Zalroth shielded himself, and Chronia, with his tails right before the illuminating golden light rushed past them. Kyubi's body erupted into a storm of relentlessly unrelenting explosions and golden mana beams that pierced through their body. The mana beams ferociously smashed into every inch of the cavern and bursted into particles the second they collided into anything.
The golden light abruptly dispersed from Kyubi's body and left it in a desaturated stone-like state before completely hardening. Zalroth unshielded his tails from around himself and Chronia before quickly running over to the statufied Kyubi.
"I gotta hurry," Zalroth commented. Zalroth stopped next to the tendril that was closest to him and knocked on it before he smirked when the tendril crumbled away and the crumbling worked its way through Kyubi's body. Kyubi's body completely crumbled into a pile of desaturated dust and left only their greyed-out mana core, at the top of the dust pile.
Zalroth joked that was close before he weakly dropped to the Crescent Moon Staff and collapsed sideways onto his tails. Chronia struggled to but eventually popped her head out from underneath Zalroth's back and watched as all the barriers around the coliseum that Zalroth had casted disappeared. Chronia frantically squirmed free from underneath Zalroth and quickly sat on Zalroth's chest.
"You good?" Chronia asked as she placed a hand on Zalroth's shoulder.
"No," Zalroth said with a goofily serious tone. The two quietly snickered and Chronia joked that it's been a while since they reference that meme; Zalroth agreed with her but slowly stopped chuckling.
"But seriously, I can't move," Zalroth stated. Chronia asked if he was being serious as she picked up one of Zalroth's arms. She let go of Zalroth's arm and watched as it flopped downwards like a noodle. Chronia asked Zalroth if he could transform into his small kitsune form so she could carry him.
Zalroth rolled his eyes before a puff of silver clouds covered his body and disappeared to reveal Zalroth in his small-sized adult kitsune form next to Chronia. Chronia happily picked Zalroth up and wrapped him around her neck like a scarf; she carefully placed Kunai and Xelphia into Zalroth's tails and in his tail pocket dimension. Chronia picked up the Crescent Moon Staff and placed her hourglass catalyst between the crescent moon part of the staff.
She let go of the staff and, as its and the catalyst's mana melded together, it floated in place before gliding behind Chronia. Chronia, with the combined weapon floating behind her, began to float and made her way towards Kyubi's mana core.
With Zalkutaro and Zuno, Luna watched as Zalroth's magic barriers dispersed and Ruby popped her head through Nola's rainbow portal.
"Does that mean it's over now?" Ruby asked as she looked over at Zuno, who was using his telekinesis to pull the Terrorizer's purified azure-coloured arms and auroraite towards himself. Zuno confirmed Ruby's question and Ruby quickly hopped out of the portal, followed by everyone else.
Chronia floated up to Kyubi's mana core and guided the Hourglass Crescent Moon Staff to the mana core. She made the staff tap the mana core and pulled the staff back when the mana core instantly cracked open like an egg under the force from the staff. As the staff floated behind her, Chronia peeked her head over the opened mana core and noticed someone was inside.
"Shoot... you were right...," Chronia commented as she looked at the small pale-skinned young girl curled up in a fetal position, with scruffy pure black gelatin hair with glowing white dots all over it: she was wearing a skirt and oversized crop top made from the same material as her hair.
"Are you implying you didn't look this far into the future?" Zalroth asked.
"No I did, and I did see us looking into the cracked open mana core, but I didn't see anyone inside it," Chronia explained. The two discussed amongst themselves why Chronia's future vision didn't depict Kyubi.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"Perhaps it is due to them being an abyssal slimling, my lady," Vivo(in his crow form) landed on Chronia's shoulder while Zallino carried the other egos and visages in a net, made from slightly liquidly dawnite, over to the group.
"That seems unlikely since I could see them when they were the giant heathian," Chronia mentioned. The group discussed amongst themselves and as they couldn't come to a conclusion the egos and visages in the dawnite net hopped into Zalroth's tail dimension, apart from Zalina who jumped onto Chronia's head.
"What's that," Zalina asked as Zallino landed on the cracked mana core and everyone looked at what Zalina was pointing at. The group inspected Kyubi and noticed there was a red lightning energy ring wrapped around her ear.
"It appears to be some sort of alchemy construct from Kukou," Vivo stated as he flew down to Kyubi. Vivo transformed one of his wing feathers into duskanite and stabbed it through the red energy ring. The moment the ring was cut, Kyubi's body rapidly grew and Vivo and Zallino quickly flew away from the mana core. The two avians landed on Chronia's shoulders as Kyubi grew to the size of a four-year-old.
The Chronia and the others watched as the top of Kyubi's head rose from inside the mana core. Kyubi raised her tiny hand onto the edge of the mana core and struggled to lift her head over the edge of the mana core. Kyubi rested her chin and slumped her arms on the edge of the mana core. Kyubi opened her black eyes, with the part that's usually white being grey, and stared at the group with an empty stare.
Kyubi attempted to climb out of the mana core but it crumpled under her hands; she fell forwards and faceplanted into the pile of dust, followed by her short gelatin snake tail slapping her left leg.
"It seems you transferred your clumsiness to her Zalroth," Chronia remarked jokingly; Zalroth, Vivo, Zalina and Zallino rolled their eye simultaneously as Chronia continued to tease Zalroth. Chronia continued to tease Zalroth before she, Zalroth, Vivo, Zalina and Zallino widened their eyes. Zalroth jittery ripped himself off Chronia's neck before leaping off Chronia's shoulder. Zalroth managed to transform mid-air before Lola, without anyone on her tails, crashed into him.
Zalkutaro's and the others heard an odd whistle noise and when they looked in the direction of the noise right before a mushroom cloud of desaturated dust shot up into the air. The dust quickly dropped back onto the pile of dust as Lola profusely and loudly cried into Zalroth's chest while Scarlett, Mimi and the other kids popped their heads out from Lola's tails. The kids slowly climbed out of Lola's tails while Mimi dropped into one of Zalroth's tails.
"Did Lola... really just jump from the top of the coliseum?" Mei-La asked as she concernedly looked over at Fei-Ku; Snow quietly commented that what Lola did was super dangerous and if Scarlett had tried to do something even remotely similar Akari would've grounded Scarlett until she was in high school.
"To be fair, we all would have done the same if we saw a giant pile of leaves; besides I'm pretty sure kitsunes can cushion their fall with their tails," Fei remarked. The others reluctantly agreed and Zalroth facepalming when he remembered kitsunes could do that. Zalroth lifted his hand off his face and looked down at Lola, as she tightly clung to Zalroth's fur coat.
Zalroth attempted to ask Lola why she was so upset but she seemed too preoccupied we crying to even register his words. Zalroth half-heartedly sighed as he placed his jittery hand on Lola's head and head patted her; as Zalroth continued to head pat her, Lola's eye waterfalls slowly receded until they were only small streams, which Zalroth wiped away.
"Fluffkins, what's wrong?" Chronia concernedly asked as she crouched down next to Lola and comforted her; Lola sniffled and dropped her ears.
"Papa's mana thingy got super low and I got scared...," Lola whimpered. Zalroth painedly chuckled, causing Lola to look up at Zalroth confusedly. Zalroth apologised for laughing and explained he just found it funny how Chronia said basically the same thing to him when the two of them were kids; Chronia embarrassedly groaned as she recalled the event Zalroth was referring to.
"Why'd you have to bring that up?" Chronia asked as she covered her embarrassed expression.
"Because the look on your face at the time was funny, just as much as the one you have now," Zalroth remarked; Chronia embarrassedly whined at him while informing Zalroth that it absolutely wasn't funny.
"The one before or now?" Zalroth cheekily asked, with Chronia adamantly stating neither; Lola seeing that her parents were seemingly fine happily smiled before abruptly jumping from shock when she felt something cold touch one of her tails. She looked behind herself and noticed that Kyubi, almost completely covered in dust, was the one who had grabbed her tail.
Meanwhile, on the roof of the coliseum, Kukou watched everyone in the cavern as he was covered in a veil of alchemy lightning. Kukou cockily hummed to himself as he raised his hand over his head; he crushed the black pellet in his hand and disappeared within the black smoke.