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Chapter Text

The Musou no Hitotachi shattered the golden sky. Cracking thunder sounded out a second later, dark clouds blotting out the sun.

He could not best the Shogun’s warrior. There was no chance of besting the Shogun herself.

As a swipe of blinding light rushed towards him, he dug his battered sword into the ground, using it to leverage himself up off the dirt. His broken body protested the motion, and his best friend would scold him for treating his sword so poorly, but Tomo refused to die kneeling.

He held his blade defensively, between himself and the Shogun’s lightning. Purple light illuminated the archon’s emotionless, unfeeling gaze.

Tomo met her cold eyes, his vision of her faintly clouded by the dust and destruction that twisted across the courtyard, and willed himself to still the sword in his hands.

The Shogun’s greatest sword art was every bit as impressive as he’d always imagined it.

Tomo’s hair lifted as the first shockwave of electric current raged past him. The thickening static in the air stung against the shallow cuts on his hands and cheek. He gritted his teeth.

The electro archon’s attack finally reached him.

Tomo’s blade shattered against the force of the Shogun’s perfect strike, and the ground cracked at his feet. Time seemed to slow around him.

He noticed two things as violet lightning burned through him.

First, in the broken shards of his sword, he saw Kazuha’s horrified reflection. He hoped desperately it was an illusion—something his mind had conjured in his final moments—because he’d never wanted Kazuha to be here at this moment. Tomo didn’t want his best friend to see him die. And his vision would be taken too, his ambition stolen from him, something Tomo was now dying to try and prevent.

And he’d be so upset about Tomo’s broken sword, the sword Kazuha himself had forged for him as a gift.

Second, he felt a small, soft weight press against his cheek. It felt familiar, like Yuki, but that was impossible because he’d made certain she couldn’t follow him here. He would never bring a cat to such a deadly duel. Another illusion. He had to believe that.

Her presence was a comfort, even if it wasn’t real, and he held onto it as everything faded away to gray.

———
———
———

Gray.

Everything was so fuzzy.

Was he… dead?

Tomo stumbled over his thoughts, pulling himself into awareness. He couldn’t feel… much of anything. He had a peripheral sense of bouncing movement, as if he was riding a boat in stormy weather. But his vision was as good as gone. All he saw was gray static, blurs without color.

He blinked, or tried to blink, to clear his sight. His eyelids didn’t respond. He was disconnected from his body, from light and sound.

He tried to speak, or yell, but couldn’t say a word. Or move. Fear washed over him, which he hated.

He felt defenseless. He was defenseless.

———

Time passed. Tomo couldn’t tell how much.

Was Kazuha alright? Had he escaped?

Or perhaps his vision was now embedded in the statue alongside Tomo’s.

The bouncing motion stopped, leaving him still, and even less aware than before.

Gods, if he could just feel… something. Even the pain of the duel would be better than this absence of anything substantial.

Death was really starting to piss him off.

———

Tomo startled at a faint scent of cherry blossoms. Barely there, but it was something. It grounded him.

He focused on it, desperate for awareness, until he could make out the faint sound of a muffled voice. A woman, sounding vaguely annoyed.

“…Kazahana; You’re not a little youkai anymore—you should know better tether a human soul to an object. You’ve probably traumatized the poor man.”

Kazahana spoke in reply. She sounded little, like a young girl. Her voice was determined.

“I had to save him. He would’ve died.”

A sigh. “To be terribly blunt, he was probably meant to die in that duel. Look—Tomo felt a press of cool fingertips on what could be his cheek—his soul is tattered, and you’ve haphazardly stuck it in this broken blade. It’s a mess. ”

Wonderful. Tomo thought, unable to contribute to the conversation. Youkai are playing around with my soul.

Kazahana’s small voice shook, but she remained firm. “You owe me a favor. I am redeeming it now. Guuji Yae, you’re a kitsune of great esteem. I’m certain you wouldn’t go back on your word.”

The woman—Yae—hummed thoughtfully in reply. The fingertips left Tomo’s face.

Yae Miko. The kitsune. The shogun’s familiar. Allied with her archon, surely, which couldn’t mean anything good for Tomo.

“You’re certain you want this for him?” Yae asked. “I can tell he’s strong-willed, but this will be difficult. He’s so… human, and I’d be taking that from him. ”

That didn’t sound good.

“He saved me once, and has cared for me for years. I must return the favor.”

For years? Who exactly was this Kazahana?

Tomo couldn’t remember having ever saved a Youkai. He was pretty certain he’d recall doing that.

“I have a friend,” Yae said after a moment of thought, “that I could take him to afterwards. He will need time to adjust. Besides, if Ei catches him, she’ll know I had a hand in saving him.” A note of pain entered Yae’s voice. “I need him to remain out of sight until Inazuma’s storms come to rest. I can’t have Ei suspecting me.”

“So… you’ll do it?” Kazahana whispered, disbelief in her tone.

“I owe you a favor, don’t I? But we’ve got to move quickly. He’s already fading.”

A hand brushed Tomo’s forehead, and everything turned blinding white. Then the world winked out entirely.

———
———
———

Tomo was standing in front of a circular, stone table. Across from him was a woman with her back turned to him. She was dressed in a kimono, with short white hair and tall kitsune ears. She had nine tails, which twisted around her.

She turned, and her bright golden eyes met Tomo’s.

“Hello?” Tomo asked, and was surprised when he was able to properly speak.

The kitsune smiled, leaned across the table, and held out her pinky finger. The gesture was relaxed, almost childish.

A pinky promise.

Warily, Tomo held out his finger, and intertwined it with the woman in front of him.

The woman closed her golden eyes. Tomo leaned in.

A moment of silence passed. Eventually, Tomo blinked.

When his eyes opened, the woman was staring at him once again. Her eyes were no longer golden. They were the same green as Tomo’s.

———
———
———

Tomo awoke to an iridescent sky.

He was on his back, on soft, stretched fabric that felt somewhat like a cot. A blanket laid over him, and a light golden fur pillow sat at his side. The elegant wooden room he lay in had an open roof, revealing a pink sky with twisting multicolor clouds. Little Yuki was curled up on his chest, a tiny white puffball breathing gently. He brought his hand up, a hand strangely lacking any cuts or even callouses, to brush back the soft fur behind her ears.

He could feel, and he could see. The world was painted in orange and pink tones, and otherworldly lights flickered above him.

He let out a rough laugh, overcome with relief.

Yuki awoke and blinked at him. She sat up, staring down at him. Her glittering eyes were nearly fluorescent blue.

Everything felt off, as though all the world’s colors and smells were too vibrant. He could finally smell the breeze, like Kazuha always spoke about. It smelled like incense and cherry blossoms.

So was he… properly dead, now?

He sat up. Or, he tried to sit up, but ended up falling back on the cot which squeaked lightly under his weight. His limbs were heavy, and he felt wildly uncoordinated.

He sucked in a steady breath. He was a master of four separate blade arts. He could get up off a cot in the afterlife.

Tomo successfully sat up, and Yuki hopped to his lap.

Yuki tilted her head at him, and he could swear he saw concern in his cat’s eyes.

Tomo’s brow creased. All of the pain from the duel had mysteriously disappeared, but something was strange in the tightness of his skin and the sharpness of his senses. He rubbed his eyes, and found himself staring again at the perfectly smooth, delicate palms of his hands.

For as far back as he could remember, he’d worked his hands ragged with practice. He and Kazuha used to compare the scratches and calluses they’d accumulated to judge who’d been working harder.

Tomo’s hands were nearly always more worn, but over and over again Kazuha had beaten him. His friend had never lauded his victories, and had always helped Tomo up off the ground when he inevitably lost.

He could remember tracing a particular nasty cut he’d gotten across his right thumb in a duel with his best friend, and how it’d scarred over, leaving a physical memory. It was gone now.

“Kazuha… I hope you made it out,” Tomo whispered to himself, petting Yuki.

“Yae, he’s finally awake!” Yuki mewed.

Tomo startled back, nearly knocking the cat off his lap. He felt his hair shoot up in surprise. His hair?

Yuki was speaking. His cat could talk.

The cat stared up at him with just as startled an expression as what must be on his face.

“I forgot you would be able to understand me,” Yuki meowed, looking up at him with those bright eyes. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

Tomo opened his mouth to ask the talking cat if he was dead when he felt his hair move again. He snapped his hand up and grabbed at his head, catching something soft.

Ow.

Something soft and very attached to his head. He felt his eyes grow wider. Ears?

Yuki turned towards the door, an ornate, carved object with no handle. She jumped into the air and suddenly grew in size, shapeshifting into a young girl with bright white hair. Her ears and tail remained. “Yae! I need you! He’s going to freak out!”

Tomo scoffed. He wasn’t going to freak out. He’d figure this out. So, his cat was actually a person.

The more you know.

He moved to tuck his loose bangs behind his ears—a nervous habit—and his hands cupped around nothing. He very slowly touched the completely smooth sides of his head, and realized that apparently ears on top of his head meant no ears on the sides of his head. Great. Fantastic.

Tomo freaked out a little bit, internally. He prayed it didn’t show on the outside.

Tomo sucked in a shaking breath as the room’s door slid open with a golden glow. He braced himself against the wall at his back, prepared for a fight.

Yae Miko strode into the room, the image of calm confidence. She gave Tomo a knowing smile, and her shoes clicked on the wooden floor as she crossed the room towards him.

Tomo glanced around the room for some sort of weapon. His sword wasn’t at his side, and he wasn’t even wearing his clothing from the duel—he was in some sort of white and red yukata.

Yae noticed his searching gaze and rolled her eyes, then sat at the edge of Tomo’s cot. Yuki stepped behind her, almost hiding from Tomo’s sight.

“Aren’t kitsune meant to be clever?” Yae asked, raising her delicate eyebrows slightly.

What was she implying?

Tomo scanned her face for some sign of a threat. He saw only a mischievous grin and shimmering purple eyes.

Yuki’s head drooped. “Yae, leave him be.”

“But he’s so terribly dense.” Yae raised the back of her hand to her forehead in a show of dramatics, and her ears flicked backwards with the motion. “This little fox hasn’t even realized that I’ve saved his life. He should be teary-eyed and thanking me.”

In one swift motion, Tomo dove off the cot and rolled to a standing, defensive position. His legs were unsteady beneath him, and his balance was off, but he refused to stumble.

“What did you do to me?

“Light on his feet like a fox, at least,” Yae sighed.

Then she stood and gestured loosely towards the door, and Yuki turned back into a cat and hopped to her shoulder. “Would you like to find out?”

———

Tomo scoffed at his reflection in the mirror Yae had directed him to. He looked ridiculous, and terribly fragile.

His skin was smooth and unscarred. He looked like he hadn’t worked a day in his life—almost like one of those nobleman’s sons, the ones that didn’t know how to tie a knot on their own. His eyes were almost their usual green, but they were ringed with a bright gold. Sure, his hair was still blonde, but he wasn’t sure if Kazuha would even recognize him.

He looked thin. He looked soft.

That blonde hair laid loose around his shoulders, free of the hair band Tomo always kept it up in. He’d have to find another one later, because he couldn’t stand the feel of his hair on his back and he didn’t even have ears to tuck it behind.

Well, he did have ears, but they weren’t the type to tuck hair behind. Tall, fluffy golden fox ears sat atop his head, and swiveled with every sound he heard as if they’d done so naturally his whole life. Of course they couldn’t be inconspicuous and lay flat like Miko’s. The tail he refused to look at was the same golden color, and tapered to a white point.

This had to be some form of universal karma for all the times he’d laughed at people with animal features behind their backs.

Kazuha would probably tease him, if he could see him now.

He pulled the yukata tighter around himself, swallowed his pride, and turned around to face Yae Miko. His savior, apparently.

“Adorable, right?” Yae said, smirking.

Tomo narrowed his eyes. “I’m going to need a full explanation, like, immediately. I have a feeling I’m not dead.”

Yae yawned. “There’s not much to tell, honestly. When you were dying, little Kazahana here,” Yae touched the head of the little white cat on her shoulder, “pulled your soul from the lightning and tied it to a shard of a sword. She carried you to my shrine, called in a favor to acquire my help, and I used my own magic along with the sacred sakura’s to pull you back to life in the form of a kitsune.”

“That’s not much to tell?!”

Yae Miko shrugged.

Sure, Tomo was grateful to be alive. Living! That’s great!

But he didn’t feel like himself in the slightest, and his skin still prickled, and everything was extremely bright and loud. There were birds outside, leaves rustling above, Yae’s foot tapping against the ground, and his hair was brushing against his back. He’d always been social, and now he was faced with the foreign sensation of wanting to be alone somewhere quiet. It was frightening.

Tomo turned away and looked around the room he stood in. It was grand, and the walls appeared to be made of living trees. Again, the building had no ceiling, and above him strange lights flashed in a multicolored sky. It was just as bright as before, as if no time had passed at all. He crossed his arms tightly and turned back to Yae Miko.

“Where are we, exactly?”

“A home in the realm of Youkai. You’ll be staying here with a friend of mine until Inazuma calms enough that the Shogun won’t kill you on sight. I don’t plan on spending my magic pulling someone back from death only for them to get themself killed again.” As Yae spoke, Tomo noticed a thin tiredness in her voice.

He noted faint dark circles under her eyes.

Bringing him back had been difficult, hadn’t it? So why had she even agreed to do it?

“I appreciate the offer, but I have to go back to Inazuma.” Tomo turned to leave the elegant house, towards a maple forest outside. “I have a friend I need to protect.”

Yae Miko hopped up from where she sat.

“My apologies, little fox, but that can’t happen. If the shogun catches you, she’ll know I brought you back. I can’t risk ending up on her bad side—our relationship is fractured enough as is.”

“Then I won’t let her catch me.”

Miko tilted her head, and her earrings clinked. “Sure. And if her guards come after you, you’ll fight them off?”

Tomo bristled. “Yes, I will.”

“You can barely walk as is. Do you even know why you’re so off-balance? Why your skin feels so tight and wrong?”

Yae stepped towards Tomo, leaning in towards his face.

“Because you’re a fox now, Tomo. A very young fox that’s only able to hold a human form because you’re in your own realm, the Youkai’s realm, where magic is free for the taking. If you go to Inazuma now, you won’t be able to keep up this form for more than two minutes before it gives out and you’re stuck as a fox.”

Yae Miko held his gaze, and didn’t look away.

With a dull strum of panic, Tomo realized she was being truthful.

Miko stepped back. Yuki—Kazahana?—hopped off of her shoulder and glared up at her.

Miko frowned at the cat. “Little Kazahana, you know I’m just telling him the truth.”

“How long before I can shapeshift on my own, in Inazuma?” Tomo asked, his voice steady despite the panic building in his chest.

“It takes about one hundred years,” Miko said without hesitation, and Tomo could see what seemed like genuine sympathy in her smile. “For a youkai, it goes much faster than you’d think.”

Then Yae Miko walked through the front door and vanished in an explosion of cherry blossom petals.

Tomo watched the petals fall to the ground slowly.

A kitsune could afford to wait that long. Tomo could not.

As soon as the last petals had drifted away, Yuki leapt back into human form and grabbed Tomo’s arm. “I’m so sorry. She can be cruel. But she did save you, truly.”

Tomo balled his hands into fists. “She wasn’t lying, right? It takes a kitsune about a hundred years?”

Yuki nodded against his arm. “I’m so sorry. But it is not so lonely, to be a youkai. There are many of us.”

Tomo shook his head and pulled away, tail lashing behind him.

“It takes a kitsune one hundred years. I’m no kitsune. I’ll do it in one.”

Chapter Text

Lord Kamai Kenji.

That was the name of the youkai across the maple clearing that Tomo pointed his blade at.

He looked almost like a weasel, a massive one. He was far taller than Tomo. With his rounded ears and single lock of dark hair, he resembled the overpriced figurines that Inazuman peddlers would sell to gullible tourists.

He was also the greatest swordsman Tomo had ever encountered.

Lord Kamai laughed, and it was a loud, hearty bark of a laugh. He raised his blade to match Tomo’s stance, and his storm-gray yukata billowed in the breeze.

“So, we duel again! This time, maybe you’ll manage to land a scratch on me!” Kamai grinned as he spoke, and his dark eyes glittered with confidence.

“I’ll do more than that, Kamai! You’re going to regret making that deal!” Tomo called out. He walked slowly forwards, watching his opponent for movement. His footsteps brushed aside maple leaves. He took a deep breath in, shuffling through all the sounds and smells and narrowing them to only those he needed. He had to focus.

If he won, he’d be free to go. He could go back to Inazuma; Kamai had agreed.

Tomo lunged, hoping to catch Kamai off guard. The weasel didn’t flinch, only raising his blade at the last moment to deflect Tomo’s strike.

The metal clashed, painfully loud and sparking. Tomo feinted left in response, but Kamai anticipated the motion and swept Tomo’s feet out from under him.

Tomo hit the ground hard, rocks grating into his spine and tail. He steeled himself and rolled up before Kamai could land another blow.

His back might sting, but he knew the pain would recede in only seconds. Kitsune seemed to heal absurdly quickly. It didn’t matter if it was a scrape, scratch, or bruise—nothing stuck.

He’d been at this for months, and still his hands didn’t bare any mark of his training.

Tomo blew a lock of loose hair out of his eye, then ran at Kamai once again.

He reached out for his lightning on instinct, then remembered with a twinge in his chest the absence of his vision. It wasn’t that it had been forcibly taken from him, or that his passion had dulled as a consequence of its loss. His connection appeared to have severed completely after reawakening as a kitsune. Thunder no longer responded to his call, and he could no longer feel the hum of static in the air.

His sword alone would have to do. He swung it with all he had, as he’d practiced in Kamai’s courtyard a thousand times, as he remembered doing all his life even if his muscles didn’t.

“You have no strategy,” Kamai called, deflecting Tomo’s advance with ease. “You’re as predictable as you were last week, and the weeks before that.”

Tomo gritted his teeth, staring down his opponent as steel blurred and crashed between them. He tightened his grip on his blade.

“I’m improving,” Tomo managed to huff out between movements.

Kamai seemed almost bored, matching Tomo’s movements without breaking a sweat. Did weasels even sweat?

He suddenly stepped forward, sliding his back against Tomo’s, and twisted Tomo’s sword out of his hand; a maneuver Tomo had once been fond of using, one that Kazuha had taught him.

Tomo found himself on the ground with two blades pointed at his neck not ten seconds later.

“I’ll beat you,” Tomo said to the youkai staring down at him, still breathing heavy from the fight. “I’ll beat you eventually.”

“Ha!” Kamai laughed, eyebrows raising. “You’ve certainly got spirit.”

Then he offered Tomo a hand, and pulled him up. Tomo stole back a glance at the maple forest behind him, one that he knew contained a gateway back to Inazuma.

“Don’t start thinking about running off,” Kamai said. “I don’t want to have to chase you down, and Yae will have my head if you get loose.”

———

“He beat you again,” Hana huffed from her perch on a tree’s root as Tomo returned to the courtyard and the enchanted force-field snapped shut behind him. The courtyard was a beautiful square-shaped sanctuary at the center of Lord Kamai’s estate, and Tomo’s prison.

Today Hana wore a simple orange kimono with pink flowers. She seemed to enjoy dressing up in nice clothing, possibly to match the luxurious estate she resided at.

“That didn’t sound like a question,” Tomo replied, half-smiling. He sat down on the large root across from Hana, who looked up at the sky.

“It wasn’t one. You’re still not any closer to winning.”

Ouch. That wasn’t even true—he’d lasted at least ten seconds longer than last week’s duels.

“Do you have a point?” Tomo crossed his arms.

Hana raised an eyebrow, leaning back on the tree’s trunk behind herself. “Kamai’s been training in the art of the blade since the days of your ancestors. You won’t be able to best him.”

“I only have to beat him once. Once, Hana, and he’ll let me go back to Inazuma early.”

Hana sighed. “And then what? You wander as a fox, searching for one specific human across all of Teyvat?”

Tomo said nothing, instead pulling out the sword Kamai had loaned to him and examining its edge.

Hana shook her head. “Nevermind. I can see you’re not one for making complicated plans. Do you still want the lesson, or are you too tired from the fight?” Hana raised her eyebrows, and her ears moved in tandem. They’d decided together that Hana was a perfectly good name, since they were both Youkai now and in Tomo’s mind Yuki was the name of a cat and not a friend.

“Teach me whatever you’ve got. You said I was close last time, right?”

Hana focused her bright, slitted blue eyes on him. “You are close to using the youkai magic in the air properly to shift forms. But using your own magic to shift freely in Inazuma, and maintaining that form for long stretches of time? No. I can’t even do that yet.”

Tomo smiled. “I’ll figure it out. You just watch me.”

He had to.

———

“I think it’s time you try to dispel the shift you’re in currently,” Hana said, after a good deal of the lesson had passed without progress. “It is the simplest magic available to you, and it doesn’t require you to weave anything new.”

“So… turn into a fox?”

“Yes. It’s your true form, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Tomo nodded, widening his stance. He closed his eyes, concentrating. His brow furrowed.

“What are you doing?” Hana asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Tomo opened one eye, and got a view of Hana’s perplexed face. “I’m concentrating,” Tomo said, and closed his eye again.

Hana coughed, and it sounded an awful lot like a laugh.

Fox. Right. That shouldn’t be that hard. He could totally do this. He’d fought the Raiden Shogun in a duel. He’d technically survived the Misou no Hitotachi.

Five minutes later, Tomo realized it wasn’t as easy as Hana made it seem. She tried to coach him, telling him to “relax” and “let the magic move through him and with him,” but it wasn’t anything like learning bladework. Instead of forms and positions, or specific stances, it was all about emotion.

That was an area Tomo didn’t excel at.

He was able to sense the magic over him, sort of, but it felt in his mind like a slippery net. He had no way to grab hold of it, no matter how much he shoved or scraped. He couldn’t break his way through.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Hana said. “There is no rush. You have plenty of—

Hana’s ears shot directly up. She looked towards the sky, scanning it, and she held incredibly still.

“What did you hear?” Tomo whispered, following her gaze.

Hana held a thin finger to her lips. She remained motionless, and only her white hair drifted in the breeze.

It was completely quiet. Except for… Tomo felt his ears swivel towards a faint sound; a single flapping of wings. And with the sound, an energy. Something magical and familiar that made his skin uncomfortably hum.

“A tengu.” Hana grabbed Tomo’s hand and pulled him towards the tree’s trunk, beneath its branches. “No tengu live nearby, so I suspect it is the shogun’s general. You must shift forms, and quickly. If she recognizes you—“

“Woah, woah, what happened to having plenty of time? And can’t I just… hide?”

Hana shook her head. “Youkai can sense the presence of other youkai. If you can feel her energy, she feels yours. She will find you. Please, you must hurry.”

“Alright, okay.” Tomo shook out his hands. He could still remember the way the shogun’s lightning burned, and how her general—Kujou Sara, the tengu—had watched on without emotion. He’d lost to her once before, and that’s when he was at the height of his abilities. He’d surely lose now if it came to a fight.

“No pressure,” Tomo whispered.

He pulled at the energy around him. A fox. He needed a disguise, and fast. Again the magical net remained strong against his mental battering.

The tengu’s energy was much closer now.

“Tomo, don’t force it.” Hana tried to keep her voice steady, but Tomo could hear the panic building in the background of her tone. “Think of something gentle. Something you remember fondly.”

Tomo pushed aside the flapping of wings above and tried to think back. Something gentle. He didn’t remember many gentle things fondly. The things he loved were usually rough and jagged, like swordplay and rock climbing. Gentle things…

He found that his hand had drifted to where his little scar used to be. Kazuha had apologized profusely, then ever so carefully wrapped up the cut. He’d seemed so worried that Tomo would somehow hold that against him, nicking him with his sword.

As if something as silly as that would ruin so many years of friendship. Kaedehara—what a drama queen. The corner of his mouth quirked up.

And suddenly Tomo had a grasp of the crackling golden energy in the air. It was so much different than the lightning he once wielded. This energy was warm and drifting, and it felt strangely at home in his hands.

He took the net around himself, considered it, and then blew at it. The material drifted away easily.

Incredible. He’d have to show this to Kazuha, when he found him.

Then his hold on the magic around him snapped entirely. Tomo felt a painful internal twist, and the world grew much larger around him. The motion made him dizzy, and he stumbled to the ground in a uncoordinated heap at the tree’s base.

“You did well!” Hana smiled, staring down at him. Tomo startled, scrambling to stand and finding it quite difficult. Still in human form, Hana towered over him, and he felt a wave of an intense, unfamiliar fear.

“Don’t worry. You’re fine.” Hana pulled him up from beneath his arms (legs?), setting him in a proper sitting posture for a fox on the ground beside her.

A fox.

It didn’t feel as strange as he’d expected, though everything was even brighter and louder than before. He tried to look down at himself, but his sight was limited by the depth of his eyes in his head. He was a light blonde fox, at least. He felt painfully tense, and his heart hammered in his now small chest.

Hana brushed back his ears, as though to soothe him. It was strangely comforting, and he found himself closing his eyes with the motion. “See? You’re not hopeless with magic after all. She’ll definitely not catch you now.”

The force-field above crackled as it allowed the tengu entry.

“I’ll do the talking,” Hana whispered. She said it so quietly, but it seemed loud to Tomo’s ears.

Kujou Sara landed in the courtyard.The four indigo-black wings at her back vanished in a cloud of dark smoke, and her bright gaze turned to the girl and the fox sitting beneath the tree.

“I apologize for disturbing you,” she said. Her words were polite, but her voice rang out intense and commanding. “I’m searching for a human. Have you sensed or seen any in this section of the realm?”

The tengu stalked over to the tree, and Tomo remembered the feel of his blade clashing against hers. He automatically moved to step back, to get away, but Hana noticed the motion and nudged him with her foot. He remained still.

Hana shook her head. “None at all. Who is it you’re searching for? I’ll keep an eye out.”

Sara scanned the two of them with piercing yellow eyes. Tomo couldn’t help but remember facing down those same neon eyes, right before the duel. He’d been so sure of his skill, and look where it had gotten him.

“Over a year ago, our Shogun administered divine punishment near the start of the Vision hunt decree. A man by the name of Kaedehara Kazuha stole a seized Vision from the shogun herself.”

Tomo nearly collapsed in relief. Kazuha had escaped! Of course he had. How could Tomo have ever doubted him?

But… over a year? He’d been here no longer than three months. That didn’t add up.

Hana tilted her head. “And you thought Lord Kamai Kenji may know something? I’m sorry, but he’s not home at the moment.”

Sara continued. “At the scene of that crime, I sensed youkai magic. Today, as I entered the realm, I found a trail of similar magic leading to this house. Would you happen to know why?”

Hana thought for a moment, brows creasing. Then she held out her hands, and a shimmer of golden light appeared over them. “That makes sense. It was my magic, at the crime scene.” Tomo tensed. Hana couldn’t possibly be confessing. Hana snapped her hands shut, and the glow of magic disappeared. “But I don’t know who this Kazuha you’re searching for is. The man the Shogun punished—Tomo—was my friend. I spent a great deal of time with him, so it makes sense some of my magic would have clung to him.”

“So you’re a close friend of that traitor?” Sara’s eyes narrowed, and her hand edged towards her blade.

Hana frowned. “He’s no traitor. A duel before the throne is allowed within our laws, and when he lost he accepted his archon’s punishment. Where’s the treachery in that?”

Sara stared the two of them down, and eventually relaxed her hand. “I see. And you?” She asked Tomo. “Do you know of this Kazuha?”

Of course he did. Thank Celestia he had escaped.

Tomo shook his head.

Sara seemed to expect him to say something. He opened his mouth, but Hana interjected.

“He’s a young Kitsune. He wasn’t even alive last year, when the duel took place.”

Sara nodded. “I see.” Her eyes raked over Tomo, but she seemed to not find whatever she was looking for. She turned away, then adjusted her armor, looking up at the bright sky. “If you hear anything that might be of help, please inform the Kujou clan.”

The general left as swiftly as she’d arrived, flying up through the force field.

Tomo and Hana let out a simultaneous sigh of relief.

“She’s terrifying, isn’t she,” Hana whispered, still watching the sky where Sara had disappeared. She leaned over and flicked Tomo’s ear. “You’re good under pressure, aren’t you? Who knew that’s what you needed to finally understand magic.”

“What did you mean over a year ago?” Tomo tried to say. But his vocal cords were all over the place, and all he managed to get out was some kind of pathetic squeaking noise. He glared at no one in particular.

Hana laughed. “Yeah, that’s why I did the talking. You’ve got to pull a bit of magic into your speech if you want youkai of other species to understand you.”

Tomo focused, and it wasn’t too hard to find a pulse of golden magic in the air. “A year ago?” He asked, and it was spoken more mentally than physically.

Hana’s smile fell. “Yeah. I guess I knew you’d find out, eventually.” She closed her eyes, then released a shaky breath.

“You were… dead, kind of, for about a year.”

Tomo’s eyes went wide, and his heart raced again. A year?

Hana looked away. “It’s not a common thing, for someone to become a kitsune. Yae said she had to let your soul rest in the Sacred Sakura and that the other kitsune had to accept you, and even then she thought it unlikely that you’d come back. But, one night, to commemorate Kitsune Saiguu, the shrine maidens left offerings to her spirit at the Sakura’s base…”

Hana looked at Tomo, and he nodded, asking her to continue.

“…and the next morning, we found a fox in the pile of offerings. Yae herself helped you shift to a human form, so you wouldn’t be so afraid when you awoke, and brought you here. It cost her quite a favor to get Kamai to protect you.”

The air laid uncomfortably still. A maple leaf drifted into the courtyard—it must have come from the forest outside the building. It settled at Tomo’s small feet.

“Alright,” Tomo said, pulling the magic in the air into words. “I wish you’d told me before that so much time had passed. But it’s okay. That just means I’ve got to work even harder.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you any more. I already felt so guilty, since the whole reason you’re even here is my actions. And Yae won’t even let you leave, ‘cause she thinks you’ll get caught, and Kamai keeps beating you up, and l… I’m sorry.”

Tomo laughed, and he didn’t need any magic for it. Apparently a fox could laugh, even if it was more of a bark. “You saved my life, it put you in danger with the Shogunate, and now you’re trying to apologize for it?”

Hana held her forehead in her hand. “I guess. I’d like to make it up to you, but I don’t know how.”

“Could you start with helping me figure out how to not be a fox?” Tomo gestured at himself with a paw.

Hana startled. “Oh! I’m so sorry! I forgot!”

———

It took Tomo around an hour to figure out how to shift back into a human form.

Hana was surprised he’d done it so quickly.

That night, Yae visited the house. She’d showed up a few times, always unannounced, since Tomo had moved in against his will. Kamai let her in through the main gate, and Tomo nodded in acknowledgement as she entered.

He might not like the fact that she’d trapped him here, but Yae had saved his life and it had cost her a lot. He had to respect that.

Over a strange dinner of whimsical fruits Tomo had never before encountered, the group discussed Sara’s visit. Kamai congratulated Tomo on his clever disguise, and Tomo felt an unexpected surge of pride.

“It’s interesting,” Yae mused, “for them to be investigating such an event long after it first happened. Perhaps they’re concerned about the swordsman provoking an uprising, or maybe the rebellion’s finally gaining traction and they believe Kazuha’s involved.”

“Could he be?” Tomo asked, ignoring the fruit he’d selected in favor of the conversation.

“It’s possible,” Yae said casually, spearing what looked like a purple strawberry with her fork.

Tomo nodded. When he escaped to Inazuma, he’d seek out the rebellion. They might have a clue on Kazuha’s whereabouts.

When the dinner wrapped up, Yae asked Tomo to continue working on his magic, and to try his best to think more like a kitsune.

Sure, right. Because speaking in riddles and playing little tricks made someone clever.

Kamai led Yae out towards the front gate and bid her farewell. He opened the door for her, and she waved as she left.

Tomo watched this happen and blinked. He narrowed his eyes.

Hana was saying something to him, but he didn’t hear a word of it. He just saw Miko disappearing into the maple forest, walking off towards the portal to Inazuma. Kamai turned his back, returning to the house.

“Did you even hear a thing I said?” Hana complained.

“No,” Tomo said. “But I’ve got an idea.”

Chapter Text

Two months later.

Kamai watched as Hana looked back one last time before walking off into the maple forest. She waved, and Tomo raised his hand to wave back. Hana gave a final soft smile before her form melted into a cat and she darted off into the brush.

Kamai saw Tomo heave a dramatic sigh, turning back to the house where Kamai waited in the doorway for him. He felt the kitsune’s pain. Saying goodbye to a friend stung like an iron thorn, but at least this goodbye wouldn’t be forever.

“It’s what’s best for her, kid,” Kamai said as the boy approached. “The Kujou Clan has been more restless lately, and they already know she’s involved with Kazuha’s disappearance somehow. And since they’re aware she lives here…”

“I know.” Tomo snapped, pushing past Kamai. “I’m the one who suggested she leave.” The kid’s ears were near flat, pressed down to his hair.

Kamai frowned, but said nothing. He’d never seen Tomo get so upset before. It seemed to have affected the kitsune’s magic—it felt strangely off, and didn’t sit well in Kamai’s mind.

But magic was deeply tied to emotion, so he wrote the feeling off.

Tomo looked away from him, rushing over to the courtyard to sit at his favorite spot at the tree’s base. His ears were still tucked back, his golden brows knitted.

Kamai’s heart twisted. He might only be watching over this boy to pay off a debt, but he’d reluctantly gotten attached. Tomo had real grit. He practiced bladework perhaps as hard as Kamai himself, and he had the scored tree stumps and torn yukatas to prove it.

“A duel, perhaps? To lighten the mood?” Kamai proposed.

Tomo shook his head, still refusing to meet Kamai’s gaze.

It was the first time Tomo had rejected an offer of a duel since he’d arrived.

Kamai shook his head and walked off. He’d give the kid time to cool off.

On his way upstairs, he noticed a letter at the foot of his doorway. He kneeled and picked up the purple envelope, tearing it open in one swipe of a clawed finger.

It was a letter from Yae Miko, announcing she’d be visiting this afternoon to discuss important matters, perhaps over tea. “I’d love to invite Tomo, as well,” Yae had written, “if he’s not too busy sulking about Hana.”

Kamai smiled. News sure traveled fast among the Youkai, most especially when Lady Yae was involved. He hoped Tomo would feel more like himself by the afternoon.

———

Kamai awoke from his peaceful nap with a deep sense of unease.

The magic in the air twisted against his nose, itching. He grabbed some of its strands, investigating its light, but nothing seemed amiss as soon as the magic was between his hands.

He sighed. He’d never been too knowledgeable in the ways of magic. He was a swordsman, a master of blade arts, not a magician.

He’d ask Tomo if anything felt off to him, then invite him to tea with Yae. She’d be arriving any minute now.

Kamai walked to the courtyard. With each step, the uncomfortable magical tension grew, as if the energy itself was trying to warn Kamai of something.

The moment Kamai entered the courtyard, he realized why.

Tomo’s magic earlier had felt off because it wasn’t Tomo’s magic at all.

It was distinctly Hana’s.

Kamai marched across the courtyard to the kitsune at its center, the kitsune that wasn’t really a fox at all.

“The game’s up, Hana,” Kamai growled. “I know what trick you’ve played.”

Tomo’s golden-green eyes widened for a moment, before his face dropped into a casual smile and those same eyes melted into a familiar fluorescent blue.

“So, you’ve figured it out,” Hana said, shaking out her golden hair into its original white. “Too late, though, because Tomo will have found a boat to Liyue by now.”

He had to admit, he was somewhat impressed with the boy’s plan. Perhaps he was smarter than Kamai had given him credit.

Kamai narrowed his eyes. “I can track him. There are Youkai all over, and I will find a way to drag him back here before Yae—

A chime rang out across the house. Kamai paled. The doorbell.

Yae Miko was here for tea.

“Who’s that?” Hana asked, tilting her head.

Kamai stormed out of the courtyard, panic rising in his chest. Yae was not known for her patience or her willingness to forgive. “Stay here,” Kamai called out behind him.

He steeled himself.

Kamai opened the gate for Yae with as confident and relaxed a smile as he could muster. “This way, Lady Yae,” he said, gesturing behind himself.

Yae held a purple parasol today, one dotted with cherry blossom patterns. It matched her light pink kimono. She raised a delicate brow. “You’re terribly formal today, Kamai. Is something amiss?”

Kamai gulped. The kitsune’s eyes were too sharp for his liking. How could she already tell—

“Nothing at all. Let’s enjoy some tea.”

The tearoom was elegant, with an open window overlooking the maple forest that split Inazuma from the Youkai’s realm. An orange lantern hung from the ceiling, and a few pillows rested on matted floors.

Kamai took a seat cross-legged, pouring out tea for both himself and Yae.

Yae paused for a second, examining the ground. A flicker of something crossed her gaze, then she carefully sat on her shins, leaning back on her heels.

Kamai tried to keep his breathing steady. Could she be sensing the absence of Tomo’s magic?

Yae sipped her tea, then turned her piercing purple eyes to Kamai. “Is Tomo not joining us?”

Kamai shook his head. “He was feeling down after Hana’s departure.

Kamai had believed Hana’s ruse far too easily.

“So she really is gone.” Yae dragged a manicured fingertip across the teacups rim. “If that’s so, why do I so strongly sense her presence?”

Kamai stumbled on his words. “See… she, Tomo was; Tomo taught her a lot of new magic in the courtyard. It might still be clinging after her departure.”

Yae hummed, but in thoughtfulness rather than agreement. “Since we’re on the subject, where is Tomo at the moment? I can’t sense him in the courtyard.”

Yae turned her glare on Kamai.

Kamai sighed, accepting his defeat. Clearly, Yae knew of Tomo’s escape.

“The two of them switched places this morning, and I fell for it. I knew they were teaching each other magic, but I hadn’t realized how talented they’d gotten in such a small amount of time.”

An anger Kamai rarely heard crackled through Yae’s tone. “…and you decided to sit here, having tea with me, instead of looking for him?”

Kamai had no reply.

Yae flicked her gaze towards the door, and the sound of thunder crackled in the air. The light dimmed, fading to a dim purple. Kamai’s heart thudded faster.

“Find him,” Yae demanded.

Kamai bowed his head, then hurried towards the door.

When he got his hands on that crafty little Youkai…

———

Yae held still until Kamai crossed the maple border, then let out a powerful laugh and flopped backwards onto the mats.

Kamai would be on a wild goose chase for weeks chasing after that trail—it spun in unhelpful circles before arriving at the docks. There was no way to know what ship Tomo had gotten on, because he hadn’t boarded a ship.

But Kamai didn’t know that.

Hana peeked her head in the doorway, a little white cat at the moment, then padded her way over to the kitsune on the floor.

“This is disturbing on so many levels.” Hana shook her head. “Can you turn back into yourself now?”

Tomo rolled to a sitting position, then raised a pink eyebrow. “Are you not overjoyed to see your lady Yae?” He asked, still maintaining his best Miko impression.

Hana shuddered, and hopped back into human form. She punched Tomo’s shoulder lightly. “You’re way too good at that. Please, stop.”

“Fine,” Tomo sighed dramatically, his ears standing back up and his hair twisting into a much shorter golden. He shifted his clothing into something close to what he’d worn before all this happened. He couldn’t quite remember the details, but it would have to be good enough.

Tomo stood and pulled back his loose hair into a ponytail. “You killed it with the thunder, Hana. And the light turning purple—I would’ve been terrified in Kamai’s shoes.”

Hana beamed. “It was my pleasure. I’m still shocked at how good you were at calligraphy.”

“What, why? Is it just because I’m a swordsman?”

“Probably.” Hana stared at him intently, interest crossing her gaze. “Tomo, your eyes… they’re nearly all golden now.”

Tomo glanced at his reflection in a teacup to see that Hana was telling the truth. Only a small ring of green remained in his eyes, circling his pupil. It must be a kitsune thing. Just another part of him that wasn’t the same anymore.

“I guess so,” Tomo said.

He adjusted the final bits of his clothing, struggled to make his tail work with his old outfit, and then he stood still. His scarf and the press of familiar fabric pulled at his memories. Sure, he was lacking both his vision and his blade, but this was the closest he’d felt to himself since becoming a Youkai.

Hana transformed back into a cat, leaping up to his shoulder. Tomo felt a painful wash of nostalgia, a feeling of deja vu at the countless Inazuman mornings he’d awoken and dressed just like this with Yuki at his side. He’d next go and spar with Kazuha, trading blade strikes and advice and sometimes childhood stories.

Tomo sighed, closing his eyes, banishing away his memories. He would see Kazuha again—he was certain. When they were together, he would feel like himself again.

Then he set out to find himself a sword.

“I’m not going to suddenly forget you can talk now.” Tomo said to the cat on his shoulder as he walked. “Don’t expect this to just go back to how things were.”

“Of course.” Hana said, whacking his face playfully with her paw. “I like being your friend much better.”

Perhaps a talking cat was the one good thing he’d gotten out of this experience.

It didn’t take long to find a strong blade. Kamai hoarded them, and had an entire closet dedicated to various weapons.

Tomo didn’t take a sword that looked important, or one of the special decorated ones that seemed almost ceremonial. He picked one he hoped Kamai wouldn’t miss, a silver blade with one stripe of black metal and a good grip. He sheathed it at his hip.

Then he headed for the maple forest.

Tomo stepped over crunching leaves, a familiar but strange scent on the wind that left him smiling in excitement. He hadn’t had time to enjoy this before, when he was amped on the adrenaline of his scheme with Hana. Now he took in every detail, the ways that the vibrant colors here dulled as he approached the portal and the way the magic became stretched and thin.

It concerned him that he felt so at home with the youkai realm, that approaching Inazuma was so uncomfortable and foreign.

“Don’t get your hopes up on your transformation,” Hana warned from his shoulder. “You’ve never tried to use magic outside of the Youkai realm. It’s incredibly difficult.”

When Tomo had crossed earlier, he’d stayed in the form of a fox, because he didn’t want to draw attention to himself or strain his magic. He knew he’d need all his energy to impersonate Miko.

Even so, the absence of magic around him had been stark. Its threads were weakened in Inazuma, near invisible.

Tomo squared his shoulders. “I know, you’ve told me. But even if I’m stuck as a fox, I have the chance to find my best friend.”

Tomo stopped as he reached a purple wall of light.

“The threshold,” Hana explained. “On the other side is Chinju Forest.”

Tomo nodded, sucked in a breath, then jumped through.

———

Kamai stopped on the side of the road, catching his breath. Why on earth had Tomo wound his way up and down all of Yougou? It was hard enough for Kamai to keep a human disguise in place—he’d never been all that adept in the art—but for him to also have to climb a mountain while maintaining it? Ridiculous.

The sound of footsteps made him raise his head. Pink hair, a white and red shrine outfit. Lady Yae Miko.

“Kamai, is that you?” Miko asked.

Kamai startled back, his fear certainly evident on his face, then lowered his head. “I swear Miko, I swear I’m trying my best to find him. Please, give me more time.”

After a beat of uncertain silence, Kamai risked a glance up at Miko’s expression.

It was perhaps the most confused Kamai had ever seen her.

Miko blinked. “You… what?”

After a great deal of explanation, assumption, and apologies, Miko and Kamai pieced together their situation.

They then sat on a cliffside bench that overlooked Inazuma’s purple mountains.

“He reminds me so much of her,” Yae whispered, absentminded.

Kamai dared a question. “Tomo reminds you of someone?”

Yae turned her head, earrings shining in sunset light, seemingly debating whether to answer.

“Saiguu. He’s reminded me of her from the moment Kazahana let me hold his soul. I wonder… I wonder if perhaps she was the one who brought him back.”

Yae turned her gaze to the setting sun. “I miss her so much.”

“We’ll find Tomo before he gets caught. I promise. Ei won’t know you were involved with his revival.”

Yae laughed lightly. “No. Let’s just let him go. He’s proven himself clever enough; He’ll be fine.”

Kamai furrowed his brows. “But weren’t you concerned about Ei?”

“My reputation with her? No, I never really cared about that at all. I just couldn’t see another kitsune, especially one with Saiguu’s smile, caught in the crossfire of a war. But if I’d said that, I would’ve been called soft.”

Yae caught a sakura petal that drifted by. She held it for a moment, between her eye and the last bits of sun above the mountains, then released it to the wind and let it fly away.

Kamai smiled, rolling his eyes. “You have a good heart, Yae.”

Yae huffed. “See? Now you think I’m soft.”

Chapter Text

Crossing the boundary took only an instant, but to Tomo it felt so much longer.

Everything flickered white before fading to a desaturated purple. Sound drifted from static to the faint shuffling of leaves.

The first thing Tomo registered was that the air smelled foreign. Inazuma, his home, had become unfamiliar to him.

His feet came to rest on solid ground. Tomo clung tightly to his magic as the bountiful energy of the youkai’s realm was stripped from him. His grasp of his transformation wavered, and it took a great deal of strength to steady it.

It was worse than he’d expected, the lack of magic. He’d just have to get used to it.

Tomo stepped out into Chinju forest, watching the trees above him and Inazuma’s great dusk-painted sky beyond their branches. It was so familiar; his clothing, Inazuma’s sky, and yet he felt like an imposter to it.

It was all louder than he remembered. The wind nearly sounded like it was speaking as it whistled through the trees.

“Here we are,” Hana said from his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Tomo replied, gripping his sword at his waist and steadying his breath. “Here we are.”

Tomo shook off his discomfort and set his sights on the dipping sun.

“Let’s get going,” he said. “I’ve got someone to find.”

It took Tomo a good minute to locate a sign that pointed him towards Konda village. He had a notoriously bad sense of direction—even though he often insisted otherwise—and becoming a kitsune clearly had no impact on that front.

At least the road to Konda village was familiar to him, as well as easy to travel. He began walking, treading a well-worn path.

He nearly lost his grasp on his form after only a few paces. The absence of magic crept up on him, and suddenly he found himself desperately scrambling for a single shred of it.

He reached out and grabbed it just as it had almost escaped him. His breath caught, and it took all of his concentration to mold the flickering energy to his will.

Tomo breathed a deep sigh of relief when it finally solidified. He’d nearly been stuck as a fox, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to shapeshift back with only his own magic to draw on.

“You alright?” Hana asked, and Tomo realized he’d frozen.

Tomo nodded. “I’m fine. Let’s try to make it to Konda village before we rest for the night.”

Hana said nothing, but Tomo could feel her heavy silence.

After an uncomfortable moment of quiet, Tomo spoke again to fill the empty air.

“Why is it that most youkai can’t hide some of their features when they shapeshift, like their ears?”

It was annoying. Tomo surely didn’t want to meet anyone he’d known before with these ridiculous ears and tail, but they refused to budge.

Hana hummed lightly in thought. “I think it’s the difference between taking a form and concealing one’s true self. Right now, you’re still a kitsune, but in its human form. If you were to hide all of yourself, you’d pass as human. Completely disguising one’s true nature would take much more magic. Still possible, but more challenging. Make sense?”

“Uh. I’ll just chalk it up to ‘strange youkai magic’ and move on.”

Hana laughed, and Tomo continued walking.

The road eventually became steeper as the pair reached the edge of Chinju forest. The sharp incline marking the boundary of the Tanukis’ woods was littered with little rocks and twigs, and looked precarious.

Tomo walked the road with his feet angled sideways to keep from slipping. He’d thought he’d made it to the hill’s base without issue—and was very proud of himself for his hiking abilities—when his shoe hooked on a very hidden tree’s root.

He caught himself easily, but not his magic. It had already tumbled away in the blink where he lost focus. He froze entirely, breath caught in his chest as he squinted his eyes shut and reached out for it.

Tomo grabbed it, pulled it back, this time with an even tighter grip than before, but it wasn’t as stable as it should’ve been, and the strain of maintaining it was wearing on him.

Hana could surely feel it, the magic fluctuating in the air as he wavered.

Tomo’s heart raced.

He starting walking once more, trying to act like all was fine, but then he felt Hana’s silence and the uncomfortable shift of her feet.

“What?” Tomo asked, turning his head to face the cat.

Hana considered for a second, then spoke. “You’re a fugitive, aren’t you? Forget that they think you’re dead—the shogunate will recognize you on the spot.”

“I’ll stay hidden, and I’ll keep out of the way. Besides, I can just disguise myself, like I did with Miko.”

If a cat could raise its eyebrows skeptically, Hana probably would’ve. And Tomo saw her point. Who was he kidding - he could barely keep a grip on the energy as it was.

“I don’t know how else to do this,” Tomo admitted, softly.

Hana sighed. “I have an idea, but… I don’t think you’ll like it.”

Tomo knew what she’d say.

“Let’s hear it anyway,” he said.

“Let your magic rest for the night. Give yourself time to adjust to Inazuma’s energies before you strain your abilities so much. It’ll be alright. Besides, I doubt you’d be able to fall asleep while you’re maintaining this level of concentration anyways.”

She wasn’t wrong. Tomo’s hand was shaking at his side with the effort of holding his form together. He cursed the fact that magic was so difficult to hold onto here.

Hana jumped from Tomo’s shoulder and padded along the path in front of him. “Let me show you all of my tricks on picking tree hollows for a night’s rest. You don’t want to pick a bad one, or you’ll end up with grubs between your toes and sawdust in your ears.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Well you’d better thank the archons that you’ve got someone to give you advice, then.”

Tomo held his quivering hand in front of his face. Could he even change back if he chose to let go now?

Maybe it didn’t matter. Realistically, Tomo knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer.

He considered all the tension humming through his body, and then let go.

The magic abandoned him in a single breath. The world spun, and Chinju forest rose taller.

It took a moment to find his coordination, walking as a fox.

Hana watched patiently, saying nothing as he found his footing and followed after her.

“See this one?” Hana said, flicking her nose towards a dark, twisted tree with a hollow base. “No wall support! This could easily come crashing down on you in the middle of the night.”

Hana was trying to distract him.

“You sound like a real estate agent,” Tomo commented, adjusting to pulling magic into words once again. Even that, such a small use of energy, took concentration.

Hana laughed. “I do!”

The little white cat eyed something to her right.

“And this one,” Hana continued, hopping onto a fallen log at the road’s edge, “is a bit of a fixer upper.”

“I’d say more than a fixer upper,” Tomo scoffed. “How do you sleep in a rotting log?”

“All it needs is some tender love and care. Someone to make a house a home.”

Tomo snorted. “I’m not in the market for a fixer upper. I want a move-in-ready mansion. Preferably within my price range of zero mora.”

“Jeez, you’re picky.”

As the two came to a small clearing, Hana scanned the trees that encircled them. She jumped over to a tall white one with a round hollow.

“Well, call me a miracle worker, because I have just the place for you.”

Tomo blinked up at the tree hollow. It wasn’t much, being a tree hollow and all, but it looked warm, and safe.

Once a samurai in training, now a fox sleeping out a cold night in a tree.

Life moves in unexpected ways.

Tomo hopped up after Hana into the tree hollow. It was cozier inside than he’d expected, but it didn’t take too long to curl up in a way that felt comfortable. Hana pressed up against his side. It struck him as not too different from the way he’d slept beside Hana back when he’d been human, though Hana had of course been much smaller next to him.

It was shockingly nice. Tomo fell asleep quickly, with only the forest around him.

Did this make him a wanderer too?

———

Tomo awoke to something small and sharp knocking against his skull.

He stumbled to stand, but in his half-awake state didn’t recall that he was unable to stand on two legs at the moment and that the ceiling above his head was very low.

———

Hana awoke to a dazed fox with multiple bruises on his head nearly falling into her.

She stood and shook herself off, her fur smoothing as her nerves settled.

“Are you alright, Tomo? What happened?”

Tomo rolled onto his back, a small sound of pain escaping him. “I’m fine,” he groaned. His eyes creased shut. “I think someone’s throwing things?”

Sure enough, the little hollow was smattered with acorns that someone had thrown as they slept. Hana crouched to inspect one and another tiny projectile instantly sailed right over her head.

She poked her head out the tree’s maw and laid eyes on their assailants—two human children, both boys, with hands full of acorns. One was a little shorter and chubbier than the other, but they both looked about the same age—maybe five or six?

“Hey!” The taller kid whined, stepping forward. “It’s just a cat!”

Hana hissed.

“No, I swear there’s a blonde fox in there too!” The shorter one protested, waving his arms. “I saw it, for real!”

The taller boy sighed, crossing his small arms. “You said it was a kitsune. Just ‘cause it’s got a light colored coat doesn’t make it magic.”

Tomo huffed from behind Hana, standing up and poking his head out beside her.

“I’m a very magical fox, thank you very much.”

The kids gasped.

“It’s the fox!”

Thank goodness the kids can’t actually understand him, Hana thought. They’d never leave us in peace.

The kids’ eyes were wide regardless.

“I told you there was a fox!”

“What do we do now?”

“The fish!”

The taller kid reached into his back pocket and produced a small silver fish.

“I’ll lure it out, and you grab it when it’s close enough. Don’t let it get away!”

The small boy nodded, and backed up into the brush. He was only a few feet from where he’d started and still very obviously poised to jump.

So this was a kidnapping scheme.

Hana rolled her eyes and padded back into the tree. “Just ignore them,” she said.

“Aww, but they’re just little kids!” Tomo said, his voice softening. “I did stuff like this all the time when I was little. One time I got a nasty cut down my bicep from a crow that attacked me for climbing into its nest. Kids are just weird like that.”

“…sure?”

Tomo paused for a second. “Think of how excited they’d be if I actually went out there.”

Hana rolled her eyes. “If they catch you, I’m not coming to your rescue.”

Hana hoped Tomo would just leave the kids be, but of course he chose to jump right into hot water.

Hana watched Tomo saunter over to the children, who gasped and awed at the mysterious blonde fox who showed no fear of humans.

He easily evaded the first child’s clumsy grab at his legs, snatched the fish from the hands of the other, and then pranced his way back towards the tree hollow. Before he joined Hana, he gave the children a dramatic bow, pushing his front right foot forward and dipping his head.

The kids outside were starstruck.

Tomo leapt back into the burrow, dropping the fish at Hana’s feet.

Hana expected a smug retort from Tomo about his performance, but he was silent, looking about as concerned as a fox could look.

“You good?” Hana asked.

Tomo nodded, but his ears were pushed back.

“For some reason, the kids smelled… or not really a smell, but more a sense… of something dark? Of imminent danger? Are they okay?”

Oh.

Hana sighed. “They’re fine. You’re probably just sensing humans for the first time. As, you know, a youkai.”

“No, that can’t be it. Why would humans smell like… doom?”

Hana’s heart ached. He sounded like a truly young youkai, a child discovering humanity for the first time. She supposed in some ways he was.

“Nearly all youkai are naturally wary of humans, like how a human would know on instinct not to stick its hand in a flame. You’ll get used to it, and it’ll be less intense the more time you spend with humans.”

Tomo nodded slowly, then shook his head intensely, like he was trying to banish an unpleasant thought. “That’s ridiculous! That’s so—

He broke off, glaring at the ground.

How must it feel, to become something else entirely from what you were born as? How much must it hurt?

And Hana was responsible. The least she could do was ensure Tomo found his best friend.

Hana opened her mouth. “How about we—

A young woman’s voice rang out outside the tree. “Kaito! Minato! Tell me you didn’t go chasing after that kitsune you talked about last night?”

One of the little boys made a small squeaking noise. “Yoimiya! You scared me!”

Tomo’s ears perked.

“Yoimiya?”

Hana tilted her head.

“You know her?” Hana asked.

Tomo’s voice rose. “She’s my cousin. She’s always running around with little kids like this. Remember her? From way back with the fireworks shop? She could help us.”

Hana tried to think back to before everything happened, back to when she’d simply been Tomo’s cat.

Fireworks…?

Oh, right.

Tomo had taken her to a very loud, bright series of explosions. A fireworks show. A show that his cousin had put on.

Hana was scared at how loud it was and tucked her head in Tomo’s pocket, which made him laugh.

And Yoimiya… she’d fed Hana many treats, and pet her a great deal.

She was a good human.

Hana peeked out the tree once more, and Tomo followed.

“We’re sorry, Yoimiya,” the taller boy said. “We just really wanted to catch a real kitsune!”

“Yeah!” The shorter boy supplied.

Yoimiya shook her head, eyes widening in feigned fear. “Oh no, but haven’t you heard of the kitsune’s curse?”

“The what?!” The boys asked together.

“If you try to catch a kitsune,” Yoimiya lowered her voice and the kids leaned in close, “then… then it’ll curse you to have a fox’s nose!”

The boys squealed.

“Oh no,” Tomo deadpanned. “What a terrible fate. How miserable they would be.”

Hana barely contained a laugh.

Tomo’s brow crinkled. “I can’t actually do that, right? Curse someone?”

“I don’t think so. The only kitsune I’ve heard of with magic that powerful was Saiguu, and she was an Onmyougi.”

“…so that’s why you shouldn’t chase down a kitsune!” Yoimiya was saying. “Foxes bite, and kitsune curse! But I’ll let you in on a little secret—there are tanuki in these woods, and they’re plenty fun to try to speak with. You’ve got to go with an adult next time though, okay?”

The boys nodded vigorously and ran down a path through the trees, back towards human houses. They chatted about tanuki as they ran.

Yoimiya sighed and put her hands on her hips. “Those two are really a handful,” she said to no one in particular, looking up at the sky. “They’re sure cute, though, so they get away with just about anything.”

Yoimiya looks kind of similar to Tomo, Hana thought as she watched the human stretch her arms above her head. Their hair’s the same color, even when Tomo’s a fox.

Yoimiya turned to leave.

“I’m going to talk to her,” Tomo said, pushing forward.

“Can you shift right now?” Hana asked, but Tomo jumped out regardless.

This either goes really well or really poorly.

Yoimiya spun at the sound of small footsteps, blinking in surprise when she saw the blonde fox in front of her.

Hana followed Tomo out, standing at his side. She could see concentration written along his face.

Surely a kitsune as young as him couldn’t pull this off, no matter how hard he’d trained back at Kamai’s estate.

Yoimiya stared at the fox and the cat. “You remind me of someone,” Yoimiya said slowly. She squinted her eyes, shifting her weight slightly.

Hana felt magic cracking through the air as Tomo wove it into shape. It was much more magic than she’d ever managed to gather on her own in Inazuma.

Where did he get the strength from? How much of his own energy was he expending to pull this off?

In a flash of golden light that made Yoimiya jump back in surprise, Tomo had transformed.

Though he started on two feet, he quickly stumbled to one knee with the effort of weaving magic as he had.

“I did it,” he whispered, his lips tugging into a light grin.

Yoimiya held a hand to her mouth, frozen still. Her voice shook when she spoke.

“Tomo? You’re… you’re alive?”

Hana hopped to Tomo’s shoulder.

Tomo stood slowly, then faster as he gained confidence. He met Yoimiya’s gaze.

“Yeah. For the most part.”

Chapter Text

Yoimiya continued digging through her pockets.

“I swear I had my key on me this morning,” she insisted. She pulled another sparkler out, adding it to the pile.

Tomo shifted his feet. He told himself his nerves stemmed from a fear of getting caught, of getting recognized by a passing guard. He knew deep down that some part of him wasn’t comfortable with this many human beings pressed around him.

He glanced out to the streets, where plenty of Inazuma’s citizens didn’t even spare him a glance. A few folks gave him curious looks, likely because they didn’t often see a kitsune in town.

He tried to turn his face away, on the off chance that they could recognize him.

A clattering noise in the distance made Tomo flinch and jump back. He gritted his teeth, irritated that he was so easily rattled. Then the source of the noise cried out—a man, maybe forty or so, being held against a wall by his collar. Tomo’s hand itched towards his blade, ready to jump in and help, but he froze when he saw the assailant was one of the Shogun’s guards. This guard tore a sparkling green vision off his captive’s hip, dropped the man to the ground, and walked off. Passersby averted their gaze and said nothing.

“It’s getting worse,” Tomo said quietly, his body tensed with the urge to do something, anything to help. “They’re seizing them in broad daylight.”

Hana said nothing in response, but pressed the side of her head to Tomo’s cheek.

Tomo raised his eyes to Yoimiya once again, who had finally flipped her pockets inside out in pursuit of her house key. She seemed unbothered by the disturbance, and that concerned Tomo most of all—if this behavior was becoming so commonplace, how much danger must an Inazuman vision bearer be in on a daily basis? Was Yoimiya at risk?

Please, let her find it quickly, Tomo willed, readjusting his grip on the magic around him when it wavered.

“Oh!” Yoimiya finally announced. “My dad keeps a spare—I’d totally forgotten!”

She lifted a wooden crate of fireworks from the right of her door and plucked a silver key from beneath. A twist and click in the lock later and Tomo was darting inside Yoimiya’s house, relief washing over him as he retreated into a familiar room.

Smells of cinnamon and smoke wrapped around him.

Yoimiya walked past him into the space, drifting towards the kitchen. “Could I get you some tea? Or dango milk, maybe?”

Tomo flopped onto the small couch in the center of Yoimiya’s living room, sighing.

“Dango milk wouldn’t hurt. Thanks, Yoimiya.”

“Sure thing! A bowl for the lovely Yuki as well, I assume?”

Tomo glanced over at his Youkai friend, who was once his cat. She just nodded once, hopping into Tomo’s lap.

“These days she goes by Hana,” Tomo clarified. “And I think she’d love a bowl.”

“Alright,” Yoimiya replied, and if she had any questions she didn’t voice them. Then she walked off to the kitchen.

Tomo’s eyes traced the room as Yoimiya got together drinks. It was so beautifully, painfully human. His heart warmed at the drawings from children hung up on the walls by small pins, a few old cups that had never been taken to the kitchen littering flat surfaces—at least one filled with dirty paintbrushes—and a warm yellow lantern.

Tomo didn’t consider himself a sentimental person, but something about this room made his eyes sting.

“Yoimiya,” Tomo asked, “why aren’t you asking me where I’ve been? You must have questions.”

The clinking of cups in the kitchen stopped briefly, then resumed. “Of course I do. But you look like you’ve just been through a story. I’m sure it’s a really magnificent one—and I love stories, so I hope you’ll share it with me—but I’m not going to pry before you’re ready to tell it.”

Tomo smiled, shaking his head. How did his friends turn out to be such poets?

“You sound like Kazuha when you talk like that,” Tomo said. The magic around him hummed.

“Ah, high praise!” Yoimiya laughed, returning with dango milk and sitting on a mat by the table.

“She’s as good a cousin as I remembered,” Hana affirmed. “I like her.”

Tomo smiled. “I’m glad.”

Yoimiya’s gaze drifted between Hana and Tomo, her eyes slowly widening. “You can understand her, can’t you?”

“I can.”

Tomo sipped his dango milk, letting his thoughts assemble. Then he took a deep breath. Might as well get it out of the way, right?

“Do you remember the day I challenged the shogun?”

Yoimiya nodded slowly, looking down at her teacup. She traced the cup’s edge as a memory danced over her face, her eyes darkening. “I do. It was one of the hardest days of my life.”

“Well, when I… when I died, and I did die, I think, the Youkai chose to bring me back. Hana here, and the kitsune Yae Miko, and I think maybe all the other kitsune too. They saved me. But there’s more, there’s a lot more to it than that. I don’t even know how to tell it.”

Yoimiya sat her teacup down on the table, and it clinked softly. “It’s okay, Tomo. I’ll listen.”

Tomo told his story. Hana chimed in when he forgot an important detail, or when he tried to brush over the details of his escape. He embellished nothing, though the honest truth was maybe more unbelievable than he’d first realized—more fantastical than even Yoimiya’s fairytales. He hoped she believed him.

When he concluded his story, Yoimiya’s eyes were watering. She rushed across the room, squeezing him in a tight hug. It was a warm hug, and he embraced her back, childhood memories dancing behind his eyes as he squeezed them shut.

Archons, he’d missed her. He’d missed Inazuma, and dango milk, and his family, and the sound of thunder in the distance. Yoimiya smelled like cinnamon and black powder. He’d forgotten that.

Yoimiya pulled back, holding him by his shoulders.

“It’s been different without you here.”

Tomo laughed, a watery sound that had too much emotion in it, more than he knew what to do with.

Yoimiya watched Tomo’s expression closely. Then she smiled, shaking her head, and released her hold on him.

“What?” Tomo asked. “What was that?”

“Nothing. It’s so silly. We just have the same eye color now, don’t we? And you’re… I don’t know. I think you could pass for my brother.”

The magic around Tomo was suddenly warm and glowing, chiming like little bells, and he found a deep churning worry he’d been holding onto releasing. There was something so relieving in the idea that Yoimiya could see him as something more like her after everything he’d been through. She didn’t see him as a Youkai pretending at being her cousin.

Yoimiya had started pacing. “What can I do for you? Do you need a place to stay?”

Tomo shook his head, then reconsidered.

“Maybe for just a little while, but not long. I need information, really. About the war, and if a resistance effort exists.” Tomo met her eyes. “I need to find Kazuha.”

“Kazuha,” Yoimiya sighed. “I haven’t seen him in a long time. Not since the day you… since the duel. He’s a fugitive now. He stayed with me that night, but left before I woke in the morning. All I know is that he was headed for a boat off to Liyue.”

He might have escaped. With his life, and his vision.

“And the resistance? The vision hunt decree?”

Yoimiya returned to the table and took a long sip of dango milk. “The Kujou commission tries to make it seem like the resistance is on the edge of defeat, but I haven’t heard of their forces breaching the front at Watatsumi. I think they’re all holed up at that shrine, putting on a real fight.”

“I would think you’re right,” Hana added. “The shogun would not want word of a united enemy to spread.”

A little white cat on his shoulder giving him advice on war. How odd and fantastical his life was now.

Tomo nodded. “Thank you. I’ll head out within the week.”

It would be a challenge to cross to Watatsumi, but it could be done. With the right supplies and know-how, and definitely a solid map, he could make it.

“Are you sure?” Yoimiya asked. “You said your magic…”

Tomo watched, surprised, as his cousin tried to fight off a grin and failed.

Yoimiya held a hand to her mouth and shook her head. “Sorry, I’m sorry. My cousin has real Youkai magic. That’s incredible.” With effort, she schooled her features. “You said that it’s unstable, right? You can’t keep up a human shape?”

Tomo’s ears flicked back in defiance. “I’m getting the hang of it. And I don’t need to be human on my walk to watatsumi — a fox would be more discreet anyways.”

Yoimiya nodded. “Okay. In that case, I’ll help you prepare.” She started to walk back to the kitchen, but she paused on the door’s threshold, and turned while shaking her head. With wonder in her voice, she said, “You’re living a fairytale, Tomo.”

———

The week passed quickly, warmly, and barely felt real. Tomo slept as a fox on a checkered blanket each night, fearing in the morning he’d discover it all a dream. Each day, he found with wonder that he was still surrounded by a cluttered room of cinnamon and smoke, and he could still pull on Inazuma’s magic enough to assume human form. It was never easy to keep a hold of—but he was getting better. He trained in the woods outside Yoimiya’s house, scoring marks upon marks on the trees with his sword and weaving magic into small illusions.

“You should try, Hana,” Tomo said, after managing to shift into human form and draw his sword in a single motion.

Hana shook her head. “I could try, but nothing would happen. I’m jealous, Tomo, at what you can do. I still don’t understand it.”

“Is it really that incredible?” A bit of pride uncurled in Tomo’s chest—he’d not mastered his vision as fast as Kazuha, and he’d always considered himself a swordmaster first and a mage second. To be good at magic was something entirely new to him.

“No new Youkai should be able to do what you’re doing as fast as you’ve mastered it.” Hana shook her head, curling into a little ball on the grass. “You really don’t understand the weight of this.”

Throughout the week, Yoimiya explained how she was quietly fighting the decree, creating false visions and passing them off as real ones. Later, Hana and Yoimiya had a full conversation, with Tomo serving as translator.

At the end of the week, two kids from town came by to visit Yoimiya—the same two who’d rather rudely woken Tomo and Hana—and asked to travel up into the woods and search for Youkai. Tomo felt it was only right to give the kids a parting performance before he left town.

With a spark of false golden flame, Tomo shifted from fox to human before their very eyes, demanding they pay him an offering of delicious food or be cursed forever. The kids turned over their trail mix, and Tomo laughed, handing each of them a maple leaf with the promise it would bring them luck and friendship.

As Tomo handed them the maple leaves, a bit of something changed in the magic around him, a shift in its tone. The leaves he handed them seemed slightly more golden than they should’ve been. They were simply leaves from the forest floor that he’d intended to serve as a parting gift, nothing more. He was fairly certain they weren’t anything special. Probably.

Tomo departed the next morning, wrapping Yoimiya in a fierce hug. She ruffled the back of his head like they were kids again, and handed him a firework packed with unsafe levels of black powder.

“If you need a distraction, that’ll do you well,” she promised, a spark in her eye. “Or, if you just need something nice to look at on a warm night.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he assured her, and his form blurred into a fox. He dipped his head once, and he and Hana departed towards Sangonomiya Shrine, and towards the Resistance.

Chapter Text

Tomo was very careful to read his map every hour or so, as he knew himself to be quite poor with directions. It was a hassle, since he had to find somewhere to take human shape to access it; it disappeared off to whatever magic-Youkai-place his other belongings did when he transformed.

He chose to give Inazuma City itself a wide berth and travel by way of Amakane island instead, where he negotiated with a boatsman for transport to the edge of Tatarasuna. He held the illusory guise of an old man for this conversation—he couldn’t risk being recognized—but even his apparently prodigal mastery of Youkai magic could only go so far. Halfway into the boat ride, his hand began to shake, fist tightly clenched as he held the magic with all his might. Hana placed her paw onto his wrist, and the weight eased slightly.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

He arrived at Tatarasuna shaking and breathing shallow, and tipped the boatsman far too much. He waved goodbye and found the nearest possible tree to collapse behind, instantly falling back into a fox as soon as he let himself relax. His sense of the magic in the air was fuzzy now; he’d pushed himself too far.

Only a few seconds later, branches rustled behind him, and one of the shogun’s soldiers emerged. Tomo pressed deeper into the brush, holding himself low to the ground. He felt Hana at his right do the same.

“I swear he was right here,” the soldier said in a gruff baritone. Two other soldiers emerged from behind him, one far more decorated in dress. From Tomo’s low vantage point, the soldiers were more intimidating than they should rightly be.

Tomo briefly considered retaking human form and drawing his blade before he remembered his exhaustion.

“Fan out and search for him,” the decorated soldier said. She rested a hand on the katana that sat at her hip. “I don’t care how harmless he looked, we can’t let a single additional Inazuman run to the false promise of the resistance. They’re well-armed enough as is.”

The soldiers dispersed, and Tomo stayed still a moment longer before letting his guard entirely drop.

“They’re getting bolder, aren’t they?” He laughed, trying for a casual tone. “Patrolling even Tatarasuna. It’s like they’re not even worried about the corruption in the air.”

Tomo was worried about it himself, and blindly hoped his form would allow him to skirt the island’s edge where it was weakest without being noticed.

“The Vision hunt decree matters more to them,” Hana replied bitterly. And she was right—it was all that anyone in Inazuma was concerned with now, fighting against it, in defense of it, or just escaping it.

“How do they follow the Shogun so blindly?” Tomo asked, and he couldn’t keep an edge of anger from creeping in.

“She’s their god,” Hana said, like that answered everything.

———

Tatarasuna passed in a blur of two days. There was a scare with a group of corrupted Kairagi that noticed them trudging through the sand, but Tomo’s earlier hunch was proven correct when the Kairagi scanned the two Youkai up and down and walked away after meeting Tomo’s eyes.

They must have sized him up as not being a threat.

The scars of the war became more apparent when they reached the edge of Nazechi beach. Hana tripped on a branch, then gave the branch another look and found it to be the hand of a dead man. They both silently averted their gaze, continuing on. Dendrobium were rampant, the blood-fed weed sprung up everywhere alongside upturned sand and debris. They had a faint magical aura, Tomo realized, and now that his magic had recovered from the stint on the boat he was able to close his eyes and sense the way they all connected.

It was an ebb and flow of magic underground, fed by ongoing conflict.

“Hana,” Tomo began to ask, but stilled when his ear twitched faintly in response to a far-off noise.

Many, many boots. A march of soldiers.

“I hear it too,” Hana said, and they each took off running.

More Dendrobium would bloom today.

And they knew it, Tomo realized. They were aware, the magic underground swelling together in anticipation.

After passing through the wreckage of an old ship the scene of the battle revealed itself. Two sides faced off under a cloudy sky, seemingly at a standstill.

At the head of one army was Kujou Sara, Tomo saw, and a shock ran down his spine. The last time he’d seen this woman, she’d delivered him exactly what he wanted. She’d granted him the chance to face the Shogun’s divine punishment.

He despised her, he realized. She was the epitome of blind faith in the Shogun, and he was certain that if he asked her, she would claim that none could ever deflect the Shogun’s divine strike. In her eyes, Inazuma’s god was untouchable and unquestionable.

Tomo watched her loose an arrow, and his eyes followed it to Gorou. Gorou! At the head of an army! Tomo blinked, shaking his head—Gorou was an old friend of both himself and Kazuha, and though Tomo had always known him to be principled, he had never before pictured him in a war, much less leading it.

Gorou charged, and the battlefield erupted. Blades clashed, and Tomo unfroze. He ran, ignoring Hana’s cry of ‘Wait!’ and the part of him that was yelling that these humans would kill him. He waited until the last possible second before throwing himself into human form and carrying his momentum into unsheathing his blade, steel singing when he clashed with Kujou blades.

Oh, it’d been so long since he faced someone other than Kamai Kenji!

Tomo took down two men before he was knocked back by a large man with a greatsword. Tomo’s heart pulled on instinct for his lightning, his vision, and he grit his teeth in its absence. He’d learned from Kamai, though, that he didn’t need it to win.

Tomo’s form blurred back into a fox, and he ran behind the man, dodging a sword strike. This man’s greatsword was heavy, and Tomo was nimble. Tomo leapt back up into himself and caught the man off guard from behind.

It was an adrenaline-fueled dance of blades, and Tomo was nicked by more than one. His wounds didn’t stick like they once did; shallow cuts closed, and a deeper gash didn’t hold the same weight it used to. Tomo found he was more than holding his own, and a smile started to curl on his lips.

Until he spun and locked blades with a Resistance soldier. “I’m on your side,” Tomo shouted, tilting his chin towards the Kujou soldier that was about to bear down on the both of them. The Resistance member peeled away from Tomo, but the distraction let a blade find its mark deep in Tomo’s thigh. Tomo whirled and his magic uncurled like a whip—the woman who’d slashed him flinched as her sword heated golden-hot and she was forced to drop it. The glowing blade steamed in the shallow water.

A wave of vertigo flickered behind Tomo’s eyes as the spell left him. That’s new, he thought. He hadn’t realized kitsune could do that.

He grunted as his right leg wobbled beneath him, the gash burning.

The wound was deeper than kitsune healing would magic away, Tomo was sure, but he didn’t have time to address it before he was locked into another sword dance.

The man he fought went slack as an arrow whizzed into his neck, and he collapsed to the ground. Tomo spun to see Gorou, who nodded once without recognition and continued his volley of arrows.

“It’s me!” Tomo wanted to yell, but it would do the resistance no good to distract its general in a fight.

Tomo tried to keep one eye on Gorou as he continued to weave through combatants, watching as his friend loosed arrow after arrow to fell Kujou soldiers.

Gorou stilled suddenly, eyes wide. Tomo watched Gorou’s face light up and followed his gaze.

In a flurry of wind and maple leaves—his vision! He still had it!—Kazuha appeared on the battlefield. His sword strikes were poetry, precise and fluid in a way Tomo had always admired.

Tomo began to run to him.

“Kazuha!” Tomo yelled, but the battle was so loud. His friend didn’t look his way, and Tomo shifted into a fox and weaved through the struggle, dodging boots and blades.

“Kaedehara!” He cried again when he emerged in human form on the other side, but his friend was nowhere to be seen. There was an enemy archer twenty or so paces away with his bow trained intently, and Tomo followed the archer’s line of sight to realize his bow was trained on Kazuha’s back.

The arrow flew, and Tomo’s magic lashed once more. It was a great distance, but Tomo’s heart burned vibrant with emotion and intent. He sensed the dendrobium beneath the earth again, a hungry well of energy. Strange symbols smoldered in the air around him and the arrow disintegrated into golden leaves mid-flight.

Tomo barely had time to feel relieved before his hold on his form wobbled, and dizziness made his vision spotty. He avoided falling to his knees, but his leg still burned, and his ears rang.

“They’ve got an Onmyouji!” A voice yelled, and he recognized it a split second later as Kujou Sara.

He turned to face her, and ah, there was the recognition he’d wanted from Gorou. Eyes wide and furious, Sara turned her volley of arrows on Tomo.

One grazed the edge of his face, leaving a crimson line along his cheekbone. He deflected the second and third with his blade, but the fourth carried an electric spark that once he would’ve absorbed with his vision but now just slammed into his shoulder. His vision flickered black, but he steeled himself and ran towards her. She let another arrow fly, and he locked his eyes on it and felt it too fade into golden leaves. Another, and another, disintegrated into leaves, and Tomo gained ground. Sara backpedaled.

Then she turned, calling for a retreat. Tomo felt a surge of pride at this, as though it was his sole accomplishment and not the work of an entire resistance.

I won our second duel, he thought as he fell onto the sand, but that wasn’t really true. He wasn’t really thinking clearly, and his magic was fuzzy again. He was losing a lot of blood, he realized, and he was a golden fox again, with an arrow still embedded in his shoulder.

“It’s me, Kazuha,” he tried to say as a blur of maple leaves and white hair crossed his vision, but foxes couldn’t speak, and it came out like a whimper.