a "Chaotic" wish of happy birthday.

Primarily Kiras perspective.

----

Kira and Yin had arrived at the Shrine and while looking regretful had Yin stepped back while motioning to Kira to go ahead, it was hard for Kira to not feel a slight pang of guilt for leaving Yin behind who seemed to take a position akin to guard duty where she was.

Shaking her head at Yins antics did Kira decide to go ahead.

Immediately upon stepping inside did Kira feel overwhelmed, the faint feeling she had before, had exploded within her chest and she realised that Inaris scent was everywhere, she had no clue when it had happened but for lack of better explanation had she almost imprinted on the scent.

The scent currently made her feel warm, happy and calm all at the same time, however to Kira this was logically extremely confusing to her, as there was absolutely no denying of her instincts.

While she liked Inari and had been willing to let Inari take her in, did she get surprised how she couldn't get herself to doubt the genuine validity of it, from her experinece of having bounced between Foster families had Kira learned first hand that even families who seemed genuine when they took her in, could easily have ulterior motives so it had become rather ingrained in her to never fully trust people.

the concept wad rather hard for her to explain, but giving it an attempt the best way Kira could describe it, would go something like this.

Imagine you have a good friend, and you trust them to bring you an enjoyable time and plenty of positive aspects, and while you logically likely know they would try to help you if you ever asked do you instead somehow deep down feel that if you ever truly ended up in a situation where it would be of utmost importance that you received their help, let's say you got stranded near them, your wallet and ID had been stolen, and while you would ofcourse ask if they would help did 98% of you expect a No, because why should they bother.

No matter how absurd excuse they would give you, even if the scenario was highly unrealistic from a logical perspective because that wasn't in that other individuals nature to abandon anyone regardless of how close you were to them.

would this innate feeling of everyone being willing to discard you the second you weren't convenient to them anymore be something that had been so strongly ingrained in Kira growing up, that it was a big part of how she saw all her relations, it wasn't like she expected everyone to be cruel it was just an expectation of nobody would have her back when it truly mattered, because honestly why should they?

The feeling she had in this room while taking in Inaris scent was much to her surprise the exact opposite every instinct in Kira told her that this person would always be there for her, no matter what happens and the situation.

For the very first time in Kiras life did she truly understand what it meant to be unconditionally loved and protected, to Kira this feeling extremely forign but all overpowering resulting in her being helpless in her actions, Kira curled up and just started crying in a mixture of happiness for finally being capable of feeling this way with anyone for the first time in her life, she didn't even care if it was simply a lie or illusion fed to her by her newfound instincts, it was something which had been unobtainable to her in her prior life regardless of situation.

The lack of true trust had often led her to putting up invisible walls against everyone as she never really allowed more than surface level relationships, even psychiatrists in the past had simply blamed her original moms neglect, along with Foster family abuse on this behaviour and had just politely given her the stamp letting her know she had attachment issues plus ptsd and that they couldn't do anything about it beside trying to stuff her full of pills to which she had very politely declined.

Kira sat curled up for a while and just let her emotions come out in the open, she knew she was likely quite unsightly right now, but ultimately she didn't care, the dam had broken and she was letting out a lot of pent up emotions all at once.

it wasn't even just realisation that she finally had someone in her life, after all she had never had "true" family before, but it was simply everything including the loss of her former life.

Even though she would insist she wasn't missing out on much, had Kira still given up a lot of things, her guild mates, her ability to keep up to date on certain shows or franchises she was invested in, and no you really don't just drop or grow out of your hobbies overnight, even if you get hit by the loudest boom in existence and find yourself as a fox person in another world, with a new cosmic scale mom, the thought about her mom was still odd to Kira, but it made her happy.

As guilty pleasure Kira moved closer to the main shrine in the room, she had finally recovered enough from her slight emotional breakdown to get back up and pretend she hadn't just been a mess, tears was still flowing as she moved, but really, it had only been a matter of time, Kira wasn't some unique super hero from the typical anime shows who could basically have the world die on them and just power trough never emotionally faltering shouting about love and friendship, ultimately she was just a former librarian and even a slightly less than stellar former life didn't mean that she wasn't capable of hitting a hard cap of "too much shit just went down, can I have a break please?"

Ironically had she barely finished the thought before a void opened up near the shrine and a rather tall but young looking lady stepped trough, letting out a gasp Kira could do nothing but take in the sight of the individual, she was extremely hard to describe as she pretty much defied simple logical explanations, her hair was normal, like it was hair, but at the same time it wasn't, it was shimmering and moving and almost looked her hair was a galaxy with the star system, it sounded stupid even to her, it was almost like 1 part of her saw hair, while the other part of her saw the cosmos.

"Greetings young one, Might you be Kira?"

the cosmic being said to Kira who was quite literally just standing there mouth gaping.

trying to pull herself out of her own mind Kira answered

"That might indeed be me, although I have a feeling there really isn't a whole lot of doubt in your mind, so what would someone of your stature want with me?"

Kira was internally panicking as Inari had gone out of her way to stress that she didn't want the other divine beings to know about her, and if nothing else did the lady in front of her quite literally scream both divinity and power, Kira instinctively knew that she was only a spec compared to her and didn't really have any other tools right as of this moment than her gift of speech, and praying she had picked up the smallest ability to negotiate her way out of this.

"Yes as you suspect am I not really doubting the validity of who you are, I am however quite impressed had, I not known Inari and been able to see the uncanny physical resemblance you share with her, would even I likely have overlooked you given how you've completely erased your divine presence."

The galaxy lady was currently eying Kira with quite a bit of curiosity before continuing.

"I know you have her seed, and even my own kids would likely not be able to completely hide their presence completely as you have done, especially considering just how young you are to this, but then again maybe that is exactly why.

that said, as comical it is to see your tail giving away your extreme distrust of me, am I not keen on the thought of me being the cause of that.

You seem well versed but your body language is quite an open book, and in the future would benefit you to work on that."

hearing what the lady had said Kira immediately looked towards her tail which was puffy and wagging rapidly in a downwards slope, she was honestly a bit surprised she hadn't stumbled over her own tail yet.

There was however no denying that she was quite visibly showing clear agitation, she had pretty much mastered control of faking a smile and keeping her tone of voice even and polite due to years of practise but hadn't quite anticipating her new found appendages to give her away.

Kira currently had 2 choices, she could hear the lady out, or she could bail and hope her mom would deal with it. She wasn't even sure if the shrine only connected to Inaris realm or it could connect elsewhere as well, depending on the answer would hoping that Inari was even aware this lady was here be a foolish gamble.

opting to stay civil and hear the lady out Kira spoke up with much more bravado than she felt.

"Well, Lady cosmos or whoever you are, you can't really blame me for trying, I am not aware of who you are, nor your intentions and as far I'm aware is no others of your stature supposed to know of my existence, include the fact that you're here alone and without Inari makes me question if she is aware of your presence here, and how sincere your intentions are.

I can easily sense i can't run, nor can I fight so ultimately all I can do is submit to the little game you decided to play with me, I'm not perfect at ediqette but I surmise if you intended to calm me down would you instead have introduced yourself immediately with your purpose instead of pointing out the flaws in my attempt to hide my unease while trying to gain those answers I mentioned prior"

The lady looked at Kira with a bit of surprise but then smiled brighter than she had before.

"Oh god little one, I can already see why Inari picked you, you're the spitting image of her younger years, even while clearly afraid you're doing your best to get out of your perceived debacle by throwing logic statements while further attacking my manners, and purposefully giving me a nickname, simply baiting me into either confirming or denying what you said or provide you additional information based on what I choose to react to giving me multiple options to throw me off, I will have you know that Inari is guaranteed to be watching this, and I don't think she could be prouder as a parent.

just quite unfortunate that I've dealt with your mom for the past mellinia, and grown fairly resistant."

clapping her hands like a school teacher the lady continued

"Now then, allow me to retry this then.

Hello, I am Chaos, your past world would have bits and pieces of me included in the Greek mythos, although rather horribly inaccurate and tons of made up material in between did they also get some facts correct, this probably goes for most of the former realms information of all of us, but I digress.

I'm here for two reasons, one would be to urge you to please re open the link to Inari, she is getting quite desperate in regards to how you've completely managed to seal off the connection between the two of you, it's likely to do with your attempt to lock the presence of your Divinity.

Secondly I'm here to wish you a happy birthday...

although a bit belated,"

Kira had to use every single ounce of willpower to not just let her jaw drop to the floor, she had been played by this lady, well she is Chaos so she probably lives up to her name, Kira was however 100% convinced that Chaos had remained vague about her intentions to get Kiras reaction and desperate attempt to salvage anything she could work with to get out of the situation.

and much to Kiras frustration she had been baited into jumping in with both her legs, to address the second point she understood that her current method of basically locking her divine essence into a sealed box was causing issues so she decided to open it up again.

barely had she let her hold of her divine presence go before she immediately heard Inari in her head of all things both scolding, and pleading with her to never block the connection like that again unless with very good reason.

Kira couldn't help but be amused by just how similar this felt to when she had watched her peers growing up getting scolded because they let their cellphones die and had forgotten to keep their parents updated, to think she would receiving end of that was something she had never expected, especially after moving out on her own.

it confirmed Inari cared, and that to Kira meant the world.