Ruby proudly marched down the street while carrying a huge pile of the diced purple vines with her mana tendrils, as Sophia was stacking more of the diced vines into neat five-by-five cubes while having a faint blush on her face.

"I can't believe she wanted to go to Kiki's stand just to get that," Sophia agitatedly said as she forced her brain not to visualize the prize Ruby one.

"I don't even think I-" Sophia mentioned before adamantly shaking her head and increasing her efficiency at creating the diced vine squares.

After around half an hour, in front of the adventurer's guild building, everyone along with many adventurers gathered in front of the towering pile of diced vine squares.

"We did we saved the city," Ruby cheerfully proclaimed while raising her fist into the air and causing Star, who was clinging onto Ruby's back, to raise her fist too.

"I'd say it'd be more accurate to say; we did it we helped remove the problematic obstacle left behind by the Phantoms," Heather remarked as she pushed up her glasses; Heather's unenthusiastic tone made Ruby crook her arm before lowering it completely.

"I know, but my line sounds cooler," Ruby confidently stated with Star rapidly nodding in agreement with Ruby.

"Cool but slightly inaccurate," Heather added as she couldn't help but grin a little. Ruby let out a defeated sigh as her ears twitched when she heard Zalroth's voice faintly off in the distance.

"Whatever..." Ruby muttered before running off and making a b-line for Zalroth(who had Vivo, Mimi, Zalina, Maru, Kai, Lola, Kusana, Nola, Minia, Snow, Scarlet, Kiki and Iris sleeping on his tails), while he was talking to Zuno and Chronia.

"I see... as long as the plan doesn't require me to par-" Zuno said before stopping partway through when he noticed Ruby running straight for him. Zalroth turned around before amusedly sighing as Ruby stopped in front of him and confidently pointed at his face.

"Alright Zalroth, spill it, how are you back to normal without any explanation!" Ruby demanded as she firmly placed her hands on her hips.

"Right-right, but as I mentioned earlier wouldn't it be better if I do the explanation once we're back at camp," Zalroth explained as he tried to calm Ruby down.

"Fine..." Ruby said mopily before walking off back to the other kunoichis.

"I wonder what the answer could be," Elizabeth remarked to Charlotte, who gave a head nod in response.

"Gonna be honest I didn't even realise Zalroth was back to normal," Alex remarked making Charlotte facepalm and shake her head.

A few minutes later at the camp, Mikou quietly carried the large cooking pot over his head by himself as Rosa guided him over to the brick wall-surrounded campfire.

"I'm surprised you're able to lift that all by yourself now, are you secretly training or something?" Rosa cheekily asked and let out a giggle as Mikou glared at her.

"I kid I kid but I never knew you could run so fast," Rosa remarked as a rainbow portal opened in the air before Zalroth and co, excluding Zuno, Chronia and Kiki, dropped out from the portal.

Ruby dropped from the portal and did a superhero landing before Star quickly climbed down onto the ground. Ruby swiftly stood up and spun around in Zalroth's direction. Zalroth sighed as Ruby stared him in the eyes.

"Alright-alright, I'll explain it now," Zalroth defeatedly stated as he strolled over to the empty picnic blanket and sat down.

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A few minutes later, Akari was carrying a stack of plates under her arms when she noticed the small crowd gathered around Zalroth. She let out an amused chuckle and made her way over to the crowd.

"So where should I start?" Zalroth semi-sarcastically asked as Ruby sat up straight.

"How about you explain the whole gender-bending thing," Alex snarked jokingly as she rested her chin on her arm and knee.

"Right... well to start I didn't actually do any of this genderbending you speak of... technically," Zalroth said as he picked up Zalina, making her lazily open one of her eyes slightly.

"I'm sure you're all well acquainted with Zalina, well in her humanoid form," Zalroth said.

"Hah! we were right! You owe us twenty Valt, Elizabeth " Luna proudly shouted from somewhere within the crowd, only being noticeable by the tips of her raised fist. Scarlett tilted her head before she raised her hand.

"Soo... the female you isn't you?" Scarlett asked.

"No, she is me," Zalroth remarked; he squeezed the back of Zalina's neck and made her frantically squirm around as she fully woke up. Zalroth whispered to Zalina to go put on some clothes before he tossed her into his tails.

"I don't get it..." Ruby said as she struggled to compute what Zalroth was explaining. Luna and Heather sinisterly chuckled as Heather stood up.

"He's trying to explain it in simple terms since he thinks the complete explanation is too complicated for us to understand," Heather remarked, which made Zalmimi snicker at Zalroth.

"Fine I'll explain it," Zalina stated before she popped out of Zalroth's tails, in her humanoid form: wearing an oversized Pink fur coat, baggy black shorts and silverwood getas while covering her chest area with some of her tail fur.

"For kitsunes, when they are born they start off with a single tail, that represents their essence/themselves, and as they have experiences which leads to them forming something called an ego or a visage which is represented on the main kitsune as a tail," Zalina explained with the who crowd intently listening.

"An ego...?" Snow asked. Zalina nodded her head before a few seconds later leaning over to Zalroth.

"What was the difference between the two again?" Zalina whispered as she covered her mouth. Zalroth sighed and poked Zalina on the forehead.

"A kitsune ego and visage function the exact same but the way they're formed is different; take Zalina for example she's my kitsune ego of desire and she was formed when I experienced a strong desire to mur-" Zalroth explained before being cut off by Zalina, who jumped in front of Zalroth and nervously laughed.

"For simplicities sake just think of a kitsune ego and visage as a kitsune's personal familiar," Zalina stated proudly with a forced nervous smile. The crowd nodded their heads before beginning to disperse when they heard the chefs calling everyone for lunch. Scarlett was looking at her hand and counting her finger before scratching her head.

"But you have ten tails tho..." Scarlett muttered before she looked up at Zalroth as Zalina was climbing onto Zalroth's tails.

"The others are currently dealing with Linia at the moment," Zalka(in her human form: has silver hair with pale orange tips, pale orange eyes with feline-like eyes, pale white to the point it's faintly cyan skin, three large black streaks on each of her cheeks) stated as she lept out from Zalroth's tails: wearing a long sleeveless red fur coat, skin tight black leggings, a white sports bra, and silverwood getas.

"Oh...," Scarlett said as Snow started to her towards the food buffet.

Later that day in the forest, Olivia, Storm and Hex traversed through the forest as the sun was beginning to set.

"How can it be so hard to find a giant white fox in a yellow forest?" Olivia asked exhaustedly as she rested her arm on a tree and breathed in heavily.

"Perhaps there isn't actually a giant fox-" Storm remarked. Olivia sprung to her feet and placed her hands on her hips.

"That's impossible I mean you saw the size of that paw print didn't you," Olivia stated as she wiped her forehead. Stormed chuckled and he mentioned he was kidding as Olivia rolled her eyes and she lowered her arms. Olivia glanced over in the direction of the horizon and defeatedly sighed.

"Alright... Hex I think we should-" Olivia stated before stopping herself and sporadically glancing around in an attempt to locate Hex. She worriedly looked over at Storm, who pointed at the top of his head. Olivia slowly raised her hand and placed it on Hex's head as she was laying on Olivia's head.

"Maybe we should take the day off tomorrow and continue searching overmorrow," Storm suggested as Hex opened her eyes. Hex abruptly sat up and frantically pointed into the forest.

"Over there!" Hex proclaimed as she flailed her pointing arm. Olivia squinted her eye in the direction Hex was pointing at but failed to see anything in the shadowy section of the forest.

Olivia leaned slightly forwards before spotting a faint white glimmer deep within the cluster of trees. Olivia grinned and raced off for the white glimmer, while Stormed amusedly exhaled to himself before running after the glimmer-chasing duo.