This is greatly inspired by and written in the spirit of Japanese folktales. I'll be using a blend of terminology from the dub but also the proper names of creatures from Japanese folklore (fox and kitsune will be used more or less interchangeably). That being said, I'm playing pretty hard and fast with the folklore to make it fit into YYH canon. You don't have to actually know anything about it, but it'll be extra fun if you do.

Warnings for eventual blood, violence, and non-explicit sexual content.

This story is set after the end of the anime.


When Sumire thought of true evil, of deceit hidden behind practiced smiles and gentle words or a beautiful face hiding an ugly soul, she thought of kitsune.

She had been young, just a kitten that couldn't yet walk on its hind legs let alone hold a stable human form, when she first saw one, tall and proud, silver and sleek. She had been playing in the forest with her friend, a cat apparition from another village, when a fox lunged out of the forest underbrush, took her friend by the throat, and vanished back from whence it came, the injured apparition's cries ringing out once, twice, and then no more. The memory stayed with her and only reinforced what she knew all along; kitsune were evil. They did not hunt for food but for sport, and they would stalk their prey for months or even years, lurking in the shadows or hiding in plain sight.

The golden fox who stole the heart of an emperor long ago, Tamamo-no-Mae, lived to destroy others, to bend them to her will and instill love in their hearts before she burned their villages, razed their crops and ate their children, all the while hiding behind the face of a beautiful human woman; none were cleverer or crueler. Hers was a name that was whispered even by apparitions, a tale passed from older generations to younger as a cautionary tale of how far one could fall.

It was said that Tamamo-no-Mae was so filled with hate that as she died her body turned to stone, and from this stone came a miasma so terrible that grass split and wilted, trees rotted and recoiled, and all who came within reach fell dead where they stood. It took the day-and-night chanting of sutras from an itinerant monk to put an end to the Killing Stone, as it had come to be called, by pleading with the spirit that haunted the stone until it agreed to move on.

He was foolish, Sumire had always thought as a young kitten, for believing that the kitsune's spirit moved on simply because he asked it to.

And in the end, she was right; something that evil does not die so easily.

Tamamo-no-Mae arrived on a cold breeze, moonlight glinting off of her golden fur, and she looked like a ghost as she stood at the entrance of Two-Tails Village, her form flickering in the dark. But when she did not disappear, a wicked smile appearing on her maw, the residents of Two-Tails Village froze in fear and realized that she was no mirage.

The beast that even the apparitions feared had returned.

Tamamo-no-Mae's fur receded as she stood up on her hind legs and began to change, a silk kimono embroidered with clouds appearing to cover her pale skin, the only human form in a circle of upright-walking cats in clothes. She asked the apparitions of Two-Tails Village, with words that dripped with honeyed poison, if they would be so kind as to help her. The cats asked Tamamo-no-Mae in trembling voices what she wanted.

"Have you grown complacent in your self-imposed exile?" the trickster asked, "Have you ceased to dream of taking back the lands that were stolen from you? Has your grudge against Spirit World truly faded with time?" When Tamamo-no-Mae smiled, her pointed teeth showed. "We apparitions of the old world deserve more than the dark corners of this forsaken land. If you help me, I will help you, and we will return to power."

The villagers were restless, murmuring amongst themselves with twitching ears and swishing tails.

Their history with Spirit World's king was a long and bitter one. The cats saw promises broken and armies decimated, they saw their old way of life changing and they refused to bow, so they fled to the lands where Spirit World's tyrant could not reach, villages and provinces that the rest of Demon World came to forget. And this was how they lived for thousands of years, clinging to the old ways and refusing to venture beyond the line they had drawn in the sand.

Tamamo-no-Mae was a fox, and they all knew to be wary of foxes, but she was a creature from their own time who was capable of restoring the old ways, of dethroning the power-hungry king who had ruled for far too long; some of the villagers saw things in such a way.

Others, Sumire's family among them, argued against them. Tamamo-no-Mae was the very monster they told their children about to warn them of the trickery of spirit foxes, an abomination even among her own kind. Surely, she would turn on them as soon as they were of no more use to her; she was not to be trusted.

A rift opened between the villagers as they took sides, angered hissing and spitting, but before any one of them could raise a claw, the elder came forward. An old bakeneko with graying fur and a scar over one of his clouded eyes, garbed in a faded blue hapi coat, shuffled forward, eyeing Tamamo-no-Mae with suspicion.

"Tamamo-no-Mae," he spoke, "You say you come seeking help, but truly, you are seeking bodies to throw in front of you."

The kitsune's delicate lips curled into a scowl, no longer able to keep up the pretense of a pleasant conversation. "I seek equals who dare to dream beyond this pitiful excuse for a village," she said, "I seek those who remember the days when this dark corner was not all that belonged to us, we apparitions of the old world. Your people hear what I'm saying and understand what I'm seeking. Why don't you ask them what they think?"

There were a few words of protest but more shouts that drowned them out as the villagers began to quarrel. The elder paid them no mind. "I am no fool," he said, "You are a fox, and you will be our downfall if you are allowed to do as you please. We will not help you."

Tamamo-no-Mae's nine tails swayed behind her like the heads of serpents and her eyes glowed like will-o-wisps. With one swift movement of her hand, much too quickly for most of the villagers to see, she dug her claw into the elder's face and wrenched free his good eye. The old nekomata fell to his knees with a yowl of pain, gasping and pressing his hands to the wound. Tamamo-no-Mae held up his eye, squeezed it between her fingers as though it were a toy, and then pressed it to her mouth and made a show of taking a bite, blood spurting around her teeth.

She looked upon the trembling apparitions of Two-Tails Village, her perfect smile stained crimson, and she asked, "How about now?"

Whether or not they had sided with the kitsune before, the villagers were all of one mind again; she would kill them if they did not cooperate.

They told her that Spirit World would not simply stand by and allow her to do as she wished, and eventually, she would find opposition. Tamamo-no-Mae was unfazed. "I know of Spirit World and its tricks," she scoffed, "They employ Spirit Detectives to keep watch over their precious worlds. Such a post has always been held by a human, but we are in strange times, for there are apparitions safeguarding the Living World, as well." Her smile widened. "So they must be the first to fall."

Beneath the light of a waning moon curtained by dark clouds, Tamamo-no-Mae called upon the villagers to line up the strongest among them. Sumire did not want to go, but her family insisted she do so. "She'll know if you disobey, Sumire," her mother hissed, "She'll sense the strength within you, and she'll kill you for your disobedience, and then the rest of us." With pleading eyes, she begged, "For the good of the village, you must go."

And so Sumire went with the others, lining up in the center of Two-Tails Village under the kitsune's cold, appraising eyes, and she winced when the beast stopped before her. "You," Tamamo-no-Mae said, golden eyes shining, "What is your name?"

"My name is Sumire," she whispered.

Tamamo-no-Mae seemed pleased, her smile growing wider. "You have the most potential of those here," she said, "I can feel it." Slowly, she reached out, claws revealed beneath a brocade sleeve, and rested her hands on Sumire's bony, fur-covered shoulders. "I want you to to go to the Living World," she instructed, "I want you to find the one called Kurama." She leaned in close to Sumire, her breath making the nekomata's ears twitch anxiously. "I want you to earn his trust," she said, "And then I want you to take his life."

Kitsune, Sumire knew long ago, before Tamamo-no-Mae reappeared after centuries of simmering in her rage and deepening her grudge, were made of evil. She did not want to kill, nor did she want to help a monster reign over all three worlds as she surely intended to do, but she knew she had no choice. Even if she was the strongest in her village, she was no match for a kitsune, and certainly not one as old and hateful as Tamamo-no-Mae.

The kitsune stopped to speak to several others, a bakeneko on the verge of tears and a grizzled nekomata whose knees buckled under her gaze, assigning them all to various tasks, and then dismissed all of the assembled, except for Sumire. Tamamo-no-Mae, tails snaking out from beneath her kimono, smiled at her. "Do you hold hatred for me?" she asked.

Sumire shook her head.

"I think you do," the kitsune said, "But you shouldn't. Do you know why?" Sumire did not answer. "Because I'm going to do something wonderful. I'm going to take all three worlds and change them, so that we'll live as we did long ago before Spirit World's king came. You're young, so perhaps you weren't born in those days, but we lived freely once, going where we pleased and doing whatever we wished. Have you ever been to the Living World, Sumire?"

Sumire shook her head, no, she had never been.

"It's wonderful," Tamamo-no-Mae said, "I miss it even now. I love humans; they have a sense of adventure, and they dream such big dreams, no matter how short their lives. Apparitions are so different. So stagnant." If Sumire had never heard the stories, she might have almost believed the kitsune and thought that she really was fond of humans; she truly sounded enamored. "When my dreams have been realized, Sumire, I will show you what I mean."

Sumire nodded, yes, as politely as she could, wanting nothing more than to get far away from her.

"You must understand," Tamamo-no-Mae went on, "This man, Kurama, is not an innocent man. He's an apparition like us, but he wears the skin of a human and he lives among them." She smiled. "A kitsune, of course. That's why you must be cautious when you find him. We foxes love nothing more than to deceive, and Kurama will deceive you if you give him the chance."

Sumire's heart sank, her fear even greater than before, and no longer of Tamamo-no-Mae, but of the creature she was being sent to kill. It made sense, of course; kitsune loved to hide among those they hunted. But she did not expect Tamamo-no-Mae to send her after one of her own kind.

He would kill her. He would kill her and probably eat her, and she wouldn't have to worry about Tamamo-no-Mae anymore because she would be dead at the hands of a different fox. Sumire shivered, tears welling up within her eyes. Tamamo-no-Mae began to laugh. "Don't cry, little cat," she said, kneeling to converse with Sumire at eye level, "You will not fall for his tricks because I have warned you of them. No, you will deceive him. Just like a kitsune." Her smile lessened and she looked away, thoughtful. "I have heard that there is no longer a barrier separating this world from the Living World, but I do not doubt that they watch over who passes through."

Sumire stood frozen when Tamamo-no-Mae turned to her again, clutching her tightly by the forearms, and though she did not move, Sumire felt the monster pull. She felt herself growing weaker as her energy seeped out of her, seemingly tugged free, and she felt her body shrinking, checkered yukata becoming far too large until it was a tall cage of fabric. When she had shrunk down into the form of an ordinary cat, Tamamo-no-Mae lifted her by her sides and held her up to inspect.

"Yes," she said with a pleased smile, "Like this, you will slip under their noses. Your power will return slowly, and in that time, you will easily blend in among humans."

Tamamo-no-Mae then set her down on the ground and stroked the fur beneath her chin. "Now run along, little cat," she said, standing to her full height and towering above her, "And please hurry. It's been such a long time since I've had anything good to eat. The essence of an old and powerful apparition is best, but," she chuckled, eyes glittering in the dark, "If you take too long, your family will suffice."

Sumire scurried away, forked tail between her legs, and ran faster than she ever had before.

What misfortune, she lamented, that Tamamo-no-Mae should come to Two-Tails Village of all the villages in the world, though perhaps it made sense. She could only imagine what dark places the fox had been hiding in before she came to the village. Tamamo-no-Mae had chosen wisely, staying beyond where Spirit World would immediately learn of her return.

Not that it mattered, Sumire knew. She could not rely on Spirit World—it had wronged her people before, and she did not trust it to do any different now. She had only herself to rely upon, only the ways of ancient Demon World that existed where Spirit World's influence could not spread. Maybe, she began to think, when she finally found Kurama, she would partake in the oldest of her people's rituals and devour him, body and soul. Maybe the essence of a kitsune would be enough to save her village and destroy Tamamo-no-Mae once and for all.

Maybe, just maybe, she could do so carefully, avoid fighting him by feigning weakness, perhaps in the skin of the humans he so loved to hide among. Slowly, her legs stopped shaking and she ran through the night gracefully. Slowly, her thoughts stopped racing and her eyes narrowed in resolve. She could not be afraid. The essence of a kitsune—of Kurama—would give her the power she needed.

And then, she would return, and she would devour Tamamo-no-Mae, as well.