Once upon a time when the nations and the continents were still divided, a plethora of diverse sentient races lived in peace: humans, spirits, demons, and other magical beings you couldn't even imagine.

  Amongst many others, deep within the mountainous area of the land known as Japan, a mischievous and magical race called Kitsunes lived in harmony. Human-like in appearance and soul with only their curious fox-like ears and tails setting them apart from others, they cultivated their lands and built their empire, all thanks to the protection from their deity; the Inari of Wisdom. She was one among many other deities that were tasked to take care of their own share of mortals.

  The Inari, the mother of all Kitsunes, cared deeply for her children. She would cast sunlight when it was too cold in the winter, or block it with the clouds if it was too hot in the summer. She would spoil her children like that for centuries to come.

  But behind the happiness and the wisdom she had brought upon her children, a shy, yet curious soul hid, and that soul happened to be lonely.

  Though her shrine, where her children pray to her was always crowded, she never felt that one emotion that made mortals so special that is... love.

  She wanted to feel that emotion, and to do that, she disguised herself as a beautiful Kitsune— one so beautiful she made the males in the mountains stare in absolute wonder. Though, no one had ever recorded her true beauty. Only the description of her long and silky black hair were foretold. And the fables of her mystical purple eyes together with her majestic nine tails that were the semblance of a blooming sakura were spoken.

  But even with all this newly found attention, the hollow emptiness within her only grew larger. She still hasn't fallen for anyone, nor has anyone fallen for her.

  That was until a man wandered into the cloud-piercing karst of the mountainous terrain she protected. With adventurous curiosity, he climbed onto an abode on the tallest karst where she would spend most of her time alone, meditating in silence.

  The man was an explorer, and he had wandered around the world time and time again, yet, when he saw her, he could only agape his eyes. He had never seen something as beautiful as her. And just as fast as her lightning strikes, he fell in love with her.

  The Inari rejected his love at first. She was expecting him to repeat what her people did; only admiring her from a distance, only present for her beauty. But, unlike others... He was different. And soon, she fell for the mortal too.

  The newly bonded, yet unlikely couple would often tread valleys and mountains, swim in crystal clear rivers, and admire the beauty of the sky, all accompanied by each other's gazes, believing that their love is timeless.

  But yet, even if she had millions of years of wisdom, she still couldn't accept that he was a mortal, and she was not.

  And, for that reason, he left, not wanting her to suffer because of his mortality.

  Although this deeply hurt her, she complied with his wish. She knew that he meant well. She knew that he only wanted for her to be happy.

  However, she couldn't keep up with her feelings. A few years after his departure, she left the land she swore to protect and care for just to find the mortal she was supposed to forget.

  After a long journey throughout the world, she finally found him. But what she discovered only caused her more pain than before; she found him living happily in his new home, holding a newborn baby he had with another woman who was just as beautiful as she was standing beside him.

  The sight left her to cry in despair. Flames of jealousy and anger engulfed her, but she held back her rage. She returned home with no words spoken.

  Crops began to wilt, rain began to shallow, animals her children hunted began to scarce, and the soil began to dry out; all because of the utter despair engulfing their goddess.

  Little by little, even her children began to turn on her; folklore of a weeping beauty haunted the land she protects. By the end, her children came to realize that their goddess was no longer there to protect them.

  With that, her despair reached its end. As whispers of dementia echoed within her head, it told her that love was a curse more than a gift, so she garnered her hatred inside the home where she had felt love for the first time. Alongside the empty bells, sways of dead trees and worthless charms, those whispers told her that no one would be like her if love had never existed.

  She soon embraced her new title; the Inari Of Chaos. Her newly found dark essence imbued her tails like growing roots of corruption while her pure and raw jealousy condensed itself into dangerous, malevolent and ancient magic.

  The lands she owed to protect soon became the first to suffer her newfound knowledge.

  Dark purple flames burned down every single roof to ashes, slowly spreading to the farmland and the forest, poisoning the rivers and the sea, even spreading to the neighboring oceans and nations as storms of toxic, miasma rain fell into even the most unreachable of crevices.

  To escape their goddess' wrath, her children fled to their neighboring lands, bringing with them new mouths to feed, newborns to care for, and new threats to be aware of. Soon enough, chaos ensued with their arrival.

  And, with that, the Inari started a war.

  Pain and suffering were the norms as she reigned her terror upon the world. She pitted nations and deities against each other with only glee and wickedness within her mind.

  Yet, she felt like it wasn't enough to erase love from this world.

  One day, as the moon blocked the sun, casting its shadow across the earth, her chaos magic threatened the world by merging the continents into one big chunk of sand and dirt. Her chaotic magic caused utmost suffering and destruction upon her people and the rest of the world.

  But then, the other deities came to their senses and banded together to stop the malevolent goddess.

  As if the sun and the moon collided, the battle between the deities and the Inari raged on, day after day, night after night. With each magic cast, the sky went dark with no sun or moon. Only the ancient waves of energy and magic could be seen in the form of thundering waves of auroras, colliding with each other like rainbow-coloured tsunamis.

  Even then, the Inari was too strong, and her pure jealousy was far beyond the other deity's arcane power. She thrived on every last drop of their despair, absorbing every last bit of their power, with no mercy.

  At that moment, earth was almost destroyed into nothing but floating pieces of cracked terrains that slowly drifted into the nothingness that is the cosmos. But on one fateful night, back in her lonely, yet rage-filled abode, the man, the explorer, her first lover, came back with a look of desperation and sorrow. She came down from the sky just to see him again, only to see him covered in wounds and dirt, kneeling before her, begging her to stop and begging for her forgiveness.

  For the first time after her burst of madness, she let out a single tear. For the first time after her spiraling descent to insanity, she finally saw him again.

  But, little did she know, that was all a play. When she moved to hug the man she truly loved, he stabbed her in the heart with a blade coated with pure salt. Immediately after, a seal was cast upon her, and moments before she lost consciousness, she saw him smiling in victory.

  After a plethora of struggles, sufferings, and despair, the Inari of Chaos was finally sealed away for good. After the destruction she had caused, the deities settled their differences and divided the nations of the earth into four; Sylvae in the East, Thallasenia in the West, Infernum in the South, and Mor' in the North.

  Finally, a nameless land was left in the center of its surrounding nations, so the deities decided that they would lay dormant there, leaving the mortals to take care of themselves, wishing for them to become independent without any guardians to keep them babysat.

  And so, from that day onward, the four nations came into an agreement of peace, and that peace still holds to this day.

  -----

  Creak.

  Creak.

  As the dead leaves dance with the cold wind within the confine of an empty playground, without any other noise, the creaking of a child's swing continues in a rhythm so pitifully quiet.

   "Mom? Why is he all alone? Can I go play with him?"

  On the sidewalk beside the playground, a boy accompanied by his mother, points to another one of his age; to a young blue-eyed, white fox, sitting silently on the swing, only accompanied by the creaks he causes.

  Overshadowed by the decaying cypress tree behind him, the fox glances at the source of the voice. As his ears perk up and his tail sways, he smiles faintly at the boy.

  The boy's mother furrows her eyebrows the moment he spares her a glance. In a hurried manner, she takes her son's wrist before whispering to him, "No honey... He's a Kitsune. You don't mess around with them, let alone befriend them. Now, let's go."

  Without glancing back, she pulls her son away.

  As the wind silently caresses his cheeks, the fox lets out a sigh as he looks down upon the dirt. He had always come to this playground with a smile, skipping his way from school to the slides and to the swings. Not to mention how he had run off from his mother just today, hoping to find a friend, yet he kept getting silence and the mere wind company. His hopeful smile would always decay, always replaced with a single, simple sigh.

  Maybe he should've listened to his mother. Maybe he could've prayed for a friend to come. But, well, he is just like every other kid; impulsive, yet naive. Ah, just like usual, he'll just come home and play video games alone.

  He steps off the swing with a heavy heart and he drags his tail out of the playground into the quietness of the street.

  The sunset is getting close, signaled by the pink sky that is covered with thin, pale clouds. As waves of wind breeze through the lonely suburban street, the fox keeps walking onward. Now that he had failed another try at making new friends, at least he'll do one thing his mother had said, which was not to be home late.

  But then, one of his ears jerks up to a sudden crowd of footsteps. The fox glances back, seeing a group of kids his age, skipping towards the playground with smirks and grins on their faces.

  At the sight, his tail wiggles as his lips slowly curve back into a smile.

  But when one of them glances back at him with a mocking smirk, his smile is quick to replace itself with a quiet breath. He again turns back on his way, dragging his tail on the concrete again.

  'Ah, right, they were waiting for me to leave, huh?' He stares at the beguiling concrete below his feet.

  As his footsteps rhythmically thump the street, something causes his ears to perk back to the playground.

  "OW! That hurts!" A girl screams.

  Raising an eyebrow, he swirls his tail back and follows that scream, back into the playground.

  "Come on, squirt! You promised to get that toy for us! Aren't you Dark Faes good at stealing? Then you might as well be what you're made for!" With gritty teeth, a ram-horned boy yells, holding a pale and sharp-eared, black-haired girl by her wrist. By his side, he's accompanied by two others; a scorpion-tailed and a bat-winged boy, both smirking as they cross their arms and raise their chin.

  "No! I don't wanna! I'm not a thief!" The girl's purple eyes close themselves as tears soak them. She tries to release herself only for her captor to pull her back.

  The ram boy clicks his tongue, "Shut up! Don't scream, you stupid elf!" He grunts as he lifts his tiny hand into the air with his palm spread wide, swinging it towards her cheeks.

  "STOP!"

  The moment the boy hears that yell, he inches away just before his hand touches her skin. As he lowers his arm, he turns around to see the fox boy standing right across them, glaring at him with blue thin slits as his pupils.

  "Leave her alone!"

  With a click of his tongue, the scorpion boy glares back at the fox with his six pairs of turquoise eyes.

  "This is none of your business, fox! Leave before we beat you up too!"

  He doesn't move an inch, only clenching his fist with his brow furrowed.

  Seeing his naive display of confidence, the three smirk at each other.

  "Well then... Don't cry, little fox."

  The bullies roughly release the pale girl before approaching the fox boy, all with their beasthuman body parts high up in the air.

  The fox gulps, his tail wiggling and his feet trembling as he tries to keep himself calm. Slowly, he closes his eyes before he begins to take some steady breaths.

  It's okay... Calm down... Just do what father taught you to do...

  As he repeats those words inside his head, he lets out his breath loose. With that, a glow of blue light starts emanating from his body. As the playground's sand below him ripples, sparks of electricity jolt and twitch around him, though only small and scarce.

  Like lions startled by a porcupine, the three beast boys gasp at the sight.

  The Kitsune then raises one palm towards the bullies. As he grits his teeth and furrows his brow, the electricity around him starts to gather itself into his open palm, forming a ball of jittering and convulsing blue.

  "Wait! Wait! Don't you dare! Or I'll tell!" The scorpion boy threatens, lifting his turquoise-tipped tail.

  "Take..." As the lightning ball ripples in intensity, the fox punches his palm forward, "This!"

  The lightning ball flies towards the bullies, bringing with it a flaring gust of wind. As the bullies shield themselves with their arms, wings and stingers, it diminishes into nothingness inches before impact.

  "Eh?" The bullies raise their eyebrows.

  The caster's eyes widen before they blink twice. As he goes back into his previous stance, he takes a deep breath and opens his palm again, trying to channel his magic once more.

  His brow furrows and his lip purses. Clenching his mind tightly, a small spark appears, though only for a brief second before it once again blips to nothingness. All the while the bullies laughed. They gaze towards the fox, grinning like a group of hyenas that have cornered their prey.

  He begins to step back with a face trickling with sweat. With his eyes frantically looking around, his heartbeat intensifies as the bullies come closer and closer to him.

  Splashing a wet puddle in the sand, the fox bumps his back onto the playground's wooden fence. Thus, the three kids gather around him, all with a smirk.

  Kids really can be cruel from time to time.

  -----

  And so, there the fox lies on the sandy playground. His body is motionless, with cuts and bruises decorating his face.

  A few quiet minutes pass since then, with him only humming to himself, staring at the sky emptily with clouds of doubt swirling over his eyes.

  I did the right thing... Right?

  He stays motionless for another minute, his eyes twitching when the wind blows some dust onto his bruises. Then, a sudden round of footsteps approaches. He rotates his eyes up to see the pale, purple-eyed girl looking at him with squinted eyes and quivering lips.

  "Um... Are you okay? D-Does it hurt?"

  At her shy words, he musters his breath and courage before standing up, falling back several times before he manages to gain a stable footing.

  "Uh... I-I'm sorry... I didn't mean... To make you like this..." She quietly says.

  He smiles despite her gloomy, shaking lips, "Don't worry about it!" He moves closer as he offers her his hand, "My name's Ren! How bout you?"

  The girl falls silent for a few moments, tapping her fingers together before her dark purple eyes stare at the fox.

  "Azayaka..."