[Demon] Tomoko's Den

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

The summer had been…interesting…to Tomoko. It had been nice to have someone her own age to play with, even if a few clan related things had happened during it and Junko had gone to visit Seiji (perhaps a safer option) for the last chunk of it. That had left a long period of time where the kitsune was left in her house with her family with no buffer. For a while, things had seemed safe enough. In fact, for the longest time it seemed nothing out of the ordinary was going to happen. She’d play with her siblings in the evening after their lessons were over and spend her own days outside. After all, her parents had given up on teaching her when the twins had shown more promise than she did.

That was alright. She’d just practice her own illusions and …not be able to gauge them on her own. That had been the crime of it all. Tomoko wasn’t sure what was a ‘workable’ illusion or what just looked shiny to her at home. At school she could at least show the other students and be utterly baffled by all of it. Alas. She needed a tutor in illusions or something like that. Was there a class for such things at school? Frankly, she hoped so. There was a small part of her mind that had devoted a small segment to that thought. However, she’d recalled hearing a rumor that said teacher had gone missing.

Well boo. Clearly, Tomoko was to struggle without direction about her own abilities. Though she did scratch the tip of one of her tails. It itched like a sunnuva b***h and it was definitely going to drive her nuts. Had her tails itched previously when they’d split for the first time? She couldn’t remember. Perhaps it was a bad sign she couldn't tell the blooming of her own powers. Was she even improving? She’d watched the illusions that her younger siblings were making and found there was a certain enviable result to them. They could hold them longer, they looked nicer, and frankly she wondered if she could touch them. It was bad that she was jealous, but…

A part of the kitsune had given up hope on ever doing that herself. A year at school and she could do about half of what her homeschooled siblings were capable of. Tomoko didn’t like to mope, but…. It just wasn’t working out for her. There was a certain insult to injury that came from the two wanting to show off their daily practice to her as well. Yes, at the end of every day it seemed the two came running into their room, eager to make some new illusion for their older sister. Did they know they were better at it then she was?

Were they purposely rubbing it in her face, or had Hahaue and Chichiue put them up to it for some sort of torturous purpose?

Perhaps their innocence was enviable. Tomoko herself had managed to hold on to some of her own. That wasn’t to say she’d suddenly become so corrupted she wasn’t still the same sweet Kitsune she’d left home as, but…. There was only so much selfishness she could watch in other people before she herself found that she was…also…garnering such selfish behaviors. She didn’t treat people as equally as she had before. She had preferences for company. Perhaps that alone was for the better, but….

Part of her wondered if that’s where the insatiable envy she was starting to feel towards Rinne and Touya.

Mostly, it was her father’s attentiveness that concerned her. His behavior had started to become more stern as well and he had insisted to his wife that Tomoko didn’t need the summer lessons of her siblings because she went to ‘That place’ all year long. Not to say that Nemu hadn’t come outside while the twins were having lunch to speak gentle words of encouragement to her eldest. Truly, she wondered why a lovely woman such as her mother couldn’t have rubbed off more on a rough and gruff man such as her father. One year away from home and her ‘affections’ for her family were already starting to strain ever so slightly. What could she do for them?

What could she do for herself?

At night she would stay up with her ball-of-stars, watching the twins sleep and sighing a bit. They really were good kids. Why couldn’t her parents have gotten more of them in her? Their natural talent, that…ability..they seemed to wield to themselves. Why did she have so much room to be jealous of them? At least Junko’s presence had distracted her from that.

But now, the kitsune could only stay up all night, watching the pair and wondering one thing:

Why not me?  

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

Tomoko had been packing up to go home when the altercation had happened. It hadn’t been a highly cumbersome activity, packing up her ball of stars and the two changes of clothing she’d gotten from her mother, but…. It seemed that was the very reason why her father had waited until that time to have his discussion with his eldest child. Mononoke had chirped appreciatively at the presence of the old patriarch when he’d entered the children’s room, and Hibi had stopped to pet the Bakekitsune. Tomoko, on the other hand, looked up at him with a certain predictable apprehension. She knew that she wasn’t his favorite.

So he could have only been there for very few reasons. Tomoko could hear her mother in the other room, talking with her younger siblings and working on a small illusion that was audible. An illusion with sound, hmm? That was… she couldn’t do that yet. It seemed that very fact may have been the reason why Hibi had come in to speak with her at all.

“Hoshinotsume.” His voice was stern and Tomoko’s tails bristled up immediately. There was only one reason why her father would use that name. It was a name she wasn’t fond of hearing him use. When her mother used it it sounded endearing, when her father used it, she knew that something horrible was incoming and that she was in trouble for some reason. Fortunately for her, he always used it quietly enough so that Rinne and Touya wouldn’t end up learning it as well. That would have been…. … she didn’t need them knowing that.

Not her true name.

Tomoko’s lips tightened a bit and she looked up at the older kitsune, shifting to sit up on her knees and try to look attentive to what he had to say to her. “Hai, Chichiue?” she answered, her fingers wrapping up in her skirt anxiously. She had been good all summer. She’d done more chores than she needed to do, she’d stayed out from under foot, she’d helped with dinner, she’d taken care of Rinne and Touya when her parents had to go out, and she’d…. she’d only not been able to be the astoundingly amazing child that he wanted. She knew that. Even when she and her siblings played illusions together, she’d been the one lingering behind them in skill. Did they think she was doing it on purpose?

Maybe she’d let them go on believing that. It would be beneficial to them if they did, she thought. Not realizing their big sister was a failure. She could only hope so much from them. But none the less, the stare of her father quieted any thoughts her mind may have been able to have to try and brace herself. He’d used the name.

“Tell me – when you agreed to go to this academy we sent you to, what did you say to me before you left?” he asked. His tone was harsh and Tomoko’s tails continued to bristle as she shrunk under his voice. His harsh, unforgiving voice. It made her heart slam against her chest and she winced. Hibi didn’t seem in a rush for Tomoko’s answer. He knew she would pace herself. Tomoko’s brows furrowed together lightly, wringing her skirt in her fists more visibly. “I…promised I would improve and that I wouldn’t disappoint you…..” she answered shakily. Tomoko didn’t like where this conversation was going. It was no surprise to her what the next words out of the older kitsune’s mouth were;


“Then why are you disappointing me, Hoshinotsune?” he said. There was no inflection in his voice. Hibi asked it dryly, as though he was asking if someone had picked up the newspaper that morning. That lack of emotion stabbed into Tomoko’s psyche in a not-so subtle way. She frowned, her ears drooped, and she sniffled once. Her eyes burned. Even if she’d been expecting it, she hadn’t been prepared to handle the sort of emotional blow that question was to her. But somehow, she managed to not cry. At least for the time being she was level enough to answer him.

“I don’t know…” she answered, the eye contact she’d established broken off in exchange to the ink painting hanging up on the wall beyond the door. Though somehow it seemed irony had that painting bearing a figure with a look of disapproval as well. Everything in the house was staring back down upon her with disapproval. She didn’t like that feeling. It made her feel uneasy. Then again, there was something about being in the house that made her feel uneasy in general. Perhaps it was her father’s presence that had done it. Always so uneasy.

Hibi stared at his daughter for a long moment, his eyes seeming to be trying to stab into her feelings and rip any notions of avoiding the course of the conversation into pieces. Tomoko still couldn’t help but have that feeling. It was a dark and foreboding feeling, truly. But it seemed that the show was to go on.

“I know you have spoken with that boy from their ranks who is attending the school with you. If you wish to be allowed to come home next summer, you’re going to need to stop that. This is not an option you are being given.” He started off, his voice firm. Tomoko’s ears drooped. She wouldn’t be able to try and tell her father that she hadn’t been talking with Remi, but…. He seemed like a nice enough boil (inter-clan relations aside), how could she tell anybody they couldn’t be friends because her dad said so?

She couldn’t. But it seemed that Hibi had more to tell his daughter than just that:

“Also, if you manage to earn the right to come home next time, I want to see you making progress.” His voice was still as to-the-point as previously. Tomoko’s lips tightened a bit. “I will not have you embarrassing me to the clan again if you continue to stay at this plateau that you’ve kept yourself on.” He added. “I will not stand for you to be shaming this family any further than you already have. We will be fortunate if your two siblings will be enough to..redeem your failure.”

Tomoko’s attempts to not cry while Hibi spoke had turned into hyperventilating. He knew she wanted to cry, but she knew that she had been told by her mother to not cry in front of her father. Her father had little tolerance for crying. He only wanted strong children. Tomoko was not a strong child. Hibi also didn’t have the patience to wait for his eldest to finish regaining herself. “Are we clear?” he said plainly. Tomoko sniffled once and nodded. “Yes, Chichiue….” She hiccupped, biting her lower lip and willing the man to leave. He loomed over her for several long minutes before he did finally leave his daughter to her own devices. Mononoke followed after him.

Pulling Sune over, Tomoko held the white furred Bakekitsune close to her and sobbed into her ‘child’s’ fur. She could only hope that she could get it out of her system, not let her father hear her, and then finish packing.

The next day she would go back to the school and maybe be able to put this behind her.  

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

The day after Tomoko’s father had had his discussion with his daughter, Tomoko had been making a point to head out the door without having to run into him. She crept past the room where he and her siblings had been working on their lessons – kitsune and clan history, it sounded – making a point to not let the floor creak underneath her feet. She had to move quietly, she had to move quietly. She didn’t want him to see her leave. Tomoko wanted to get out of that house and as far away from her father as quickly as she possibly could.

Sune, Mononoke, Desades, and Kawadesu (who had somehow charmed her baby siblings) had been put back into the subspace for her to take out when they got home, so it was fortunate for her that she didn’t have to try and pack four bakekitsunes along with her as she tried to head out the door without alerting the family. She didn’t want to say goodbye. Part of her wanted to leave without saying a word. No farewells. Maybe if she didn’t say goodbye, it would keep her father from trying to keep her from coming home. An attempt to guilt trip, that.

However, Tomoko hadn’t taken her mother into account when it came to trying to sneak out of the house. Nemu was standing at the front door when her daughter stepped out of it, carrying little more than a small side-bag. Very little was tucked inside of it, but most of what she needed was already at school. The young kitsune seemed to frown lightly when she saw her mother, the woman seeming to sigh in relief at the sight of her daughter when she stepped outside. “Were you going to try and leave without at least telling your mother goodbye, Tomoko?” she said gently. Tomoko frowned, her face telling that she’d been caught in the act. The blonde kitsune stepped forward to hug her mother gently. “I’m sorry, Hahaue…” she said quietly. Nemu smiled, stroking her hand over her child’s hair. Such a small and delicate child, her eldest was.

“Don’t apologize, Tomoko. I’m just glad I managed to catch you before you got away.” She said quietly, her voice more gentle than any other voice she’d ever heard from anybody else. Tomoko may have just loved her mother more than any other being that she’d ever met. A shameful biased she’d tried so hard to never have, but…she had it. Her mother was the most wonderful mother ever. Nemu then placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, smiling at the young kitsune. “Tomoko. I understand that you are struggling with your new learning environment… you will learn soon enough that it will help you more than being home with us.” Nemu seemed to be trying to give her daughter a pep talk, but Tomoko just frowned lightly at it. Was her mother trying to undo the emotional beatdown she’d been given the previous night by her father?

That was possible.

However, there was a little part inside of her that wanted to trust what the older kitsune said. Her mother was sensible. She’d married in from outside of the clan – her mother new more than those silly inter-clan rages and scuffles that she seemed to have grown up underneath. Even then, sometimes she had to question if perhaps something was wrong with her to not be as interested in the clan-matters as even her younger siblings were. Tomoko had never grown up wanting to intimately know what was going on at any point in the scuffles, the fights. All she’d known was that the two clans were small….

And that somehow, they were going to destroy each other. She didn’t want to be involved with that, to be honest.

Nemu smoothed over her daughter’s hair a few more times before she paused, producing a small box – like a shoe box. It appeared to be for Tomoko, wrapped in brown paper and tied in twin. The woman put it into her daughter’s bag, Tomoko watching curiously. “Hahaue, what is that?” she asked, looking up to her mother. Nemu smiled gently.

“It is something you should open when your tails split again.” She said, giving her daughter a knowing look. Tomoko blinked a few times, one of her tails itching knowingly at the implication she was given. “Hahaue, how did you…” Nemu smiled again. “I was about your age when my tails split for the first time, Tomoko. It is not unsual for the children from my clan to develop slowly. “ she explained. Tomoko seemed baffled. She’d..never known that about her mother’s clan. She seemed to stare at the older woman in awe. Nemu seemed amused by her daughter’s awed expression.

“You show more of my family in you than you know. Even I, as a child, had a ball of stars. You will be fine.” She insisted, hugging her daughter close to her again. “You may be the only one of your siblings who shows so much of the outsider blood. Perhaps that alone will be good for you.” Nemu nodded, before patting Tomoko on the shoulders. “Now! You should get headed off or you’ll miss your boat, sweetheart. When you get home, I want you to write if you find yourself needing anything.” Tomoko nodded up at her mother, seeming to have been slightly invigorated by the pep-talk she was given.

She gave her mother one last hug before she bustled out the door, heading off into the dark of the forest. She’d see her tails split soon and then maybe, just maybe, she’d show her dad what she was worth.

A small seed of rebellion had been planted. Rebellion and hope.  

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

The trip home had been mostly uneventful, though the boat had this magical way of making Tomoko queasy and she’d nearly puked once or twice. However, she’d managed to not actually puke off the side of said boat. That had been the most fortunate of all things too. Even if once or twice she’d had nightmarish flashbacks about the ship to the Island of Evil Things. That island and it’s evil things. She never wanted to go back to it. Had her parents ever been to an evil island, she wondered?

Maybe they had once. She didn’t know. Someday she would have to check. That was, if she didn’t somehow manage to make her father disown her for all of existence. That was the one thing that was worrying her the most. The idea that somehow she could have been so great of a failure her father would have disowned her for all of eternity. Did parents do that? That was a very sad notion.

She’d wondered about that the entire way home, even as she unpacked her things in her room, opening her closet and releasing the four Bakekitsunes from it, the herd happily (mostly) romping about the room in a free frenzy. Mononoke seemed to sulk, but Desades and Kawadesu seemed to have missed the place. It was the only home the pair had known. That was kind of a sad thought. What was home for them wasn’t home for her. It was an odd notion to Tomoko, but she watched them romp, crouching down to pet all the ears she possibly could with her two hands. She needed to work on getting more hands around to pet the children for her. They were the closest to children she would have for a long time. Another 10 years at least, right? She didn’t want any sooner than that.

18, that’d be a good age for a young kitsune to worry about courtship and the like, right? It was strange to think about any of that stuff, but sometimes it seemed as though everybody at school was just..on a crash course for it. Even Junko-Chan and Seiji-Kun. Sometimes it seemed like the only person with a ny reasonability about relationships was Jove-kun. Jove-kun was good at taking it slow, if nothing else. Tomoko wondered if Jove had even considered the opposite sex as anything more than a bearer of cooties. Did that consideration bother her?

Forcing herself to dismiss the line of thought, Tomoko picked up the shoebox off of the bed, turning it over in her hands before she found a place on her desk to set it on, sitting down in her chair to look over it curiously. It was an interesting box. She was very curious to see what was in it at that point, though she also had to dismiss that as well. She couldn’t look in it until her tails split again. Would they be splitting soon? Was that what her mother had been referring to?

There was a sort of faint mulling that came over her as she looked at her tails, itching gently at the tips of them while she thought about her mother’s words. What was her clan like? She could barely remember her mother’s side of the family, but that had been a long time ago. Her father had some..disapproval of how peaceful her mother’s clan had been as a whole. If they had been asked to join a clan altercation, they would have refused. At least, she could recall her mother saying such a thing. Sometimes her mother was such a people-pleaser to her father. Not that she’d complain.

She had gotten the best mother in the world, after all. Now if they could fix her father up a bit.

Desades jumped up into Tomoko’s lap as she stood at the desk, petting the Bakekitsune lightly in a gentle manner. He just chirped in an adoring manner, tail wagging excitedly as he stared up at his ‘mother’. Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom! The kitsune looked at her ball of stars for a moment, pondering reaching out to take it for a moment before hesitating. She thought on it for a moment, before looking at the floor, focusing on it. Practicing not relying on her ball of stars was going to take some work. Tomoko knew that much, so she made herself have at it sooner rather than later. At least as far as she was concerned.

A small ball of light formed on the floor and Desades jumped off of the kitsune’s lap to chase after it. It darted from side to side for a few seconds before vanishing as Tomoko’s focus on it broke. Tomoko’s lips tightened a bit and she tried it again. Once again it bounced along the floor, Desades running along after it for a while. Several seconds later, it disappeared and the Bakekitsune looked up at her, chirping curiously. Tomoko massaged her temples. She could do this backwards and forwards without a thought with her ball of stars.

She’d never realized how out of practice she was until that moment. Tomoko got up from her desk to go make some tea.


She was going to need it if she was going to keep this up.  

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

It had been after about a week of being back at the academy when the letter from her mother had arrived. Tomoko, having been one of many students to request a school sanctioned post box, had checked her box religiously every day. Sometimes a school related notice was pushed into the box. Sometimes it was a magazine about astronomy (Tomoko loved these magazines), but on occasion there was a letter. Often these letters consisted of badly done crayon drawings by her younger siblings and some well wishes from her mother. Very rarely was her father’s hand seen in them at all.

This was one of those cases where her mother overran the letter without any input from Touya or Rinne. She was frankly a little bit grateful for just that. However, it seemed odd to her for her mother to have written to her so soon – especially one with a package attached to it. None the less, the kitsune took the envelope and the box up to her room without a word, making sure her box was locked before she’d made her retreat. Tomoko had made the mistake of leaving that open once, it had resulted in her having her mail stolen and a fine for the vandalism that had resulted from it. Alas, when one went to a school with tricksters, leaving yourself open to such things was…foolish. She’d not made the same mistake again.

Once she’d gotten upstairs to her room, Tomoko closed the door behind her and sat down on her bed, setting the box off to one side and carefully tearing open the envelope that had her name written cleanly on it. Her mother’s handwriting was always beautiful – no matter which language the kitsune was writing. Tomoko was jealous of it – maybe someday her own handwriting would be so beautiful. Pulling the paper that was inside of said envelope out, Tomoko carefully unfolded the fan-styled folding job to read what was written. Had some news developed?


Dear Tomoko –

After our conversation we had the other morning before you left, I felt it was a wise decision for me to sit down and write to you about the one piece of clan history you don’t know. The following papers include information in them about the clan I was born and raised in – perhaps you will find some solace in it as well. I would be very thankful to know I had helped you at school if this does soothe you in some way…..

There were about three sheets of paper included in the letter, carefully detailing the slow aging of her mother’s family – a five year to human year distinction to her father’s clan of three year to human year one. There was a moment in which Tomoko wondered if this was why her mother seemed to both be so much younger – but also much wiser – than her father. But at the same time, where had her own genetics played with the distinction about her own developments?

She hadn’t felt like she was too much younger than the other children in her clan who had been born around the same time she had been….then again….nobody else in her clan had been born in a close proximity to her. In fact…there was a gap on both sides of her in years before both her siblings, but also the kitsunes who were older than her. She’d always lacked playmates, but….had this been part of the reason? She pursed her lips, continuing to read. The ball of stars was detailed in her mother’s letters as well, however, there was one distinction of her mother’s clan that seemed to hit her the most.

Something that was called ‘The Splitting’. Her mother had described it as a painful series of weeks in which the tails of a kitsune would split. She mentioned it was likely to be this way for other clans as well, but it had been prevalent in her own family. It was supposedly a mess that was precursored by a lot of itching and then the tails would begin to split at the tip, though fur and skin on them would sometimes be slow to follow. The feeling that this may have been what she was being warned about by her mother struck her. This very thing may have been the reason why she had received the letter at all.

Frowning, and itching the tip of one of her tails, the kitsune’s ears perked up, then drooped again. She didn’t want her tails to split yet. She’d thought about it all summer, but at this point..she just wasn’t ready for it. Tomoko folded up the letter and tucked it back into her envelope when she was finished reading it, setting it aside and taking up the box instead. She carefully opened it – and by carefully that meant she ripped most of the surface of the cardboard off as she attempted to remove the tape from it. Stupid tape.

Opening the box, she found another note that she quickly read – a gift from her mother, before she took out the plastic container inside of it. It appeared to be a box of Spookies! Probably Pumpkin Cheesecake spookies. Mmmm. Her favorite. Never the less, though, Tomoko took the container and the letter and walked to her desk, sitting down and fishing out for a piece of stationary to write on.

She had a few questions for her mother…  

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

Every day, Tomoko’s tails itched more and more, but she has still set herself to a strict schedule; She would get up..and she would try to conjure up an illusion on her own. No ball of stars as a catalyst, she would make it on herself. For that cause, she had gotten a bottle of painkillers for the headache that somehow always inevitably followed it. She wasn’t sure how Remi or anybody else did without the ball-of-stars, as she herself could barely conjure anything – even the ball of light – without it falling to pieces and leaving her with a headache.

But the ball of light had been a starting point for her to aim for. It had taken several days for it to hold on longer than three seconds before vanishing, but she was getting to a point where about eight hours of work allowed her to bounce it around the room for several minutes while Desades and Kawadesu chased after it. Whenever either of then caught it, it would dissipate, leaving the pair chirping and pleading with her for another toy. Their pleading faces had been part of why she’d been so willing to try the ‘toy’ illusion every morning. But it burned her head. Why couldn’t they come more easily?

That morning, after a couple of hours of playing, Tomoko got up to fix herself some tea to take a few pain pills with, sitting at her desk while she microwaved her water, sighing as she massaged her temple. This was supposed to be a natural ability, and here she was struggling with it like she was trying to do math or something. Though she’d learned that math at this academy was a joke and she’d be better off learning her own things in the meantime. Waiting for the tea to steep would be like a practice in torture – at least it seemed that way. She watched the steam as it curled up out of her cup, reaching out to ‘wrap’ it around her finger – as though it was a tangible object she could do just that with. Perhaps she couldn’t, however. Phooey. Still, it was nice to entertain the idea of something bending around her fingers and will in that way, wasn’t it?

The kitsune popped a single pill into her mouth when the tea was ready, taking a long drink of the warm liquid, before setting the cup down for the bakekitsunes to swarm for a lap of. They always seemed to like her tea, and Tomoko scratched them all behind the ears as they drank up. She then fished into one of her drawers for a series of four FEAR candies, turning as she unwrapped them to offer them up to each of the four. Desades had to be set into her lap with his, as the moment he’d finished munching his out of Tomoko’s hand, he attempted to dive to the floor to eat up the ones that the other’s had. Tomoko held him down.

“No, you.” She chided gently, petting the back of his neck. He leaned into her hand appreciatively. Oh, he’d happily take mommy-pets over all that silly madness of treats. Okay, so the second Tomoko released him, he started sniffing around for more food with a hopeful look on his face. None the less, he got nothing.

Tomoko laughed, her head still throbbing lightly before she focused on the floor, the ball of light returning to bounce around. Both of her playful boys suddenly perked up and barked at it, bounding after it in a curious manner to try and catch it. Tomoko made it dart up the wall and sit against the corner of the ceiling, her chin propped in the palm of her hand as she watched it thoughtfully. Kawadesu scratched at the wall, barking up it at the offending light he wished to desperately to capture for his own uses. Light, light, light, light, light, light, light, light!!!

It puffed out after about two minutes of not moving and the thrum in Tomoko’s head came back. She groaned, leaning over her desk and cupping her forehead in her hands, willing the pain to go away. It seemed the more she focused on it, the less effective it was. She paused at the thought, then shook her head. It seemed almost silly to her that she could have been trying too hard. But… it lingered in there, the notion that perhaps her greatest failure was that she was trying so hard to succeed. She was trying to desperately to not just be the failure her father had labelled her as.

But how else could she tackle the entire situation?

Everybody else was at a training facility for the next month. She had that long to get herself up to snuff with them and try to keep up. But would she be able to? Tomoko looked to the corner for a moment, then got up from her seat and walked to her dresser.

She’d think about it and see how this possible solution presented itself in practice.  

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

Quote:

Dear Tomoko –
My intuition has told me that your tails should be splitting soon. Sweetheart, please don’t forget to pack up your room so that you do not make a mess of it. You were so young when your tails split the first time you might not remember how much of a mess it made. It helps that your father and I knew to put you in an empty room which has also been used by your siblings, and thus allotted no other use, but I want you to be able to sit in your bedroom after everything is over and not go ‘wow, there is still blood on my ceiling’.

I know that sounds scary, darling, but I promise it won’t hurt as badly as that sounds. Yes, there will be pain and I am not meaning to scare you. I simply want you to be prepared for what happens when everything is over, alright sweetie?

PS: I will send you some more spookies soon. From the sound of things, your friends like them.

Tomoko had been sort of horrified by the letter from her mother that day, sitting there on her bed, scratching the fork in one of her tails while frowning and eating one of the last batch of spookies she had sent her. She was pretty sure she’d let Remi eat like..six of them. Hopefully they hadn’t made him sick from sugar. That would have been a bad way to try and build bridges between an enemy clan and herself. Though they both seemed to be suspicious that somebody was spying on them. Tomoko had to wonder about that herself.

Still, the young kitsune had to wonder what sort of things she needed to do to ‘prepare’ her room for what sounded like a messy process. She stared at her walls for a long time, and then her things. It had taken a moment, but she had walked over to her desk and sat down to start writing back to the older, and obviously more experienced on this front, kitsune from home;

Quote:

Dear Hahaue –
I am always pleased to get letters from you. However, I am unsure what things I should be doing exactly to prepare my room for this event you keep reminding me of. Could you please give me some insight so that I may feel slightly more prepared for what it is I’m to be facing? Just some direction would be nice if I could.

Yes please to more Spookies! I really enjoyed the last batch, and so did one of my friends. I don’t think his mother bakes that much, so he sort of seemed spoiled by them. Could I perhaps get some extra just to give him? I understand that it takes some time to make spookies and it is selfish for me to ask, but I think he would really enjoy them. I think if I’d left him to his own devices with the last box, he would have eaten them all.

Yikes!

Tell Touya and Rinne I love them. Tell Chichiue as well. I will send pictures after the splitting has occurred. Do you think it would make him proud to see that I actually am making progress or would he turn it away? He seems to be so disappointed in me that I am not sure what I can do to correct the situation. I only really want to make him proud, though I am wondering if I will have to sacrifice my happiness to do so.

Would it be worth it to do just that, Hahaue?

Please help me, I’m not sure what to do anymore.

Sincerely – Tomoko

P.S. – Is he spying on me at school somehow? He seems to know what I’m doing even when I don’t know I’m doing it. I’m so confused!

It was a short letter, but like all the previous ones she had mailed out, she headed to the post box to get it mailed, mulling over just what it was her mother was wanting her to do exactly. Hopefully Hahaue would write her back and then she could stop feeling like she was completely lost for what it was she was meant to prepare for at this time.

Would she need to miss classes for this development? Did she need to go tell the office she was going to be..out for racial festivities or something? What sort of paperwork did tail splitting fall under? Should she have gone to the school nurse to panic?

That last one seemed like a bad idea, actually.

But with her letter written and postaged, it was really off to the mailbox for the Kitsune, shoving the letter into the slot and lingering there for a time longer. She knew fully well that standing there wouldn’t get her a reply sooner, and yet… she couldn’t help but feel like she needed her answers more immediately than the mail would allow for.

She needed to get a phone or something.
 

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

Perhaps it had been so long since the first time it had happened, that Tomoko had forgotten that it was highly uncomfortable. She’d bid people she knew goodbye for a short while and put her bakekitsunes into the subspace, though they had whined the entire time. Tomoko had insisted it was for the best, really. Even so, she knew she would owe it to them when she let them out again. The preparations were needing to happen. Even now her tails were beginning to ache as the tips of them split from each other.

But it wasn’t time yet. She wouldn’t be entirely sure when the time was until the time came. She imagined this was how the women of the human world felt about childbirth – her mother had explained it to her once before and Tomoko had looked horrified about it, but it had sounded like one of those things she would have to watch for when she was older if she were to trick a human male into thinking she was carrying his child or something. Frankly, Tomoko didn’t want to do that ever. Yet it was horrifically interesting information for the kitsune to have. It was why she had so many books – to learn. If she did not know what reality was, she could not fake it.

It was an important lesson.

Tomoko had gone out to town to get several plastic containers from the store as well to shove all of her things into; bedding, books, charts, food. Everything. To an outside, it may have looked like she was packing up to leave forever from the school, with how many plastic containers she had stacked in her room. Her mother had reminded her that the entire thing would be messy, no matter how many of her tails split. Part of her had doubted it really would be, based on the fork in one of her tails already. It looked fine! Clean, a little bit itchy, but she hadn’t really been sure what the fuss from her mother was about.

It reminded her of the box she’d been given before she left. Tomoko looked at it cautiously, before tenderly putting it into one of the safe plastic containers just as she had everything else. Was she going too far out of her way to prepare for everything? Tomoko really had to wonder about that, but as it stood she would have rather been safe than sorry. If she’d ruined any of her possessions she truly would have been rather sad about it all. Some of those were things that were quite difficult to find in the first place. Others held sentimental meaning from home.

Still, she wished there was a sign sooner about when things would happen, rather than just this awkward hush about things.

Why couldn’t she have more of a warning than just itching? Just because her knee itched didn’t mean it was going to suddenly explode upon itself and she’d have four knees all of a sudden. Though the mental image of just that played out through her head for a moment as she shoved a bag of FEAR jerky into one of the boxes, pausing mid motion as a rather befuddled look came over her face. How would someone..how..

What…

How would that even work??

She sat down on the floor of her room to entertain the thought of various not-tail parts splitting for about seven more minutes, ‘hmmm’ing thoughtfully with a sort of smile on her face. Ohh, that would have been really interesting, actually. Now she wanted to go illusion people into having six arms, seven eyes, and three ears. She pondered how she herself would look with strange ears as well, getting up and walking over to her mirror to look at her reflection. She squinted at it for a moment, crinkling up her nose. The edges of her eyes began to glow until her reflection showed an image of her ears split along the tips, giving her six distinct ‘ears’ to her name.

Woah. That actually looked kind of cool. However, the longer she held up the illusion, the more her tails burned and she eventually had to let it go, stepping back to massage her head as it ached. Her eyes went to the ball of stars sitting on her bed, walking over to pick it up and stroking her hand over it soothingly. “Soon. Soon we will be friends again and everything will be fantastic, Hoshinotama. I just need to do this myself for a little while longer.” She nodded, before walking with it over to the container she’d put the package from her mother in as well, setting it down inside of it as well.

She sighed, putting the lid on top of it and sealing it shut, walking to the other side of her room to set it on the forming pile. It was looking good, but..

There was still a lot of work to be done. She had to hope her tails wouldn’t split in the morning before she finished her work.  

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

Everything she had thought was a lie!!!!!!!

When Tomoko had pictured this ‘splitting’ as her mother had described it, she had imagined it’d be a process of a few hours at most. Why had nobody told her it would take so long?

It had started when the kitsune had been woken during the night by a splitting (no pun intended) pain in her tails, letting out a shriek before she sat up on the plastic covered mattress (lord, her room looked like something out of ‘Somewhere that’s green’ ), turning on a light just to look back at her tails a-

SHRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK

The sound that came out of Tomoko’s mouth sounded as though bloody murder was happening in her room. She wasn’t sure if the walls in the dorms were soundproofed and frankly… she didn’t have half a mind to wonder about it in that moment. The first of her tails to fork looked like something out of ‘The Thing’. The plain fork – which had formed in her other two tails as well, had literally ripped apart in a manner similar to the splitting of DNA. Each chunk of the tail’s end had pieces of muscle and bone and vein in them, though it wasn’t evenly divided and well… she could see tissue and blood dripping onto the floor (Well ********, she hadn’t laid plastic down on that, now had she? She was going to need new carpet now) and for a moment she had panicked, wondering if her tails were broken entirely. She didn’t remember this at all from her childhood splitting!!

WAS THIS HOW IT WAS MEANT TO BE??

Retreating to the plastic covered bed, Tomoko sat on top of if, trying to hold still, but a small whine escaped from the ghoul every time she felt the flesh in her tail tear apart. Her other two tails itched like madness and she wanted nothing more than to reach back and start scratching them. But the first time she turned to look back, blood oozed over the plastic on the mattress and slid off the side onto the floor. Yep, definitely was going to need new carpet when this was over.

What Tomoko had not realized at that time that she had several days later when she was still sitting on that mattress as her tails ripped themselves apart against her will was that it was going to take so long. The shock and pain had numbed down now that she was done wondering if she’d somehow destroyed everything in kitsune existence in her sleep somehow, but still.. she couldn’t look at what was happening behind her. Yes, she could glance into the mirror and she could even feel the itch of things trying to knit back together, but really… how did this even work?? It had been meant to be a private thing for Kitsunes to split their tails, but did they all go about it this way?

Would Remi know? s**t, would it be inappropriate for her to ask about that? Part of her didn’t care if it was or not. She put on her best and most appropriate braveface she had in her, grabbing the skirt of her nightgown and staring down at the pool of blood that was forming around her knees.. when had that… Oh jacking jack.

Tomoko shrieked again. It wouldn’t be the first time that something in this process freaked her out. It wouldn't be the last time. It wouldn’t even be the fifth time. It was likely somewhere near the 22nd time it had struck her to panic. The first time had been when she’d woken to find her tail literally ripping itself in two right down the middle. The second time had been when she had felt her pelvis shifting and it making a rather..disgusting noise, but she’d soon attributed that to it adjusting for extra tailspace. Oh Sweet Sally, this was just… it had become too much for her after that. The burning in her spine, the random piece of bone and muscle that had dropped off of the bed onto the floor had been enough for her to check the mirror for what was happening to her tail.



Shriiieeeekkkkk

She hadn’t looked again with purpose on that front. The disgusting skinless goopy ooze-y state that her beautiful tails were in was just..just.. at some point in time she’d started crying from stress. She’d fallen asleep at some point in time into the plastic just to wake up with pieces of fur and tissue and blood on her. That had ensued another freakout attack. The next time she fell asleep against the wall. That had left a Tomoko shaped bodyprint of nastiness against the wall as well. Another freakout.

Then she’d just decided to not sleep through the process. A process that her mother had promised wouldn’t hurt. Like jacking hell this wasn’t hurting. She made pathetic noises and just tried to stay awake. After about two days she’d started hallucinating. That hadn’t ended well and resulted in her ruining her carpet further.

Not that her carpet was salvageable at this point anyways.

It was on day five that it had finally happened. The first two tails had reformed into a shape that was actually..whole. There was proper muscle structure. There was skin. There was fur. There was also blood all over them, but for the first time in days, Tomoko had gotten up to walk over to the mirror to take a look at the scene, the two tails floating freely amongst themselves. She reached back to touch them both, curiously.

Her fur was really soft, wow! Maybe it was that puppy-fur thing that made it so pleasant to touch. Still, that had also given her a glimpse of the other two tails. The other two tails which had..well… when they’d ripped apart to follow the first, they’d sent blood spraying across both herself and her room., but at this time they were in a process where..if she watched she could watch the muscles reforming around the bones underneath which had already become whole again. Tomoko glanced to see if she could find the bone that had dropped out of the process.

It was nowhere to be found it seemed. That was..actually kind of terrifying. Had somebody stolen her tailbone?

Who was in the room with her?

NOOO.

And thus, that had been another panic on the kitsune’s part. Not intended, and yet.. she was surprised only one demon had actually come to slam a fist on her door to tell her to shut up. Or rather, they did until she opened the door to what looked like a murder scene and just said ‘I’m sorry’.

Somehow, he’d moved a little bit more quickly than she’d expected anybody to. It might have been the undead-sinewy tails she bore behind her that had done it. Still, when she had two tails safe, sitting to watch the last, what she had counted as four, reform had been interesting.

Even if more shrieks of surprise had followed it.

By the end of the week, she had a sore throat, probably needed to eat, sleep, and shower…but she could also count them:

Six. There were six.

Take that, Chichiue. she thought in the back of her head, grinning a bit. But with that completed, she only had two more things to do:

Take a bath without dripping blood all down the hallway to clean herself up, and then figure out how she was going to clean her room. The second seemed easier than the first, to be honest.

But she would see.  

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

Tomoko had not managed to get to a bathtub without dripping blood everywhere. She had nobody to apologize to for it because it was her own, but still it was just an expanding mess she really didn’t want to have to deal with on her own. Still, sitting in the tub, she brushed her fingers through her bloody tail, her braid wrapped up around her head. A tub was not really a good place to wash blood off, as it had this way of..sticking, and yet she was pretty glued to it at that moment. The first rinse off had left the water this gross shade of half-red, making the kitsune make a small face.

The tub was drained, refilled with water, and she unbraided her hair before she settled in again, sinking into the tub awkwardly. Where did she put all these tails? Did she have enough shampoo for all of them?? Oh man. She took a moment to lather each one up individually, running her fingers carefully through them, feeling the seams where the tails had reformed around themselves with a sort of curiosity to her expression. Did all of her tails feel like that? It was something she checked as she continued washing them, ears perked up. The result? Why yes, they did. Huh, she’d learned a new thing about her tails. Then again, they had all just split, so it made sense they all had them.

Would they have it forever? She made a mental note to check on the splits once a week to see if they would or not. It was..curious, at the very least.

Never the less, Tomoko was learning quickly that she’d just become three times more high maintenance in terms of physical appearance. Did most of the adults just illusion their fur? Ohh, she would have rather had nice looking fur without an illusion so she could spend her efforts doing other things, and yet the promise of hours of maintenance made her wonder how long that would remain reasonable for her to do such activities during.
Hmm.

Still, after days of no sleep, no wash, and general paranoia, the bath was possibly the most amazing thing she’d faced, running her fingers through the masses of fur she had to her name. She must have been the fluffiest little kitsune in the world right then. Okay, not entirely so. She imagined a newborn kitsune would end up really fluffy too. Mmmhmmm. But still, right then? Three newborn tails. Those were totally and completely fluffy, right? Right. She took a minute to wash her hair as well, and overall it seemed like the entire process ended up taking forever! Or rather, several hours. Part of it may have just been soaking for relaxation, the other part was the fact that Tomoko was turning into a giant puffball now.

The next thing she learned was that drying off? Forever. Wow, she was really seeing how this could cause a cramp in her ability to manage her time if she was going to spend so long brushing her hair, drying out her tails, brushing all of the fur out so that it wouldn’t get knotted up. Just.. fur everywhere. It was insane, really. Still, Tomoko managed the task rather efficiently. While she wasn’t entirely dry when she stepped out of her bathroom, she still had a few things she needed to attend to soon.

The first was finding the box she’d put her ball of stars and the package from her mother in. It was easy enough to find – she’d left it on top for its own safety. Leaving the ball of stars nestled safely inside of the box, she took the package back to her bathroom (AKA the only really clean floor she had at the moment), sitting on the edge of the tub with it in her lap, opening it carefully. She’d been good. She hadn’t opened it prematurely, right?

The first thing that struck her was the mask inside. She turned it over in her hands gingerly. It looked to have been carved out of hard wood, dark in color, but the surface of it was painted light with several divine looking markings on the forehead and around the eyes. Frankly, it was possibly the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She took a moment to walk over the mirror and hold it up to her face gently, peering through the eyes of the mask. The dark wood stood out against her light hair, but still the mask was beautiful.

Didn’t Remi have a mask as well? Perhaps he too had gotten it when his tails had split. It was another thing she thought to ask him about later when she got a moment. She was sure he’d answer that for her, at the very least. For rival, enemy? , clans, they certainly got along well. In fact, she liked to pretend he wasn’t enemy clan at all. What were clans? Silliness, that was what.

But with the mask investigated, she went back to the box and looked through it again. Outside of the mask, there was really nothing of interest inside of it. Some cloth, but perhaps Junko would get more use out of that than she would. She’d take that over to the Futakuchi onna soon.

Just to keep it safe from all the blood going on in her room.  

[demon_pachabel]

SOLO

Snow snow snow snow~

For some reason, Tomoko had been thrilled by the snow - perhaps because she hadn't been traumatized by it as some students had been. In fact, her understanding of snow was limited to the few Octobers a year where it actually fell and they'd overall been very pleasant experiences for her.

However, they were experiences she hadn't actually had a lot of experience with. Such as the fact that Tomoko had absolutely zero skill in navigation.

It had started off as a rather innocent venture in the day as the kitsune sat on her bed, bundling herself up in her almost horrific orange sweater and her little purple snow boots that she'd spent the last of her spending money on to get. Good shoes for the cold were important to have if she was going to go romping through it. For extra measure, she'd pulled a rather ridiculous looking purple hat with an orange poof on the top of it on and nearly smothered herself with a scarf.

A horrendously green and red scarf that she'd almost obsessively knitted in the most eye searing hues of each color.

With her gear assembled, she'd made sure her little group of bakekitsunes were fed, had gotten a chance to go outside, and then went on her merry little way - hesitantly leaving the ball of stars that was so crutchlike for the ghoul behind. It was getting a little bit easier each time she left it there to do so, and she felt a bit better every time she tried to access it from afar. It was better for both of them, she'd figured. She was afraid she'd never grow up if she held onto it too obsessively, after all.

The snow itself was almost bafflingly nice, Tomoko thought to herself as she bundled up a ball of it between her hands, shivering a bit as the cold began to turn her fingers pink, the little ball tossed between her palms. She walked with the little ball of pseudo ice down through the town until she noticed a familiar face, ears perking up.

"Miiikkkaaaaa~!" Tomoko chimed, the little imp ghoul that the kitsune had babysat not even a week prior turning towards her and offering a wave from the group of friends she was playing with. Then a devious little look came over her face as the group of five, barely seven years old, all gathered up handfuls of snow and began to lob them. Tomoko nearly squeaked with terror as they came flying, laughing as she shielded herself with her arms before tossing her own back at them, stooping down to make another one as the group came running at her.

With a look of mock horror, Tomoko began to jog away from them - their stubbier legs making it more difficult to keep up if she actually ran - the group running up and down the street. Sometimes Tomoko would chase them, carefully conjuring up an illusion of snowballs to toss back at them. It was a nice way to stretch her muscles in her own natural ability. Get them used to feeling and seeing things that didn't exist come flying at them while her ball was so far away.

After nearly an hour of play, the six of them collapsed into a lawn of fresh snow, arms spread out as they laughed. Tomoko took a few moments to catch her breath before she flapped her arms and legs up and down and side to side, the mocked up gesture of a snow angel. The children followed suit, the snow ending up littered with several dozen demented looking snow angels as they repeated the process several times to see what effects they could make with different traits. The one where Tomoko used her tails was a group favorite for strangeness.

But it started getting late, and their parents started coming around to collect them before it got too dark - fortunately Tomoko got to introduce herself to a few new parents she'd never met before. She could only hope she made a good impression and she'd get a few more babysitting nights in so she could continue adding money to her little jar. The dream jar. It was such a sad thing, but she tried to put as much aside in it as she could.

Another year of school wouldn't nearly be enough time to save up to have a real preschool, though...

Still, she kept her head up, looking as positive as she could now that she was back to her own quest.

"I'll just take another lap around the area and then I'll go back to the school!" she told herself. Except that one left turn turned into two right turns and a left and a back and a - ahhhhhhhhcrap. She'd never been good with directions, and with Snow all over everything, nothing looked the same as she remembered it. In all of her running around with children, she wasn't sure where she'd actually ended up.

Tomoko dug her hand into her pocket to fish out her phone...
...
...

It wasn't there.

The kitsune made a high pitched noise of distress. She'd lost her phone somewhere running around. It didn't help she didn't know the number on it off the top of her head so she couldn't call anybody to play marco polo with.

Which meant she had to live out there in the snow by herself forever.

And ever.

So Tomoko began to build her new 'house' out of the snow, pushing it around to make four really dinky walls and a sort-of-ceiling before she huddled up inside of it, hugging her legs to her chest and sighing. She should have planned her adventure better.  

[demon_pachabel]

Solo

Waking up was not as pleasant as it should have been. Sleep was meant to be restful, and dreams should have been nice and gentle. Yet when she opened her eyes, exhaustion seemed to settle over her once again, her lips pulling back into a tight frown as she stared up at the ceiling above her.

They're awake.

The voice had been rather distant sounding, and if she'd been honest with herself, really honest - was she waking up to reality? Was this the real world? Tomoko lifted one hand off of her chest, holding it above her, fingers spread out. She clenched and unclenched her hand, following the motion of her digits, focusing heavily on them.

They felt cold and for some reason she couldn't understand why. Hand dropping loosely to her face, Tomoko paused, her fingers feeling into that crack down her forehead, feeling into the hole there. Well. That was real. It still existed, and she winced, pulling her fingers away from her first real 'wound' since coming to school. Her arm sprawled across her eyes.

There was really only one way to confirm if any of it had really happened, but that required actually sitting up, getting out of bed, and going to look. She wasn't ready yet. Not quite. She was so tired, but it felt like she'd just been running a marathon - a triatholon. She was tired. She was tired, but she couldn't sleep. She felt restless, turning over more than once in bed before she sat up, looking around.

Sune stirred next to her, mewling once in protest at being unseated from the spot she'd been curled up in, and Tomoko pet the bakekitsune awkwardly. This wasn't where she'd gone to bed, and it made the already surreal feeling experience even worse. She clutched her broken head with both hands, burying her face into her pillow with a small whimper. "I'm not ready." she whispered as Sune nudged her arm with her head in an attempt to gain more pets from the kitsune. Tomoko stroked her again.

"I don't know what's going on anymore....." she whispered, reaching out to grab up her phone before she carefully sorted through the numbers, looking at each of the names. Were any of them actually real? Was it a new grand illusion? Tomoko nearly threw the phone before she rolled back onto her stomach and began to sob.

She was awake, but she wasn't sure if she was really alive.