Disclaimer: Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto/Shonen Jump, and this story is created without their permission.
Author's Note: This story will contain liberal use of conscious and subconscious mind control and implied post-hypnotic suggestions, social manipulation and 'grooming', as well as implications of underage relationships. The method by which some of these happen could possibly be objectionable within the modern world. Over the underage relationships, It is not modern society, and the series itself had Sakura, Ino and others planning a serious relationship with Sasuke in the first story.
Over the rest, I will point out with a lot of it that Kishimoto himself was, possibly forced, to write an incredibly powerful form of unbreakable mind control, the Tsukuyomi, which officially was even able to control a spirit with impunity, to the point that the most powerful form of it was used by the final antagonist to disable any form of resistance successfully at least twice according to actual canon, and only failed due to a similarly broken shield technique! Kurama's actions with Inari and others are positively benign compared to the Moon Eye Plan...
I will admit to changing the genders of some characters, including Kurama and Haku Yuki, for narrative reasons and/or personal preference. I found the early narrative of Naruto to be heavily biased towards gay relationships, due in part to a societal double standard which would not work well with my own personal beliefs. I will also admit to homages to stories I liked and enjoyed, quite by accident, and not being able to source my inspirations with many of my stories, since I do not keep a reference sheet handy. With some stories, like Dungeon Heart, I gave up trying.
CAGED SOULS
Chapter One: Catch A Fox By The Tail(s), Never Let Go
The false god, Datara, was one of the largest threats, to both the divine and mortal, that had occurred in recent history. An alien form of the World Tree, it fed suspicion and hate into the minds of the mortals, sowing dissent like most would wheat or other grains. Humankind grew distant from religious totems, taking up arms for the smallest of provocations, entering an era of global feudalism. Those divine beings that went down into the mortal plane to preach were not even immune, and quickly even the heavens began to fall into conflict.
This seemingly endless conflict ended, abruptly and horrifically, with the abrupt and total extermination of several billion people's lives, their corpses used to birth what Datara considered an enlightened being known centuries later as the Zetsu. Those not tainted by Datara's will recognised what they were. The minds and souls of what the Zetsu had been were eternally, and irrecoverably, integrated into Datara's being, and their bodies used as an extension of it's will... It's form of enlightenment was effectively fatal.
Due to this holy war, and the corruption of the World Tree, the heavens were unable to send any of their aspects or bring their heralds to help bring about true peace, rather than Datara's false peace, which only lead to cessation of existence. However, for one goddess, the end of the war was not the end of her influence on the world, due to what happened to her sole remaining aspect in the mortal world, an act that actually brought about the saving of the doomed world, and the failure of the true purpose of Datara's existence...
The sacred place Inari stood in should have been alive with the yips and barks of the foxes that served her loyally, ready to receive her counsel on the next plans for what to do. Instead, the glade was practically speaking empty and silent. She had no idea what would make every single fox in the world deaf to her call, with no suggestion Datara had singled out her species for a random cull. That she could deal with, but for nothing, not even the implication of troubles, set a bad precedent.
She would bring up this worrying situation with the All-Father when she consulted with him. Admittedly, she was taking a great risk to come down at all, this not being one of her aspects, but her divine self. Her other aspects had been slain in defending her temples from desecration by the followers of the dark 'god'. She would not even have taken this risky opportunity had Datara's presence not been felt within Uzushiogakure at the time, it's walls standing firm, it's leaders noble and untouched by corruption.
"Hmm… I did not expect to see anyone in this deserted clearing. I thought all the foxes had fled this place, hunted down by those who had no awareness of their once sacred nature..." A voice purred, startling her out of her lonely reverie. She didn't recognise them, but the fact she knew this was sacred ground made her relax, falling further into complacency.
"I am Inari. I came here seeking counsel, only to find that those I consult with have been driven away by those whose minds are clouded by hate..." Inari offered, the woman stroking her chin in thought, "What brings you to this sacred glade?"
"Well, What I seek I have found..." The woman stated, then, her tone changing as her face curled in a smirk, "You will thank me for this, given time, but, for now..."
Inari didn't hear the rest of what the woman said, her body growing sluggish, her eyes heavy, as she collapsed. Inari's perception of what happened next was muddled, fragmented and somewhat confusing, recognising the effects of a spell, but not what the spell was doing. All she knew was that she saw herself falling into step with the woman, unfamiliar bracelets on her arms, an almost glossy kimono gracing her body as she followed her. She saw herself accepting a white vulpine mask, her face disappearing beneath it, as something fastened round her neck...
After that, All Inari was in her perception was a white haired girl in a face-obscuring fox mask, dressed in some kind of black and white outfit, bowing lightly to the woman as she called her 'Mistress', doing tasks which seemed, to Inari, to be beneath her, but a sense of accomplishment came to her each time she finished them. As days turned into weeks, weeks into months and eventually months turned into years, Inari came to see the tasks as essential and her new duty. Her perception was clearer as she greeted her mistress one morning, her hands clasped in front of her.
After that, She saw the woman smile at her as she did her duties, her wrists and ankles only able to move about a foot apart, but that was more than enough to do her jobs. Whatever the job her mistress required, she did it quickly, efficiently and with no argument. When her ears and tail manifested, the woman pleased with the aesthetic they brought, a few instances of her lying, a brush sliding through her hair or tail fur, with her head in the lap of her mistress, and it felt good. This was her place. Her eternal reward...
The final thing she saw was a rubber parody of a kitsune suspended within a frame, the woman helping nine slender tubes into it's oversized tail. When she tried to move, the kitsune began struggling as she realised the nine tubes were her tails, compressed by their sheaths, the tail undulating as the tails twitched and flexed, the final product having the appearance of a living picture, marked as 'The Last Kitsune'...
She snapped into full awareness as she found herself in that rubber suit, moaning slightly at the sensations of her body enclosed in the tight suit. She wasn't in the picture, but what was for sure was that she was indeed now a rubber kitsune, Inari unable to tell what was real or imagined about what had happened between her abduction and the present day, but she did know she couldn't get up off the bed, and her fox magic was suppressed to the point that she couldn't just escape that way.
The snout kept her from using a norito, and even if she had any ofuda, they were, effectively in her other clothing, and she couldn't create one without her hands, which were firmly secured. Even worse, she felt a growing pleasure in her current situation. She was horrified by the implication, her, the goddess of foxes, aroused by some mortal attire that had transformed her into some parody of a youngling one-tailed fox. The blush under the rubber was not just because of her arousal, but her overall embarrassment at how much she'd fallen due to the woman she knew only as Mistress.
Familiar footsteps approached, Inari resisting the touches as 'Mistress' ran her hand down her well-secured body, before standing at the foot of the bed she was secured to, as she held up a familiar mask.
"What would you say if I told you that you asked to be sealed into that suit?" She purred, "That you want to be more than my pet, more than my maid..."
"Nhh lnm! Hm whhld nmvmr bm fh pmrvmrtmd!" Inari snarled, "Lmt mm gh, hnd Hm wnll fpmhg gnndln th thm Hll-Fhthmr ht nhhr jhdgmmmnt..."
"Ina-chan, I'll make this simple. As far as Heaven is concerned, you are dead. You are no longer the goddess of foxes, you will never be the goddess of foxes again..." Mistress sneered, "You relinquished it, gave up your divine title and became an adorably dutiful servant,"
"Hmnh-ghhn? Whht dh nhh mmhn bn thnf Hmndngnnntn?" Inari snapped, for the woman to reach between her legs, pushing on something, for Inari's eyes to roll into the back of her head as she moaned, the woman smirking audibly.
"Simple, Ina-chan..." The woman stated, as the room plunged into darkness, "For the rest of your very long life, that is who you were, are and always will be… Inari is dead,"
Unlike the pleasure of servitude she had when she had been entranced by whatever power that mask had, her following days counted by times the same simple offer was made, an eternity of servitude, as the woman, who called herself Kurama, played with her rubber clad form, telling her, almost like a mantra, that her body, her mind and her soul didn't belong to her any more, that she was delaying the inevitable. The mask was offered, and she dismissed it, afraid she would never be able to remove it again.
Her power dwindled, her body shrinking as her tails dispelled, her body curling into the touches, as she found herself needy for Kurama's praises, for those touches that told her Kurama was pleased with her. Inari, as a name, disappeared from her thoughts, condensing down even in her own mind to Ina, the pretty white-haired fox-masked kitsune girl who was the loyal and devoted vassal of Lady Kurama, as her mistress declared neutrality in the conflict between the divine realms and Datara, completing the vow Kurama made an unknown time earlier.
The daemon seeming had only one doctrine, one purpose, which seemingly was to consume, mortal and immortal both, to feed it's inexorable hunger. Both of them knew the battle was already lost, but hopefully, someone would come up with a plan to make sure this was not a dead rock that someone could harvest the collected life of it's residents from Datara's branches, even as the pious and good were put to death as the warmongers beat the drum to bring conflict and strife, a perfect way to further empower Datara...
Their home was a vast compound, similar in style to the mortal homes that the higher ranked members of society lived in, that existed just out of phase with reality, making it a tranquil oasis of calm within the conflict where many similar buildings were rendered down to toothpicks. Within that relaxed lifestyle, only broken up by her duties as Kurama's maid and vassal, time ceased to affect Ina, and she forgot most of her origins, her only link to the foxes being that she'd discovered the realm of the kitsune had been destroyed, it's residents scattered and likely dead.
Eventually, however, the conflict reached the borders of a glade that Kurama protected for some unknown reason, in the middle of what was coming to be known as Uzushio, Whirlpool, forcing her beloved mistress to confront the demonic tree. For many decades, Ina found herself alone, thinking her mistress was dead or worse, so it was a wonderful day when she felt her presence once more on the boundary of their collective home, and Ina rushed to the entrance of the compound to see Kurama joined by a young woman in a red and black rubber kimono.
"Datara tricked me and trapped me in the form of a demonic parody of the clan's totem..." Kurama declared, "I managed to reach communion and fellowship with a mortal who acts as container for my curse..."
The young woman next to her nodded, introducing herself as Kushina. She was working to use the seal that kept Datara's perversion of the great fox at bay to restore the path between the realm of mortals and Kurama's home. An unknown time later, they stepped out into the tranquil gardens that were the site of the glade that was important to the two of them, for reasons Ina couldn't remember. A short time later, the glade vanished from the mortal realm, becoming part of the compound's gardens before Uzushio was lost to the elemental forces that gave the region it's name.
An unexpected side effect of Kushina's continued presence was that Ina and Kushina drew closer and closer, until Kushina began dressing like a rubber kitsune just like Ina did during her times when neither of them had tasks for Kurama, which was all too common due to how the link worked, with Kushina still working on how to step through the seal, whereupon she would, in her own words, find it hard to leave. Neither Ina nor Kushina knew when she gained a fox's tail and the adorable ears that came with them, but Ina knew now that Kushina would not leave her for anything.
In the mortal world, Kushina kept up the illusion of aging, but, within the kitsune realm, she was eternally a young teenager in love, love that Ina returned in spades. When she met Minato and found herself falling for him, she initially felt she was dishonouring her pledge to Ina, but she encouraged her to think of such relationships as temporary and that, being capable of living to several centuries old, Ina herself being several decades old to her own knowledge, she had every right to have relationships with mortals that would pass away. Ina wasn't going to drop dead suddenly. She was too old for that to happen.
When the mysterious masked man ripped Kurama out of her, she felt her link to Ina, as well as to her true self, broken as well. She smiled as the one thing that had been gifted to her by her relationship with Minato, a beautiful daughter, was used as a new bridge to the realm of Ina and her mistress, even as she passed away. When she woke up, moments later, it was to the embrace of the white haired kitsune that she had thought she'd lost, finding herself back in her teenage body, a rubber clad tail, actually two tails sheathed together, reminding her of her new status.
She accepted the muzzle gag and straitjacket Ina offered to her, Kurama putting Ina in an identical set, before they were given posture collars and secured in a padded room. As Naruko reached 5 years old, Ina became Ina Uzumaki, the eternal wife of Kushina, Kurama smiling at how Ina's devotion had been paired with love for Kushina, and Kushina's love for Ina had paired nicely with her devotion to Kurama. And she would be only the first spirit to enter the new divine realm Kurama wished to make the newly renamed Uzumaki Compound into…