Chapter One

Daichi woke once more only to find himself surrounded by trees that towered over him. As a baby fox, this was to be expected, yet even as small as he was, he could tell that these trees were still massive and ancient.

Memories slowly trickled back in as he took stock of his surroundings.

He recalled being in the darkness for so long, simply being pulled along. Then the tugging had stopped for a time, a time where he simply floated in the abyss of his own consciousness. He had no way of knowing how much time had passed, but there was a marked difference in length when he finally felt something new.

A sucking sensation pulled him along this time. It was brief in comparison to his previous trip, and feeling soon returned to him in a burst of sensation. It was a completely unique experience, one he was having trouble putting to words in his own mind. It was as if his soul and… something else were smooshed together.

No, that's not right. He thought to himself. More like… a warmth permeated my very being. Like a warm bath for my soul. Then the pulling and stretching occurred. It wasn't painful, he recalled. Simply uncomfortable.

Then he opened his new eyes to find colossal beings of immense power from straight out of a world he believed to be fantasy standing around him sipping alcohol.

There's a lot to digest there. He sat on his… haunches. Another thing to contemplate, but in a moment. Running through his memories once more, he came to several conclusions.

Reincarnation was real, the Christian God was most definitely alive, and he was now an animal. The last two definitely required more thought than the first. Daichi moved forward through the trees, hopping onto and over large roots as he mindlessly surveyed his surroundings in search of a landmark or potential home. His natural instincts seemed to be assisting locomotion and observation, since four legged travel was a new experience, along with all of the new sights, sounds, and smells assaulting his mind. Learning how to walk and cope with everything all at once would have been immensely overwhelming. Small blessings.

His first moments in this world were a slap in the face of character existence, so there was no debate for the world he found himself within; DxD. There were worse places he could have been dropped, that's for sure. However, the fact that the big man upstairs had stuffed him into this world was confusing. The best theory he had at the moment was his Godly Avatar was what had perished during the Great War, and as such he now had limited influence within this sphere, at least for a time. It was all he could come up with for now, so he ran with the idea and dismissed it as tentatively solved. Unless it wasn't the Christian God, and was another multi-universal entity that deposited his soul in this particular place. Circular thoughts, discussion tabled for now.

The issue of being an animal was a much more prevalent and distressing problem. One that required an immediate assessment.

He was a fox. If his memory of his first moments were accurate, specifically he was a kitsune. A Yokai. That firmly placed him in the Eastern world since his mythology was either Chinese or Japanese, and since Inari was present at his… birth? Birth.

Daichi decided it was a safe bet that he was Japanese, and most likely now located in Japan. He doubted his father? would be willing to let a newly formed kitsune out of his jurisdiction. From what he knew, most Yokai likely weren't spawned of the gods anymore in this universe either, which made him somewhat of a special case. With a tentative grasp on the Why, Who, and Where, Daichi was left with the What and When of his situation.

He stumbled, the sudden lack of roots and trees blocking his path sending him sprawling. Apparently he still had some work to do on the whole movement thing. It was fine, he'd conquer that just as he planned to conquer everything else in this world.

Stop a moment. Blink. That thought-slash-urge was strange.

A flash of white in the corner of his eye caught his attention. A rabbit, slightly larger than himself sat perched not too far away from him. He had stumbled out into what appeared to be a massive field, though he could still see the great trees towering in the distance.

Daichi sniffed the air, hesitant to leave the shadow of the forest at his back. It was definitely a rabbit. Prey. Looked like a rabbit, smelled like a rabbit, tastes like a rabbit. He blinked again. The What needed some serious thought, and soon, but first, the horned treat in front of him demanded his attention.

Horned treat. Horned rabbits.

Inari placed him in the starter zone of this world. What. The. Fuck. How does something like this even exist? Wait. Stop.

He wasn't complaining, but this was… he wasn't sure what this was anymore. Fuck it. Food now, find a den after, What and When soon after that. To-Do list made. Stealth mode, engage.

Daichi crept around the edge of the field, sticking to the shadows of the trees while sliding over roots and fallen leaves, his belly pressed to the ground as he stalked his prey. He was the hunter in this moment. Death on silent paws. The horned rabbit never saw it coming.

Daichi was nearly on top of the beast when he struck, teeth gnashing as he ripped a massive gouge out of the throat of his adversary. Blood sprayed across the grass around them, the rabbit turning to flee but only making it a single hop before collapsing and falling still. A brief surge lifted his spirit as he watched the rabbits eyes glass over.

Daichi sniffed at the blood in the air. His instincts must have been helping his human side cope with what he was dealing with as he buried his maw into the soft flesh of his meal. It was delicious. The warm blood, the tender meat, the satisfying crunch of bone. His human mind would have almost assuredly rebelled against this meal entirely. Even now he felt some part of his mind laced with the tiniest amount of disgust and loathing.

That was fine. He wouldn't be in this form forever.

Appetite satiated, Daichi returned to the trees. He had spotted a very conveniently located burrow beneath one of the behemoths as he had been stalking his dinner. With some careful sniffing about and attentive listening, it was determined to be abandoned, and with great satisfaction Daichi claimed it for himself.

He needed to answer the What and When as best he could for now. Then perhaps afterwards he would search for a water source. One had to be nearby if there were creatures living among the grasses.

He began his observations of himself. Black fur, vicious impulses, confirmed kitsune. Recalling what he knew of Japanese mythology took a few moments, but he eventually managed. Differentiating between Chinese and Japanese fox spirits was important.

From what he recalled, there were two types of fox spirit Yokai, the Zenko, or heavenly foxes, like Yasaka and Kunou, and the Yako, the earthly foxes. There was an important distinction between the two beyond their titles. Zenko were benevolent spirits, evident by the kind and soft nature of the mother-daughter pair in the DxD series. The Yako were the reverse side of the kitsune coin.

While not inherently malicious or evil, Yako had the predisposition to be mischievous and vicious if provoked or uneducated. Daichi's human past would help balance his Yako urges, so this wasn't overly concerning for him. Beyond a kitsune's nature was the next most important fact: how they accrued power.

There were two ways for a kitsune to ascend. The first was the long, patient way. Daichi labeled this as the incredibly inefficient path to power, especially with the preponderance of enemies available in this world, even during "peace time".

The long route to ascension was the result of a century or millennia of passive power and experience growth. A kitsune gained a tail every hundred years of life, regardless of their activities. Each tail was an exponential power boost, and if it didn't take such a long wait period, might have been considered cheating by most other species in the world. As it was, however, a century was more than enough for any entity to surpass the power gifted by gaining a tail this way.

The shorter route was the traditional path most beings took. Training, fighting, and killing. Training enhanced natural energy expenditure and consumption, expediting the expansion of the soul to enable it to house more power. Fighting, particularly to the death, even further enhanced the speed of natural energy transfer, while killing provided the greatest boost to power, directly siphoning a portion of the slain foe's natural energy.

His Yako side seemed to present this knowledge as an obvious matter of course, something similar to ancestral memories. It was why his spirit was briefly buoyed after slaying the horned rabbit. This was his future path, of this there was no doubt. He could attain his kyuubi form, his nine tails form, within two decades as long as he had an abundance of strong enemies to face. Enemies would be his ultimate bottleneck for progression, though if he was still pre-canon that could be solved rather easily.

Tenko, ten tails, was a different story. Nine tails were already borderline Satan class entities, sitting at the apex of Ultimate class devils. Ten tails firmly pushed them into Satan class, and potentially beyond. There was a reason it was called 'ascending'. It was also the tail that held different requirements to attain, requirements that were unknown for both his prior world knowledge and current ancestral memories.

In China, where the mythology of kitsune originated, the numbers three and nine held a special significance to their beliefs. Tails three, six, and nine were milestones of progress, providing an even larger boost than the rest. This paled in comparison to ten tales. In ancient China, nine was viewed as the pinnacle number. Nine is a multiple of three, a sacred number, but nine is also the apex of numbers before everything returned to zero.

In returning to zero, a kitsune surpassed the apex, ascending beyond the mundane. In essence, they became gods. A walking force of nature, which was more than literal when senjutsu was taken into account. Combine senjutsu with youjutsu, kasha, and touki, it becomes a bit more evident as to the reason why a ten tails kitsune was so unbelievably powerful. It was also the reason why ten tails were almost entirely unheard of in any universe.

Nine tails were already unbelievably powerful. Yasaka was essentially in a class all her own, which never really added up for Daichi. She was on the cusp of godhood, yet tolerated, or was even attracted to Issei. Daichi hoped it was only this world's porn logic, or twisted writer's schemes as to why certain events took place. Daichi would be doing plenty of experiments later to potentially bend and break the porn laws of this universe. That moron of a main character didn't deserve the myriad of spectacular women that threw themselves at him. He almost felt bad for his plans to cockblock the majority of Issei's harem.

Almost.

He wouldn't completely ruin the kid's dream of course, but no man deserved to have thirty plus women at his beck and call. That's abuse of power and shitty writing rolled into a single package. He wasn't jealous, that wasn't a factor. Not at all. They were his anyway.

Ah. Yako side again. It kept cropping up with possessive impulses and thoughts of domination. Resting his head on his paws, Daichi took a moment to actually analyze his feelings on these new urges, but quickly shrugged. It was an obvious conclusion.

He planned to stand at the top of this world anyway. Indulging his instincts in the process simply made his future endeavors smoother. If he acquired plenty of beautiful women in the process, well, he was a red-blooded male in a world of perfect tits and loose sexual morals.

Thoughts of world domination and a harem of beautiful women were lofty goals to set, but he needed to take the next step to make those goals a reality. The first had already been taken, all that remained was to continue on the path. With that thought he stood and padded out of his new home.

He had monsters to slay.