He dreams of an explosion of cherry blossoms, bursting into view with the promise of spring. He smiles, basking in the warm light, and when he blinks again they vanish. The flowers turn smoky, ashen, crisping at the edges until they wilt away into a boiling sunset.

The sun shrivels up, glowing with pale heat, and when he wakes he sees the sun-magatama dangling from a beaded necklace, and further up, a smile.

None of these offer him any comfort.

There was a clan that often took in stray dogs, with respect to imperial decree. The current shogun, Tsunayoshi Tokugawa, was born in the Year of the Dog, and so it only seemed fitting that the clan established itself with the often turbulent favors proffered unto the family by the Inugami.

This clan had control of its home village for years, often by unpleasant means; yet this clan prospered nevertheless, unhindered by the villagers and outsiders alike. It would continue to slip under the shogunate's eye for years, troubled only by the question of an heir. The wife to the oyabun was infertile, but the mistress was not.

The woman was sent for in a neighboring village from miles away, accompanied by her son, and subsequently was trapped and tormented daily by both the oyabun and his wife.

During their quieter moments—when all the household busied itself with other matters—mother and son would go outside to feed the birds.

They were not allowed to do the same for the dogs.

Another dog was beheaded for the ritual, its blood staining the tatami flooring. Koujaku nearly gagged from the smell.

This will ensure prosperity for the clan, he was told. He spat in the priest's face, yet failed to mar that eerie fox-grin of his. The magatama thudded softly against the priest's chest.

It had been dark inside the family shrine. Koujaku hadn't seen the Inugami when it came roaring. He roared with it when he slaughtered the entire clan—including his mother, including the birds in their cages. But not the dogs.

He hadn't woken up since.

Stray dogs occasionally pass by the shrine, though it has remained mostly untouched for the past eleven years since the last heir to the clan had been possessed.

Over the years, the blame had been laid on the oyabun, on the priest, and even on the heir himself. The clan's annihilation should have heralded a wave of change within the village—a change for the better. Instead, the people live in fear of the Inugami's legendary temper.

The Inugami has taken control of the village since, and its influence is most strongly felt at the site of the massacre—the old family shrine where the bloodstains are never completely scrubbed clean. The kami is both a blessing and a curse to the village, bringing either rain or famine to their crops depending on its turbulent moods.

Its avatar is the young heir to the clan, who had grown to be a great big beast of the man with the Inugami's blessings. His wits have fled him since the night of the massacre, when he'd been marked with the blood-red peonies the Inugami favors. He sits in the sanctuary, perpetually shackled, his hair and eyes and tattoos bleeding red under the scores of ofuda bound to his body.

They are meant to pacify him and the god that possesses him, but these talismans can only last so long.

Today is the New Year's, and one unlucky priest has to conduct the yearly blessings and replace the ofuda that bind the creature to that poor young man. With him are a pair of strong hands from the village, carrying long, thick wooden sticks with curved ends with which to force the beast to the shrine floor by his neck while the priest performed the rites.

There have been…accidents, and certainly, even deaths. Most of these casualties are exorcists from far-off villages, brought here by promises of wealth and fame should they only rid the village of its demon. Let someone else deal with it, they think.

But not once has anyone ever attempted to kill it, for fear of incurring the wrath of the Inugami upon them all.

It is a warm spring day, with shafts of sunlight peering in from the shrine's windows and its myriad nooks and crannies, multiplying over time by fear and neglect.

Koujaku sits in the center of the sanctuary as always, his hair long and red and ragged, his panting hot, his arms in agony—still tied to wooden shackles from behind. Not much covers him beyond a tattered old kimono some servant had thrown him out of pity, but most days he lives and breathes and soils himself naked.

The Inugami has granted him senses sharp as those of a dog, to aggravate his pain, to force in him an a powerful awareness of his surroundings. He can smell the fear in the sweat of a priest's brow, taste the bitterness of the strokes of ink on his talismans—one in particular is glued to his forehead, as has always been for the past twelve years.

Yet he can smell well enough, and this time he turns his nose upward, tasting the air for that odd whiff of the unfamiliar. It smells like dog, and yet not, which is a strange enough occurrence to him considering how dogs tend to be his only companions.

The scent lingers, teasing his nostrils, like the cherry blossoms fluttering into the shrine.