The origin of the Nine-tails Part 2
Shukaku slowly circled Kyuubi. Kyuubi watched him cautiously. He knew this foul creature too well to take him lightly. He was patient; he would wait for Shukaku to make the first move.
He charged rapidly; Kyuubi prepared for the impact. Shukaku saw the ploy and charged faster. Just before impact Kyuubi jumped out of the way and…BAAAM! Shukaku collided with the tree behind.
Kyuubi laughed coldly. The young vixen tried not to grin at the sight of Shukaku with his head stuck in a tree. When he finally freed himself from the trunk, Shukaku was LIVID. Kyuubi had done it again!
"Is that the best you can do Kyuubi? I thought you were better than this. Or were you just pretending all those other times?"
"Do you take me for a fool such as yourself? I'm not gullible enough to fall for the wait-until-the-last-minute-then-dodge ploy."
The vixen was startled at Kyuubi's ruthless and cunning. Perhaps she had been wrong to spurn Kyuubi for all these years.
Kyuubi waited for Shukaku again. But his rival wouldn't fall for the same thing twice if he could help it. He started to take this battle more seriously. As the saying goes: too little, too late. By falling for the simplest tactic, Shukaku put himself at a disadvantage.
The battle between the two raged for over two hours with neither beast yielding to his enemy. But the Shukaku had one last devious tactic. And it nearly succeeded in killing Kyuubi and the vixen.
What could possibly have tipped the scale in the evil raccoon's favor? He tricked Kyuubi into protecting the vixen when he was the target.
Shukaku bit Kyuubi near his spinal column and it almost killed him instantly. Almost but not quite. If it wasn't for the young female's intervention, Kyuubi death would have been assured.
Right after Shukaku bit Kyuubi, he was unable to defend himself from what would have been a fatal attack. But the vixen who started to care about the fox decided to intervene. She went between Shukaku and Kyuubi and bit him on the throat. Shukaku was mortally wounded and he was forced to retreat. But this didn't bother him in the least as he was assuming that Kyuubi would die.
Which would have been the case had the vixen chosen to let him die. She had to repay Kyuubi for protecting and defending her from the raccoon. She gently and carefully carried Kyuubi to her den. She took care of him until he was close to waking up on his own. Then the day that her suitors had waited for finally arrived. By this time Kyuubi was conscious and had almost recovered enough to walk again.
The day that her younger and naïve suitors had waited for, the day when she would go into heat for the first time, had come at last. Kyuubi didn't share their excitement as he was still recovering and thought that the vixen would choose another. It wouldn't be the first time this had happened.
But the fox did something that Kyuubi and even she did not expect! She didn't let any of the younger and healthier foxes to take her. She didn't want them near her at all. They weren't the ones who protected her and many of them had been around the day that the raccoon attacked and had done nothing! If they weren't willing to protect her like Kyuubi did that day, then they were unfit to be her mate as she could never trust them.
That night she snuggled up to Kyuubi. He fell asleep against her, his head resting under her own. That night something would change inside both the vixen and Kyuubi. And neither of them would regret it.