Kitsunetsuki

Chapter 1: Somehow I became a god

"Tick... Tock... Tick... Tock..."

Like the beat of a slave driver's drum, the sound of the clock in the otherwise silent classroom drove the students on, hanging over them like a menacing gloom. The passing of each second chipped away at their chances of getting into a good high school. Such was the way of Japan, as it had been for decades: students must test into their chosen school.

Among this sea of students clad in uniforms from various junior high schools, one stood out. With long blonde hair tied loosely by an absurdly oversized ribbon and large blue-green eyes, a girl sat in the middle of the room, fixated upon her test. The other students around her constantly sneaked glances at the rare sight of this clearly foreign girl taking the high school entrance exam, all the while the proctor at the front of the room looked on, frowning at the distraction.

Some of the students were enamored by her beauty. Some of the students pondered how good her Japanese must be for her to be there. But with her purple sailor uniform indicating she was from a well-known middle school in the area, most of the students assumed she would have no trouble passing the entrance exam. Normally, they would be right, however...

"A, Kyoto. D, Meiji era. B, Emperor Kammu. OK. Japanese history is almost done. Keep your focus Karen, you'll finish this test in no time." She thought to herself.

Karen worked feverishly, translating any unfamiliar Japanese words she encountered to English. It was an extra burden, but there would be no special allowances for her. One bubbled answer at a time, she inched closer to the completion of her test, oblivious to the attention of the students around her. To them she appeared possessed, a zealot whose sole purpose was to defeat the exam.

"Five minutes remaining." The proctor called out. A collective gasp arose from the students.

Karen continued as though she had not heard him. She was an expert at standardized testing and would use every available minute to maximize her score. Impressed with herself, she came to the final question, but there was a problem...

"Hmm? Where is the... What is this?"

Something did not line up. Karen noticed she had run out of blank bubbles on her answer sheet.

"The answer to 150 is A, but I bubbled in C already? Wait a second..."

Karen was confused. A cold shock raced down her spine as she realized the problem: somewhere along the way she had shifted her position on the answer sheet. Countless thoughts rushed through her head, most too quickly to be noticed, but one rose above the cacophony...

"Where is it? Maybe it's close... It can't be far... 149, 148, 147..." Karen quickly scanned her answer sheet, looking for the mistake. She found it.

"22........ 22?! TWENTY-TWO?!" Karen started to panic. Frantically she began erasing, hoping to correct the mistake in time.

"Alright everyone, pencils down!"

The proctor's call struck Karen like a bullet. She looked down at her answer sheet. It was now a mess of half erased bubbles and eraser dust.

"NO!!! THIS CAN'T BE!!!" Her outburst startled everyone in the room. They looked on in awe as her head lay face down on the desk, her clenched fists pounding in protest. Quickly she stood up and rushed over to the proctor, test in hand, to explain the situation.

"I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to change your answers after time has been called. If you'd like, you can invalidate your exam today and sit for the next one in a month." The proctor's answer was no comfort.

"That'll be too late..." She answered despondently.

Karen staggered from the classroom, wandering out of the school in a daze. She soon found herself in a park opposite the campus, and collapsed on a nearby bench. Exhausted, she reflected on the disaster she had just experienced.