The Little Fox
Hizuri Kuon... Age, 10... Frustrated with his father decides to follow the little stream behind his grandmother's house in Kyoto and comes across the strangest little black fox with golden eyes. It spots him and is spooked. The little fox had never encountered such a beautiful looking little boy. She ran up the path to the little stream and quickly switched to her human form, hiding her 5 fluffy tails and her pert little ears. Thinking that she had lost him she sat by the stream to contemplate the disappointment her mother had held for her. She accepted nothing short of perfection.
Kyoko sniffled. "If I were perfect I would already have all nine. I don't want to be this anymore." She sobbed and pulled on her little black pigtails as the little swirls of darkness surrounded her and crackled.
Little Hizuri Kuon burst through the brush panting heavily from the chase of the little black fox and came to a sudden stop. For a moment he thought he saw a little girl with the ears of a fox and 5 black tails billowing out behind her. He rubbed his eyes.
Little Kyoko-chan startled, then looked at him with wide eyes. She gasped. "Are you a fairy?" She asked excitedly. She had heard of them before from the other creatures like her but, she had never actually seen one. Weren't they supposed to be smaller though?
Kuon stood there staring in disbelief into the little raven haired girls golden eyes. He nodded. Not in response to her question but, to shake the illusion from his mind. She however, took it as a positive answer.
Kyoko-chan let out a breath of relief. "I'm so happy!" She exclaimed then relaxed her visage and revealed her ears and tails to him. "I don't have to hide. Since you aren't a human." She explained. "Mother would be very angry with me if you were human." She told him. "She says I have to hide my powers from them or, they will kill us. My name is Kyoko-chan. What's yours?"
This was new to him. He had never met anyone like her in his life before. Maybe his visit to Kyoto wasn't going to be that bad after all. "My name is Kuon." He smiled brightly. "Why were you crying Kyoko-chan?"
She looked at the ground and toed a little rock with her sandaled foot. "Um... Mother says being Kitsune means perfection. She sends me to school with human children. I only am able to make 88% on my grades and when I get upset at home my ears and tails show and my darkness comes out, so... yeah." She sniffled and the darkness began to swirl around her once again.
He really wanted to cheer his new little friend up. "Kyoko-chan... Look!" Kuon did a back-flip for her.
She squealed and clapped for him. "Uwaa! That's wonderful Corn! Show me more!" She giggled. And he did. All afternoon and into the evening they entertained each other. He with acrobatics and she with her void magic. They met every day and entertained each other everyday for two weeks. All was well until the day before Kuon had to leave for home and go back to California with his father. To calm her he gave her the little blue Iolite that he had found with his father while spelunking a few years ago. He demonstrated to her how it would change from blue to amber in the sunlight. In return she gave to him something very precious to her; although, he wouldn't realize how precious until he asked his father about Kitsune later on. It was the size of a large marble, black as the darkest night with a little point of light that shimmered on it. For safe keeping, he wrapped it securely in a tiny leather pouch and fastened it safely about his neck and never took it off. It was her Star Ball, her very life-force. When he had asked his father about the legends surrounding Kitsune, he was told that they never gave them to humans, because it would allow that human to control them. He decided that he would never do that to her, she was his little friend. He would never breathe a word about the Star Ball or, Little Kyoko-chan's secret. Perhaps one day they would meet again and he would return it to her.
Over the years, as Kuon began to grow into a man, the little Star Ball would occasionally flicker brightly in its pouch and then grow dark and dim. He would feel it grow very warm then as cold as ice during these times. It worried him about her.
After he suffered the tragedy of the death of his best friend and mentor Rick, he made his way back to Japan with Takarada Lory, his passport, his personal documents, his life savings, the clothes on his back and the little pouch that contained her Star Ball around his neck. He would make her proud of him. She was Kitsune and they demanded perfection. He would be perfect for her when they met next.
Many years later, almost five, he had been walking through the halls of TBM after an interview with his new manager Yashiro Yukihito, the little pouch grew very warm then suddenly as cold as the coldest ice cube and a black miasma emanated from a distant hall. What was that? He thought to himself, then continued on.
Later that evening he would place the special little marble on the special little purple silk cushion he kept in his bedroom on his dresser. The same little trinket he would keep in the hidden safe in the floor when he couldn't have it with him. The little star in the center of the darkness of the tiny ball faintly glowed. It had lost its vibrancy. Something was terribly wrong. He hoped that she was alright and couldn't relieve his mind from the worry. Where was she now? How was she doing? Would she even remember him?
He fell asleep and the image of a young raven haired girl with gold eyes, black fox ears and now seven tails invaded his dreams. She still seemed young, but he had remembered his father telling him that the legends said that Kitsune couldn't turn human until they were at least 50 to 100 years old. (Hizuri Kuu was only too glad to share stories and legends of his homeland with his beloved son.) So was she young as she looked or, really older? He watched her sobbing pitifully as she sat perched on the foot of his bed.
"Kyoko-chan?" He said softly and place his hand gently on her shoulder.
Her velvety black ear twitched at the sound of his voice. She lifted her golden eyes to meet his sleepy green. "Corn?" She gave him a small smile and lifted her hand to stroke his dream-state golden hair, then looked to the little cushion that he had kept her Star Ball on. "Thank you for not using it." She told him.
"I would never do that to you Kyoko-chan." He assured her.
"I knew I could trust you. Mother beat me and left me at a ryokan when I couldn't show it to her anymore. She would have used it against me if I had it. Thank you for keeping it safe." She told him as she caressed his cheek, then gently kissed him before fading back into the ether.
Kuon awakened from his dream the next morning and to a little black Star Ball that was emitting a purplish black hue and a tiny pinprick of light in the center. The light wasn't as large as it had been over the years but, it was glowing more fiercely than it had been over the past few days.
The first and second times he met the ginger-haired girl, she irritated and angered him yet, there was something slightly familiar about her. The third time, she intrigued him. She had so much natural talent and an unusual aura about her. Finally, the fourth time they had met, he knew. The little stone he had given the raven-haired little fox girl, was in her possession. The stone was intact, but she had been damaged severely. She had hidden her identity well over the years. He knelt to the floor and retrieved the stone for her as his free hand rested over the tiny leather pouch fastened to his neck beneath his shirt.
"Corn!" She cried out as she bounded down the stairwell, looking for the stone. Briefly she let him see a flash of her true image as she searched frantically for the treasure. "Have you seen it? It's a little blue stone. It belonged to someone very special to me. Someone very dear to me. Please, could you help me find it?" She cried as she scoured the floor looking for it.
"Ah... Is this what you're looking for?" He asked as he pretended to pick it up from the floor after removing it from his pocket.
"Corn! You found it! Thank you so much." and for another brief moment her true image flashed to him once again.
He chuckled to himself remembering her when she still had five tails. What had caused the other two to grow? He was curious and wanted to play with her again and tease her. Maybe just a bit. He thought to himself. "You wouldn't happen to be from Kyoto would you?" He asked.
She looked at him with curiosity. He seemed a little familiar. "Umm, yes." She told him. Something in her mind told her she knew him, but from where?
"You do know that they sell those in souvenir shops, right?" He chuckled teasingly.
She narrowed her golden eyes at him and the air crackled around her a bit as he went into his lecture about how naive and gullible she was. Unfortunately she lost her temper and flipped him the bird while calling him an asshole. To say that Ren was stunned would be an understatement. No girl had ever done that to him.
The night that she had lost it, completely lost it, had been the night her mother appeared on television and denied Kyoko's existence. Ren stood before his favorite little fox girl and observed her from a distance. She was silent for a good while, until she saw him. She briefly recognized his true image and howled in emotional pain. An explosion of black and violet fire radiated from her and the area was engulfed in a dark void. Before his very eyes he witnessed the transformation of Kitsune. She stood before him, the image of a female human-fox cross between. Her body covered in black fur with violet colored swirls, her hair now flowed down her back as black as coal and her seven black tails with violet tips billowed behind her. She ran to him and wrapped herself in his embrace, sobbing.
"Why? Why am I not good enough Corn?" She whimpered over and over.
He stroked her hair, ears and the fur on her back, silently allowing her to vent. They stood in silence, hidden from the world by her void magic. She finally looked up at him and realized her mistake. Terrified of her revelation to a human she stumbled back from his arms. "Ts-tsuruga-san?"
He didn't seem surprised or, frightened of her.
She immediately regained her human form. "Tsuruga-san?... Are you not frightened of me?" She asked.
He smiled at her gently and led her to the park bench. They both sat in silence. He then pulled the little leather pouch from his shirt and unfastened the top. He then took her hands, opened them and poured the contents of the pouch into them.
She gasped at the familiar sight.
"Kyoko-chan... To me you are perfect." He told her as she stared at her little Star Ball that lay quietly glowing in her own hands now. He brushed a stray lock of hair from her face that had returned to the strawberry-blonde color and told her, "You were always perfect.". He then pulled her into a hug, as they sat on a bench, in the center of a park, in the middle of Tokyo, in the very early hours of the morning alone, yet together. A little black fox and a faux fairy prince.