B4trans, it seems that Shiki is casting doubt on the theory of the new youkai being a kamaitachi, because those are supposed to come in threes (with panel 3 being an Imagine Spot of what Youko being attacked by kamaitachi would actually look like).

Whoops, she must have been one of the OTHER Mustelidae-family sickle-based youkai! Because there's totally bunches of them. (Also, that explains the mouse-like ears...)

I was wondering why she was alone, to be fair. Are there any relatives to the kamaitachi in folklore?

Yamaitachi (other word for stoat). Still an itachi.

NWSiaCB said:

Whoops, she must have been one of the OTHER Mustelidae-family sickle-based youkai! Because there's totally bunches of them. (Also, that explains the mouse-like ears...)

Garrus said:

I was wondering why she was alone, to be fair. Are there any relatives to the kamaitachi in folklore?

A lot of prefectures have their own variant. Most of them are pretty much the same though. Some kind of weasel youkai with sickle-wind powers, just under a different name.

They are other mustelid youkais, though they are not necessarily always depicted as being as closely associated with mustelids/weasels as the kamaitachi (as in, they are depicted as small animals that might be a mustelid, but not necessarily so). The closest I can think of that fits is the kuda-gitsune ("pipe fox"), which is variously described as a (miniature) fox, rat or mustelid.

But kuda-gitsune is also another name for the stoat (as in Mustela erminea the species), so, hmm...

Why is nobody talking about the handfeel?