Flashback - May, 1834, Japan

 An abnormally large fox crept through the trees, nine red-tipped tails flicking out behind her as she crouched low, sniffing the air. At her side was a pure white fox, keeping a careful watch over her companion, ever-wary of the dangers that they might face. This was, after all, a *yokai* forest.

Something had been very wrong these past months. Massive amounts of flooding, long-lasting cold… it had all served to destroy the crops so carefully planted and tended to. Not even three months past yet another fire had broken out in Edo, killing thousands and displacing more.

The bakufu was failing the people, and someone - or several someones - in Takamagahara were displeased.

That it spread to the common folk upset this particular kami, who had grown to love the humans in the thousand or so years since her creation. A kami of the people, well-loved, adored. And she loved them in turn.

*Inari-sama,* the white fox said with a gentle nuzzle. *People ahead.* A pause, a sniff. *Not okay. Sick?*

Inari nodded her head and moved forward again, following the trail until the pair came across a clearing, where there were people, as Shiro had said.

Barely people. Two young humans. Girls, and twins by the look of it. A rarity… and a curse in the middle of a famine. She had no doubt that they had been abandoned by their family. They were not the first, nor, unfortunately, would they be the last.

The girls stiffened as they heard rustling in the brush, their hands clasping together, holding tightly, a united front against fear.

As Inari stepped out of the woods and into the clearing, she transformed, taking on the appearance of a half-human, half-fox, tails and ears of divine coloration marking her for the kami she was. “Shh, shh… be at ease, little ones. I mean you no harm,” she said, keeping her voice soft, gentle.

“Y-you’re not here to eat us?” one of the girls said, pressing against her sister.

“Of course not. Don’t you know who I am?” Inari asked with a gentle smile. Shiro twined around her legs, rustling the fabric of her kimono.

The second girl nodded first, quickly, her eyes wide with awe. “O-Inari?” she asked in such a small, pitiful voice that the kami’s heart broke. “Are you here to guide us to the spirit realm?”

“Is that what you were told would happen?”

The girls exchanged glances that spoke volumes. They hadn’t been told that Inari would, of course. They likely hadn’t been told much at all, simply brought out here and left to die. Life had been very hard, of late, especially for the poorer folk in the countryside, with crops torn asunder by the cruel tide of floodwaters. Nothing she had been able to do could correct that problem. There simply wasn’t enough to go around, and the flooded areas too torn to make use of the land in enough time.

Inari crouched down to be on a level with the girls, looking into their eyes. “You are dying,” she said, unwilling to keep that truth from them. “We scented it in the air. You have been long without food or clean water.”

The girls nodded; she could see tears glistening in their eyes.

It was unusual… almost unheard of, even, but… “Would you serve me?” she asked. “I might spare you from this fate, if possible, but you would be bound to me for it.”

“We… we would live?”

“You would live many long years. Decades. Centuries or more. I could make you kitsune, servants of Inari.”

The twins shuffled a bit, looking at each other, holding a silent conversation from eye contact alone, before they turned and nodded, offering Inari wobbly, imperfectly perfect bows.

Her eyes welled up with tears, but she kept them back and accepted the respect. “Come here, then, little ones,” she said, beckoning them over and holding out her hands, indicating that they should each take one.

Inari reached inside herself, finding her well of power, and *tugged*, splitting something apart. It *hurt*, oh it hurt, she was losing pieces of herself, but to save these girls, who had no say in being born, who had no choice in their lives at all, who had been thrown away because they were *girls* and ***twins*** in a time of famine… she could not simply sit by and allow them to *die*.

And so she gave them pieces of herself, binding them to her.

“So, little ones… let’s go home, shall we?”

She would learn, later, that she had given up her ability to be as anything but *Inari*. No human form. No fox form. Only the divine between.

It was, she thought, a sacrifice worth making.