In this chapter, we learn more about the shapeshifting animals of Japan. First, we're introduced to the Japanese fox, which is depicted as a kind of envoy from the gods to the people of the land. The fox is also known as a "dakiniten" or a "yakan" in Japanese, which means "devil" or "devil-like." Yakan is the most famous of all the shape-shifting animals, and she's the subject of a lot of discussion in the novel. The narrator explains that yakan and dakiniten are related to each other in that they're both shape-shifters, but yakan is more commonly associated with the demon lord . The dog, meanwhile, is associated with hell, which the narrator describes as vaster than he could have imagined. The chapter ends with a soliloquy by the narrator, in which he describes hell as "interminable hell iron hell yakan hell" .