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✦ story by kitsune9
Tanuki's Last Trick
An old shapeshifting badger plays one final prank — becoming a temple bell so he can hear the village pray.
Bunroku had worn a thousand shapes: a kettle, a monk, a full moon over the rice fields.
Old now, he climbed the temple hill and became the great bronze bell, hanging silent through the seasons. When the villagers rang him at dawn, he heard every hope struck into his belly, and he rang them all back, truer than any bell had ever sounded.
The priests never knew why that year's harvest was the kindest in memory. But the children, who always know, left rice cakes at the bell — and in the morning, the cakes were gone.