Chapter 206: Chapter 205: The Fox part 1

When they got back to the settlement, Scylla and Sophie got some sleep and then when they woke up, Kyubi sat awkwardly for a moment while people got comfortable. “Okay, I guess this is it, Please don’t try to spare my feelings if anything you learn changes your opinions me everyone.”

—The Fox Reaches 100—

In the east, they were approximately half way through a time known as the Yayoi period when the world forget almost everything on incursion day and in the chaos that followed. In the west they had entered the year 1 AD.

It was then that a fox was born, with fur as white as snow and eyes that found the moon every night it shone, then searched tirelessly every night it failed to.

As years ticked by the fox grew and wandered, its coat flawless and perfectly groomed, it moved proudly through the world beneath the light of the sun. No matter how far the little fox walked, how much it bathed in the sun, it was never anything more than killing time until the moon claimed prominence.

The little fox had no perception of time, so it didn’t know that it had been almost a hundred years since its birth, it was a shocking and sudden change. The moment the moon reached its apex, a second tail bloomed in lunar silver, for the first time the fox’s fur was soiled.

As the tail grew, the shock of self-awareness struck her and in the panic she fell from the rocky perch she had chosen to watch the moon from. As she slid down the snow dusted hillside her white fur became brown and the once flawlessly groomed coat became tangled and twisted.

Upon reaching the bottom and sliding to a halt, She found herself mortified at her unsightly condition, then she felt a presence and that mortification turned to shame at being seen in such a state.

To make it worse, they were all brand new emotions which she didn’t understand in the slightest. “Happy birthday little fox!”

The voice was childish, accompanied by the polite laughter of adults. “She’s all mucky, we should take her back to the sanctuary to get cleaned up.”

“Hear that little fox? We’re going to go get washed up and then we get birthday cake!…”

The fox looked at them briefly, then turned her head in disgust and scurried back up the hill.

“Huh!? Little fox!…” The child called after, their words falling on deaf ears. “…Mama, why is the fox running off?”

“Look child.” The adult, backed in by nine glorious tails, pointed toward the mud covered fox as she reclaimed her stone perch and stared in awe of the moon once more.

“Oooo, is she going to be a priestess?”

“That’s for Lord Tsukuyomi to decide, but not for another nineteen-hundred years.”

Only when the moon was finally usurped by the sun did the fox whimper as it always did and return to the child and the adult. “You said I could bathe?”

“Oh wow! I’ve never heard a baby talk before!”

“It’s rare, only the most gifted at telepathy can, but you truly are a noble little fox aren’t you.”

The fox was scooped up by the child, then after just a few steps, they found themselves standing in a steamy wooden hall. The slats that made the floor were slightly parted and through them the little fox could see flowing water.

The rest of the room was split into dozens of rows each twenty metres long, every metre was marked by a mirror on the wall and stool on the floor, then between the mirror and the stool were brushes, large towels for drying and small towels for cleaning.

To the left of where they arrived were wooden basins filled with steamy water, each stacked neatly and interlocked, alternating between stacks of five and stacks of two. Between the number of basins and the size of the room, it was clear that many bathed there.

It was warm, a little stuffy, but the fox was still caked in mud and entirely unwilling to remain that way.

The child carrying her moved over to the basins and placed her on the ground, then took one of the basins from a stack of two. “Now hold your breath little fox, we need to get the mud off before we get in the bath.”

“Fine.” She looked down slightly and held her breath, then the water fell over her completely and her fur was spotless once again, something she didn’t think made sense but wasn’t about to complain about.

When that was done, the child walked over towards the wall they had arrived at and disrobed with the adult, the two of them laid their clothes neatly by the wall and then the child scooped up the fox again and moved to a stool.

The adult sat behind them and as the child untangled the fox’s fur and wiped her down, the adult done the same to the child.

When they were both ready the child scooped up the little fox, then sprinted down to the far end of the room and slid one of the paper panel doors to the side, revealing a massive bath set into the ground.

At one end was a massive golden fox head, from which fresh water poured, the child hadn’t slowed down though and ran straight for bath before jumping into the air and curling into a ball.

The splash and shock to the system left the little fox unimpressed and when the adult appeared and slapped the child around the side of the head before scolding them, all the fox had to say when asked for assistance was “Serves you right.”

When they had done bathing, they returned to the same mirror and stool where once again, the child took care of the fox and the adult took care of the child and when the adult had then taken care of themselves they both got dressed.

When they had gotten dressed they exited the room, before immediately falling to their knees and placing their foreheads to the floor. It wasn’t random, but because they weren’t alone, in the hallway was a man and one the little fox found entirely mesmerising.

“Lord Tsukuyomi, we hope you are well.”

“As I do for all the foxes…” The man’s eyes met the little fox’s, utterly entrancing her as though they were the moon she adored. “…Happy birthday little fox, do you have a name?”

He asked the question to her directly, but clearly expected one of the others to answer in her stead. “No.”

“Oh? Talking at just a hundred years old…” The prolonged eye-contact made her feel like she was going to melt. “…Your stare feels very familiar to me little fox, as is your flawless white fur. May I have the honour of naming the little one?”

“Please! Give me a name!” The fox spoke up louder than intended and made the man chuckle, though he still waited for the other two to permit him. “Kyubi, then.”

With that he knelt down and tickled her chin, then stood and left. She was paralysed and devastated, wanting to follow but entirely unable to do so. The next thing she was even able to register was the adult trying to pull her back from the crushing disappointment his absence left, with the name he had just bestowed.

“Kyubi… Kyubi…” A short chuckle. “…I shouldn’t be surprised I guess, but you should get some rest.”

“Who was that?”

“That was our lord, Tsukuyomi. He is our patron, he is beautiful and he is the moon itself. You will see him from time to time, if you impress him and serve him faithfully, in two-thousand years he might deign to elevate you to celestial fox. If he does, you can serve as his attendant.”

Kyubi decided right there, it didn’t matter how long, or how difficult it would be. Whatever it took, she would serve at his side, she would love him unerringly for all her days.

For the next hundred years she was schooled with the other fox-spirits, the end of which was marked by the sprouting of another tail. She hadn’t seen the man in all that time, but that didn’t curb her desire or distract her from study.

She learned that for every hundred years a fox earned another tail, gained new wisdom and abilities.When they reached a thousand, they took on an new form, that of a human child with fox-like ears and a single tail.

When they had gone through that change, they were called a Kitsune and raised by the same Kitsune, or sometimes celestial fox, who tended them their first night. Again they grew a new tail every one hundred years and on the night of their one thousandth birthday, either evolved into an adult form or were taken by Tsukuyomi to be ascended to celestial fox.

That was the only thing Kyubi wanted.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep