Trial Of Yoshimune

Chapter 5. Jun

How an inugami made is terrifying yet simple thing to achieve. You take a puppy and brutally torture it, kill it, and then bury it to the grounds you wish for it to protect while following the ritual of binding to force the angry spirit into submission.

How an inugami achieves a godlime status is even easier. It devours its master.

That is exactly what Shumei did. Shumei, also known as the Great Dog spirit Dai Inu or the Dog General Inu no Taishou, who had now the control over the Edo-shin of Kanto. Other dogs followed his lead happily. And over time he mated with a female inugami who was shortly known as Hime. The two had a daughter whom they named Jun.

Jun was the light of her people, the hope of better tomorrow. Her aura was accepting and healing, it drew others towards her and she became soon known as the healing dog Goddess. She learned the ways of hunt and leading from her father, expected to take over after he'd pass, while her mother taught her the lady ship. Everything seemed to be just fine.

But.... Everything changed...

Shumei arrived back from his patrol one day with his side bleeding and decorated by bloody teeth marks, wolf teeth. Jun yelped as the male fell down without reopening his eyes.

The Okami Daio arrived in hurry, asking how his friend was, and told them the news. "One of my own has become corrupt. He killed several of us and leapt to this way", he then told them of the hatred the wolf felt towards humanity and how he planned to wipe out the whole human race. Shumei opened his eyes briefly and muttered about a new god being chosen before he once again passed out. Just as the dogs attempted to awaken the great dog, they felt how the air pressure changed suddenly and some sort of power blast went over them.

Okami Daio blinked in surprise as he heard the howl of his corrupt kin, dashing towards the sound. Shumei hoarsely ordered his tribe to go after the wolf and they complied, even Jun albeit she wasn't too sure of leaving her father.

As she left, the male dog got up and walked away from thekr cove, knowing that next time he'd be there, he'd slaughter his kin. He stopped by the spring and started to feel how his bones ached and mind screamed in agony, yet he wouldn't leave out a single howl nor a growl.

He was determined to fight the corruption as long as he could, silently wishing that his daughter could end him if he failed.

Jun ran after the Wolf King, her mind raising along her as she felt that horrible knot form into her stomach. She was afraid, so very afraid.

The dog clan stopped at the end of the forest, their eyes widening in disbelief. A human. A mere spirit of a human, was taking on the corrupt wolf with his bare hands.

Jun had to shake her head couple times before she'd finally believe her own eyes.

Left, right, right and left again, the human's fists bounded against the enormous wolf. He was injured, she could see it, she wanted to go to his aid, but something told her not to. As she stared, the wolf leader went to the shrine above the hill and took his human form, but Jun didn't care about it now, she couldn't.

She was terrified by what she saw. The man was bleeding and so was the beast, but neither of them would stop. From the looks of it, this had been going on for a long time too. The two opponents withdrew to breathe in air, they were exhausted, that much was clear. Then they lunged once again towards each other. And the bloody battle continued.

Jun happened to look at their feet and was shocked of what she saw; where the wolf stepped, the grass and plant life died, but where the human stepped, it grew back up. Wondering what it could mean, she looked up at the moon, but Tsukuyomi was too busy observing the fight too from his seating in the moon. Hours passed and the two grew more and more tired.

Finally they were apart again. The man readied his fist for another hit, his eyes determined and face serious. The wolf bore his teeth, growling another challenge to the man, telling him to back off. But neither would budge.

Unexpectedly, the man's fist caught on fire making the spectators blink in surprise. "He still had that much ki left?" Jun gasped while her brothers and sisters could only gape mouths full open.

The bit was perfect, they could hear the sound of the opponent's bone breaking from the impact, the sound was disgusting yet somehow satisfying to hear. The corrupt wolf caught on fire and was devoured by it. From the corner of her eye, Jun saw that Tsukuyomi nodded in acceptance and moved the power of the wolf into the man, who fell onto his knees, gasping for air while glutching his head.

It felt like an eternity for the man to get back up. His scent had changed from a man into a full fledged yokai. Jun's eyes met with the amber gaze and something passed between them. Recognising each other as equals, the two young leaders turned away and started to travel to their own places.

Upon the return of the dog clan, Jun immediately noticed that something was right and told the females to take their pups and run to the new shrine. It wasn't soon after her order that Shumei attacked them and tore apart half of the inugamis. The other half leaped to safety, running for their lives while as if Enma Daio himself was after them.

Jun was the last one to leave, barking and growling at her own father, who'd been clearly taken over by the corruption by now. For some reason, Shumei couldn't get close to her and she was able to trade few blows, but that was that. As she was ready to attack once more, a large wolf from an unknown clan leapt to the scene, growling to the former god.

Jun took this as her que and left the stranger in order to look for her pack, after getting the look that told her that it was fine for her to go.

She arrived to the shrine and counted the clan or what was left of it. To her grief, only third had survived. Jun jolted as she felt someone standing behind her and turned around, she came to be nearly nose to nose with the strange wolf, who looked first at her and then at the forest before shaking his head.

"My apologies, I failed to free him of his misery", he said with a sad voice as the leader of the dogs realised who she was talking to. She wagged her tail slightly before she assumed her human form of a beautiful woman with black eyes and long dark hair. "Do not blame yourself for it young god, you've just been given the powers of a wolf, mastering the ways of a Lord takes while", she said to the male who, too, took his human form revealing himself to be the red haired man from before.

"Yoshimune", he said and bowed lightly to her, to which she answered "Jun". Yoshimune looked at the scared pack and sighed. "You and your family may stay here... Sister", he said accidentally triggering a change in the pack, making them confused at first. Jun blinked and looked at the pack, now seeing that instead of their original marks of the dog clan, they now also bore the marks of the young wolf. She smiled at this and thanked the male who smiled back nervously. Oh boy, she was going to enjoy teaching the new god.

Jun stared at the small boy with mismatched eyes and red-white hair in confusion. She then pointed at the child, who stared at her equally baffled.

"Yoshimune did you steal someone's child again?"
"Technically I am his uncle with the amount of "greats" being enough to bring you back to the Edo period."
".....At that point you have basically zero relation to him"
"His father is abusive and just locked his mother into a facility against her will"

Jun's smile froze onto her face and you could see that she was furious.
"Yoshi~ Can I play a little mur-"
"No."