Artificial 4: A Very Foxy Tale

Chapter 4: Sorrow

Zoey and I entered the restaurant,
it was packed,
the food smelt great,
and if I could have my tail out,
it'd be wagging or flicking up.
"Cuantas?"
The waitress asks.
Zoey speaks on our behalf.
"Dos."
The waitress leads us to a booth and passes the menus,
I could practically feel my mouth watering at all the delicious sounding food.

Zoey and I begin discussing the foods, the sauces,
and drinks.
She was even polite enough to pay for it all,
so I told her I'd tip the waitress.
When our food arrived,
I went nuts.
Chowing down like there's no tomorrow! "Yuzuhara, chill, breath."
She says rather calmly.
I swallow.

"Sorry, it's just real good, and we haven't eaten in hoooooooouuuurrrrs."
The waitress keeps bringing more and more food,
I didn't quite buy 1 of everything,
but I ordered within reason.
Which was nearly 1 of everything on the menu, and finally,
to top off our dinner,
we held conversation over drinks.
I ordered a fish bowl sized margarita, and Zoey ordered a tequila.
"Damn, that's big."

Zoey says,
surprised,
and all I could do was marvel at how big it was.
When the menu says fish bowl sized, think fish bowl but bigger!
I am totally getting wasted!
"Drink lots of water with that, don't want you dehydrating."
I give Zoey a sarcastic, yes mom,
and we both share a laugh.

The conversation picks back up with our favorite television shows,
I'm into anime and superhero shows, Zoey likes more realistic stuff and dramas,
not soap opera per say but drama like shows such as Criminal Minds,
NCIS,
the list goes on.

"Hey Yuzu, would you mind telling me about yourself and how you met Seth?"
I give her a big foxy grin and guzzle my margarita,
and so begins my retelling of my story, beginning to end.
A very foxy tale.

Year: 2015
Month: June

So here I am in the modern world of Mexico.
After centuries of battling depression and Amaterasu's astral body being my only companion in life,
I eventually decided to re-engage with the world, the kicker,
though, is that after the battle with Susanoo'o,
I wondered the world until one day I stumbled across a portal in the heavens, which, by the way, was located right above Mount Everest.

Since this was a low point in my,
I decided to take the plung in hopes of putting an end to my misery.
I lost my baby brother Seth waaaaaaaay before Izanagi adopted me,
he also fell through a portal,
but unlike me,
who fell into the Mirror Timeline,
Seth fell into the Void,
which is the infinite darkness in the universe.

I'm a Divine,
a humanoid fox,
and a dragon with holy powers on a god tier level.
My baby brother Seth was a Divine Dragon originally,
but due to falling through the Void,
he eventually became corrupted by the negative energy it releases,
sadly,
I have no way of knowing if he's alive or not,
likely dead, but since he's my biological brother,
I can only hope.

So now that you're up to speed on my side tangent,
I found myself wondering the forest of Mexico and found myself at a barrier of all things,
it had high magic energy built into it, but again,
god tier power, so I broke through it.
It was nighttime,
crickets chirping,
and other insect noises,
an owl here and there hooting,
ya know,
typical horror movie vibes.

I stop at a tree and brush side my coat to put a good hand on my sword,
not my famed Odachi yet,
that comes later.
I hear footsteps and feel the murderous intent all around me,
I enter a state of hyper focus and see everything within my auras line of sight, a type of spacial awareness technique. The auras of these things weren't human,
it was magical,
but not human.

"Spriggans?"
They come out from hiding,
circling me like vultures,
their hands forming into wooden weapons handels with stone blades, making axe heads,
spear heads,
hammers,
and swords.
"I'm not in a good mood. If you value your life and forest, you'll leave me be." My words fall on deaf ears,
so I draw my Chokuto sword and begin an onsided massacre,
chopping off arms,
legs, heads,
cleaving Spriggans in half and setting some ablaze.

More swarm me like a damn bee hive,
so I aimed my hand at them and fired a flamethrower from my palm, and kept my distance,
I could have gone overkill, but unlike my sister Amaterasu,
I love life.
The Spriggans I didn't see cast nature magic on me,
giant tree roots binding me,
but I wasn't impressed.
A Spriggan approaches me,
axe hand formed and speaking a foreign language.

It raises it's arm and I form a dome of Gravity Flames that expand out and then extinguish in a blink of an eye,
my flames spread like wild fires, consuming all Spriggans and possibly wildlife.
I levitate above the ground and descend slowly.
The living Spriggans cowered in fear before me as they let out some sort of screetch!
I drop my sword and plug up my fox ears as they lay down from the discomfort.

Moment later,
a burgandy dragon with the same colored eyes comes charging through the forest and consumes my flames before stopping before me,
he snorted and was an ancient dragon, but even so,
I wasn't afraid.
A long one-sided fight later,
I slam the ancient dragon on a hill to which it goes barrel rolling down,
his wings broken.

"Hey, old man! Let's call it quits, I don't want to kill a fellow dragon, but if you continue to resist, I will kill you!"
The dragon finally speaks human tongue in a loud gruff voice.
"You came into my mountains. You killed my people!"
I sigh.
Yeah,
I came into their territory,
but I did give his people the opportunity to stand down.

"Ya know, your wood spirit friends instigated the fight, right? Sure I broke into your territory and shattered your barrier, I can throw another one up, right now, I'm just wondering around minding my own business and I won't lie, curiosity did get the better of me."

The ancient dragon snarls at me, so I turn into an even bigger dragon and let out a Godzilla sized roar,
realizing I was actually a dragon too, and a bigger one at that,
he reluctantly submitted to me not that I cared.

I took off into the night and returned to a human form before entering the city,
I wondered around aimlessly and found myself in a game store of all things,
I didn't know what this stuff was at the time, but after several days in the city,
I found myself playing them in front of the displays,
and one character in particular from a pixel 2d fighting game caused me to change my looks entirely.
Yuzuriha from Under Night In Birth.

That day forward,
I quickly modernized with the times,
I stole a lot,
but hey,
it was worth it.
I now have a bunch of sleevless crop stops,
long expensive pants,
a white coat,
and some high heels.

Now that I got my new glow up,
I bought a smartphone, and my ever growing curiosity got the better of me,
at the bus stop,
a friendly middle-aged man helped show me the ropes like texting and calling,
but then a wave of depression fell over me,
for I have no one to text or call.
After months in the city,
I finally returned to that forest and reconstructed a barrier and entered a non agression pact,
where they permitted me to live on the outskirts of the barrier.

During the day,
I made my Japanese styled house by hand,
using my Divine power and tools to get the job done.
By night,
I slept under the stars on the hill the ancient dragon went rolling down.
It was hard work,
but I eventually made my dream shack. Days became months,
and soon,
I began to socialize with the ancient dragon.

The Spriggans,
on the other hand,
kept their distance,
which I don't blame them.
Putting the finishing touches on my tale, one day,
I ventured back into the city,
buying groceries a tachi,
wakazashi,
and a katana,
but my years of solitude and watching humanity from the heavens couldn't prepare me for who I bumped into.
My nose twitches,
fox ears magically come out and shoot up.

Before me was a tall, slim teenager with medium-sized muscles in a black hoodie and blue jeans.
He had wavy blonde hair and ocean blue eyes,
and in that moment,
I knew who was before me. "H-Hachimon?"