"Girl," a voice said, and Taylor jolted awake.
"Mwuh?" she asked, showing that the jolt hadn't completed the job of waking her up, then reached for the lamp by her bed.
Had she actually heard that voice? Or just… dreamed it, or whatever?
The light went on with a click, and she looked around.
"Girl," the voice repeated, deep and resonant, and after a moment Taylor saw the source.
There was… a fox sitting on the floor of her room.
Which was deeply strange, because her room was indoors. Most rooms were. Though her window was open, so it wasn't outright impossible.
"I require a native guide," the fox said, because, why not at this point. "I have no idea where I am."
"...Brockton Bay?" Taylor said. "Are you a Changer?"
"Not especially, no," the fox replied, standing up, and Taylor noticed that it had nine tails. And long ears which really didn't seem right for a normal fox…
"I'm no good at the henge," the fox went on. "Honestly I've never had much need for it. You should be grateful I can do this small version, I was planning on it being a surprise… anyway. I require a native guide. I have no idea what you mean by Brockton Bay."
"...who are you, then?" Taylor said. "A Case 53?"
The fox stared at her, head tilting slightly.
"Perhaps I should go back to the beginning," he said. "I require a native guide. I have no idea where I am. What about those phrases implies that I have more than the faintest idea what you're talking about?"
"If you don't know then…" Taylor stopped, and restarted. "Why are you in my room?"
The fox was silent for a long moment.
"You remind me of how someone used to be," he said. "There's – differences, he was all sunshine on the outside. But on the inside, his hidden fears… yes, you remind me of how someone used to be. And I had to pick someone, so that's as good a method as any."
He tilted his head the other way. "Now, are we going to get to the bit where we do the explanations?"
Taylor had had something of a chance to actually focus, now.
"Well… all right?" she said. "But I want to know where you came from, preferably first? I don't even know your name… mine is Taylor, before you point out that you don't know my name."
She stifled a vague chuckle. "I'd say I shouldn't give out my name to a strange cape, but… you're literally in my bedroom, so…"
The fox made a growling sound, but he didn't seem to be angry, just… disgruntled.
"All right," he muttered. "You know, I don't give out my name to just anyone… Kurama. And I'm from… well, I don't know if you'd have any idea where it is relative to here. I certainly don't know where this is relative to where I came from, not least because I got here by dying. Somehow."
Taylor blinked.
"...what?"
"We were in a fight," Kurama said. "And we overstrained ourselves… Naruto was going to die, but I made sure it was my chakra that burned out first. I hope he's going to be okay without me to help him…"
Then Kurama shrugged. "But, anyway… I think it's your turn?"
"...you said that I reminded you of how-" Taylor said, going back over the conversation. "How could you know that? Didn't you just… come into my room? How could you know anything about me?"
"I can detect negative emotions and hostile intent," Kurama replied, with a vulpine shrug, as if he hadn't just dropped an enormous bombshell. "This whole huge city is giving me a headache, by the way. You're lucky I'm not at a point in my life where I'd be destroying places that were sinful, because if I was then I'd be giving serious consideration to this place."
Taylor gave him a confused look, and Kurama sat back on his haunches before scrubbing his muzzle with his paws.
"I'm not normally this small," he said. "Humans… I deliberately took on a smaller size so I wouldn't alarm anyone and so I could fit into buildings."
"Okay, uh… do you know what a cape is?" Taylor asked, trying to work out if Kurama was maybe from Aleph or something.
Then she paused.
"...how much smaller?"
"So, what's the plan this time?" Eidolon asked, once Legend had given his speech and he'd been able to catch his fellow Triumvirate member. "Same as usual, or what?"
"Well, there is some merit in pointing Lung at Leviathan and standing well back," Legend replied. "But it probably is the same plan as normal, yes… albeit with more prep time."
His armband beeped.
"Legend," Dragon said. "I've just been informed of something by Kunoichi – she's one of the ABB, she joined at about the time they stopped doing quite so much crime. She's asked for permission to remind everyone that her sidekick, the one we've codenamed Kitsune, is helping to defend the city."
"...why?" Legend asked, then shook his head. "I don't have an objection, I'm just curious."
"So am I," Eidolon admitted.
Dragon made the announcement over everyone's armbands, in lieu of Kunoichi doing it herself.
Then, very suddenly, there was an absolutely fuck-off enormous nine-tailed fox landing on the bay, tails waving and paws resting atop the water with barely a ripple, and it raised its muzzle.
"Congratulations!" Kitsune shouted, in a voice that would probably echo off the White Mountains and that produced a visible ripple in the lashing rain. "I've heard that there's a giant monster out here with an ass that needs kicking, and it's too long since I had a chance to do it to Gyuki!"
With a clang, the enormous fox swatted aside the ship blocking the shipping channel with one of his huge tails, then squared off and crouched low over the water.
A moment later, Leviathan emerged, and got tackled right back into the water by Kitsune.
Legend had barely been able to see him move.
"...who's Gyuki?" he asked.
Kitsune appeared too busy to answer, if he heard at all, since he was making a serious attempt to bite Leviathan's tail off and Leviathan's water kept bouncing off Kitsune's fur.
"I now have a new hypothesis about why the ABB changed approach when Kunoichi joined," Dragon said, thoughtfully.
AN:
This is one of those things that could be a full fic.
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that if you described an entity to Kurama he'd just say that it sounded like his grandmother...