A/N: Sometimes I wonder if my overimaginative brain had a mind of its own or just... my brain was too idle to think about this AU too much. Thank you for the comments saying you guys love my prose...

Anyway, see if I can conclude this piece before we move on to the next arc. Cos someone demanded an angsty fairy tale. My Ace!muse really is quite demanding.


A few hours earlier...

"Gosh! Ace... what should we do? This... shouldn't be normal, right? Tsumuri-san... we should call her—" Keiwa blinked as he realised something. "Wait, does she have a phone or something to contact her? Do I even have her num—or should we head to the shrine? Oh! Should I ask Win-san if he could help—!"

Ace kept turning his head here and there as he tried to keep track of Keiwa pacing around the room (Thank goodness Sara-san had left for work quite early today or she'll end up seeing this commotion) and then immediately jumped at Keiwa so they both end up landing on the bed.

"Calm down, Keiwa!" Ace barked at him sternly as he cocked his head and flipped one of his ears at Keiwa. "And what did you mean you want to call on PunkJack?"

"Ah!" Keiwa gasped at him. He bit his lips. "Sorry... Ace, I forgot to tell you."

He took in a long breath before glancing up to look at Ace. "Actually a few days ago, I contemplated trying to restore Miichi's, Neon-chan's and Win-san's memories using their old Core IDs to ask about stuff that I didn't remember—" Keiwa hastily stopped Ace from scolding him about it as he continued explaining.

"But then, since I couldn't find it—I assumed Tsumuri-san took them away—so I thought perhaps I should give up on it." Keiwa sneaked a peak to look at Ace and heaved a sigh of relief that Ace had finally calmed down.

He sighed again. "I thought long about why you didn't want me to find out or remember about it, so I figured perhaps it's not really important for me to get those memories back." Keiwa smiled at the fox next to him before shrugging.

"So instead of trying to recover those Core IDs, I ended up just chatting with Tsumuri-san. And then Tsumuri-san gave me the three Core IDs after that!"

Ace cocked his head at Keiwa. "My sister did that?" asked the fox as Keiwa nodded.

"She told me that I should decide myself on what to do—so yesterday I thought I'd just give up on the idea and return the cores without doing anything. But then I saw the three in front of the shrine—!"

The fox in front of him really looked completely befuddled as Keiwa finally noticed the time on his alarm clock!

"Wait... what does that mean—" Ace exclaimed as Keiwa once again was spurred into another bout of panic.

"Great! I'm late for work—or should I call in sick or something—I can't work calmly with all this thing happening! Wait, I should text Win-san first... and oh! I need to also inform Kinoshita-san that I can't go to work today cos of some emergency—ah yes, emergency! I could use that excuse—aah!"

Ace flinched as he turned around to see Keiwa fall flat on the floor after tripping on his own foot. He just shook his head as he bound over to calm Keiwa down before Keiwa's phone started ringing...

All this commotion just because Keiwa saw that he had grown another tail! Oh, Keiwa...

xxx

Suddenly he started regretting that he had agreed to let Keiwa carry him out using the pet carrier. But Keiwa had argued that it might not be safe for him to be seen in public with his two tails on display...

"Anyway... since the three were there, I asked them to tell me what they know. And Tsumuri-san also told me about the other things I did..."

Ace tried to get a look outside from the few peepholes that he could reach from his cramped position. It didn't look as if Keiwa was back yet after running off to help his colleagues with something. But he was sure that it wouldn't be long until Keiwa was done. And then off they go to see the others.

The lone fox let out a soft yip.

Well, at least nothing bad happened to Keiwa yesterday. And Keiwa admitted that hearing what those guys said about the past events didn't trigger any recollection. Not even when his sister told him about how he tricked her and gave her up to Jitt.

Perhaps that was for the best. Because Ace didn't want Keiwa to remember the awful things that he had done in the past. He didn't want Keiwa to remember the weight of the guilt he must have felt, to the point that he didn't think twice before diverting Ace's blade through his heart.

Because in the end, he did manage to save Tsumuri before Jitt was able to turn her into the second Goddess. Because in the end, he managed to exile those people from this world...

.

Ace started to shift his body around as he tried to take a look at his own tails. He sighed.

When he made that last prayer and wish to save Keiwa's life, he had been prepared to lose every single ounce of power left in himself. But with this new tail growing out of him, would that mean that some of the scattered remains of his powers were coming back to him?

Should that be a good thing for him (and Keiwa)... or not?

xxx

Neon cautiously reached out to pet Ace on the head, before going further to scratch the side of its neck when she saw that Ace didn't mind her treating him like an adorable cat-dog. Miichi still eyed Ace warily as if still afraid that the fox would try to jump at him like how it happened earlier.

Win stared at Ace curiously before turning towards Keiwa.

"Keiwa-kun... are you sure you didn't leave out any specific event that may happen that might be the reason why Ace was able to grow out another tail?"

Keiwa blinked at the older man, as he started thinking about it again. It was one reason he began to appreciate having Win around lately, given how the man seemed to be able to keep calm and observe the things around him and made good judgement over the things in front of him. He hadn't appreciated the man's wisdom enough back then when Win informed them of the truth about the Godde—Mitsume-san—before but suppose he should start doing that now.

But... things that he might have overlooked its importance, what could that be? Besides having a 'wet dream' about Ace—which was beside the point, he couldn't think up anything else that might seem relevant enough to actually—!

.

"Ah! There it is!"

Keiwa immediately jumped in surprise as Miichi's voice cut through his deep line of thoughts. "Wh-what?"

Miichi just pointed a finger at Keiwa. "That 'something'. You thought of something that could explain what's happening, right? Your face went red!", exclaimed Michinaga as Keiwa's cheeks grew hotter than before he even realized that the heat had pooled up there so much!

"W-Wha-what do you mean?"

Win immediately held up his hands to mediate the situation as he turned to Keiwa again. "Did you think of something?" said the man gently as Keiwa shrugged.

"Nothing much... aside from me spending a lot of time with Ace at home, and Ace being so overly affectionate with me—"

The statement triggered a reaction from Ace as the albino fox turned its head towards Keiwa. "What? You got a problem with THAT now?"

Keiwa gasped as he turned towards Ace. "That's not what I mean—!"

"How affectionate?" Michinaga suddenly spoke out as Keiwa and Ace both turned towards the long-haired youth.

"I-I... don't think that's really important right now—" said Keiwa as Ace started eying Miichi slightly conspiratorily.

"This buffalo... maybe I should give him another nip on the ankle—"

"No, Ace!" exclaimed Keiwa as he grabbed Ace onto his lap and held the fox tightly, to prevent it from running off to chase after Miichi. Though, to be fair, Keiwa didn't really need to worry too much about that as Ace was just happy with his new position right now.

The same couldn't be said about Michinaga.

The former buffalo/zombie rider made a face at Keiwa. "W-wait! What happened just now?" he ask as Miichi held out his hands defensively. "And why is THAT fox smili—no, I can see him LAUGHING at me right now!"

Keiwa laughed helplessly as he tried to bow his head towards Michinaga as an apology. "S-sorry... Ace seemed to get his amusement by imagining the many ways he could get a nip on your ankles for fun, Miichi—"

Immediately Michinaga pulled his legs up so that he was now literally crouching on his chair. "I knew it! That crazy fox had something against me and my ankles!" exclaimed Michinaga again as Win started to laugh hard.

"I love these kids so much!"


A/N2: Haha. Sorry that things was so all over... Ace gets easily distracted with Miichi around...