My feelings were quite dubious, mostly because of all that was happening. But it's better, probably, to start far back.
February two thousand and five ended. There were ghouls sparkling in the sun in this universe. There was also one girl who made everything in my chest freeze up. This girl had her husband for, like, half a century, probably. And of course, me becoming the kitsune inexorably loomed in the future, by reincarnations no less, and this particularity also did not brighten the situation.
No, of course, I would be a moronic fucker if I didn't want to visit other worlds and generally immerse myself in all this fantasy thing, but for that I would have to reformat myself somehow, or something like that. And it took effort and time, yes. I had those, but I was going to spend my efforts on getting a prestigious higher education, and not on spiritual and physical preparation for death and reincarnation, these are two hugely different things. I still am a rather ordinary person.
Yes, there was a part of me hiding deep inside, the one in which those newest foxy, yokai parts took a foothold, but that part was aking to a tiny candle, barely burning and trembling. This, of course, is compared to the firestorm that I felt when Tomiko and I were training to concentrate and use this inner fire. Obviously, she had to show me this thing somehow, that's why our inner magics had to touch each other.
Rebirth, it seemed to me, automatically put an end to any possible attempts of mine to settle down anywhere at all, like starting a family and all that sort of thing. Well, it's not like I planned on doing such a thing with my body, but I don't think it makes much difference whether the child would be adopted or not. In any case, parting with my loved ones would feel ten times more shitty than what I experienced after the first death.
At one time, I almost went crazy because of the discord over memories from a previous life. And only more or less adequate parents, a lot of fiction and films, the possibility of early emancipation and the presence of Tomiko nearby, who performed her task of quietly shepherding me, saved me from a complete and irrevocable slate going off. Despite the fact that I was emancipated by law, I still somewhat obeyed my flighty mother and did not really want to break away from daddy's parental love, which I did not really have in my previous life. Based on these features, I understood that traumas and other shit from the past, which shaped my personality along with more positive events, would always prevail if I did not solve this problem in some other way.
As a relatively normal adult with communication abilities, I quite obviously got to Tomiko. There was simply no other way out - to take advice from other conditionally immortal nearby would be idiocy, and not only because of the difference in situations, but also because we successfully shied away from them.
Vixen promised to help, but so far she has not worked out anything clear - contacting her elders seemed to be a bit of a hassle for her. And, well, her own experience was also not particularly suitable. All that remained was to ask her peers, or at least those who were not above her in the immediate hierarchy. For this, again, it took time. Spiritual entities, I think, are spiritual because they don't watch their time much, when it comes not only to each other, but also to mortals. Well, this is how I understood from her slightly confusing explanations about how everything works there. All this inter-world hierarchy kept twisting my brains into pretzels, and she didn't tell me everything completely - I couldn't make her promise not to lie to me. She wriggled out with mastery.
Promises were something that the kitsune preferred not to break.
Although why I use "preferred" there, judging by Tomiko's descriptions, it was a straight road to one tail, if it came to younglings, or even to recently fluffed out nine-tailed one. It was a little later that she realized that I intended to use this knowledge to my advantage. Still, this particular vixen clearly underestimated humanity in general, and me in particular. I, on the other hand, could be said to have grown up in front of her eyes, and I kept being idiotic with frequency. So she wasn't that far off in her estimation of the mental abilities of mortals. It was just somehow insulting that, for my somersaults during my attempt to get her to make a promise, she looked at me for almost the first time in an appreciative, respectful way, and not as usual - with affection or irritation.
Well, at least she did tell me that, that's how I know that I have to live by the same rules. As she explained it, this is partly why kitsune often appear as such cunning creatures in myths, with all their power of fire, illusions and other considerable abilities.
I probably wouldn't have been able to handle one of these local vampires one-on-one, I didn't even have a tail yet, let alone a fox shape. That's why I didn't ask for trouble much. Although I really wanted to - Ed-dick was incredibly annoying.
Edumbardo was - as Tomiko stated, at the same time cunningly and maliciously smiling - a little perplexed, to put it mildly, when all three new girls were out of the access zone for his mind-reading gift. That is, coincidentally, three girls, one after the other, roll into this place in fuck knows where on the horns of the leshy, and each of them is protected from his legilimency, yeah. I re-e-eally believed that he re-e-eally believed it, yeah, right.
Unlike me, the vixen had all the advantages inherent in her Yokai Spirit essence, so she knew, could and practiced eavesdropping on their conversations when they thought no one was listening. And no, they did not believe that this was an accident that happened to us three, but it was me who arose their suspicions most, not Tomiko - she knew how to seem harmless and lied as she breathed. Well, her age kinda makes her being good at it obvious. I have an old lady on my hands here, yeah, heh.
Simply put, Tomiko had her own protection, I had a shield, that developed from the mental to the physical, but limited, but the dearest ex was protected by the old omamori. After all, Tomiko gave me paired pendants, and I distributed one of them further to dearest Lilian, without telling who it was from, otherwise she would hardly have worn it. I didn't know the details about those amulets at the time, of course, but it was already clear that Lily didn't like Tomiko, but I still wanted to get sentimental with couple stuff.
Lillian did not take it off even now, when she decided to abandon the continuation of our relationship. I didn't attach much importance to this, because it was easier that way - that's what I originally wanted, after all, but I hoped when she chased me here. I hoped in vain, no doubt. It was all just words, as I surmised.
Melon moved back into the "exes" category, after all, at her request we didn't just take a break, but took different directions. At that time, I wondered aloud why she even transferred here at all, if her mood could change so much in less than a month. I didn't even argue with her, just shrugged my shoulders at her angry hissing and scurried off sideways to join Tomiko.
The vixen gloomily confirmed later that it was all for a reason - this version of vampires could mess with mortals hard, and therefore it was obvious that they were somehow interested in Lillian. Well, it was then I asked her to tell me the canon story.
I was worried, of course, Lillian is not some random stranger after all. But trying to communicate with them vamps is not something that could be done without some additional suffering on my part. Also, a rather meaningless pastime if I try to keep the secret. Even those vamps who did exchange words with me before - now they could only offer me a greeting once every three days or so, and that was it.
Me and Vixen, we managed to put together that puzzle, mainly based on her ability to secretly eavesdrop, for the most part. I didn't even know much about the canon of this story in the first place, so it was impossible to talk about any foreknowledge on my part. In that story, they knew about Bella in advance, because of this pixie girl Alice - Tomiko remembered it exactly. And yes, the fates of the people were completely diverse, nothing was immediately predetermined. But if there is someone who is not averse to influencing the result at all, they will be able to behave one way or another if they have access to the oracle throughout the whole event to check on the very result they wanted. And this is exactly how the tandem of "mind reader" plus "oracle", in principle, could work.
In general, I understood that Lillian to some extent took the place of the main character, and I basically suspected that we were all NPCs in her RPG, she was really fucking lucky all around. I was ready to spit on it all and give up - that's exactly what I did when I meekly agreed to her decision not to continue our relationship. But in early March, during the first spring thunderstorm, my principle of non-interference failed.
Suddenly everything went dark before my eyes, and the forest grass abruptly appeared right in front of my nose - the beetle, which I had previously tried to set on fire under the supervision of this freeloading vixen, barely managed to dodge from under me. The trick was that I had to create a spark the size of this very bug, but so far I've only been able to bulge my eyes at the bug and puff up. The weather somehow did not particularly encourage concentration either - thunder could be heard somewhere in the distance. And any riot of the elements, even such a distant one, always distracted me from any activity. In Phoenix, in general, there was no such seasonal correlation, if we talk about thunderstorms, but it mostly happened from mid-June to September. The thunderstorm here reminded me of home in some ways, the weather here was with normal seasons, and not like in Arizona. That's why it was obvious, such comparisons were incited by my deep nostalgia in general. But what I mean is, it wasn't exactly the thunderstorm that was to blame for my sudden frail condition.
Tomiko became alarmed and started fussing - I couldn't breathe, as if something was pulling me somewhere. I took a few steps, uncertainly, on trembling and buckling knees. But after half a minute my breathing became smoother, and my spine arched slightly into a predatory stance by itself. I looked into the vixen's eyes with a kind of doomed helplessness and swallowed.
"What's going on, Tom?"
"Oh, no, no, no," she did not let me continue walking, grabbing me by the shoulders. "You... You promised something, didn't you?"
"Does it really," I swallowed again and exhaled nervously, "does it count if it was before your amulet activated?"
"Your spirit is one of ours, only your body was human," she hugged me to her, not letting me go. I felt like a dog that has been pulled by a leash, to the hell knows where. "That's. Yes. What did you promise? And to whom?"
"I don't know... What should now... to happen?" I squeezed out every word, every phrase, as if something prevented me from speaking, the lump was not even in my throat, rather it climbed right into the bronchus and lit a fire there.
Despite the fact that my babble was not very clear, if you don't really know the context, Tomiko understood me. And then her understanding turned dark. Well, I, on the other hand didn't understand anything, but I got into it because of the changes on her face, yes.
"Kusotare," she swore, unusually losing her composure to such an extent that her ceaseless mockery disappeared from her voice. "Wait a sec."
She stretched out her hand to the side, and the space around her palm seemed to ripple.
I blinked - there was no sword, but now there's a decent, weighty katana in her small palm. The tsuba's intricate, the handle is nicely wrapped, everything proper, but the steel... I didn't know much about steel, really, but there was something wrong with the blade.
"Here," she put a sword in my hands, you could even say she squeezed it in, because I handled it like a club at the very beginning, even though I knew how to handle it. "Before the fight, be sure to feed him with your blood."
"What the fuck kind of fight?!" I wheezed out, my brain scrambled, and bulged my eyes at the vixen.
"I'll be with you, I'll back you up. There's a situation with your ex, she's probably in danger now. What did you promise her?"
"I'm not..." I frowned, slung the sword over my shoulder, and cleared my throat.
The pulling feeling continued, but it was already less intrusive, as if pulsating, not really pulling anymore.
"If you can remember the wording for me, I can tell you how to get rid of it," she clarified her insistence. "What's more, you didn't know what it would lead to. Humans are like that...
"Yes, yes, humans are like that, and generally idiots," I rolled my eyes and grabbed the sword more conveniently. "Once, I told her something like, I promise that I will protect you, if you don't get in my way."
"On the first day you met!" Tomiko's voice was full of disbelief, but at the same time a kind of cheerfulness crept into it. "Okay, there is a condition, it means that she can release you. Since our masquerade has come to its natural conclusion, then let me give you a lift."
I have never saddled large silver foxes, especially without, in fact, any saddle. Especially, with a katana in one hand, while feeling as if this very fox had trampled on me a couple of times.
It must have been quite a sight.