Chapter 7: Twelve Tails

  Tsukuyomi decred it was time to practice shapeshifting, and nothing that followed was Yuki's fault.

  "The goal is simple," the goddess said, floating cross-legged above a rock in the courtyard. "Suppress the fox traits. Full human appearance—no ears, no tails."

  "You say 'simple' like you've ever had to learn anything," Yuki muttered.

  "I'm a goddess. I was born knowing everything."

  "Must be nice."

  "It is. Now focus."

  Yuki closed her eyes and reached inward for the warm current of energy that lived beneath her ribs. She'd gotten better at finding it—could call fox-fire now without panicking, could hold an illusion for almost a full minute before losing concentration. Shapeshifting was meant to be the next step.

  Ears: gone. Tails: gone. Normal human girl.

  She visualized it clearly. Held it.

  The energy moved.

  When she opened her eyes, Tsukuyomi was staring.

  "...what?" Yuki asked.

  "Count your tails."

  Yuki looked back.

  Twelve fluffy white tails fanned out from her lower back in a magnificent, chaotic dispy. Three of them were already tangled together. One was draped over the nearby stone ntern.

  "HOW?!" Yuki yelped.

  "I genuinely don't know." Tsukuyomi looked delighted in the way that meant she absolutely wasn't going to help. "Nine tails is the divine maximum. You've exceeded it on your first attempt. That's either genius or a catastrophic malfunction."

  "Make them STOP."

  "Pull them back in. Same as shapeshifting, just—reverse it."

  Yuki concentrated. The twelve tails colpsed back toward her, reorganizing—but they overshot in the other direction and she ended up with zero for a moment, which was somehow worse because the absence felt wrong, like missing fingers.

  Then three came back.

  And then—a beat after—her legs gave out.

  She sat down hard on the courtyard stones. Not theatrical. Not intentional. Her body just... stopped holding her.

  "Oh," she said.

  Kuroki was at the courtyard's edge. She crossed it in five strides—not running, but not far from it—and crouched in front of Yuki at eye level. Her expression didn't show arm, but her eyes moved: ears, face, hands, checking.

  "What happened?" Kuroki asked.

  "Magic backsh," Tsukuyomi said, descending from her rock, sounding a fraction less amused than usual. "Producing twelve tails, even briefly, pulled more energy than she has trained capacity for. She's not hurt. She's just—"

  "Emptied out," Yuki finished. The courtyard tilted slightly. She pressed her palms ft on the warm stone and waited for it to stop. "I'm fine."

  "You sat down involuntarily," Kuroki said.

  "Fine-ish."

  Kuroki stayed where she was—crouched at her level, watching her steadily—until satisfied it was passing. Then she stood and turned to Tsukuyomi. "Should you have started smaller?"

  The goddess looked mildly chastened. "Yes. I should have had her attempt one tail at a time before the full suppression exercise. That's on me." She said it pinly, without wrapping it in anything. "It won't happen again."

  Yuki tilted her head back to look at the sky. Blue. Solid. Normal.

  "I genuinely don't know how I did twelve," she said.

  "I don't know how to go to zero," Tsukuyomi replied philosophically. "We both have things to learn."

  Yuki sat on the courtyard steps until the feeling of being hollowed out slowly stopped spinning her head. A tail flopped over her knee. "Why does going toward human form make more fox stuff happen?"

  "Because you're fighting your instincts from the wrong direction. You told yourself suppress, so the magic panicked and overcorrected." The goddess drifted down to eye level. "You're not suppressing a fox form. You're choosing a different one. The human shape is still you. It just doesn't have fur."

  "That's a feelings lecture dressed up as a magic lesson."

  "Most magic lessons are. Now, drink this." Tsukuyomi produced a small, corked vial from her sleeve and tossed it.

  Yuki caught it clumsily. It smelled like crushed pine needles and ozone. "What is it?"

  "Spirit elixir. You drained your core entirely. If we wait for it to refill naturally, we'll be sitting here until winter, and I ck the patience for that."

  Yuki downed it. The liquid hit her stomach and immediately expanded into a sharp, clean burn. Instead of just letting the sensation wash over her, she closed her eyes and tracked it, trying to break the magic down into its base components. She followed the way the energy routed from her center, branched out along her spine, and sequentially filled the pathways leading to her tails. It wasn't just mystical vibes; it was a system. If she could understand the plumbing, she could control the pressure.

  They tried again.

  And again.

  Yuki managed to get the tails down to one, then overshot back to five. She lost both ears for thirty seconds, then gained a third one. At one point the three tails split at the tips like they were trying to become six, which Tsukuyomi found very funny.

  "You could stop ughing," Yuki said, without much hope.

  "I could," Tsukuyomi agreed, not stopping.

  Around midday, Kuroki appeared at the edge of the courtyard with two cups of tea. She'd been doing perimeter checks all morning, and she stopped when she saw Yuki currently sporting a single massive tail that was approximately twice its normal size.

  She looked at it.

  Then at Yuki.

  "Don't," Yuki warned.

  "I wasn't going to say anything."

  "You were thinking something."

  "I was thinking you might want tea." Kuroki crossed the courtyard and held out a cup with calm, complete seriousness.

  Yuki took it. The giant tail slowly divided back into three normal ones as her embarrassment faded.

  "Has she been like this all morning?" Kuroki asked Tsukuyomi.

  "Magnificently so," the goddess said.

  "In my defense," Yuki said, "this is not as easy as it looks."

  "It doesn't look easy," Kuroki said.

  "Good." Yuki drank her tea. It was exactly the right temperature. She didn't think about that too hard. "It isn't."

  Kuroki remained standing, leaning her shoulder casually against a wooden pilr while her thumb rested lightly on her sword guard. She watched the courtyard like she was still on duty, which she probably was.

  "Why does it matter?" she asked. "Hiding the ears and tails."

  "Tsukuyomi says for stealth. Or going to the vilge without startling people."

  "The vilge already knows what you are."

  "Hana told them," Tsukuyomi supplied helpfully.

  "So why hide?"

  Yuki thought about it. "I don't know if I actually want to. Hide, I mean." She touched the base of one ear without thinking about it—a habit she'd developed, checking they were still there. "This is what I am now. If I hide it, that feels like..."

  She didn't finish the sentence.

  Kuroki looked at her. Not quickly, not a gnce—actually looked, the way she did sometimes when Yuki said something she was considering.

  "You don't have to," Kuroki said finally. "The practice is useful. The choice is yours."

  "You sound like a very wise fortune cookie."

  "I'll take that as a compliment."

  Tsukuyomi was watching them with the expression of someone watching a very slow and entertaining game.

  Yuki noticed. "What?"

  "Nothing," the goddess said pleasantly. "Finish your tea. We have more practice to do."

  By te afternoon, thanks to the elixir's lingering effects, Yuki could hold a stable two-tail form for approximately four minutes.

  It wasn't full human. It was a compromise—ears still visible, one tail instead of three. But it was progress, and she was starting to understand what Tsukuyomi meant about choosing rather than suppressing. The energy didn't fight as hard when she broke it down sequentially like that.

  Kuroki brought dinner out to the front steps since neither of them had gotten around to cooking—rice balls from the stores and pickled vegetables, simple and filling.

  They ate as the sun dropped behind the mountains.

  "I'm going to get it," Yuki said, not about anything specifically.

  "I know," Kuroki said, also not asking what she meant.

  The comfortable way that nded felt dangerous. Yuki immediately shoved it into the mental box beled 'Do Not Think About' and smmed the lid.

  Her tails, however, did not cooperate.

  All three fanned out in a slow, contented arc as the st of the light faded.

  Author's Note:

  Hey guys, sorry for not uploading yesterday! I spent the whole day writing, so now I have a solid buffer built up and will be returning to daily releases. Feel free to comment if you have a specific time of day you prefer the updates to drop!

  Also, I've updated more audio versions of the chapters, and more advanced chapters are avaible over on Patreon. Feel free to check them out here: Patreon Link