The Ancient Wolf Spirit

Yin was about to say something charming, mysterious, or potentially universe-shaking when Selena walked right past him.

Not a pause. Not a double take. Not even the brief, respectful glance reserved for unusually beautiful strangers.

She. Just. Walked. By..

It hurt not physically. Not emotionally. But cosmically. His narcissism took a direct hit.

He froze, eyes wide. His hands hovered mid-dramatic gesture. “Did… Did she just…”

Selena was already turning the corner.

Yin looked down at his perfectly pressed designer suit woven by the gods themselves, then up at the fluorescent ceiling lights, as if they too should be ashamed of what just occurred.

“Did she not see me and my godly beauty?” Yin whispered behind his clenched fingers, scandalized. “Has humanity gone blind?!”

Yin made a wounded noise, but before he could chase after Zetian to deliver a monologue on what she just missed, his phone buzzed.

The screen read: 🌬️ SHU: THE WIND GOD WITH DADDY ISSUES

He sighed, answering immediately. “Yes, my lord?”

“YIN, WHERE ARE YOU THIS TIME? YOU’VE BEEN SLACKING AGAIN, HAVEN’T YOU?!”

Shu’s voice hit with such divine volume that Yin yelped and had to hold the phone a full arm’s length away, wincing. The nearby coffee machine short-circuited from the sheer force of the wind god’s frustration.

“Eheh… My lord, why are you yelling over a phone?” Yin chuckled nervously. “You could literally summon me back to the shrine with a single gust of passive-aggressive breeze.”

“I would, but I know you’ve been sneaking around the human world again. If vanished into thin air in their very eyes, what do you think would the High Circle do to us?!”

“You are absolutely right, my lord,” Yin admitted, scratching the back of his head. “But to be fair, you also told me to keep an eye on divine stirrings.”

“I meant politely, you little glowing gremlin! Not stalk a human like a curious cat discovering light bulbs!”

“Well,” Yin straightened, lowering his voice dramatically, “about that... I was investigating the rumors. The ones about the land god’s successor. Just to verify.”

“And?”

Yin grinned. “Guess what, my lord?”

“Tell me right now or I will punch your Adam’s apple through the phone screen.”

“Selena Collins,” Yin said, glancing around theatrically like he was revealing royal gossip, “has the mark. Glowing, centered, humming with spiritual inertia. I saw it myself. The wind god prophecy nailed it.”

There was a beat of silence—the kind that sounded like thunder holding its breath—before Shu finally found the strength to speak again.

“Y–You mean a human? That very human Nexus warned about in his prophecy? That Selena Collins?”

Yin, still lingering near the vending machine, nodded so enthusiastically his silver hair sparkled under the fluorescent lights. “Mhm. That’s the one.”

In his excitement, he forgot to hold in his glamour.

Pop.

Two fluffy silver fox ears sprouted atop his head like mischievous antennae of divine gossip.

“Oh no no no—!” he gasped, quickly slapping a leaf on his head with practiced panic. The leaf shimmered once, and the ears vanished. He looked around, cheeks puffed in embarrassment.

Good. No witnesses. Not even that creepy vending machine ghost.

Yin coughed, smoothing down his hair with faux dignity. “Anyway, yes. She’s definitely the one. Nexus’s whole ‘the land shall choose the spirit-bearing flame born in rust’ nonsense? Yeah. Selena literally works in Vermillion Cyberspace. Couldn’t get more prophetic if it slapped us.”

Shu groaned again—not in frustration, but with the deep, bone-weary sigh of a divine being who had long accepted that the universe was out to emotionally ruin him.

“Well, damn,” he muttered with a laugh that sounded a little too close to spiritual unraveling. “Nexus must have finally lost it. Choosing a human? As his successor? Of all things. And on top of that—a woman?!”

He paused dramatically. “Perhaps… does she have any special powers?”

Yin, still peeking around a corner with the enthusiasm of a curious raccoon, gave the air a thoughtful shrug. “She might. Nothing dramatic yet. But one thing I’m very sure of—she seems to be asexual.”

There was a long silence.

“Excuse me what?” Shu asked, voice flat.

“She didn’t even look at me with desire, my lord,” Yin said, aghast, placing a hand on his chest like a rejected poet. “Not a blush. Not a glance. I tried to introduce myself. I even smiled. And nothing. Ice cold.”

Shu groaned again, but this time it was sharper, pinched at the bridge of his nose and full of suffering. “That’s not an elemental affinity, you egotistical noodle. That’s just her having standards.”

“Could it be the ears?” Yin whispered, poking the top of his head where his leaf barely concealed the twitch beneath.

“Oh, it’s definitely the ears,” Shu replied with the exhausted certainty of someone who had seen that leaf fail too many times. “You always forget to suppress them when you're excited. Like a divine golden retriever with a god complex.”

Yin pouted. “It’s hard! I’m biologically fluffy!”

Shu ignored that and went back to the bigger issue—the cosmic disaster looming over all their heads like a flaming celestial lawsuit.

“Anyway,” Shu said, voice sharpening, “you have to find out what her ability is. If Nexus was wrong—if he handed the role to a completely unawakened mortal—we’re all screwed.”

“Dramatically, or—?”

“Dramatically AND literally,” Shu snapped. “If the Moon hears about this, she’ll skin Nexus, bury me under an avalanche of lunar bureaucracy, and probably turn you into a decorative scarf for her temple guards.”

Yin paled. “She hates fox fur…”

“Exactly.”

“Roger that, boss,” Yin said, now completely serious. “Operation: Discover-Mortal-Girl’s-Secret-Superpower is a go.”

“Go quietly. No drama. No fluff. No tails.”

“Say no more.”

Yin pocketed his phone when Shu ended the call and exhaled deeply.

Immediately, his tail popped into existence behind him like a smug puff of betrayal.

“Traitor!” he whispered at it, frantically patting it down and tossing another illusion leaf into the air to dispel it.

Because truly—truly—Yin Sakamoto was never meant to be anyone’s official familiar. The celestial registry had specifically chosen three highly qualified spirit candidates for the Wind God Shu’s service:

1. A weather dragon fluent in six divine dialects.

2. A cloud-walking monk with centuries of discipline.

3. And a stoic stone guardian who hadn’t blinked since the Tang dynasty.

But no.

The heavens forbid a fair process.

Because Shu—capricious, powerful, and dangerously allergic to boredom—had taken one look at Yin’s original form, saw the fluffiest tail in twelve dimensions, and gone:

“I’ll take this one. I don’t care if he can’t sit still. He’s adorable. He’s mine now.”

The others were furious. Yin? He was delighted. Unlimited naps, shrine snacks, and eternal employment based on cuteness? Sign him up.

But now… now he was on a divine assignment of actual importance, trailing a sarcastic human woman chosen by prophecy, marked by ancient power, and clearly, completely unbothered by his celestial charm.

He peeked around another hallway corner.

There she was, Selena Collins, fiercely bargaining with a ghost in the elevator. The ghost appeared to be a former finance manager still arguing about budget cuts, and Selena was matching him line for line with increasing irritation.

Yin blinked, tilting his head thoughtfully as he watched the elevator doors slide shut with a soft, mundane ding that somehow felt dramatically final.

“What could it be, Selena Collins?” he murmured, tail twitching faintly beneath the illusion. “Why’d Nexus choose you?”

He stared at the closed elevator for another beat, then reached for the button to follow when Shu’s old words echoed sharply in his mind.

“Nexus’s familiar should be lurking around his successor. Be careful not to cause any trouble with him—because the last time we met, he made an entire empire bleed.”

Yin’s finger froze mid-press.

“Oh. Right. That guy.”

He backed away from the elevator like it had started growling.

Tapping his chin, he mused aloud, “Ahh, a Fenrisúlfr, huh?”

The name alone gave his fur a shiver—though he’d never admit that to Shu.

“Big bad wolf of the old pantheons… chaos spirit of destruction… giant fangs… wrath issues… existential grudges against celestial bureaucracy…” Yin listed off gleefully, counting on his fingers like he was ordering pastries.

He giggled.

“Yes, scary man. Very scary. Damn scary. I want to meet him.”

Because Yin, truly, was a menace in fluffy disguise.

Even now, as he casually leaned against the vending machine, pretending to be just another pretty intern with slightly mystical hair, his thoughts were spiraling delightfully into mythical gossip and dangerous curiosity.

The story, according to Shu—and a few gossipy thunder spirits—went like this:

Nexus, the land god before his sudden disappearance, had tamed something that should not have been tamed. A primal, ancient beast. One of the original calamity spirits. A Fenrisúlfr.

They said he once swallowed a mountain whole because someone insulted his master's tea preferences.

That he brought ruin to the Western Empire when a bureaucrat called Nexus "just a soil god."

That he once bit the arm off a sun deity and won the lawsuit.

And now… this spirit—the wolf, the shadow, the living catastrophe in a handsome meat suit—was supposedly bound as a familiar.

To Nexus.

Who had gone missing.

And now Selena Collins, a woman who didn’t flinch at vending machine ghosts and had the spiritual awareness of a cat who just walked through a séance, was bearing the glowing mark of his succession.

Yin squinted down the hallway, imagining a tall, brooding figure with fang-lined smiles and a voice that could curdle storm clouds, just waiting behind some mundane corner, possibly sipping tea or glaring at fluorescent lighting.

“So cool,” Yin whispered.

Then immediately caught himself and slapped another leaf on his tail, which had begun to wag in excitement.

“Calm down,” he hissed. “No fanboying. No fangirling. No fox-spiriting. Be normal.”

Normal.

As if that had ever worked.