Chapter 1

"Please…sir…" The stall owner heard the little voice plead from behind him, and turned to look. The grizzly bear saw nothing in the grass at first until he looked further downwards – much further. The plea, he realized, had come from a very young boy almost at his feet, a tiny orange-furred fox who could only be a few years old at most.

The fox was looking upwards at the bear with disproportionately huge eyes, full of blue and innocence. With the way they looked and stared, they were pleading as much as his mouth had, possibly even more. "Please…"

But the stall owner wasn't looking back at those big eyes. Rather, his attention was focused on another, more notable physical attribute this small fox had – not one, but two tails behind him that were also overly long, big and fluffy for the kid's size.

That could be a problem.

"I haven't…eaten in…two days…" the fox continued saying in a pathetically tiny voice. The bear could easily believe it – the kid was rather skinny, almost unhealthily so. Apply enough pressure and one could easily snap his arms or legs like matchsticks. As someone who cooked for a living, the bear knew what hungry people looked like. This was a boy that had to eat.

The bear wanted to help, and had this been occurring anywhere else on Mobius, in some other town or region, he would have done it without a second thought. But here… "Kid, I want to help you, believe me," he started speaking in a gruff, husky but soft voice, "but…it's just…"

The boy continued to look at him, appearing confused, but most of all, more desperate than ever. He didn't understand what was stopping the man.

He took his eyes off from the kid to look around the area, taking several careful glances. Fortunately, there was nobody else nearby on the street at the moment, at least not near enough to see them. "It's just…they don't like kitsune here. It means a fox with more than one tail."

Following the frank answer was an agonizing pause, more so for one of them than the other. "But…why?"

"I…I don't know, kid. Something about bad luck or omen. I don't really believe in this hokey-pokey, but many people here do…and they wouldn't be happy to see…"

Their eyes locked onto each other once more, and it brought the bear to a pause. What the fox's lips could say, his shiny, welling-up eyes did, loud and clear. Please. I have nothing. I am going to die.

Immediately the bear regretted his words. There was no excuse to not do it. Screw societal norms, he thought, as he turned back to his modest stall and took out two sausages from the bottom shelf.

One could be forgiven for thinking the small fox's reaction was that of seeing a vault of gold rather than simple sustenance. All of his hopelessness and desperation vanished in the blink of an eye as he leapt at the food in the man's hands, now with a huge smile that the bear never imagined could even appear considering how the boy looked earlier. "Want me to cook it?" he asked, the boy's sudden happiness making him feel better inside as well.

"No, it's fine," the boy replied with a voice that, although still weak, had an equally unexpected energy. "Thank you…thank you so much, mister."

The bear knelt down to hand the sausages over to the starving kit. "No problem."

"I…I should get going now," the boy said, a sausage in each paw, before turning to run, heading towards the woods nearby.

"W-wait!" the bear found himself calling out, and the kid stopped. "What's your name, son? Where do you live?"

Standing near the trees, the edge of the forest, the fox wasn't sure what to say. Or rather, he knew what to say, but wasn't sure whether it was a good idea to give it out or not, especially to strangers. He'd learned that lesson the hard way before. But considering the kindness the man had just shown him…could he be the first exception?

After a few more seconds, the kid made his decision, and turned back to face the stall owner, eyes now full of gratefulness, but what seemed like sorrow as well. "I…I don't have a name, sir. And I…I live in there. I'm sorry. Thank you again."

And just like that, he ran off into what he claimed was home with his lunch, no longer hearing any further attempts from the man to call for him.

The small fox had lied, of course, albeit reluctantly. His name, Miles Prower, was one of the few things he knew. Not much else. He knew he could speak the local language pretty well. He knew that he was homeless, in the sense that he did not live in a cozy house with a ceiling above him like other people. He knew he did not have parents, what other kids called mom and dad. He knew he was always hungry. He knew he wasn't very strong or fast. He knew he was a fox with two tails - a kitsune, he had finally learned just now. He knew that it made other people scared of, or even unfriendly towards him.

What he didn't know, there was a lot more. Too much, even for a kid. He didn't know his exact age, perhaps around two or three years old. He didn't know where his own mom and dad were. He didn't know anything about what life he had before this, or if he had one at all. He didn't know if there was anything he knew how to do besides scavenging or begging for food and water to survive.

But more than anything else, Miles did not know why.

Why his life had to be like this and nobody else's did. Why he had to be treated by other people like he had done something wrong. If he had, couldn't they at least tell him what it was?

Was it his two tails? What about having two tails was so bad? Yes, it made him different, as mobians only had one tail. But he didn't understand what made it so…unacceptable. They had never told him.

Fortunately, or perhaps not so fortunately, that was what he would find out today. Sooner than he thought.

His stomach growled loudly enough that it could easily be mistaken as coming from a wild animal in this place, and Miles finally decided to actually consume his meal. He stuffed both sausages into his mouth at the same time, and soon they completely vanished as he chewed them quickly and rigorously. Despite being raw, they tasted really well, at least for him. They were the first thing that was actually meant to and could be eaten that the fox had in days, and likely the tastiest thing he'd ever let his tongue touch in his young life.

For a while, all his questions and worried in the world were dropped aside as he closed his eyes and devoted his attention to savoring the delicacy, leaving no room for anything else, including his surroundings. He shouldn't have.

Miles was enjoying his best lunch ever so much that he didn't hear the footsteps approach him from behind. He was lucky that he had swallowed the sausages completely before he noticed the sounds, as the next thing that happened was him being shoved hard on the back, causing him to topple face first into the dirt path.

At first he reacted with surprise and confusion, but they quickly disappeared as he heard the laughter behind and around him. Then he understood, his short-lived happiness knocked out of him.

It was them again.

"Hey, runt," the one that had pushed him, a lynx of some kind, greeted smugly in a boyish, raspy voice as Miles turned up to look at him, which he immediately regretted. Even just glancing into those menacing eyes, with that menacing grin, made it hard for him to breathe. "We saw you take food from that guy just now. You know you're not supposed to do that, right? And neither was he.

"And after doing what you're not supposed to do, we'll do what we're supposed to, to you. So, you ready, Miles?" The lynx and his buddies, who had surrounded him, gave a preview of what was coming up by cracking his knuckles, even though it was wholly unnecessary – Miles had already heard that, and more threatening sounds, many times before.

The small fox could not answer. All he could do was gulp, close his eyes, and brace for the inevitable. There was nothing else he could do.

So began the beatings, pushes and kicks, and so did Miles just curl up on the ground, enduring it in silent agony. It wasn't a daily occurrence, but he ran into these guys far more often than he'd liked, for some reason. Maybe, he thought as he cringed and squirmed, if only he could find someplace else that he could go to, outside of this town…but where? This place didn't like him, and he didn't like it here, but he knew of nowhere else in the world that he could reach for someone his age. And even if he did, what if the whole world were the same?

As the gang-up session continued, Miles began to feel his tears running again. It hurt every time they hit him, yes, but that wasn't the real reason he cried. The true source of pain came from just how they seemed like they were allowed to do this, with nobody ever coming to put a stop to it. He knew this because it had happened to him in more public areas than this forest, and he'd been told by other adults before, not nicely, to scram or otherwise get out of their sight, some even using physical violence as a threat. For all he knew, there were bystanders watching the scene right now, indifferent at best and enjoying it at worst.

If only that nice bear could come and help now…

His body was already getting very sore from all the physical strikes it was taking. The same question came back to him after remembering that the hostility these guys had was not unique to them. What if the whole world were the same?

Finally, after five minutes, it looked like the gang wanted to catch a break, as they had stopped hitting him. Only then did Miles dare to open his eyes, seeing a bunch of legs still before and around him. The laughter didn't end though. It probably never would. Even after they walked away, he would still be able to hear them tormenting him in his sleep.

Miles looked up. The lynx was the one standing nearest to him, right in front of his face, naturally. The gang leader looked back down at him, saying nothing, at least not with his mouth, aside from his chuckles of schadenfreude. His piercing stare and grin did it for him. We're always gonna do this to you. And we will always be allowed to.

There and then, Miles made his decision. He had nothing to lose. If they were always to be like this to him, he wanted to at least know the reason for it. "Please…" he began, as weakly as ever, trying to reach upwards with his paw, while his other clutched the sore spots on his chest.

"Oh, what's that?" The lynx knelt down, never breaking his stare, but now with an added curiosity. "The kitsune wants to talk now, huh? What? What do you gotta say?" he sneered, unaware that he had actually helped Miles remember more clearly what he wanted to ask by mentioning the k-word.

"It's…just…" Miles stammered, out of both fear and pain, but he pushed himself to keep speaking, because he knew if he didn't, he had no idea when he'd be able to ask again. "If…you're going to keep doing this…at least tell me…why. Why do people hate…kitsune? What do kitsune do?"

The lynx and his gang looked at each other with raised brows. The fox's question had caught them off-guard, like they had never expected it to be asked of them, especially from it. Miles continued looking up at them innocently, half-curious and half-scared for the answer. If it came.

Eventually the lynx stopped looking bewildered and, Miles could swear, delighted. Facing back at the fox with that same smirk again, he decided to actually justify themselves. "You know what kitsune do? Or don't? Kitsune don't learn stuff by themselves – they steal knowledge from other people who had learned and studied it by being hardworking, by going to school. Your kind don't do that, you just go around picking others' brains and leaving them mindless or retarded. It happened a few hundred years ago, right here in this place, a kitsune stole a normal fox's knowledge and identity, and left the guy an amnesiac vegetable.

"You know what people eventually realized the way to prevent this was whenever a kitsune shows up?" He brought his ugly face up close to Miles's, almost touching his snout with his own, shoving his glare, which, unlike earlier, was now filled not just with glee but even some sort of malice, or contempt. "A good beating."

If the guy's looks didn't give Miles the chills, those words did. The fox was trembling worse than ever. "You…you're going to…kill me?"

To this, the group simply laughed raucously. "No," the lynx replied frankly between snickers, "not yet, anyway. We just beat you up every now and then to make sure you don't cause trouble to us." After the laugher died down – or paused, more accurately – his smile unexpectedly twisted into a scowl as his glare became even harsher. "You know, that reminds me," he said, his tone following his expression, "you still haven't told us how you learned to talk."

Miles gulped. Truth be told, that wasn't something he knew either, and he had wondered about it before, as did these guys. But he was pretty sure he hadn't stolen that knowledge – he couldn't imagine how that was even possible!

"Tell us, runt," the lynx commanded, suddenly looking at him less like he was a chew toy and more like some sort of menace, a criminal, even. "Where'd you learn to speak? Or walk? Who did you take it from?"

The fox was speechless once more. He could not think of what kind of answer that they would accept, other than the one they undoubtedly wanted to hear. They had already made up their minds about it. They just wanted to hear him say it, and vindicate their views towards him.

"Come on, say it! Who'd you get it from?" he said more loudly, firmly believing in the accusations they had leveled against him. When Miles simply continued shaking and sweating, the lynx stepped just a little closer, though the fox had already shut his eyes tightly to not look at that scowl, which was even worse than that smirk. "It was your parents, wasn't it?" he guessed, sounding self-confident, "you were bored of how slowly they were teaching you, so you just picked their-"

Miles didn't really know what happened next. Before the lynx could continue his vile theory, the fox's tails, which hadn't done much in his life besides trailing behind him, suddenly reached up and slapped the feline in the face, completely automatically and without his command. His body, or his tails, it seemed, had registered the offensiveness of the lynx's comment that his frightened mind hadn't, and had decided to act.

"What…what the…" the lynx held a hand to his cheek, hissing painfully. The slap had evidently been rather strong, yet Miles hardly felt any pain in return at his tail tips. But that wasn't what he was concerned about. Rather, he knew that the lynx wasn't going to believe that his tails' action had surprised himself as much as it did him, and was going to get it good from the whole gang yet again, except likely much more painful.

As everyone had turned their eyes away from the fox and onto their cringing leader, Miles realized he only had a few seconds to make yet another now-or-never choice like when he'd asked that question. And so, taking advantage of the distraction, he began to do something that he'd never done before, at least not successfully.

He ran.

The path behind him had a gap between two members of the gang just wide enough for him to slip through, which he did by scrambling to his bare feet and pushing himself away against the ground. This surprised the gang as much as his tail attack had. "Hey!" the lynx shouted, now fully angry and hateful towards the fox, "you freak! Come back here! Now!"

Miles did not stop. He ran along the path, into a direction he'd never went – the woods was a large place, after all. The gang's hollers from behind, although unsurprising, were scary enough to keep his little legs going. Not long after, he was beginning to feel fatigued and, despite the dangers, finding it hard to constantly push himself. He was no natural-born runner. It was only a matter of time until they caught up to him and punished him…

Then something amazing happened, something nobody, not Miles, the lynx or his gang saw coming, and it once again came from the fox's twin tails. Right before they could be grabbed by one of his pursuers with an outreached hand, they suddenly began…spinning? In a circle? The motion swatted away the gang member's hand, causing him to yelp in surprise, while it continued. Soon, Miles' tails were spinning fast enough to form a fan of some sort that was wider than his own body, kicking up a huge amount of leaves and dust right in their faces, slowing them all down even more.

Instantly Miles felt like he was moving much faster. He was still running, but slowly it seemed clear that it wasn't his legs mainly helping him to get away while his tails gave a speed boost, but the other way around. As much as it saved him, it also terrified him. What was up with his tails doing all this all of a sudden? Apparently by itself?

He wasn't able to wonder too long about it as, unused to moving so quickly, he soon lost control and went off the dirt path, into the trees and tall grass. He tried to will his own tails to stop, and, much to his surprise, they actually stopped spinning. But by that point, he had already gone far enough to discover that he was over a downward slope concealed by the grass, and began tumbling down with a cry of surprise.

Unwittingly he rolled like a ball through the tangled mess of plants the hill had, not even able to make sense of his orientation, to tell where up or down was. He was fortunate enough to avoid hitting one of trees headfirst, however, instead reaching the bottom safely, at least relatively speaking.

He had to endure a few scratches on the way down, and his fur was rather messy, but otherwise, he found himself fine. Hastily brushing the leaves and branches off himself, Miles remembered why he'd ended up here, and quickly took off again. At first he wondered where he could go, but then he noticed a block of buildings ahead, and decided that it was best to head there. He was lucky that he had stayed close to the edge of the forest.

Miles stepped off the grass and onto the paved sidewalk, before turning around the corner of the bricked building. There was nobody on this street, and perhaps that was good for him. He ran a short distance past the row of stores, all of which were closed for the day, hoping he was already safe. When his legs began aching again, he slowed down, panting heavily while turning back to look at the street corner. They weren't going to come out from there, were they?

To his dismay, however, a group of familiar looking felines appeared right there, stepping into a view, and they immediately caught sight of him too. They had somehow managed to get down the same hill without too much trouble. And despite the distance between him and them, Miles could still sense their unsettling glares boring into him.

Seeing them point at him and give chase once more, Miles breathed hard and started running again, ignoring what his legs said. He turned another corner onto another street, only to see that the shops were all also closed. Feelings of desperation began setting in. Even if there was a chance their owners wouldn't like him, it would still be better than being at the mercy of those guys behind him…

Then finally, he noticed that one of the buildings down to the left was open! It was the only one that didn't have a 'closed' sign or its shutters deployed. Not caring what it was, Miles ran up to the entrance, a pair of glass doors, and pushed them in. Despite their size in relation to the tiny fox, they were surprisingly easy to move, though he couldn't tell if it was the doors were made that way or if he had gained a temporary strength boost from his fear that allowed him to overcome their heft. Almost like what happened with his twin tails.

Inside, Miles found himself in a large, well-lit, old-fashioned looking chamber, filled with tall wooden bookshelves. He couldn't remember what the word for this kind of place was, but he could try to later. Hiding was still his priority.

There didn't seem to be anyone else here. The fox moved over to the wall and ran along the carpeted floor between the two left-most bookshelves there, deeper and deeper into the building. The further he was from the entrance, the better.

Eventually he reached a corner, perhaps the very back of this chamber, though he couldn't tell due to how the massive bookshelves towered over him. It didn't matter. The entrance was no longer visible from here, and if they entered and tried to find him, he could easily move to hide amongst different bookshelves. Nevertheless, he felt it was safer to stay put for now, to see if they were really coming.

A minute passed. Then two. Three. There was no sign of anyone approaching the corner he was in, not even other patrons of this place. Now more confident that they wouldn't find him here, Miles found his fears gradually being replaced by, of all things, boredom. He was reluctant to leave his hiding spot so soon, but he needed something to do.

Realizing that he now had the time and security, he began thinking again. Despite the charges the lynx and his troupe leveled at him, Miles had to wonder, based on what happened right after that, if they were right about him in some way. He brought out in front of him the object that made him think so: his twin tails.

The thick, bushy appendages had saved him, yet they also may very well have validated what they had said about him being a kitsune. As far as he knew, this wasn't normal. Nobody could do this with their tails-no, tail. If he could, did this mean he had other weird powers? Like the ability to…steal people's knowledge?

The thought made him shudder. Even if he were actually able to do that, and found out how…he wouldn't dare do it. Especially it meant leaving the other person not remembering the stolen knowledge. That's…wrong, wasn't it?

Regardless, this reminded Miles of another thing about himself. He had no desire to do what they said his kind did, but the fact remained that he didn't know much. He felt like his head was empty. He wanted to know something. Anything. And without stealing it from others either. But how? Was there a school that could take him in somewhere? Or would they reject him for the same reason that gang had? If so, what could he do?

A second later, the answer came to him when he looked at his surroundings again, this time more closely. The chamber was filled with bookshelves. The bookshelves were filled with books. Lots and lots of books. A place with a lot of books…now did he finally recall what the term for such a place was. He was in a library.

And what was a library but a place of stored knowledge?

Still hesitant to leave that corner, Miles turned to the closest bookshelves beside him. The one on his left had the category label 'Electronics'. The one on his right, 'Mathematics'. As he walked down the aisle further, he found 'Physics', 'Chemistry', Computing', 'Mechanics' and others nearby.

The sight enthralled the little fox. There was already a lot to read here. And he was going to wait in this corner a little while more. This was…exactly what he needed, wasn't it?

Not knowing where to start, he examined the lowest shelf in each section, the only one he could reach, and dragged a few books out onto the floor. The ones that weren't larger than him, at least. Then he settled down onto the carpet, back against the wood, before turning open the cover of Introductory Mathematics, volume 1, 7th edition.

They were probably right about kitsune existing, the fox thought. They were probably right about what kitsune could do too. But one thing he knew they would never be right about: Miles Prower wasn't going to steal knowledge. He was going to learn it himself.

Starting here. Starting now.

Author's Note: The part about kitsune stealing knowledge is something I came up with. As far as I could tell, this is not something kitsune in actual Japanese folklore do. Just in case you're wondering.