Long ago, before the Elemental Countries had been founded, great deamon lords had ruled the land. They were borne of the elements themselves, embodied in the forms that best suited their powers. Minor demons and middle-class beasts were always having disputes with each other, a strange inbred hatred for one another seperating them. Over time, the demon lords had become irritated with the destruction these petty battles created, and when a tsunami from one of the water-oriented demons nearly drowned one of the great lords:: The bird-shaped fire elemental. Nicknamed Pheonix :: The lords banished the foolish ones into another relm.
Only the higher-class Demons remained.
With power, minds of deamons became clearer, their intelligence expanding and bloodlust supressed. The Lords looked over the nine remaining deamons from the banishing, and looked into the relm the smaller deamons had been forced into. The lords gifted each of the remaining nine with a way to compair powers and decide leadership, and followed the little ones into the relm.
No lies may be spoken by them or their direct offspring, each tailed beast taking up the position of leader being granted this curse.
However, that also proved to be a blessing. At the time of birth or death, when the power and soul of a being was being directly influenced, A deamon lord or their offspring may choose to grant the creature abilities or traits. Not many deamons chose to exercise this gift, though more out of ignorence how to use it, than scorn, though that was their cover.
Their Deamon power was symbolized by the numerous tails, the most powerful being the Kyuubi no Kitsune, or nine-tailed fox.
He was not a particularly kind leader, but was quite fair to his own kind, and to those who respected him. He was said to have fire-red fur, and crimson eyes that glowed the shade of a dying sun. His reign spanned over most of the continent, letting the other tailed beasts share portions of his land, so long as they made their own as well, and pledged not to attempt to conqure his land: not that anyone would dare try, anyway.
Unlike the Orochi demon lord, or the Neku, The Kitsune allowed his subjects to gain as many tails as they pleased, encuraging their love for knowlage. It was discovered, by the lord himself, that if one has more than two tails of power, they may learn to transform into another creature, or cast illusions upon themselves to mask their presence and size. The first was usually prefurred, for huge pawmarks would not trail after the masked fox, and their distinct canine scent would dissapear.
When humans began to trickle into the southern portion of the great fox's domain, instead of simply killing them out, he watched their progress, sending some of his kitsunes to inform the other tailed deamons, and request they leave the strange furrless creatures alone. He watched as they built the first few cities, named after the elements, and started to train their kits to be stronger, faster, and to channel energy to create powerful attacks. He purred in amusement when the Fire-named ones took up residence in what was once his nightly resting place, hewing their great leader's face into the mountainside that had once served as his back scratcher. They were small creatures, but rather interesting to watch.
He once shifted into one of those strange beings, to wander the city and gaze upon the curious trinkets they created with those clawless, soft forelegs. He watched as they began to fight with the other element-named cities, destroying forests in the sake of their territorial disputes.
Alarmed at the quick rate they destroyed his precious trees with their blue life energy, he sent one of his foxes down in a guise similar to the one he had worn, to attempt to reason with the leader. The young kitsune had been driven out of the village, screamed at for being a monster after she had attempted to show them her true self, as a way to convince the leader to stop this destruction.
More years passed, the leader kitsune drawing in more power, becoming larger and more fearsome, his distaste for the humans growing as well. A few of the younger foxes had been killed, festivities held whenever one was destroyed that posessed more than one tail. But, at the height of the human's stupidity, the Kyuubi no kitsune discovered a new emotion.
Love.
On one of his yearly sweeps of his outer territory, to check in on the other tailed leaders, he discovered a pure white fox on the outskirts of his lands. She was quite lovely, with an elegant black stripe down her spine, ending with five black-tipped tails. She had kind, bronze eyes and ebony-dipped paws.
The demon lord of the foxes was, for the first time in his long life, struck dumb by the sight of a single creature.
After some gentle convincing, she agreed to become his mate, traveling back with him after seeing to the last of the shared territories.
He showed her the human civilizations, and both watched in contentment as the humans finally decended into peace. When the next battles started to stir up between the Stone and Fire, The White Flame kitsune and Kyuubi agreed that the humans simply needed guidence from their elders, and were like young kits when it came to land and food. They lived too short of lives to properly learn to judge the world around them.
Looking at the younger species, White Flame had come to the conclusion that they were unfit to be left to their own devices. She had convinced the Kyuubi that if they had a son, he would grow up around the humans, to learn their ways. Every Three years, when most young foxes would have a growth spurt, he would change from a kitsune to a human. He would have no need for the power-sapping illusions or mind-jumbling shifts that other kitsunes bore through to blend in with the furless, simply changing form every third year, on the night of the full moon.
Two years after They had come to this agreement, The White Flame went into labor.
As was natural for demons, her body shifted a portion of her power into the child, though with it, had disturbed something inside her. A tumor had been growing, unseen in the Vixen's belly, that led to complications during birth. Despite this, she bore through with the birthing of her first, and last child.
With her last breaths, she made the Kyuubi promise to watch over their son as he grew up in the human's world, and allow him to live as he wished.
Tears leaked from those fiery crimson eyes on the day she passed away, his son curled up contentidly asleep on one of his nine tails, muzzle buried in his fur.
That night, he spoke softly, lacing his words with the spirit energy that laid within him, to make them come true. Ears drooping slightly, Kyuubi spoke away the last piece of White Flame's presence, silently swearing to guide his son, to show him the proper way to live, to make sure he did not fall into the self-destructive habits of the humans.
Golden flames leapt up around the young fox's body, dying his fur the color of the sun. His eyes sparkled like small sapphires, uttering a soft crooning as the Kyuubi no kitsune placed him gently at the door of the village of fire's leader, murmering meaningless noises as his father walked away in the form of a dog-sized nine tailed fox. trying to imitate a fox's soft bark as the deamon lord paused, looking at his son from across the street before vanishing into the shadows.
Only his whispered words remained, and a small ruby pendant inscribed with the now-human child's name.
'Arashi'