She was not a demon like most humans said nor a spirit others have prayed to. She was just a simple fox. There was no need to fear her. No need to praise her. She was just a human fox who loved to howl at the moon, feel the breeze on her bare skin as she ran without the restriction of clothes, and hunt children. She was not a normal fox, she knew that from the start, but the pain of losing her pups to none other than filthy humans was heart wrenching. She knew she was not a normal fox when she set out for revenge. Normal foxes would've left, found a new den and start over, but she could not start over when her mate was also dead.
Once a month - when the moon is full - she is sent out hunting to the closest village during her travels and would take a child from their bed. She has no intention of hurting the children she takes. Only to take care of them. Only to teach them that not all foxes are evil. That she was nothing to be afraid of or to be praised for. She wanted to teach them everything she knew about the earth from the seven-hundred and forty-nine years she spent it.
It was night, the sky dark but the moon was all the light she needed to see. She did not care if humans hated her appearances and she did not care if they were disgusted that she did not wear clothes. She was an animal and she was free. And she needed them to know the wrong they did did to her fifty years ago.
Creeping into the village, she kept to the shadows as she crouched on all fours and started peering into cracks in home walls. Trying to find the perfect pup - or human child - to teach so they could pass down her knowledge to their children and their children's children. No one was awake this night, but the rumors about her rain have spread all throughout futile Japan and everyone was always cautious on the first full moon of every month. Sometimes, if she already had a child, she would howl at the moon just to see their reaction when they scramble to see who was missing this time but she always relished in the love the children received from their parents when they find out it wasn't them who was taken.
But this time, she did not have a child. The one she was teaching had fallen ill and was too weak to carry on living the life she wanted for them. She had to put it out of its suffering herself and barry the bones herself. If a pup does not live up to a foxes standards or is too weak to live, the mother herself must kill it and eat it so it's soul would not be trapped in its body. And that is exactly what she had to do with the last three children she took possession of. She hated doing it, but it pained her to think that their soul could be trapped with their decaying bodies. Never being able to go to heaven.
As she leaped onto a roof of a hut she was light enough not to crack the wood or make a simple noise to give away her position. She walked on the roof on all fours, smelling the air before smelling through the wood she was crouching on. Once she caught a faint whiff of the child who lives in this home she started to remove the wood plank from the roof of the home and jumped down into the home, making no sound. She followed her nose and entered a separate room to find the child was sleeping with his parents. He couldn't be no older than four, five at the max. His parents were smart to not let him sleep alone, but their attempt to hid their child was feeble. The child was outside of the covers, being wrapped in his own blanket tightly so he wouldn't move in his sleep. This just made her job easier.
She neared the boy, a small smile on her soft features, but then she froze when she smelt the air. There was a demon here. Somewhere towards the west. She had been to this village before and had never caught the scent of this particular demon before. The humans must've made a deal with him to help protect the village from this very intruder.
She looked back down at the boy, no longer smiling, as she stepped over the mother, grabbed the child carefully as to not wake him up and then jumped through the hole she came through. She faced the child away from her and bit the part of the blanket that was wrapped around his neck then started to run. Not making a single sound until she got the the edge of the forest she came from. She took the now waking child from her mouth, held him high in the air to bring him closer to the full moon then howled as loud as she could. Waking up everyone on in the village. The child, just like the others, was too young to realize what was happening and so stayed quiet as she howled at the moon. Villagers rushed out to find the human fox on the hill outside of the village. The silhouette of her fox ears on top of her head, her bushy fox tail and naked form was enough to stun them for a moment. Causing them to bask in the moment of her long drawn howl. Even the demon that was supposed to protect this child was staring at her in shock more than anything else.
Once she was done howling at the moon she bit onto the child's blanket and started running. It was only natural for a fox to carry her pup in such a way. As she ran she could hear the villagers cries in the distance. Not even the demon could keep up with her as her scent was nature itself.
"TOMOE!" Someone cried out into the night but the human fox - Tomoe (toe * mo * way) - did not slow down. She ran faster.