A/N: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I'm in China ! Pretty much this whole chapter was written mid-air ! I just couldn't wait to start with the Kentikarukage Arc- boy this is gonna be fun ! As a fair warning updates might slow down, but I highly doubt that seeing as I only do like two a week. Enjoy !

Li I woke up. He was lying on a soft bed, with a thin silk blanket over him. He could feel a gentle breeze coming from a window. He didn't remember going to sleep, or finding a bed. Indeed the last thing he remembered was the blinding blue light that had enveloped him and Kunjingle. He sat up and looked around the room for the bear, instead he found a vixen staring at him.

She was beautiful, simply put. Li I had seen pretty, but this was just... Her fur was a bright shade of red, and seemed to glow faintly. She wore a silken garment of golden complexion and her eyes were the deepest, most marine blue ever. Was this Zorari ? Was this beautiful, beautiful vixen his guide ?

"Hello." She purred, in spotless Chinese.

And she could speak his language as well... she was positively perfect. Li I found himself goggling at her. He tried to return the conversation but felt that any conversation or pick-up line would fail him. For the first time in his life Li I found himself positively and absolutely speechless.

"Do you want a kiss ?" She asked in her same purring voice, standing up and walking closer to him.

Li I could have said no, he didn't know her, and for all he knew she could well be a demon. But he was positively attracted to her. He tried to stutter a polite refusal... he couldn't just go smooching every pretty girl in the world. But found himself incapable of disappointing her.

"Just close your eyes." She purred.

Li I did as he was bid, forgetting literally everything in the intensity of the moment. He felt something press against his lips, it was surprisingly cold, and felt wooden to the touch. Then he heard a bark of laughter and his eyes snapped open. There was no pretty vixen. And he was kissing what looked like a flat stick.

What there was was a short, thin fox, with bright, albeit messy red fur. He had bright turquoise eyes, and had two black claws on his paws and feet. He wore a vest of light blue, with some intricate lines of black silk stitched in, and a set of darker blue, more marine, pants. But his most prominent feature were his tails. He had ten of them, all bright red with black tips. For a moment Li I forgot all about the vixen, who was this boy ?

But the boy's childish laughter brought him back to his senses, and Li glared at him. "What's the big idea !"

Between laughs the kitsune managed to try and say that the whole thing was 'freaking hilarious' and that Li should have 'seen his face'.

Li glared at him harder. "And what's the stick for ?"

The kitsune held his breath before laughing a bit more, he halted for half a minute, enough time to hold up the stick and say. "It's a chuugi, and is used for anal-"

"-WHAT !?" Li yelled frantically wiping at his mouth.

"Cleansing. Anal cleansing." The kitsune then burst into more fits of laughter, before taking a deep breath, grinning like a maniac and asking Li I. "What do you think you were kissing ?"

"WHAT !?" He yelled again, a note of absolute fury in his voice.

"It's a new one, don't worry I'm not a total-" He was forced to duck as a dart flew over his head and landed with a thunk in the wooden wall behind him. Only then did he notice that the rabbit was positively pissed. "You know what? I think I should be leaving." And with that he turned tails and ran. Li of course gave chase.

The kitsune turned wildly, and slid down the stairs, before making another wild turn and racing out of the building.

Li I forgot all about the stairs and hopped out of the window, landing right in front of the kitsune. He swung with his fan, but the ten-tailed fox was light on his feet, and running for his life.

Li I chased after him.

If he had been strolling through Kentikarukage he would have admired the architecture. Buildings were made into trees, or above them, or under them in the case of one particularly large oak. The road was made up of flattened roots, that gnarled and twisted and turned over each other. Windows were just holes in trees, or gaps in roots, doors were the same, but larger and covered in an equally large blanket. It was positively beautiful, but the only thing Li I had eyes for was catching the kit.

He turned wildly at a tree, expecting Li to not be able to turn as quickly as he did, to his great surprise the rabbit did it as well as he did, and was closing in.

They raced past a small hut, built under the remains of a peach, and the kitsune snatched a pipe from another old fox (only two tails this time) and threw it back at the rabbit. Li I blocked the hot part with his fan, caught it by the handle and passed it back to it's owner all while still hot on the trail.

Kunjingle on the other hand was surrounded by smaller children, all were kitsune, though some only had two or three tails, and the largest number was eight, and they were all about five or six years old. They stared at him in wonderment and fascination as he recounted his life story to them in his strangely poetic language. They climbed over him, on him, surrounded him, poked at his sun, his belly, pulled at his ears, stared into his mouth, tried to tickle his feet with their tails. It was strangely relaxing, looking after all the smaller beings. It would have been more relaxing but another kitsune raced right past him, while being chased by a rabbit. Kunjingle had a short mental battle before deciding that he really didn't want to know. Still Li I was his friend, so putting the children down he slowly walked after them, admiring the scenic beauty of the place, especially the path, the roots were very well bonded.

Zorori ducked behind another kitsune and let Li I slip in his attempt to not crash into her. Both stopped running, Zorori looking down at the rabbit from over his mother's shoulder, his tongue sticking out at Li, who continued to glare, and poked his own tongue out.

It took Zorari two seconds to put two and two together. Then the kitsune grabbed her son by the ears and smacked him right across the face. Li I, and the kids that had inevitably followed Kunjingle erupted into fits of laughter

Zorari was the Soncho of Kentikarukage. The Village Elder. She had bright red fur and the same turquoise eyes as her son. She had only four tails, tipped in white, not her child's black. She too was bare foot, and only had two claws on each paw, like most kitsune. She wore a lightish blue robe, with dark green leaves patterned onto it and a small scruff of yellow wool around her neck. Her hat was also strange, a blue band that attached a flat green cap to her head, and from that cap stemmed a cone of yellow. It looked absurd but was the mark of her title.

"Hey, what was that for ?" The younger kitsune asked, rubbing his wounded cheek.

Zorari ignored the question and began ranting, gently pressing her claws against her temple. "How many times have I told you not to use the Seduction 'Technique' ? How many times have I told you that tricking people into kissing a chuugi is not funny ?"

"Hey at least this one was unused." Zorori defended.

Zorari slapped him again. "How many times have I told you not to disobey me ? Now apologize to our guests."

The slap must not have hurt much as a second later he was bowing down to Li I and Kunjingle. "Hello, and welcome to Kentikarukage ! My name is Zorori, son of Zora 'Black-Tip' Pom-Poko and Zorari Chan. Aaaaaaaaaaaat your service."

Li I would have well-liked to be allowed to slap him, but decided against it. He then looked at the kit's mother, who with considerably less showmanship introduced herself. "I am Zorari. Kentikarukage's Soncho. What brings you to us ?"

Li I forgot all his anger as excitement filled over him. So this was the one Han's mother had sent them to ! "We our Li I and Kunjingle. My companion and I are searching for my father, we were sent here at Miss Guan's recommendation, she also supplied the Orb we used."

Zorari narrowed her eyes, considering Li I. "And the bear follows you ?" She asked suspiciously.

"He's a good friend." Li I replied.

Zorari nodded. "Very well. Follow me. Zorori look after the bear and make sure he has all the comforts he desires."

"Sure mum." He replied as Zorari with a nod of her head signaled for Li I to follow her.

Footnote: The chuugi joke was borrowed from a scene in Silver Fang by Empressimperia, where Po visits Japan and finds a strange object ;)

Zorori is named after the titular character of a manga/anime called Kaiketsu Zorori, though he's not exactly based off of that fox. As a result my other kitsunes Zora and Zorari are named similarly as a kind of in-joke.

Enjoy