Look, I'm alive! Also, this is something of a part two for kitsune in general. Again, getting into town is a bit troublesome, but since it's Thanksgiving, I'm with some family friends—in town. So, yay internet, have a present.
Zenko
Almost literally 'good fox' or 'good foxes', depending on the implied number. Myobu are the most prominent example of these, and called such because they are something of 'handmaidens' to Inari, even if some of them are male. However, not all zenko belong to Inari, and some are as much field foxes as good foxes, because they don't have to be sworn to a service. Still, they are good foxes, who have a better understanding of people than most yako and are also inclined to be helpful. Naturally, being helpful explains the view of 'good'.
xxxx
"So, you said that girl earlier was a kitsune?" Takeshi asked as Tsuna herded his taller companions towards the front entrance while carrying the shortest and with Takeshi gamely giving Fuuta a piggyback ride since Tsuna's arms were otherwise occupied and they didn't want to lose him in the crush of students.
"Um, yes?"
"Aren't black kitsune nogitsune?" Mukuro asked, sounding interested even though his Flames reflected a sharper edge of wary concern.
"No, not always," Tsuna frowned, "I could see where you would think that, though. Color doesn't matter much, outside of silver or gold. Normally you only see those colors on really powerful foxes, whose magic has influenced their fur, but otherwise they're really just whatever color they were born as."
Mukuro gave a thoughtful hum, and Chrome tilted her head curiously. "Do you think we'll see it again?"
"Probably," Tsuna admitted wryly. "If we haven't met it properly yet, we probably will. Or at least I probably will."
Reborn huffed, "Keep at least two of us with you at all times," he ordered. "If that one turns out to be unfriendly, I don't want you facing it alone."
"Kitsune aren't usually malicious," Tsuna assured, thinking back through all the stories he'd heard. Mischievous, sure. Sometimes troublemakers. But actively malicious? Only occasionally—those were nogitsune. "And one that's hanging out in a human city can't be too bad, or someone else would have noticed something by now."
Reborn's Flames still prickled with unease, and Tsuna decided to clear that bit up, "Still, it's not a bad idea to be careful. Anyway, let's go check in with the Sora."
Some of the unease flickered out with the first part and the second settled Reborn more, because it wasn't like the Sora would stand back if Tsuna was in trouble. Gokudera-kun had at some point flipped his notebook open, and promptly flipped it back closed, pocketing it.
"Is there anything specific you need, Juudiame?"
Gokudera had settled during their time in Italy. He was calmer, more confident. Tsuna was pretty sure Fon had some influence on that, as well as the fact that they'd gotten the chance to talk about a number of things that had really needed to be talked about. Tsuna smiled at him, politely ignoring the mildly light-dazzled blink. "Just Kuro-san's views on Korea situation, and possibly Shī's if he's not in the middle of something. Sorry, but you'll definitely have to help them with the new security issues—and it's going to be a nightmare planning the coronation."
Reborn made a quiet, despairing sort of sound in his throat, and Tsuna wanted to reach up and pat his shoulder, but his arms were full of Lambo and I-pin, who both seemed content to bathe in his Flames and doze for the moment.
Gokudera made a face, and Takeshi gave a strained laugh, "Haha, wasn't the Vongola introduction bad enough?"
Tsuna considered. "To be fair, that didn't turn out too badly." Apart from the collapsed load-bearing pillar when Reborn and Fon's disapproval of the rather poor attempt at assassination had intersected and Reborn's Chaos (Skull was right, Reborn wasn't a normal Sun any more than Xanxus was a normal Sky) had mingled with Fon's Storm and gotten significantly more destructive than usual. And they knew their Flames did that when they weren't careful, too (thus the instatement of the 'you break it, you pay for it' Rule), so they had absolutely no excuse for bringing a third of the ceiling down. Even Xanxus and the other Varia had only caused a few collective scorch-marks!
Takeshi wasn't the only one conceding the point.
"Still, Tsuna," Reborn huffed, "There will be a lot more variables."
That was unfortunately true. "Well, it won't be right away, although we should make it soon. No one's really complained yet, but I think the UN would be less twitchy if we got it handled. Mafia fights are bad enough; I don't want an actual inter-country war breaking out."
A series sharp tings announced the tóngshī cub an instant before he pelted around the corner, tripping over a loose bit of concrete with a ringing squall before scrambling to hide behind Tsuna's ankles.
Moeru winged in, pulled up just short of colliding with the lot of them and trilled in thwarted annoyance.
Tsuna felt living metal shift behind his feet, and the cub chuffed a half-complaining apology.
Tsuna snickered.
Moeru trilled again, a little grudging, and flipped around to land on Gokudera's shoulder, deigning not to add to Tsuna's passenger list.
"What was that about?" Fuuta asked, wiggling to be let down from Takeshi's back as Chrome stooped down to pick up the cub, making a startled sound at his weight. Which—living metal. He was heavier than he looked, though not as heavy as solid bronze should be.
"He chewed on Moeru's favorite perch." Which was made of Lightning-Flame treated ironwood, not metal, although it was nearly as hard.
Two much larger tóngshī loped up, paws ringing dully against concrete, and Tsuna waved.
The female slowed, rumbling in exasperation, and the male chuffed a greeting before nodding to Chrome.
"Ano..." she looked at Tsuna.
"He's just greeting us," Tsuna assured. "He appreciates that the cub has no paws on the ground with which to take off and cause more trouble."
Said cub whimpered, rubbing his nose with one of said paws, and Tsuna winced in sympathy. "If the ironwood helps, we should get him some chew-sticks. Poor little guy—it sounds like he's teething."
"You know, Tsuna," Reborn said, almost idly, "there was a time in my life when this would have seemed strange to me."
Tsuna grinned, "Don't worry, Reborn. Namimori's just one of those places."
Reborn made a show of looking around at the mostly-empty street, only a grandmother none of them knew across the way working on her garden and overall ignoring the metal lions and multi-colored bird with a turtle-shell not ten meters from her front gate.
He made a face like he wasn't sure whether to concede the point or wash his hands of the lot of them.
(The khe-ti's head poking up out of Moeru's feathers a moment later didn't help the situation, and Tsuna snickered at the frustrated sort of strangling motions Reborn made at no one in particular before subsiding as Tsuna took full advantage of his Flame type and swamped them all in happy thoughts. He'd missed the tóngshī, and the escort to the Sora base felt like coming home.
The welcome when they got there including Akhlut-san and the dragon just made everything better. The caladrius making a beeline for his favorite perch on an exasperated Reborn's shoulder as Leon obligingly shifted to make room was really just icing on the proverbial cake.)
xxxx
As usual, Tsuna was extremely right, Ryohei reflected as he blinked at the animal roughly the size of a large wolf—normal large wolf, that was, not Akhlut-san's extreme largeness—that had looked like a smiling teenage girl until Tsuna had hung up his end of the phone line. Boxing Club was over for the day, Kyoko off with her extremely extreme friend Hana, and Ryohei had intended to go to the Sora base to extremely check up on the recruits, who had probably at least somewhat slacked off in his absence, if only because they lacked a proper trainer.
(Ryohei wasn't the only trainer, and most of the recruits got their pick of fighting styles, but Tsuna insisted that even the technicians and medics get some basic combat instruction, because he didn't want any of his people to be helpless. They at least had to know how to get away or hold out for backup. But Ryohei was in charge overall, and the recruits who decided to go into security or fieldwork had to meet his own extreme standards for training, at least the lower end of them.)
And the extremely large black fox was already bounding away, an indeterminate number of extremely fluffy black tails waving behind it.
... Ryohei wasn't extremely sure what was going on, but filed it under 'Tsuna Things' and went back to jogging towards the base to check up on his recruits, only some of which were extremely extreme and the rest of which just had to be extremely able to get away. Ryohei could only teach boxing, or at least how to throw a punch without extremely breaking a hand or dislocating a thumb or something, but he was definitely extremely able to tell if someone was putting their extreme all into training.
... he extremely hoped they hadn't slacked off too much while they'd all been in Italy. Things would go so much more smoothly if he didn't need to extremely push them back into shape. Maybe they could find another extreme trainer like Lal Mirch to help out.
He would extremely ask Tsuna about it!
xxxx
Skull bounced through familiar streets cheerfully, waving back when a girl he didn't know waved at him, and then stopped at a pained sound from off to the other side.
He turned down the next street, frowning, and then scowled outright when he saw three older teens shoving a middle-school-aged kid with red hair around, calling him haafu and geek and similar things.
Now, Skull wasn't Hibari. Heck, as Clouds went, Skull was pretty much the most laid back in existence. Even Lal Mirch was way more violent than he was, and she was a primary Rain with a secondary Mist and tertiary Cloud. (She had also almost entirely defaulted to the tertiary before Tsuna had fixed her Flames, because she might have stronger Mist Flames than Cloud Flames, but the Mist mentality didn't come easily to her.)
But Skull didn't like bullies. He liked people who picked on people for things they couldn't control even less than most bullies, and he could tell the hair was natural. (Brave kid.) "Hey!"
The three older teens startled and spun, because Skull sounded like his former-sized self the same as most of the Arcobaleno did. (He actually felt kind of bad for Reborn, sometimes, for getting the baby-voice. He hadn't had nearly as bad of side effects as Lal had, but a baby voice and a minor speech impediment were still a pretty big blow to the pride, as if being shrunk wasn't bad enough.)
"Oh," one of them relaxed, grinning, "It's just a brat. Go home to your mommy, brat."
Skull considered the fact that Tsuna had pretty much declared himself group mom and decided that could be taken as something approaching an insult. He narrowed his eyes, "Just because you're kids, I'll give you a chance to leave peacefully. Let the boy go, and walk away."
Another scoffed, walking towards him purposefully, "And what're you going to do about it, baby? Make us?"
Skull waited until the teen went to grab him, then hopped up over his head and kicked him in the back, careful not to cause serious injury. That one faceplanted in the concrete, and Skull pulled out his phone. "Tsuna? Hey, yeah, I'm on the corner of Fifth near the base," he slid around a second attempt at a grab and knocked that one out with a smack to his lower spine and a quick pulse of neutral Cloud, "Three teens bullying a middle-schooler. He doesn't seem badly injured, but—whoa-" he skipped back out of range as the second got back up and the first growled, ready to swing his makeshift club of a broken tree branch again, "-yeah, they didn't take 'leave quietly' too well. So I'm going to end up having to knock them all out, and you might want to send a medical team."
Tsuna made a very unhappy sound and barked an order on the other end of the line, before adding "I'll be right there," to Skull and hanging up.
Skull shrugged, knocked out the two still-concious older teens in quick succession, and went to check over the redhead who was slowly sinking down the wall, one hand curled protectively across his stomach and the other rubbing at his head, fingers coming away from his hairline smudged red and a slow trickle of blood making its way down his temple.
Skull felt his eyes widen and he scrambled over to the kid, "Hey, are you okay?"
Two minutes later Tsuna showed up with an ambulance and Reborn, and immediately set most of the medics to dealing with the unconscious teens and pulling the most competent—a healer-Sun Skull thought was called Yoshi—and bringing him to Skull's rescue-ee. Once everyone was confirmed stable—and the redhead was the worst injured—Tsuna herded the lot of them into the ambulance and they quietly drove back to base. The three older teens got consigned to the holding cells until they woke up for Tsuna to talk to, and the redhead was placed in the infirmary, seeming a little shell-shocked even outside his head injury.
And that was how they met Irie Soichi.
(Tsuna was the only one to notice thoughtful eyes watching, and he had more important things to worry about than yet another supernatural evaluation.)
xxxx
Three hours later, Tsuna was seriously considering following Reborn's earlier reaction of hand-over-eyes and groaning, because the kitsune he'd seen was sitting next to the fence near Kuro-san's house, heat-shimmer waver settling in what he could vaguely tell was a humanoid silhouette against the bamboo slats.
Walking his Namimori Base boss home to pick up any outstanding details hadn't exactly been unheard of, and Reborn had been willing to let him out of sight because he had an escort. Specifically, a Rain and a Mist that had been doing well in their training, along with Mukuro's familiar skulking and Hibari's sharp-eyed semi-distant prowl.
Kuro-san paused, blinking at the heat-shimmer above and to the left of the fox's actual head. "Ano..." he glanced at Tsuna, clearly saw the exasperation, and apparently decided that the girl—presuming he saw a girl like the others had—was a non-threat who, while not entirely welcome, at least wasn't unwelcome. "Hello, Oujou-san...?"
Tsuna sighed and stepped past the man, who immediately fell silent, "Kitsune-san, not to be rude, but why have you been watching my people?"
One black tail flicked out from the indistinct mass of the rest as she stood, the heat-shimmer dissipating. Her head tilted and then she stretched out her forelimbs in a canine bow, her tails fanning out to show a grand total of five, and her voice came across in a cool mental touch as she didn't even try to speak aloud, You see through even my illusions. I am impressed, lordling. Your people love and trust you; they are honorable, and they are strong. You shine brighter than any star. I am—the name came not as words but impressions, a deep pool on a still new-moon's night, glinting with pinprick lights of reflected stars with the scent of seagrass and pine and a cool saltwater breeze from the west. As long as you will it, I am in your service.
Tsuna blinked.
"Thank you?" he asked, not quite sure what to make of the sudden allegiance.
The fox straightened before sitting and waiting with tails primly arranged around her.
"Um... can you meet me at the Shrine this evening? I still have a lot to do right now."
He got a quick, elegant nod for that, and the fox stood and turned in a single motion, bounding off towards the edge of town as the heat-shimmer-like ripple returned.
"Juudiame?" Kuro-san asked weakly.
"... pretend that didn't happen for now," Tsuna sighed, exasperated. "We have other things to worry about for the moment."
"What did happen?" the escort Rain—Ling, who was on something of an exchange program from the Triads—asked, bewildered.
"Another Myth joined the ranks," Tsuna informed, guessing that he'd been the only one the fox had spoken to. "Anyway, Kuro-san, was there anything else?"
"Ah, yes, the repair teams sent out to the more remote areas of South Korea adversely effected by the, uh, restructuring have reported that the problems with the water are mostly cracks in the underground piping. We're not sure what caused them, but we're spreading the word to boil drinking water. We're having to prioritize by severity of damage and population density for the work."
Tsuna frowned. While it was good that they'd tracked down the problem, and a relief that the issues with quality involved microbes killable by boiling rather than poisons or heavy metals, repairing the water piping for the better part of a country was going to be a pain. And they'd have to see about tracking down what exactly had caused the damage, because the tech used to isolate communications really shouldn't have cracked pipes.
Argh.
"Okay, thanks for the update," Tsuna sighed. "I need to get back to base—come on, Ling, Jiro."
His life, why?
xxxx