The floating of lanterns down the river is a tradition that dates back thousands of years. Every year, people gather at the source of the river and light a lantern for a loved one that had passed on, the travelling of the lantern down the river symbolizing the soul's journey to its next destination. Since he was a small child, Ren Tachibana had been sitting on the banks of the Shibuya river and watching the lanterns go past on their way to their final destination. He did this not because he was entranced by the beauty of the lanterns floating on the water but in the hope that he would once again see what he had seen when he had been a six year old child. He had been sitting on the bank of the river and watching the lanterns when from the other side of the river a black wolf emerged from the bushes and stepped onto the river water. The wolf skipped along the surface of the water with beautiful grace, leaving behind small, almost imperceptible ripples with each step. Watching the wolf closely, Ren noticed a faint purple miasma surrounding the wolf, which led him to believe that the wolf was a shinigami, a shepherd of death. The wolf walked on the surface of the water behind all of the floating lanterns and interceded in their journey whenever a lantern was on course for a predicament that would prevent it from completing its journey. Ren got up from where he was sitting and ran along the riverbank, following the wolf and the lanterns. He wasn't the only one following the lanterns downriver, but he was the only one that could see the wolf. When they got to the river mouth, all of the other spectators that had followed the lanterns stood on a bridge that crossed the river to watch them reach their final destination. That night the mouth of the river could not be seen. A deep fog enshrouded the river mouth, making it possible to only see just slightly beyond the bridge. Ren continued along the riverbank and entered the fog alone. The fog was like a wall, Ren got to the other side of it and was able to see everything perfectly. After passing through the fog, the lanterns underwent a transformation. The wooden frame of the lanterns broke apart and reformed in the shape of skeletons, after which the paper folded over the wood skeleton to form a bird. The birds left the water and flew into the sky, where a goose was hovering in the air waiting for them. The birds flew up to the goose and fluttered in the air before it while the goose spoke to them, after which they flew off into the sky and all evanesced into gold dust. The goose watched the birds fly off and once they had evanesced and disappeared it turned to Ren and flew down to him.

"You saw the lanterns transforming and the birds flying off?" The goose asked Ren.

"Yes."

"What brought you here?"

"I saw the wolf on the river and followed it."

"You don't know what a relief this is, you've saved me a lot of trouble."

Ren had no clue what the goose was talking about and was busy trying to work out what it meant when he saw a figure approaching them from the ocean. The figure that was approaching them was a man, wearing a black robe and a white noh mask with red markings on it. The man was Izanami, the kami of death. He walked along the surface of the water to the river mouth and walked over to the wolf that had guided the lanterns to their final destination. He got down on one knee and embraced the wolf and the wolf nuzzled him, after which the two of them walked over to Ren and the goose.

"Who's your friend?" The man asked the goose.

"He saw your wolf and followed him all the way here."

"Oh my! He's special this one, isn't he?"

"Yes he is, in fact I think I'm going to choose him."

"Well if that's the case might I suggest we have this conversation somewhere more appropriate."

The man opened his robe and engulfed the four of them inside it. When he opened it they were at the shrine that was just up the road from Ren's house. The four of them were alone at the shrine which, like the river mouth, was enshrouded by fog and lit by lanterns that floated in the air. Ren was in a state of disbelief, and stood waiting for someone else to speak. No one did, the goose, the man and the fox stood expectantly, until out of the shadows stepped the kami of Japan in human form. They all gathered around Ren and the goose and deferred to the woman, who stepped forward to speak with the goose. The woman was Amaterasu, the supreme kami of creation.

"What will happen to us now that you've chosen him?" She asked.

"The people of this country's faith in you is still strong, you'll be able to live on, your powers will be diminished though," the goose answered.

"As long as we get to keep watching over this land," the woman said, bowing to the goose.

She, along with all of the other gods, retreated into the fog, which lifted soon after, disappearing along with the lanterns, leaving Ren and the goose alone atop the hilltop shrine.

"Now then, let's talk about what's going to happen when you use the toilet tomorrow morning," the goose said to Ren.