”
”How small?”
”About the size of a grain of rice, give or take.”
”And you won’t get in trouble with Izanagi?”
”The decree specifically forbade bloodshed between gods and their servants, not humiliation. Although Susano will be absolutely livid once he wakes up, I haven’t hurt anything other than his pride. And his sex life.”
”It can’t have been that good in the first place, knowing his personality. He doesn’t strike me as an attentive lover.”
”Fair point.”
”Will I be safe? I was the one that hit him.”
Inari gestures at you dismissively before saying ”That’s easy for me to take care of. But enough of that; I’ve had more than enough talk of business for the moment. Let’s have a bit of pleasure before we discuss your reward.”
Inari retakes his seat and motions for you to sit down across from him. With a wave of his hand, he summons the jug of alcohol that you had offered before his altar, and a large pair of red earthenware cups for you both to drink out of. You watch as he meticulously pours the wine, not stopping until both cups are full to the brim.
He turns to you and smiles with none of the phony smugness that you’ve come to expect from him, and as you return his gaze a different type of tension creeps into the air. This is the first time you’ve really gotten a chance to look at Inari’s true form in detail, and your eyes are glued to his every move.
He is clad in a simple white robe not unlike your own, but his short fur, pale as moonlight makes it difficult to tell where he ends and the outfit begins; the only clue you get as to his general shape is given by the sparkling cherry-red accents around his eyes, forehead, and tails. He possesses an almost otherworldly elegance, but you feel almost uncomfortable looking at him; he looks lean and delicate like a porcelain doll, his slender features mirroring your own…fullness of frame?
What? You run your hands over your own body, unsure of why you’re what you’re feeling. You haven’t eaten anything, but you look as healthy as a horse; your body seems to have regained its old proportions from before starvation took its toll.
Inari senses your confusion and tells you ”Physical maladies do not tarnish the soul, Anon. Nor does physical strength correspond to strength of spirit.”
That certainly explains why you were able to knock Susano out, rather than merely annoying him slightly; you figured that gods were made of sterner stuff than mortal hands could damage, but apparently the rules are different for a ghost.
You pick up the cup nearest to you with both hands, struggling to balance the comically huge dish as you bring it to your lips. Inari on the other hand chooses the simpler route and lowers his head to the cup, lapping from its wide surface like the simple canid he appears to be.
As he finishes his portion, he looks up at you, grinning at your predicament.
”Sometimes it’s nice to let one’s hair down with a friend, wouldn’t you say?”
”I’m not your friend.”
”You saved my life, didn’t you? Would you really just do that for anybody that seemed like they were in trouble?”
“…”
A conflicted look finds its way onto your face as you take a sip of your drink. Inari is right. You did save his life. You scramble for likely excuses, but he goes on the offensive before you can get any of them out.
”You said earlier that you had “an asshole to put in his place, god or no god”, right? That you wanted to put your foot, and I quote “up my furry ass” ?”
You’re a little embarrassed to hear him say it, but you can’t bring yourself to interrupt him. Especially when he summons a katana to-hand and tosses it to you, a look of wild determination in his eyes.
”We’re completely alone, anon. My right-hand man is busy dealing with my worst enemy, and my other servants have been placed under strict orders not to listen in or interrupt. If you want to kill me, rough me up a little bit, or even just vent some of that anger, you’ll never get a better chance.”
This feels… wrong. Inari is offering his head to you on a silver platter, but you can’t muster the anger to raise your sword to him. You figure it’s not out of the question that the death of his wife might’ve rattled him enough that he’d actually be willing to accept death at your hands, but seeing him calmly accept it is especially harrowing, considering your own situation with the village. Your anger has fizzled out, replaced by a begrudging respect for the devious deity.
You drop the sword, instead reaching over to Inari’s lowered head and giving him a little scratch, right between the ears. He looks up at you as you begin to speak, expression as wooden as the statue that once looked down on you back home.
”Killing you wouldn’t solve anything. Not now. In fact, it’d only make things worse.”
”Oh?”
”I’ve just made an enemy of one of the most powerful gods in Japan, so I might as well have an archery target painted on my back. Without divine protection, I’ll be dead the minute Susano wakes up and finds out who hit him. And besides, if you die, how will the people eat?“
Inari sighs and straightens up, resting his chin on one paw and looking at you sternly. His gaze is sobering, exuding a barely-restrained bitterness so palpable you could almost swear you taste it in the back of your throat. It’s immensely clear that you’ve disappointed him, but you can’t really be sure how. His next line is little more than a whisper.
”You really think absolutely nothing of me, don’t you?”
”What?”
”It’s just that usually when a god tells a mortal their concerns will all be taken care of that’s the end of it. You’re probably the first person in a few hundred years that hasn’t been satisfied with that answer. I was hoping I could skip the formalities…”
”…”
”but since it seems like you won’t accept anything else, then let it be so.”
Inari’s markings flash red, and his voice booms, stirring a violent wind that chills you to the bone. The feeling of awe from earlier has returned full-force, and without the anger to bolster your nerves you feel the full oppressive weight of heaven’s sky in storm.
”I, Inari-Ōkami do swear in my name, upon my honor as a divinity, that the world of man shall be set to order. The fruits of Uke-Mochi’s corpse shall be distributed throughout the land, spreading plenty as the goddess herself did in life; the realm of Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni, and all who live within it, shall be spared the slow death of starvation.”
“ In recognition of his service to me, I shall protect Anon from the reprisals of his-swift-impetuous-male-augustness, Susano-o-no-Mikoto as much as I am able, and formally recognize him among my disciples. In accordance with the law set forth by his supreme holiness, Izanagi-no-Mikoto, Susano-o-no-Mikoto is henceforth forbidden from harming him directly or indirectly, and shall be subject to any and all penalties deemed fit by the grand assembly of Gods if he should do so. I will also grant Anon additional blessings of his choice, commensurate with the quality of his service.”
His voice drops to a less cacophonous volume, but he’s definitely still shouting as he advances on you, bending down to meet you eye to eye and kicking the sake cup aside, spilling its contents all over the neighboring tatami mat. Icily, he adds “Did I leave anything out?”, to which you hastily shake your head.
”Name your wish.” He says, evidently frustrated.
Your mind swims with the possibilities; there are so many things to wish for that you don’t know if you can pick just one. Inari is the god of blacksmiths, merchants, fertility, agriculture, industry… the list goes on. Finally, worry gets the better of you and you pray for good health and a long life. It seems only appropriate, given your situation.
Inari claps his hands together, and closes his eyes. You don’t feel any different when he opens them, but you’re certainly not going to doubt him again after having already offended him once. Even so, you rankle a bit about being pressed into his service; you can already feel a bubbling sense of dread at what the sly fox might have planned. But what floors you the most, after everything that happened, is what he says next and the actions that accompany the words.
”As for your first order…I want to get to know you better.”
Inari begins to strip, undoing the sash around his waist that keeps his delicate robe in place. You see his chest-fur fluff out, no longer constrained by the garment; the little trails of red only serve to draw your eyes further downward to his stomach. Rather than the bulk his fur suggests, as he gets closer you can tell that his body is lithe and sinuous; you expected a little more corpulence on a god of food, but you’re not one to complain about something that minor.
It’s hard to look away as Inari bares more of his body before you, letting his robe fall away with a soft rush of air; he pushes you gently to the floor, undoing your own robe with a graceful motion of his practiced hands as he takes position between your legs.
Inari cups your junk experimentally, fondling you through your fundoshi. Your penis instantly springs to life, achingly hard against the fabric of your underwear, and Inari quickly frees it from its confines with a precise slash of his claws. You look up at him, as confused as you are aroused; Inari’s affections aren’t unwelcomed so much as they are unexpected, and you shoot him a look to the effect of “Why?”
”I’m going to eat some of your qi before I send you home so I can learn more about you, what’s on your mind, the true essence of your soul, stuff like that.” Inari explains. “And before you get any funny ideas, you should be thankful that I’m not just drawing your blood like some common yōkai. Now unless you really want me to stop, I think it’s high time we shake the dew from this lily.”
You had heard the legends about kitsune having a taste for mortal men, but you never thought that one of Inari’s status would be willing to indulge in such a way. You shiver a little as he first takes your cock into his mouth, but you don’t try to stop what’s coming; you figure that there are worse ways to lose one’s virginity than to a literal sex god.
Slowly, almost mechanically, Inari drags his tongue along the underside of your cock as his rippling maw milks at your tip. He takes you to the base almost effortlessly, thanks in large part to his muzzle doing most of the work for him. Your glans hovers just before his uvula, and he stops short to keep from gagging; in the meantime, one thought comes to the forefront even as Inari tries swallowing and moaning around your length.
”Am I your first, too? The first man you’ve lain with?”
Inari gags when he hears you, and you detect a faint reddish glow in his cheeks that for once has nothing to do with his divine markings. As if to silence you, he starts slurping harder, rubbing your testes over in his palm and pressing his face into your lower belly to avoid having to look at you as he deep-throats your dick. His whiskers tickle against your navel, but it’s hardly the first thing on your mind as his ministrations hit fever pitch.
You buck your hips without thinking, sinking your hands into the scruff of Inari’s neck and trying to hilt him as you go over the edge; you feel your cock butt against the back of his throat as he sputters and coughs, but he does not fight your grip as you climax inside of him. As you feel the strength ebb from your body in the wake of your powerful orgasm, you release Inari’s neck and he withdraws slowly, little flecks of thick drool and semen falling from his jowls.
As the last rope of cum dribbles out onto his tongue, you can see him crinkle his nose as he sits up, eyes closed. Inari swirls the remaining semen around in his mouth like a master brewer, appraising the taste of your cum like it were a fine wine, smacking his chops several times and commenting intermittently. The only thing you can focus on is the way that his voice sounds a little deeper after the throat-fucking; the raspy, almost phlegmy timbre gives you a little sense of satisfaction as you bask in the afterglow.
”Good consistency, if a bit on the dilute side, most likely because of poor diet. Volume was above average, meaning you were most likely pent up for quite a while. It was bitter at first, but it has a sweet aftertaste, although that’s probably more to do with all the stress you’ve been under rather than anything else. By next year, I’m sure you’ll have a better batch brewing down there, so be sure to…”
Towards the end, you can feel Inari’s words going muted as our consciousness fades; you feel an unbearable urge to sleep, and Inari stops speaking, looking down at you with a smile of resignation instead. He gently strokes your head as you drift off, tails swaying deliberately. You swear that you can see him mouth “I’m sorry” just before the encroaching blackness hits.
You wake with a start, an uncomfortable feeling of weight settling into your limbs as a familiar pounding makes its presence known in your head; you have a hangover. The monk seated next to your bedside stands to support you as your strength gives out. He lays you back down, rushing outside to the well to bring you some water. He brings the whole bucket in, taking a small cup and filling it so you can drink more easily. Once you have had your drink, he places a hand on your back, congratulating you on a job well done.
”I was worried when I heard the thunderstorm roll in, but it looks like you passed with flying colors. Would you like to see the blessing you have earned for the village?”
You nod your assent, and the old monk helps you to your feet, helping shoulder some of your weight as you hobble for the door. Your headache intensifies as you get outside, overwhelmed by the rush of sunlight in comparison to the temple’s gloomy interior. When your eyes readjust, you can see the village from above looks especially verdant; little spots of green line the fields where the little stalks of rice have poked their heads through the dirt and the trees are littered with fresh buds. It looks like Inari kept his promise.
As you stumble down the temple steps, your neighbors come out to greet you in droves. The same lean faces with deep-set eyes worn away by hunger look up at you hopefully as the monk announces the news. It’s a good thing that the monk didn’t actually see what happened in the spirit realm, and you’re not inclined to give him all the details, lest you be executed for blasphemy.
You don’t know what to make of this throbbing bittersweet sensation in your chest as they start cheering your name; you want to feel happy that everything went well and just bask in the praise, but you can’t. The same hollowness sweeps over you as you look into their eyes.
Far removed from the half-gentle half-fierce glow of Inari’s eyes, or the weighty wisdom of Gintaro’s sharp glare, the collective stares fellow townsfolk seem just as vacuous singing your praises as they did when they were shunning you. It’s like you’re staring at living corpses animated by some foul act of perverse sorcery rather than real people with thoughts of their own that you can relate to. Even here, surrounded by people, you feel totally alone.
You excuse yourself after a few minutes, walking back to the edge of the village, where your own field lies. Though you did no planting of your own in preparation for the sacrifice, the same green shoots poke up through the soil, a testament to Inari’s goodwill.
Now that you are at home and away from prying eyes, you feel intimately aware of your own body once again; the volume of alcohol you drank last night presses heavily on your bladder, and the need to relieve yourself grows more pressing with each step you take. You step inside the outhouse, slip out of the tattered remains of your fundoshi, and answer the call of nature.
As you finish, you reach down to shake the last few droplets away, only to find your tip hangs a bit lower than it used to. Intrigued, you hastily rush back into the house, flopping yourself down on your futon unceremoniously.
You give your shaft a few exploratory pumps, and as it hardens in your grip you’re sure it isn’t merely a trick of the light; you’re measurably bigger down there. Whereas your tip once only just poked past your fingers, a solid few inches of shaft are visible; likewise, your usually-loose grip feels a bit tighter than usual by way of your cock’s increased girth. An exploratory grope of your balls confirms that they have also gotten larger; they rest comfortably around the size of large hens’ eggs and feel uncomfortably full.
There’s no way that you’d be content to just leave it at that, so you quickly stroke yourself to climax. As you fap, you notice the gliding motion comes more easily than it used to; the little globs of pre-seed that emerge from your tip add a nice layer of lubrication that was absent before.
The resulting orgasm is more intense than it has any right to be; given that Inari already gave you a blowjob in the wee hours of the morning, it is absurd to see such a volume erupt at such a force. By the time the orgasm concludes you are out of breath, and numerous streaks of pearly white fluid are pooling next to your sleeping area, ranging in length from a single hands-breadth to 3 or 4 paces away.
By the time you’ve caught your breath and cleaned up, you feel ready for another round, your cock throbbing to life once more as it swings around exposed to the air. That sly fox must’ve upped your libido too!
Well, you can’t really be mad at him. It makes a certain sort of sense that a chosen servant of a fertility god would be a bit more… impressive than an ordinary man. Speaking of which, your little overnight stay in heaven has given you plenty of new masturbation material; between Gintaro’s sensual shape-shifting and Inari’s blowjob, the image of the two foxes won’t leave your mind. Your only regret is that you didn’t get a proper chance to look them over downstairs so you could fully appreciate their bodies.
Oh well; you’re all but certain you’ll see them again around festival time. For now, it’s just a matter of waiting for the crops to come in.
The resulting rice crop is massive and rapidly-maturing, the stalks hanging heavy with the earth’s delicious bounty in a matter of weeks. In no time at all, the village’s larders are full to bursting, and none more-so than yours. You’ve been the talk of the town in more ways than one for a long time, but you’re a little uncomfortable with your newfound level of wealth and affluence.
The economy in the country, such as it is, is largely based on staple crops like rice; the crop is accepted as a form of currency because its usefulness makes it inherently valuable. Although you have heard tale of a few provinces using metal coins or paper money from traveling merchants, trade and barter is the order of the day, and you suddenly have quite a lot to trade.
A few of the elders have even mentioned trying to import some luxury goods with the surplus and trying to put the village on the map, but there are quite a few problems with a proposition like that, and you’ve been quite vocal about telling them so.
Attracting merchants to such an out-of-the-way location may as well be a fool’s errand, and besides that, the village doesn’t have enough of a population to sustain any kind of significant economic development. There’d be issues transporting goods through the mountains, and especially with bandits, and you’d lack the resources to hire samurai to defend yourselves in the intervening period. Furthermore, if the crops failed again during the project’s infancy, the whole system would collapse, and the village with it.
Nevertheless, they’ve asked you to repeat your role in a ritual to ask Inari’s blessing. You are even less enthusiastic about it than the first time, even though you are no longer under pain of death for failing to comply; you can’t quite put it into words what bothers you about it just yet but suffice it to say that it doesn’t sit right with you, even if you weren’t Inari’s disciple.
Even so, you make the necessary preparations and start the journey back up the stairs to the shrine. The monk meets you as usual, familiar but otherwise expressionless; he seems equally unenthusiastic at the prospect of holding a second sacrifice so soon. He’s already prepared your set of ceremonial clothes and left them folded off to one side and briefly points them out before he leaves without a word, trusting you to know the procedure.
Although you don’t feel the same overwhelming sense of stress, the quiet time lets you think a bit more about the situation and why the actions of the elders rub you the wrong way. It’s greed, plain and simple.
Inari may put on a brave face, but what little time you spent with him was enough to let you know that he deeply grieves the death of his wife; he’s got more important things to do than worry about a village in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere that got big-headed because they had one good harvest. You should be consoling him and trying to ease his burden, not pestering him for more when he’s already given so much.
Speaking of gifts, the earth’s bounty has allowed you to regain something of your old build. Rather than terror, appraising your naked body as you wash fills you with a degree of confidence; your muscles are no longer atrophied from hunger, and your skin in no longer stretched so tightly over your ribs. You’re still not much to look at in the traditional sense, but you at least have the dignity of a working man, rather than the pitiful helplessness of an invalid.
As you wash your hands, the calluses on your palm distract you, and you find yourself thinking of Inari. When he embraced you and your rough skin was pressed hard against his delicate fur, you felt happier, even though you had every reason to be angry. You’ve never been good at staying mad, especially at someone who obviously likes you.
The way he nearly broke his neck trying to avoid making eye contact told you all you needed; the shameless flirt suddenly acting like a blushing virgin at the barest suggestion he might have feelings for you basically confirmed that suspicion. Still, there were already a few clues, not the least of which being his eagerness to suck your dick in the first place.
But why didn’t he just ask? Why did he need an excuse or a pretense? Why bother trying to save face by framing it as an order rather than just admitting what he wanted? And what’s more… why did he apologize after it was over?
You dress yourself and walk to the adjoining chamber where Inari’s statue lies, keeping watch over the daily goings-on in the temple. You take a seat, as before, waiting for the monk to begin the ceremony. He looks at you nervously and quickly backs off as he places the vessel of ceremonial wine, clearly anticipating that you’ll just snatch it up and pound it down like the last time.
Instead, you take more measured sips until the vessel is empty. You’re not some reckless insurgent ready to storm the castle gates anymore; you’re an invited guest of Inari’s and you should act as such, even before other humans. The taste of the brew, though bitter, is a bit more tolerable the second time, and you walk to an adjoining bedroom without needing to be reminded. A little smile creeps onto your face as the familiar heat starts pooling in your stomach, and fatigue deadens your limbs. Despite the unfortunate circumstances behind your first meeting, it’ll be nice to see him again.
You wake up to that same softness that greeted you before, but the same darkness does not cloud your senses; instead, a sea of white suspends your head just a few inches above the ground. Did you somehow find your way onto a cloud? As your eyes come back into focus, you feel a gentle but insistent tapping on your shoulder like droplets of water running off the gutters of your roof after it rains.
The baritone rumble of Gintaro’s voice comes, calling out to you. You sit up from where you lie, and turn around to face him, only to realize just what you’d been laying on. Gin sits on his hind legs, tucking his feet underneath him almost like a cat; he pats his meaty thighs suggestively, beckoning you to lay back down. You sit down opposite him, too embarrassed to retake your place.
”Our master shall be with us shortly. He asked me to watch over you while you slept.”
”What’s he doing?” you ask.
Gintaro grimaces, looking at the floor before muttering “What isn’t he doing?”
This certainly isn’t what you expected to hear. Evidently, Inari is running himself ragged between answering to the other gods and fulfilling his own duties. And that’s not even to mention having to also take over his late wife’s role as general god of food. Poor guy…
”Is there any way to help him? There must be something we can do.”
At this, Gin elbows you playfully between the ribs before saying “Spoken like a true apostle. Your first concern is for your deity; all else follows.”
Though his face remains comically serious, he’s evidently delighted to hear you answer so positively; his tails wag as much as he’ll let them, stirring a small breeze inside the large room. However, they stop short when he hears the next thing you have to say.
Trying to put things as delicately as possible, you state ”I don’t really think of him that way.”
You can feel a blush rising in your cheeks despite yourself, and though your change in tone is barely noticeable, a timely twitch of Gin’s ear lets you know he instantly picked up on it. You go on “Nor does he really seem to think of me strictly as his disciple, either.”
Without missing a beat Gin smirks at you and responds ”You mean the blowjob?” as matter-of-factly as he can.
Subtlety obviously having gone out the window you nod, stunned at his brazen reaction; you’d be shocked if you had learned that the man you treated with such reverent worship was getting on his knees for someone far beneath his station. Sensing your confusion, Gintaro explains.
”Kitsune aren’t bound by the same social expectations humans are, Sir Anon. Our most common pastime is seducing humans; sex is just another form of greeting.”
”I smelled cum on his breath after you left, so I couldn’t help putting two and two together. Plus, I caught him masturbating in the next room over.”
” When I walked in, he was looking in a mirror and tracing over the little divots in his fur where you yanked him onto you. He was quite a sight: robe undone, fur unkempt, pupils dilated, markings shining like the sun, rubbing himself like he was trying to start a fire with only one twig. I haven’t seen him that happy in a long time. You must have a really pure heart for him to get that excited.”
Gintaro looks wistful as he says “Not since he and I…” trailing off and letting the silence speak for itself. >You mentally file away that little tidbit for later. You’re hardly qualified to deal with the sort of romantic problems that an immortal might have, but at the same time you feel somewhat indebted to Gin for all his good advice. If he hadn’t said anything to you, you wouldn’t be standing here right now, and neither would Inari, most likely.
When he catches you staring, Gin realizes what he said and hastily gets back on topic. “He even walked around the palace grounds like that for a little while after he finished. He wanted us to know, as his servants, friends, and confidantes. The other gods would have such a fit if they found out he likes it rough…”
”Why didn’t they?”
”Gods are bound to a set of common rules; they are not omniscient or omnipresent when they are among their fellows. Only the great gods are able to break these rules when it is deemed necessary.”
”Great gods? This is the first I’ve heard of them.”
”They’re not often spoken of in your holy texts. Most of them abandoned the world and went into hiding after creating the basic aspects of existence. The closest we have to them is Izanagi and his wife Izanami.”
Gintaro gives you a look of contempt before he continues, eyes narrowing to slits; from what you can tell, he’s not actually mad at you, but upset about the subject matter.
”You know how government works in your village? You have elders in control; people are given power based on seniority. For better or worse, heaven also works like that. It’s bureaucracy all the way up, and it has been all the way since the dawn of creation. That’s one thing you learn once you get to be my age; politics are shit, no matter the era.”
”Granted, Lord Inari likes it, as much as it’s possible to like such a thing anyway. He views all the subterfuge, lies and manipulation as some sort of game. We kitsune consider it a point of pride to serve someone so clever as to be able to make fools of other gods, but do try not to get him started on the subject. You don’t have all century.”
”Speaking of, I should probably explain a bit more about how heaven’s hierarchy works.”
”The first two generations of gods, comprised of 5 individuals, are called the distinguished heavenly kami. Following them, there are 7 generations of other gods, of which Izanagi and his wife are the last. They are responsible for creating the Japanese islands on which you live, and most of the other gods.”
Gintaro’s voice shrinks to a whisper before he adds “Not that they really meant to, you know. They were just fucking around. Literally. It just kind of happened on its own and they took the credit.”
”I’ll spare you the litany of reciting all 8 million gods, but you should keep in mind... that’s not even getting into yōkai, yurei, oni, kappa, tengu, kitsune, tanuki, dragons, and all the other kinds of monsters and spirits roaming around. It’s hard to keep track of, even for us.”
”Lord Inari married in after courting Susano’s younger sister, Lady Uke-Mochi. He’s technically at the same level as Susano and Izanagi’s other immediate children despite the latter’s insistence otherwise. Why, just last week, that rabble-rouser got into a fight with Lady Amaterasu about… ”
Gin goes on like that for a little while, sharing gossip and trying to stall for time until Inari makes his grand appearance. He looks happy to have an opportunity to show his age while he vents about all the goings-on in his day-to-day life; the way he gestures and goes on reminds you of your youth, sitting on your grandfather’s knee and listening to his stories after a hard day’s work on the farm.
The idle chatter is pleasant enough, but as time passes, a look of concern begins growing ever more evident on Gin’s face. Despite his assurances to you that all is well, his tails lash the floor with great frequency, betraying his worry. Finally he stands up and motions to you to do the same.
”I’m going to check on him. You coming?”
”Sure.”
”Wait just a minute. I’m going to get him a snack.”
As he finishes that sentence, Gintaro paws the ground with his right leg and takes off in a sprint faster than you can see. When he returns a moment later, he bears a plate of… fried tofu. You give him a strange look, but he pays it no mind, simply shrugging.
He leads you across the palace to what you can only assume is Inari’s study. He knocks at the paper door, gently enough to only rattle the wooden frame slightly.
”My lord, I brought you some food. ”
”Leave it there, Gin. I’m going to be busy through the night at this rate.” Inari’s voice sounds quiet and hoarse, as though he’s been up all night talking to himself. Gintaro merely sighs before setting the plate of tofu down before the door.
”Of course. And what of Sir Anon? He’s been waiting to meet with you all this time.”
”Show him in. Just give me a few moments to compose myself and I’ll…”
You’ve heard enough. You carefully step over the plate and throw the door open. Gintaro just rests one paw on his hand and looks on, unable to stop himself from smirking. He was clearly hoping you’d do that, even though he can’t say anything to that effect in Inari’s presence.
The room before you is packed floor-to-ceiling with scrolls, messages, bits of paper and vellum and Inari-only-knows what else. In the center of the heap, slumped on a wooden desk is Inari, looking for all the world more like a skinned fox pelt than a deity. His marking are dull, his eyes are glassy, and he seems skeletally thin.
You feel a pang of sympathy as you realize that he reminds you of what you looked like before the crops grew in, and before you can think you rush to embrace Inari as he raises his head to look at you, knocking over countless piles of papers in your scramble.
”Gin, bring the tofu.” You bark before turning back to Inari and asking if he can eat on his own. As Inari shakes his head, you hear Gin walk up behind you while you wait for a response, only to push past you and start taking off his robe. You want to glare at him for acting inappropriately, but a thought occurs to you; Gintaro is the serious type, and there’s no way he’d mess around in the case of a real emergency. Soon enough, you get your explanation.
”Every miracle a god does takes a certain amount of energy, and this is largely given through acts of faith: prayer, offerings, sacrifices, and so on. Because our lord was recently forced to double his workload, the usual amount can’t sustain him as well as it used to.”
”The same way Lord Inari ate some of your qi when you first met, we’re going to let him feed on us to regain his health.”
”But he looks like he can barely move! There’s no way he’s healthy enough for sex.”
”Skin-to-skin contact is enough. Just… hold him for a little while and he’ll do the rest. He just needs a little TLC from his favorite people.”
”The invitation’s open to you too, you know.”
You already knew that Inari liked you, but hearing someone else say it sends a little tingle up your spine. Meanwhile, Gin picks Inari up from his seat and sits down on the floor, using his burly body as a mattress for the fallen god.
Ridiculous though it seems to you, a little bit of life returns to Inari’s eyes as Gin starts the cuddle-session. You wince as you see Gin’s strong hand rub up and down Inari’s emaciated back, tracing over the bumps and ridges of his spinal column and ribs. You strip in turn once you’re sure it’s actually doing some good, and walk over to where they lay.
Gin removes his hand from Inari in order to give you better access, and you straddle him, unsure how to contribute without accidentally hurting him. Slowly as you can manage, you gently add your weight to Inari’s back, pressing him a little harder into Gin’s chest and thinking happy thoughts.
You instinctively start back off when Inari starts to shiver at your touch, but Gin grabs you before you can pull away and you hesitantly sink back into the embrace, putting your chin in the crook of Inari’s neck. You can feel his heart tremble through the thin layer of flesh and bone that separates the two of you from one another, fluttering like a leaf on the wind.
As time passes, Inari’s little tremors grow stronger until his back convulses and heaves between you. By the point he can move on his own again, he’s wordlessly arching his back, pressing his snout into the meat of Gin’s pectoral and digging his paws into the other fox’s ribs. It’s not until you see little streaks of moisture in Gin’s fur that you realize the god has been crying.
For his part, Gintaro responds to Inari’s weeping with the tender ministrations of an experienced confidante; he doesn’t flinch or pull away for a moment no matter how tightly Inari grips him, whispering gentle encouragements despite his own evident physical discomfort. The look in Gin’s eyes is one of pure affection unbridled by convention or medium; he practically radiates with both physical and emotional warmth for his master, friend, and lover.
The façade of perfection and control that Inari worked so hard to present to you shatters all at once, and you are overcome with feelings of compassion for his situation; you completely understand why the fox god never would’ve wanted you to see him like this, and also why Gintaro thought you needed to. When you get back to the village, you’re telling the elders off the second you see them; they’re clearly asking too much.
You feel a little uncomfortable taking part in such an emotionally intimate scene; Gintaro and Inari must have known each other for centuries in order to be able to share this level of trust and confidence in one another, and any outside observer would say you didn’t belong, plain as day.
However, as these words are formed in your mind Gin raises his arms, clasping them tightly around your back. He shakes his head, locking eyes with you for just a moment as Inari’s tails feebly twitch, clasping at your sides as desperately as his paws grasp at Gin’s. For whatever reason, both of them want you here, and for the moment that’s all that matters.
You sink into the cuddle-pile, gently nuzzling Inari’s back as Gintaro kneads yours. From up close, you have a better opportunity to appreciate their physical presence, rather than just their attractiveness: their smell, the weight of their touch, the sound of their breathing and heartbeat are all on display to you.
In contrast to Inari’s erratic shuddering and sobbing, Gin’s chest rises and falls with astonishing regularity; you can tell from the residual pulse that you can feel through his paws he’s perfectly calm, as though this were a regular occurrence for him. Inari’s heart slowly takes on a regular rhythm again as the minutes pass and he starts to regain his old figure and mien.
The mingling scents of the two foxes are just as intense as the embrace in which they currently hold you; your spine tingles as you try to parse out the different elements of the pleasant odor by which you are surrounded. Inari’s body smells faintly like a forest after spring rain, unearthly morning dew perfumed with flower petals emanating from him the same way light flows from his markings when he’s excited. In contrast, Gin’s smell betrays his bygone origins as an ordinary fox; the prolonged period of physical contact has left him sweaty, the rich musk of his raw masculinity harmonizing with Inari’s.
A wave of embarrassment washes over you once you realize it, but the warmth and pressure are causing quite a stir in your loins; after going untended for so long, your manhood twitches and grows hard, forcing its way down between your legs until it slides itself between Inari’s buttocks, the tip resting comfortably between his thighs. It throbs hotly, leaking pre-seed enhanced by the fertility-god’s own blessing; you want to pull away, but something about this feels right, a sensation enhanced by Inari wriggling and grinding against your length.
Gin lets out a sharp intake of breath as he feels Inari pushing back against you, and it’s not hard to imagine that his own cock is throbbing just as hard wrapped in the sea of white fur between their stomachs. You both start gently humping away at Inari, spurred on by his silent exhortation; he’s apparently healthy enough for sex by his own admission.
You and Gin both take the opportunity to pepper Inari’s neckline with kisses, drawing ragged moans from the frisky fox. Though Inari isn’t quite in tip-top shape, you can feel his thighs thicken around your member, increasing the sensation with each subsequent thrust and rapidly pushing you closer to climax. Gin doesn’t look to be faring much better keeping up with Inari’s appetite (sexual or otherwise), his dark eyes half-lidded with pleasure as the mixed fluids mat the fur of his chest and belly.
You reach out into the tangle of white fur and tweak a nipple, but you can’t tell whose until Inari answers your aggression with a howl and a deluge of semen which overflows the crevice between the three of you and starts pooling on the floor. Gin orgasms next, throwing his head back in a deep huffing growl, letting the jets of cum land all over his face and open mouth; by the time he’s finished his face is well and truly bukkake’d, the dark marks on his fur all-but painted white by his prodigious virility. You cum last, adding your own comparatively meagre offering to the pool in which the three of you lie, falling backwards with a thud and allowing Inari to dismount Gin as you recover. You’re already feeling the telltale pelvic ache that follows an intense ball-emptying round of sex.
As Inari finds the strength to stand, you marvel at just how quickly he managed to restore himself, but you’re practically knocked off your feet as the semen pool begins shrinking beneath him and he keeps right on going. The room fills with a familiar scarlet glow as Inari partakes of your semen; he’s intent on healing himself and cleaning up the room at the same time.
As the spots clear from your eyes, you notice Inari is looking back at you and gauging your reaction as his body thickens. Despite yourself, you feel your cock rise back to attention as you watch him grow. Inari’s fur ripples as he gains in muscle-mass, taking on a more traditional heroic build like Gintaro’s before packing on the pudge as the last bits of the puddle disappear inside him; with a salacious grin, he takes a hand and squeezes a bubbly ass-cheek, fingering his cum-drenched asshole as he bends over to help Gin up with the other hand. His meaning is abundantly clear: “Next time, we’re going balls deep.” As Inari straightens up, he and Gin both turn to you, smiling. But given that you were looking around ass-height before they turned to face you, you can’t help but get an eyeful of their dongs.
For a moment, you thought Gin’s cock was one of Inari’s markings, an errant splash of red on an otherwise pale body; it’s long enough to point to his chest, kept aloft by an unseen force despite his refractory period. As the pointed tip recedes back into his sheath, you realize his balls are proportionally large; it’s hard to guess their exact size because of the thick fur, but there’s no way they’re smaller than oranges, even empty.
Inari is similarly impressive, although his genitals look a little small for his new bulk; if you didn’t have Gin’s for comparison, the only thing you’d really be able to tell is that it’s significantly bigger than yours. Given that he came first, only the slightest hint of Inari’s tip pokes out of his sheath, disguising his true dimensions; however, the massive pair of red-streaked furry orbs below give him a distinctly tanuki-like appearance in light of his small-looking dick. He blushes cutely as he catches your eyes lingering there, covering his sheath with both hands and making his balls swing every which way.
As fatigue begins to sweep over you and your knees buckle, Inari abandons his modesty and rushes to your side with Gintaro following close behind. As you fall, he catches you, gently cradling you as you go prone in his arms. While you’re still conscious, he projects himself into your mind to make sure you can hear him.
”You don’t need the potion if you want to meet again. Think of me, and I will be there. Reach out, and I will touch you. Call, and I will answer.” The last words you hear before everything goes black are little more than a whisper, even with his voice speaking directly in your head; it’s almost as though he’s afraid to say it to your face.
“Love me, and I will return it 10-fold.”
After you wake up and recover from the hangover, you are free to wander about as you will; the monk has little to say to you, and because the results of the ceremony won’t be determined for some months, so neither do the other villagers. You walk back home with a little added sway in your step, feeling satisfied and happy after your sexual encounter, though a slight feeling of discomfort takes its place in your groin.
As you get home and shut the door behind you, you find that your genitals have enlarged again, surprising absolutely nobody; it’s so patently obvious that you don’t even need to take off your undergarments to tell. In hindsight, you probably shouldn’t have teased Inari about his balls, because it looks like your latest bout of growth was centered straight there.
Though they aren’t nearly as large as either of the two foxes, your burgeoning testes have still swollen well beyond what could be expected for a human; they’d look more at home between a goat’s legs or even a bull’s flanks than between a human’s thighs.
The pendulous orbs strain your fundoshi to its limit, vast swathes of ball-flesh visible peeking out through the sides of the overstretched garment. You untie it and feel an immediate sense of relief as your balls are freed and the cloth falls away.
Hesitantly, you reach out and touch one, rolling it around in your palm before giving it a gentle squeeze. In response your penis immediately disgorges a gout of pre without even a twitch; not only are you larger and more productive, you’ve got a whole new erogenous zone out of the deal. This is going to make day-to-day life a little more cumbersome, but if that spurt of pre is anything to go by, you could probably irrigate your fields with cum if you felt so inclined.
You spend the rest of the evening trying to acclimate to your new assets, and find they alter your life in small but noticeable ways. You have to walk with a wider stance to avoid jostling them too much, and when you sit you have to be careful not to sit on them, but it’s still manageable. It’s even a little funny watching your massive sack dangle off the chair as you sit down. You make a mental note not to squat when anyone is looking so as not to flash them your goods or drag your nuts across the floor.
As you start to fall asleep, you purse your lips and nip at the air, thinking of Inari’s words. You feel his whiskers tickle your face as he kisses you back and wishes you goodnight. This is going to be interesting…
You spend the next few weeks just idly playing around with the ability, running your hands through Inari’s fur, breathing little puffs of air in his ears and listening to him growl in frustration. You also spend plenty of time just getting to know him better, reciprocating the interest he showed you when you first met.
Plenty of times, Inari projects his voice in your head just to let you know how his day is going or check in on yours; the conversation topics are many and varied, from the harrowing intricacies of divine politics and religious philosophy to things as mundane as romance or little bits of trivia.
You feel like you could spend hours each day just talking to Inari or Gin about anything at all; they’re about the only people these days that make you feel welcome and loved, although you can’t quite replicate the level of affection they gave you in the bedroom.
The other villagers have taken notice of your success and have become increasingly eager to talk to you as well; it’s painfully obvious they just want a share of the wealth you’ve accumulated, so you never really buy into their attempts to make friends. You’re not rude per-se, but when you make it clear you’re not going to give them anything they suddenly lose interest. It’s not like they could compare to your present company anyway.
Even so, it’s clear that Inari’s duty is a weighty one, and he sometimes responds to you with that same haggard fatigue in his voice as he did when you and Gintaro found him collapsed in his study. You rack your brains trying to come up with a long-term solution to the fundamental imbalance of the universe caused by Uke-Mochi’s death, but it’s all a bit beyond you until a solution presents itself. One of the young bachelors of the village has found a wife, and they announce soon after that they’re expecting a baby. It’s a cause for celebration in itself, but it gets you thinking.
Marriage. Children. It’s a wonder it didn’t occur to your sooner. Inari getting remarried would certainly help ease his workload. He and Gin are basically married in all but name anyway, so it’s not like it’d be that far of a leap. He’s the only likely candidate that you’re aware of other than yourself, but you wouldn’t want to be too presumptuous.
You propose the idea to Inari one night, and you can practically feel him blushing through your mental link. He tells you that ascending someone to godhood, or even having a pup or two is a good idea to correct the universal imbalance and split the workload, but it still has massive repercussions in the world at large and takes a lot of preparation. Even so, as his phantom paw starts rubbing your bulge, you know he intends you to be a part of it.
The real surprise comes when you start daydreaming of him during a morning wank session, and he announces to you that he’s ready to begin his preparations.
You were playing over the memory of Inari’s blowjob, and sure enough, you got the sensation of his throat wrapping itself around your member; you hovered your hand above your cocktip, holding him in place as he lapped at you while you laid back and enjoyed his tongue-work. As your balls drew up in climax, you felt the fluid spilling from your urethra, but it never hit the ground, swallowed away by your invisible partner. You spoke to Inari shortly after, and the phlegmy timbre in his voice confirmed that it was all very real; he thanked you for your offering and went off to fulfill his duties.
That’s all the go-ahead you needed to make a habit of it; it’s not like your over-productive balls would let you go a full 24 hours without ejaculating at least once, so you might as well get some use out of them. You take Inari’s throat in as many positions as you can think of, humping away at the air whenever you get a spare moment; sometimes you drape your fat nuts over his canine skull and teabag him as you saw in and out of his throat, and other times you just masturbate and make him sit on his hind legs like a begging dog trying to catch the semen in his open mouth.
He never once complains, no matter how frequent or how rough your couplings become; in-fact, he seems to be loving every second of it. The situation has progressed to the point where if you don’t grab him and yank him onto you first thing in the morning, he’ll start sucking you off in your sleep and try to finish you before you can even get your pants off. As time goes by, he even doubles up of his own volition and takes you in his mouth 2 or 3 times per day, but you’re always happy to provide more seed for him. The only odd thing is that Inari never seems willing to let you reciprocate.
Stranger still, though your genitals do not grow any further you do feel yourself changing a little bit at a time; your body becomes more muscular, hairier, and you even grow a few inches taller. Calluses soften, blemishes vanish overnight, and even old scars start to fade; by the time winter rolls around, you look less like a dirt-poor peasant farmer and more like a bastard son of some noble house, distinctly more handsome and better-groomed than your peers.
One rainy night, Inari calls to you as you fall asleep and you wake up back in his palace, only to be greeted with an unfamiliar sight; Gintaro stands before you, but his physique has changed for the fluffier. His winter coat makes his already significant bulk all the more noticeable, but you can tell he sports a very definite curvature to his form that wasn’t there before; a musclegut really ties his whole “ex-warrior turned diplomat” look together, and you nod approvingly as he greets you.
Despite his best attempts to be businesslike, Gin’s thrashing tails betray his true nature; he’s clearly flustered by his appearance, a hand rubbing unconsciously at his pudgy stomach or touching his face whenever he thinks you’re looking away. Whether it’s because Inari has been feeding him too much tofu, or “feeding” him something else entirely, he looks more than a little uncomfortable in his own body.
Gin takes you back towards what you can only assume to be Inari’s private bedchamber. He gives you a little wink as he opens the door, but does not follow you into the adjoining room; whatever Inari wants you for is to be just between the two of you, this time. When Gin’s eye reopens, it flashes red for just an instant, but he turns around and waves you off, stumbling away into the garden.
The room is dark, lit only by the glow of Inari’s markings and eyes; you can tell he’s nude because you can see all of them. His voice is husky with desire, but you do not detect any motion from him as you approach his bedside; he takes you by the hand and pulls you down on top of him, willing your clothes out of existence as he does, clearly impatient to begin. By the time you hit the fabric and feel the luxurious softness of the sheets, Inari has swept you into a deep hug and started tracing little circles around your shoulder blades, tickling your skin with his fur.
”Are you ready? It’s time. Time for your ascension.”
Your heart is racing, and you feel a little tremor in your voice, a manifestation of the little niggle of doubt that’s been with you ever since you first set foot in heaven.
”Are you sure it should be me?”
Inari sighs. “Anon, I wouldn’t dare leave you out in the cold after all our time together; it was your plan, after all. You’re the one that was ready to claw your way out of hell and storm my castle because you thought it would do some good in the world. You’re the one that helped save my life from Susano’s rampage, the one that helped Gin nurture me back to health when I was stressed to my limits, the one that got to know me and love me and spend time with me without once thinking to ask anything in return. If you don’t deserve to be at my side after all that, who does?”
”Now I want you to look at me.”
You oblige, and Inari’s eye-lights flare for a moment as he meets your gaze. You want to look away, but he catches your chin and holds it in place as he begins his speech.
“There are so few people I feel comfortable relying on; really, it’s only you and Gin that I can trust to take control. But I never want you to feel like you don’t deserve to be with me because of who I am; you’ve always been able to look past who I was and treat me as an equal so it shouldn’t be any problem for you once we’re actually equals. It took Gin a long while to get used to, but I’m sure you’ll manage.”
”When the three of us are together, there are no gods. There are no mortal peasants. There are no former yōkai trying to atone for an immortal life of crime. There are lovers and friends, and that is all that there need be.”
”Wait, Gin was-”
”Yes.” Inari says, nodding somberly as he cuts you off. “I’ve offered to remove the scars and the black marks several times, but Gin wants to keep them as a reminder of what he was before I found him. Even though it’s been centuries, I don’t think he’s ever forgiven himself. I don’t know if he ever will.”
”This isn’t really the time for it, but I guess you should know.”
”Was there anything else?”
You shake your head, steeling yourself for what’s to come.
”Good. But first… ” he intones, savoring the pause. “We have to build a cock worthy of a god. Something that suits your personality. I think something resembling an oni’s iron club would be most fitting for you, but feel free to give me suggestions or tell me to stop if you don’t like how it feels.”
A little jet of pre escapes your cockslit as Inari bucks his hips against you, roughly rubbing your still-soft schlong to life as his own red-rocket leaves its sheath. You quickly reach full mast, and Inari kisses you, rolling on top of you as his cock grinds hotly against your own. His flat tongue darts around your mouth, tickling your insides and leaving little sparks of pleasure in its wake; despite the fact that his mouthparts don’t allow him to kiss you properly, he’s more than found a way to get around it.
Inari breaks the kiss and shimmies his way down to your crotch, resting his hand on your pubic bone for leverage. As he buries his face in your groin he lets out a breathy sigh, followed by a deep inhale as he plops his head down on your sack like a pillow and takes in your musk.
He shudders lustily as he rubs at your balls on his face, and you feel them burgeoning with liquid weight as he laps and nibbles at them; you cannot help but moan as they swell under Inari’s touch, forcing you to splay your legs ever wider to accommodate their monstrous girth. Your pre-cum isn’t so much dripping or leaking as it is flooding out, inundating you in the incredible force of your own supernatural virility.
Inari cradles your inhuman balls with a reverence most reserved for worship, giving them one last fondle before he gets up, straddling your cock. His cheeks are slick the first moment he comes into contact with your tip, and he squats just out of reach, kissing your glans with his pliant asshole.
He slowly lowers himself onto you, letting gravity do most of the work while his body adjusts to the sudden insertion; a low squelching sound can be heard as his hips descend and your cock invades Inari’s insides, and you can feel the pre leaking back out around your shaft.
Inari’s balls make contact with your stomach long before he’s fully impaled, creating a sensation of warmth pooling in your gut; his cock dangles in front of your face, but he does not motion to you to suck at him, momentarily lost in the sensation of your dick inside of him. The fox takes your hand and places it on his lower stomach, and you’re astonished to feel your own tumescent length throbbing through his abdominal walls.
”How big do you want it?” he croons, jerking himself off as his ass ripples around you.
”As big as you’re willing to take.” You grunt, eager to unload the unbearable pressure between your thighs.
”Unstoppable cock meets insatiable asshole, eh? I can work with that. Just don’t be afraid to really ream me with it; if I’m still coherent afterwards, you haven’t fucked me hard enough.”
”Would it really be that big?” you say, a hint of trepidation in your voice as you consider the kind of dick that would be necessary to leave someone at Inari’s level of perversion totally insensate.
”I’ve been going out of my mind with lust just blowing you every day. I’m basically addicted; I don’t think I could go back to just subsisting on the energy of the universe and the faith of my followers. If you let me, I’ll really go out of control. I’d spend the rest of eternity with your cock inside me, if circumstances would allow.”
”If it means that much, go ahead. Just think of it as my blessing to you, as one god to another. As a husband to his wife” you respond.
”Wives.” Inari says playfully. “Gin and I are equally committed to you, but I wouldn’t say no to you taking more wives in the future if you should feel so inclined. As he told you before, kitsune aren’t big on human social traditions. Besides, I think a cock that magnificent demands more adoration than a single person can give; you deserve a harem.”
A wild look somewhere between uncontrollable lust and megalomania sweeps over Inari’s muzzle as he continues, taking you further than you ever dared dream was possible. By the time he’s finished, it’s little wonder that a former demon like Gin has such respect for him; he’s not so much two steps ahead of you as he is vanishing into the horizon at full speed, running away with his plans.
”Can you picture it now? Legions of powerful supernatural beings waiting on you hand and foot, jockeying for your favor and draining your nearly-endless balls for hours until you finally run dry? Don’t you think it’d be hot to see us waddling around with swollen stomachs, heavy with pups and cum, a physical testament to your sexual prowess? Wouldn’t it be the perfect way of announcing your ascension to make me present myself before the grand assembly of gods with a fresh load dripping from my ass as your kits paw at my stomach from the inside? I’d say we can easily add another 8 million gods, given enough time between the three of us; we’ll take power from the undeserving by pure numerical advantage, not even to mention the demons and other monsters that’d flock to our side.”
You stare Inari in the face, utterly bewildered by his words. From the way he makes it sound, he’s been thinking of this for quite a while, and although you can’t quite parse out the full extent of his schemes, they’re no-doubt rooted in a deep and abiding love for you. Even so, you’re a little put off by the prospect of jumping headlong into a sustained political struggle against other immortals, and even more so at the notion of your potential children being used as pawns in one of Inari’s mind-games or power-struggles. Inari takes notice of the way you’re looking at him and dials his enthusiasm back, looking more restrained.
“I’m sorry for subjecting you to all that; I tend to ramble on when I’m excited, especially when I get in the mood for political subterfuge. I just wanted to present one scenario for how this all could go once you’ve got a few millennia of your own under your belt. You’re 1000 years too early to help me clean up that mess.”
”I understand it’ll be a big transition; it’s up to you to ultimately decide what you want out of our relationship. If you’d rather it be the three of us, a full harem, or even if you want to pursue strict monogamy, that’s all fine.
”In all seriousness, though? Your presence in our lives has already been the greatest blessing that Gin or I could ask for.” Inari says, gazing romantically down at you. Without breaking his stare, he licks his jowls in anticipation, and his eyes sparkle a bit brighter as he says “but a big hard cock to share between us certainly doesn’t hurt”.
The room spins and your perspective inverts itself, leaving Inari on the bottom, tails and legs splayed; his large balls sit on his Adonis belt, smothering the base of his dick and giving you unimpeded access to his hungry hole. It’s time for you to take charge.
Inari closes his eyes, rubbing you through his stomach, and you screw your eyes right behind him as the changes start to take place and a wave of pleasure sweeps over you. You feel your dick lengthen, snaking its way through Inari’s intestines until it’s butting against his ribcage; just when you think it’s stopped, the growth switches direction, thickening until you feel the hard upper limit of Inari’s pelvic bones constricting you.
Inari’s stomach is grossly distended, his organs forcibly shoved out of the way by the volume of your massive member; he evidently wasn’t joking around when he said he intended to make your dick resemble an iron club. It’s too huge to rightfully be called a penis; too big, too thick, too heavy, and too rough. It’s more like a battering ram.
This is what Inari has always wanted. This is what happened when you gave him free reign to do with your body as he pleased. This obscene, absurd endowment is a crystallization of Inari’s perception of you; an unstoppable masculine force meant to fill him to his core, dominate his every waking moment, and bring him more happiness than his body can handle. A cock that would permanently break a lesser being than he, and send any man or demon screaming into the night, whether in pleasure or terror. This is what it means to have a cock fit for a god.
You draw yourself back, leaving just the tip inside and Inari bites his paw in anticipation; you can do nothing but oblige him now. There is no give and take, no sweet nothings or pleasured sighs, no loosening or stretching or waiting. Everything that you’ve become accustomed to as an aspect of sex has been obliterated by your newfound size. All you can do is fuck, and fuck roughly: rutting, reaming, and ravaging are your only options.
Inari’s maw opens wordlessly on your first thrust, although that may be because your colossal cock forced the air from his lungs on its way in. The sensation is appropriately intense for you too; Inari’s entire body milks you for semen, and his sodden walls grip you with as much force as they can manage.
As you pulverize his prostate, Inari’s cock shoots a rope of cum which lands straight in his open mouth and he gurgles happily, unable to do anything but lie there and take it.
Inari himself might want you inside, but his body is fighting with you every inch; as you try to build a steady rhythm, he finds his voice again, words lapsing into yips and howls as you struggle to sheathe yourself again and again. His markings flare brighter as you bottom out inside him, and a volley of semen splatters Inari’s face and the surrounding area, the thick liquid making the surface shine in the low light.
You begin leaning down, looming over Inari to get better leverage so that you can really put your weight into your thrusts. With every thunderous slap of your balls against Inari’s buttocks, his markings glow brighter, and his cries grow louder.
By Inari’s second orgasm, you can see the details of the room clearly, by the third it’s like you have your own indoor sun and you have to close your eyes for fear of going blind. Still you keep pumping away, devoting yourself wholly to the vicious act of lovemaking even as Inari screams himself hoarse.
Things continue like that for a while until feel the pressure build to a fever pitch; you can practically feel it churning inside of you, seeking an exit as the million tiny tails of your sperm massage your sac from within, driving you over the edge.
You give one final irrepressible thrust, biting down on Inari’s shoulder as you do. You feel his stomach convulse in time with your dick and the inner dam bursts, pouring forth its torrent of spooge. The resulting deluge is so thick that it’s almost solid, reminding you more of mortar gluing together a castle’s foundation than anything resembling cum.
Slowly and inexorably you are pushed away from Inari by the pressure in his swelling stomach, and you flop backwards, letting your softening dick begin its long journey back out. By the time the head reaches Inari’s hole you feel like you can open your eyes again; your cock slides free with a wet pop and you survey your handiwork with a satisfied grin.
The first thing that you notice is that Inari’s asshole recovered remarkably fast; even after the furious pounding you gave him, only a little bit of seed oozes out from his formerly-gaped rectal ring. Your eyes travel up the curvature of his belly, which gurgles loudly as it tries to process your massive fluid deposit; the skin beneath Inari’s fur is a light pink from the intense stretching, and his markings take on a slightly different shape, displaced by the additional volume in his midsection.
As you get around to his side (dragging your massive sack with you), you can see that Inari is plastered to the bed, mouth agape, coated from the chest up in his own fluids. As you meet his eyes he coughs in preparation to speak, letting loose a cum-scented belch; the fox’s expression is totally blissful, drunk on pleasure, and little breathless giggles escape his mouth as his eyes flit towards you and then back to himself.
The giggles build into a wheezing roar as Inari tries to sit up and the inertia of his swollen middle rolls him back down into place. He mimes the dimensions of your genitals and then his own belly, kicking and flailing at the sheer absurdity of it all; eventually you work your way behind him and help him sit up, and he leans against you for support until the laughter stops, shivering every so often as he grows in your embrace.
”So, how’re you feeling?”
”Me? I’m not the one who just got their organs pounded to a pulp.”
”I’m just a little weak from expending so much power. You’re the one whose entire existence is getting turned upside down and overwritten. I’m not even sure how Gin’s handling the change yet, and he’s farther along than you.”
”Don’t you feel it? You mind expanding? The influx of faith flowing through your body? The power to make miracles and alter the world at a whim? Try reaching out and making something happen. Anything at all.”
The first thing that comes to you is getting your genitals back to normal and fully regaining your mobility. You concentrate your mind’s eye wholly on your dick, feeling it in its totality from the weight, the size, the vasculature, the skin, to the cum-laden spheres hanging below it, already achingly full despite your huge release mere minutes prior. You push against the idea of your genitals as they are, willing them to shrink back to a manageable size.
Your face goes red with the effort, but by the time you reopen your eyes, they’re only a few inches smaller. Inari snickers at your predicament, but begrudgingly places a paw on your bulge to help you out; by the time he’s finished, you’re back to your original size from before he began enhancing you.
You’re a little sad to see them go, but the weight off your back is immediate and palpable. You stand up and lunge triumphantly, marveling at how light you feel and how you don’t have to worry about your balls banging into whatever surface happens to be nearby. However, a sudden shift in weight pulls you from your celebration. Inari’s hand is between your legs, pulling you gently downward.
”I don’t mind taking the weight off for you but I’d advise you get used to changing size on-demand. I got used to sucking down huge loads 3 times a day, so you need to be prepared for that.”
”Speaking of, you should probably head back. It’s almost dawn, and neither of us can really afford to be missed. Just try not to attract too much attention to yourself while you figure out your powers over the next few decades. If something strange happens without your meaning to, I’ll take the blame; most of the other gods will just brush it off as the usual divine capriciousness.”
You will yourself back into the space where your physical body lay just a few hours ago, manifesting yourself back into corporeal form through sheer force of will. The first rosy rays of dawn peek through the clouds as you wake up from your long night in heaven, feeling reborn. You notice that the sunrise is especially beautiful through the iridescent veil of raindrops, and the scent of fresh earth calms and enlivens your spirit.
Inari’s voice sounds in your ear and he gives you a good-morning kiss, gesturing grandly to the dewy horizon. “This is what we call a fox’s wedding.”
At Inari’s suggestion, you live out the rest of your “mortal” life at an ordinary pace, with not much changes in the immediate; you still take walks after dark, and you still spend more time on the farm than in the temple, but life never seems to wear on you as it did before. No matter how long or how hard you work, your hands never bleed or crack or blister; Inari shows you how to make them appear that way, but for the most part, nobody really knows you well enough to take notice.
Your popularity surges as you start donating your excess rice to your neighbors; you figure it’s only the right thing to do since you know you’ll be fine going without. Eventually they come to accept your eccentricities, and you start to make friends, of a certain sort. It might’ve really been true that all this time, the only thing you needed to do was to meet them hallway instead of indulging your paranoia that they were all out to get you. But you couldn’t have known that until you started reading their minds.
People are, whether they’re aware of it or not, entrusting you with the deepest and most desperate desires of their hearts, so you figure you might as well try to make them comfortable giving you the information of your own volition. It feels good to be trusted, to be wanted and relied upon, even if the people you talk to will never really know the terms on which you’re engaging them. You feel a little pang of loss that you’ll never be able to truly return their feelings of camaraderie as an equal, but you suppose that’s just one of the problems of being a god.
Even the animals seem happier with you around, though they seem to catch on fairly quickly that you’re a god; everywhere you turn, there’s a proffered paw, an offering of fresh meat from a pack of wolves or some rare plants courtesy of a wild boar. A few deer even offer to let you ride on their back on the rare days when you tire out. Your neighbors apparently take no issue with your many pets, and Inari always makes sure that they’re properly compensated for their good deeds.
Inari and Gin are with you every step of the way, giving you advice and keeping your company the same way you did to them during your mortal life. Inari has gotten a bit more comfortable showing his intellectual skill and fantastic imagination, but it’s always tempered by Gin’s more grounded viewpoint. They are the rock to which you cling, and the foundation on which your new life is built.
The separation from them is a little difficult, but you still talk to one or both of them every day; things have calmed for Inari once Gin was formally recognized as a god, and both of them are happy to spend whatever spare time they have with you. For a long while, the daily blowjobs are the only respite you get from your training.
The hardest thing is the awareness of everything that’s wrong in the world, and the totality of the miserable circumstances you’re fighting against. Sadness, pain, injustice, and death surround you on all sides, and with no end in sight, and every time you expand your perception and practice making miracles, you feel the unbearable weight of it all. It is the price you must pay for your place among the gods, and the delights that heaven offers; you have never before felt the responsibility that comes with power to such a degree.
Some nights, it’s worse than others; the first time you heard the voice of a murder victim crying out to anyone that would listen, you stayed up the whole night crying into Gin’s chest. A few times, your miracles even go completely taken for granted, and you get nothing in return, with no lessons learned or faith restored. But, surrounded by love and support from the two foxes, each fresh failure becomes a hand on your back, pushing you towards your new purpose. It’s worth it; the rush of happiness you feel when you intervene and save someone for the first time is proof enough that you can change things, however slowly.
As the years pass, Inari also shows you how to pretend to age; by the time you’re ready to be an elder, you’ve gotten a much better handle on changing your shape. By the time you have to attend your own funeral, it’s become surreal how easy it is to detach yourself when you need to. A part of you wants so badly to spring back to life and tell everyone that you’re fine, to quiet the crying children you helped raise, to hug the young men and women that looked to you as a father.
Instead, you lay there, pretending to be dead, the same way you once pretended to be a person. As they inter your body, you feel a nervous energy sweep over you, as you realize you’re free. Free of the lies and pretenses. Free to permanently rejoin the men you love. Free, after decades of living for others, to live for yourself.
You manifest yourself in the room overlooking Inari’s palace garden, the same place where you punched Susano so many years ago. Inari and Gin join you shortly after, and you collapse into a pile of shared warmth, mutually enjoying the comfortable silence. It’s a little harder to tell Gin apart from Inari now that he’s got his own red markings, but the eyebrows give him away every time.
You spend the first few days just catching up and getting introduced to everyone. Lady Amaterasu is particularly receptive to Inari’s relationship with you; she announces that she intends to take a human lover of her own, and have him crowned emperor. Lord Tsukuyomi’s reaction is more muted, but you can’t tell if his apathy is genuine or staged; according to Inari he’s tight-lipped and mysterious, even among the other gods.
Lord Izanagi and Susano are both notably absent, which Lady Amaterasu happily explains is due to the former finally punishing the latter for his misdeeds; it took much grousing on her part and Inari’s, but the last straw was Susano murdering one of her attendants and throwing a dead horse through her loom. In a way, it’s nice to see that some things never change.
Things are still busy, but the three of you rise to meet each new challenge as you adjust into an approximation of a normal life. You work, play, and mate as frequently as you please; now that you can truly stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them, the weight of the world is not nearly so heavy anymore.