Chapter 1

Kurama sneezed, swiping weakly at her dripping nose. The cold she'd been suffering for three days straight was still showing no signs of going away, unfortunately.

"You're not the smartest tool in the shed, dear. Maybe you should have tried thinking before you chose to throw yourself into a frozen lake butt-naked." Her brother commented dully as he stood next to her bed, fussing over her with such determination that it made Kurama annoyed.

"Mhm... Th' bstard dared me too..." She murmured, her voice wheezy. Her brother shook his head and sighed, removing the ice sack from her forehead and applying a new one.

"Yeah, yeah. Do tell me when your wedding with your dear bastard will be." He joked as he stood up, ignoring her protests at the insinuation.

"Alright, try to catch some sleep, will you? Hopefully, you'll feel better in the morning. God knows you're insufferable as it is when you're fine, I don't think I can survive any more of this." Her brother said sternly, although the slight twitch of his lips gave it away. Kurama glared weakly at him before closing her eyes and letting out a soft breath.

She remained still for quite some time, her mind automatically wondering randomly to the most recent event of her life, her break-up with her best friend after she became obsessed with some weird 'anime' called Naruto. In truth, it hadn't so much been a break-up, and it would be more appropriate to say that they just sort of... drifted away.

Still, it had been painful, especially during their last few months of friendship, where her friend would always snicker at her name like some sort of inside joke, one that Kurama never understood. Sure, it was a foreign name and a weird one at that, but she liked it, and she took great offense to someone mocking her for it.

The fact that her best friend had done so only worsened the humiliation.

Letting out a sigh, she rolled onto her side, her mind feeling a bit fuzzy from the cold and sleepiness. Yeah, maybe jumping into that lake really hadn't been the best---

There's a moment of nothingness, no thoughts, no feelings, no sensations. For a moment, she is nothing. And then, she is herself again.

---idea. Still, it had been fun. Was it worth the cold, though? Who knows. Kurama liked to think it had been.

"... What?" Someone murmured, just barely loud enough for Kurama to hear. She froze, for the voice that reached her ears was a foreign one. Had someone broken into her house?

"How... How are you so self-aware?" The voice murmured again, sounding as though it came from everywhere around her. Kurama's eyes shot open, and the first thing she discovered was that she was most definitely not in her room anymore.

Then, the questions registered in her mind. What the fuck did this weirdo mean? Where was he? She was surrounded by darkness on all sides as far as she could tell, and the floor felt like perfect marble, white to the point of it being hard to look at, so despite her desperate search, she found nothing.

"... Hello?" She called out tentatively after a few minutes of radio silence, her fear and discomfort only growing with each passing moment. She felt something brush the back of her neck, and considering she had short hair, she definitely knew it was not that.

Goosebumps grew all over her as she whirled around, only to be met with more darkness. She dully noted how the sickness had left her, which was yet another thing to add to the growing list of mysteries.

"... How curious. I would have never expected something like this to happen... Was it Kaguya's influence? No, that doesn't make sense... I don't understand." The voice returned. She whirled around some more, catching a glimpse of something in her vision as she does so.

"Where are you!? Show yourself, coward!" She yells, the sound coming out far more animalistic than she would have ever expected her voice to be, and the growl that rips its way out of her throat was equally surprising. If those observations were made so that she would be able to ignore the growing fear inside of her... Well, she'd never been particularly good at being honest with herself.

Something shimmered in front of her. From literally nothing, an old man stepped out, although him being old was just about the only thing she could say was normal about him.

His hair looked as though it was straight out of a cartoon, his forehead had an eye slammed in the middle of it, and if that wasn't enough, he had horns emerging from his temples. His dress was also foreign to anything Kurama had ever seen before, and if even that wasn't enough, he looked to be the size of her fist.

She stared down at the mini-demon-man thing with wide eyes, blinking at his appearance. The man chuckled before coughing into his hand, grimacing a bit.

"Are... Are you alright?" Kurama asked tentatively. She didn't know what was happening, and she was afraid, but at least the man seemed fairly friendly...?

He waved her off, clearly unbothered by the slight trickle of blood on the hand he'd coughed in. "Do not worry, youngling. I'll be fine, the ritual simply took a lot out of me. You, however, I believe deserve an explanation." He said, and then started fucking levitating.

She stared down at the man floating in the air, completely and utterly flabbergasted. He chuckled at her incredulous look, rising all the way until he was basically in front of her face. She recoiled back a bit, eyeing the strange demon-man-floaty-thing warily.

He gave her a small smile, one that contained more sadness than Kurama was able to understand. The very idea that smiles could be sad had always bothered her, and yet, this man seemed to pull it off so perfectly it was almost astonishing.

"You're name is Kurama, correct?" He asked gently. She blinked, looking at him even more warily while she gave a small, shy nod. His lips curled even further upward as he tilted his head down slightly.

"It's a very nice name. I like it." He said after a few moments, his eyes rising to meet Kurama's own, who quickly turned away while she tried to hide her embarrassment and pleasure at his words.

"T-thank you, I guess?" She nervously answered. "How do you know my name, though? Where am I? What happened to me? Where is my brother? I was sick, he said he'd come ba--"

"Calm down, Kurama. Your brother will be fine, and you are in no danger yourself. I promise you this." The man says sternly, shutting Kurama's rumbling up in a way nobody other than her mother had ever managed to before. The man just oozed authority, after all, and even the ever-rebellious Kurama found it hard to speak out against him, despite him looking like the size of a chipmunk.

The man raised an eyebrow. "A chipmunk? I have never heard of that." He chuckles slightly, ignoring how Kurama's face had practically frozen over.

"You... You read my mind?" She asks in disbelief, the fear that had been slowly going away from his friendly and relatable demeanor coming back with a vengeance. The man stopping his nervous laughter and sighed, rubbing at the horns sprouting from his head.

"I... My apologies. I am not used to having others within my head, and separating my thoughts from yours is more difficult than I'd like it to be. If it makes you feel any better, I did not scry your thoughts out of malice, but out of concern." He answers, looking even more tired than before.

Kurama blanched at his words. "I'm in your head? What? How?" She quickly asked, her horror, confusion, and disbelief only growing as their conversation progressed.

The man sighed. "Maybe it would be best for you to have a look at yourself before anything else." He said, and with a wave of his hand, a mirror shimmered into existence, one far larger than the man himself.

Kurama's eyes were immediately drawn to the figure reflected upon the silvery surface. Her eyes widened as she stared incomprehensibly at what was most definitely not herself being shown there. In fact, the figure resting within it wasn't even human.

An orange fox with long, rabbit-like ears and red eyes stared back at her. She gaped at it, and the figure gaped back at her. She looked at it, then looked down at herself. She was greeted by orange fur and far too human-like claws. complete with opposable thumbs.

There was a long moment of silence as Kurama examined the strange body she resided in. She patted herself, felt up the soft fur, twisted her neck until she was staring at her own back, which sported nine long and heavy tails.

"What... What is this?" She asked, licking her furry lips out of sheer nervousness. Her tongue felt raspy against herself, just like that of a cat's, and yet it was also much softer than what she remembered a feline tongue being.

The man-demon inclined his head slightly, thinking for a moment. "I am not sure myself, dear. Forgive me for being blunt, but you are not supposed to exist. You should be a blank slate right now."

Kurama couldn't even bring herself to feel angry at him. She wanted explanations, she wanted her brother, and she wanted... She didn't know what else she wanted.

She was torn out of her thoughts when a hand, callous and hard yet incredibly gentle, landed on the tip of her nose. The man floating there looked directly into eyes as he tried to offer her yet another smile, as though that would fix everything.

"I suppose I never introduced myself properly. Hello, Kurama. I am Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, also known as the Sage of the Six Paths. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Kurama blinked a bit at his words, still reeling from everything that was happening... Still, she wasn't a little girl, not anymore. She was strong, and she would get through this, freaky alien demon-men or not.

"H-hello." She greeted back, feeling horribly boring in her introduction. "I'm... I'm Kurama Yiera. It's... It's nice to meet you?"

Despite her frankly horrible self-introduction, she supposed the point was still put across. Hagoromo laughed, patting her nose before floating some distance away, motioning her to follow him.

"Come. This place is horribly dull. I will make us a better place to get to know each other better." He said, looking at her expectantly.

Somewhat excited, Kurama made to get up, only to fall flat on her belly as she accidentally tried to get up like a human would. Her chin smashed into the ground, but strangely enough, it hardly hurt.

However, her pride was definitely hurt. Hagoromo chuckled slightly at her troubles, but otherwise stayed put as she struggled back to her feet, determination flooding into her to show him up.

She wasn't a baby, god damn it. She knew how to walk, even if she had four legs instead of two--

Her head smashed onto the floor as she overbalanced and accidentally put too much weight on one side of her body and tipped over. This time, Hagoromo didn't even bother contain his gentle laughter as Kurama's cheeks flamed red.

'... God damn it.'