That man with the pure smell of having a blessed object? Amaterasu grinned about as much as a wolf could, her tail wagging.
She hadn’t really seen many humans who had that smell. Those that did were usually those exiting some local shrines (she wasn’t allowed to enter; they shooed her away). As she tried following up on them, though, most of them didn’t keep the smell for long.
Poor wolf. If only she knew.
The man in question, a detective by the name of Hakuba Saguru, walked on a path next to the river. It was late afternoon and the forest floor was splotched in shades of ambient yellows from the sun in the leaves. In one hand he carried a briefcase, in the other a cup of coffee. He was alone and looked tired. It was an unfortunate drawback to having so much casework to do on top of his schooling, which meant using weeknights and weekends studying files and reviewing court papers. This left little time for sleep or, heaven forbid, relaxing.
But the managed woods offered a reprieve from the story, at least, and the walking path was orderly enough. Hakuba passed by several small, informal shrines along the way and stopped at each one to regard them respectfully before continuing onward, looking for a comfortable place to sit and work.
Thus far, he hadn’t noticed any sort of wildlife except for the calls of the local birds.