The warm darkness gave way to a bright white light. It was so bright that I could practically feel the rays pushing against my skin as the damn thing blinded me. Even when the pressure and heat vanished, I found myself unable to see. Slowly, inexorably, my vision returned. First as dots of random colors. Those slowly merged with their closest neighbors, forming ever larger swatches of color and shapes until finally resolving into something I could make sense of.
Or at least I thought it was something that I could make sense out of. I mean, I could see and understand what I was looking at but not why or how. Either I had died and this was what was on the other side or something, or someone, was playing a cruel joke on me.
Laid out before me was a massive cliff overlooking a mountain range. Clouds crawled along below as they passed through. As I turned the structure set into the mountaintop was one that I had only ever seen once and it was something I had been told, cursed, to never speak of other than to her kids. Given that she was a Kitsune, the first I had seen, I had to assume that she meant others of our kind.
The shivers traveling down my spine had nothing to do with the soft and frigid breeze that lifted my hair off my back. They were from both the fear of meeting her again and the excitement that I could ask her questions if I did meet her. Not knowing what else to do, I walked out of the open and into the structure.
As before, the Kitsune lounged in the chair. Smoke wafted from the pipe she was holding as she looked off into the distance. While I wanted to ask her a question or two about Kitsune, I feared that she would kill me this time if I so much as interrupted whatever she was doing. Well, that was assuming that I was still alive. If I was on the other side, could I die? Yeah, I wasn’t going to be getting the answer to that question. Not today.
“Another of my kids has come forth to ask me questions about life and power. Why should I answer such questions when they have not yet learned to walk?” She snapped out the last word as if in rebuke for even so much as entering her presence. With it, her eyes flicked down to meet mine. As she took me in, she continued. “There are those among my brothers and sisters that believe that their kin should be forced to figure everything out for themselves. That there is no greater hindrance to growth than someone giving even a hint of an answer.”
The woman drew deep on her pipe before releasing a stream of clouds thick enough to nearly reach me over twenty feet away. “Then there are those that believe it is the responsibility of those with knowledge to teach those without. That knowledge not passed on is knowledge destined to be lost.”
She paused as if to see my reaction to her words. “And what do you think?” I hesitantly asked into the silence.
“I agree with both and neither.” Her eyes rolled as she leaned back. “Knowledge without the wisdom of how to use it and when is a recipe for disaster. Yet on the other hand, what progress is there to be made if every generation has to rediscover everything? I mean look at those joining the World Tree from Earth. The entirety of their knowledge was accessible by most anyone. Yet their civilization is, well was now, on the brink of collapse as the world around them failed. As the systems they had built failed one by one.”
Just how much did this woman know of what had been going on on Earth? Who was she that she had been able to watch such things? What did she mean by the World Tree?
As if she could see the questions flowing across my brain, she narrowed her eyes. Surprisingly, she seemed curious about something other than what she had been talking about. “Or are you like your stupid sister and stuck in a mating bond with an idiot? You do know not to have sex until you find your one – your mate.”
“No, I am not bonded to anyone,” I spoke quickly. “Still a virgin.” And happily so thank you very much. I mentally added. I was also pretty sure that my face was well past pink and bordering on red.
She hissed and suddenly, she was no longer lounging in the chair. Air smashed against my body as, between one breath and the next, she crossed the distance separating us. Her face was less than an inch from mine as she stared deep into my eyes, searching for something. I refused to move, even as I noticed her nine tails moved to surround me. Out of the corner of my eyes, I thought I could see the tips of each point inward. They looked as though they were ready to stab me if I so much as twitched wrong.
“Who are you? Any of my children would have known that they can have sex without bonding with someone. To do so requires the person to be marked and it is not something that is given on accident, ever.” She hissed out the question. “And tell me why I recognize you?” At first, I thought she was not expecting me to answer. Something sharp poked into the flesh long the side of my neck. While it didn’t feel deep, it was enough to get her point across. Either I answered or she would kill me.
“Because we have met before.” I got out in a rush.
“That tells me nothing.” Her hissing voice was quiet yet seemed to almost fill the room. As if the very air around us refused to move lest it find itself on her wrong side. “I have met many people in my lifetime. Killed quite a few of them as well.”
“The last time I was here I was human.” I swallowed over the lump in my throat. “You kicked me out after cursing me to be unable to talk about what I had seen other than to your children.”
“Yes, I remember a human showing up one day, but he was male, and human. You are neither. Wait…” While they were hard to see, I noticed the top of her ears flick as she used her nose to take in a deep breath. Her eyes narrowed even further, nearly closing entirely as she stared into me. Maybe even going so far as to look into my soul.
Then, without warning, her head fell back as laughter burst out of her. Thankfully, she moved back, taking her tails with her. “Hephaestus, you sly fucker. How in the hell did you pull this off?” I thought she was speaking into the air and so I was caught completely off guard when the guy from the video walked around me.
His hands were out as he spoke. “Inari, sister. So nice of you to call for me.” Her tails surrounded him as she hugged the guy. While seeing someone hug a self-proclaimed god was weird, it wasn’t as bad as realizing who this woman was. Of course, looking back over everything she had said and the number of tails, it made a bit of sense.
Which meant that either of these two people would be able to wipe me from existence. Yeah, I was getting out of here before I pissed one or both off. Slowly I slid toward one of the nearby pillers. Hopefully, I could hide behind it long enough to figure out a way to get back to the door of this building. After that, I would just have to climb down from this place and somehow make it back to Xander. Maybe he would be able to pick me up.
As she stepped back, her smile dropped, replaced by a pout. “It’s not my fault that Fenrir has it out for me.”
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“You died his fur bright pink. Of course, he has it out for you.” The thought of a large wolf with bright pink fur nearly caused me to burst into laughter. I managed to keep from making a noise as I continued moving. “While I can help calm his rage, I doubt that is why you called me.”
“Well, no. I will deal with the wolf later.” The Kitsune waved off his offer. “What I want to know is how you pulled off such a feat.”
“There have been so many things recently, which one are you talking about?” If anyone else had said this I would have thought they were boasting or something, this god sounded genuine.
Her hand lifted in my direction. Not where I had been standing when she had last seen me, but where I was currently. Yeah, who was I kidding? There was no way I was going to be able to get away from one god, let alone two. I slowed to a stop as I let out a resigned sigh.
He followed her hand to where I stood. His eyes roamed over my body. It didn’t feel like he was checking me out or anything, for which I was thankful. His gaze was more like someone looking over a piece of machinery as he tried to puzzle out what someone was talking about. What problem they might have seen that he was missing.
As if by magic, his eyes lit up and he laughed. “About time she showed up in front of you.” The Kitsune looked like she was about to smack him. He held up his hands in surrender. “You were the one that agreed to her transformation and change in status.” What did he mean by that?
“You mean that little system error of yours?” She didn’t look or sound too impressed at something. “I notice how there are more of those lately. Just how much of the system did you break with this little experiment of yours?”
He waved off her comment. “Nothing I can’t fix.”
“And if the whole system crashes? How many lives will we lose? How much power will be lost? Will it affect the barrier?”
Something about what she said caused him to snap. “You think I of all people don’t know how close we are from the edge? I built most of the fucking systems keeping everything running. Where and what do you think I am working on right now? Most of my duplicates and instanced minds are working on issues as we speak. Sure, most of what they are doing is applying a temporary patch to a leaking system, the rest of myself are working with several others from across the Tree to implement a permanent patch.”
Hephaestus took a second to breathe before continuing. “Is the system I made perfect? No. But you can ask Hades and the rest of those who monitor the souls entering and exiting from the Tree just how many people have been saved when compared to similar planets as they got integrated.”
“Fine,” while it sounded like she was dropping the subject, something about how she said it told me that she was going to do as he said and ask around. “But that still doesn’t explain how you managed to do this.” Her hand once again waved in my direction.
“Oh, that’s easy.” The guy’s smile was filled with pride. “I found that if you mix a soul-bound oath, a touch of transfiguration magic, and a relatively fresh mana pool, you can do quite a bit. It also helps that quite a few of us have visited the planet once upon a time.”
Inari sighed as if remembering something nice. “It was a nice place to go for vacation.”
“Helps that no one knew just how much of a trickster you were in the beginning.” He scoffed.
“That lasted a few generations before they started to keep an eye out for those tricks.” The fact that she used generations to mark time reminded me just how old these people were.
“Loki says the same thing every time I talk to him about Earth. Anyway,” He shook his head as if he needed to force himself back on track. “Quite a few of us left one or two children behind after every visit. While the subsequent generation may have lost access to mana and thus their magic, their genes continued on. She had…” he flicked his hand up and looked over something before letting out a short, sharp laugh. “one percent Fox Shifter DNA. But it is matrilineal. In fact, that is the only genetic marker from any of us.”
“And for those of us that didn’t study how everything is built?” I was happy that Inari had asked the question because I wanted to but was too scared to do so.
“It went from mother to daughter. Never once passing through a male relative. Looking at his family tree, every time it did, they never had a daughter, all boys.” Well, that explained my great-uncle. His wife wanted a girl but no matter what they tried, it never happened. “That and a few other markers pushed her close to the line. So much so that, from what I can tell, the system tried to get her to switch multiple times.”
“Why?” I managed to squeeze out. Both of them looked at me as if they were waiting for something. “Why couldn’t the system leave me alone? I didn’t want to become a woman. I was happy as a man.”
Inari’s eyes softened a bit at my words while Hephaestus answered my question. “With all of the new people and changes being done to the system, the thing doesn’t have the resources or ability to handle all of the issues cropping up. As such, I have had to enable some of the early limits built into it. One such limit is to prevent anyone from being too close to some of the lines. Male and female just happens to be one of those lines.”
His answer was both nice and useless at the same time. Inari smacked the back of his head as she spoke. “You suck at providing any normal answers, don’t you?” She turned to look me in the eyes as she continued. “What he means, or at least I think he is trying to say, is that, if you had activated whatever it was that switched your species the system might have become confused and done damage.”
“Isn't that what I just said?”
“Not in the slightest. And you said she had Fox Shifter DNA, not Kitsune.”
“Blame the demons.” He grumped.
She groaned. “Is that why you sent that log over to me a little while ago? The one where you asked for permission to change the end species.”
“Yes. What else did you think I was doing?”
“I thought you were testing a hypothetical, not actively changing someone's species.” The way she said that made me think that I was an accident. That she might not want me. I don’t know why but the thought that a god didn’t want me around hurt. Who else hid similar thoughts behind a mask? Inari must have seen the look on my face because she suddenly went from behind Hephaestus to holding me in her embrace.
As soon as her arms were around me, my entire body stiffened up and my breath hitched. I didn’t know if she was going to kill me or not given everything. With the fact that she was a god and I was a lowly mortal, I was fairly sure she could kill me. Yes, I would usually come back from death thanks to whatever the system did for those of us making the trip from Earth, but something told me she could deliver a permanent death.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I love every one of my children.” Her words helped calm my humming heart as she continued. “Sometimes though, this oaf forgets to tell people if something is theoretical or not. If it is a test or is changing someone's path.”
“It didn’t change her path.” He helpfully threw in.
“Shut up.” She lightly snapped at him. Her words calmed me down as I realized that it wasn’t that she didn’t want me. She just wished she had been told of my existence. It was almost as if she was a parent that had just been told they had a kid they didn’t know existed.
“Just saying,” he mumbled. We stood like that for a minute before he broke the silence. “If you don’t have anything else, I do have some work to do.
I felt her head lift and turn as she likely glared at the guy. “Not until you set up a few things for me.”
“Like what?”
“I need a way to talk to her and all my new kids. By the way, just how many are there?”
His hesitation told me all I needed to know. Judging by the growl that vibrated through her chest, it didn’t go unnoticed by her either. “Seven, including her.”
“So I have seven new children that are having fun without me?” I wondered if it was the fact that she didn’t know about us or the fact that we were having fun without her that she was more pissed about.
“I will set something up. Can I go now?” He sounded tired.
“Go.” Given that he didn’t reply, I assumed he had vanished as silently as he had appeared. Her voice was soft as she spoke. “It is almost time for you to return as well.”
“Return?”
“To your body, you didn’t think you were powerful enough to reach here did you?”
“I don’t know. Where is here?”
“It doesn’t matter, not right now.” She pulled back and lifted my chin enough to look into my eyes. “What matters is that you get stronger so that you can meet me in person, one day.” With those words, she pulled back just as something yanked at my core. It pulled me backward and into the air fast enough that everything became a blur. The sight nauseated me enough that I was forced to close my eyes to calm my stomach. It was only for a moment but between the time they closed and when they opened, I went from flying to lying on a bed looking toward a white ceiling that I didn’t recognize.