A Kitsune’s Ascent 03:
Zack felt a little awkward walking through the local StallMart with his new chest partially exposed, and his pants hanging on by a thread, but he refused to acknowledge the fact that he had essentially become a walking sex bomb until he was absolutely forced to. In fact, he was sure the oversized hoodie Bobby had lent him a while back would have to do to cover him up.
He… he did not want to refer to himself as a she just yet. It was just too sudden, too abrupt, too real and he didn’t want to admit that he kinda liked that he had become a woman.
It was odd, and he was very much aware that he would flash anyone who passed by the moment he bent to grab anything. Which meant he’d only be grabbing things that were on a reasonable height level to him.
Thankfully, all he really needed was beef, cheese, milk, the swirly noodles his friend liked, and some of his mother’s favorite secret ingredient. Something that had been fun and silly growing up, but was actually ridiculously delicious.
A carton of “Unethically Sourced Duck Eggs” from a company with a cartoonishly evil logo and design, filled with spikes and strange spirals, and even devil horns on the carton. The list of ingredients on it was long enough to take up two sides of the carton, but since the most important ingredients were always put last, it was good to see that they did, in fact, have Duck Eggs as the second most important ingredient… right after spider eggs.
“Hey there cutie, what’cha doin?” one customer asked, sporting a goat head and horns, and wearing a studded leather jacket.
“Not interested,” Zack sighed, making his way to the counter with the gains he had managed to acquire.
“Come on babe, don’t be like that~ I’ll buy your groceries for you if you give me a ride~” the goat man said, only for Zack to simply level him with a glare.
Turns out that giving someone a flaming middle finger while staring directly into his eyes, and daring him to approach you when you’re in a bad mood, was usually enough to cause people to get the hint. Not that she really meant to turn her hand into a torch of blue fire.
Walking up to the cashier as she he flicked the flame off of her his hand, he realized he was being more affected by his new form than he really should be, especially when he used whatever flame ability that was. But still, he picked his card out of his wallet — a sleek black card with gold lettering, the highest membership card of this chain — and sighed.
“I would like to pay so I can leave,” she said, her ears flicking towards the other shoppers and the rude bastard she had left in a corner of the store.
The brown-haired, completely normal human cashier with the nametag Gregothy slowly, mechanically, looked at her. He looked mildly ruffled, had kiss marks on his cheek, and his eyes looked as if his soul had died long ago. “That is what everyone wants, Miss. No one wants to be here. No one,” he said, his voice utterly hollow.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Shit man, I hope this helps make your day a little brighter,” she left him a hundred silver tip on top of her groceries.
Zack had never seen someone who looked so depressed before.
He looked at the tip on the register. A trace of emotion entered his eyes. “Thank you, Miss. This will help me want to die a little less,” he looked past her to the trio of demonettes behind her. “I’m still not giving you discounts and I don’t accept sexual favors.”
Said trio all pouted in unison. “Like, you’re not even a little curious? We just got these bodies and everything! I wanna test them out!”
“Test them on each other. I don’t care if the apocalypse happened out there. It can’t match the Hell in here,” he said and looked back to Zack. “Miss, you should go. The customers are more demonic than usual and I surprisingly don’t hate you, so I don’t want you to endure them more than necessary.”
“Thanks…” she sighed, taking her groceries and her receipt and leaving the store.
On the way back to the dorm, she saw a few really weird things… and in the car park, she could swear she saw a mecha, an orc, and a tengu all helping people who had somehow ended up under their cars, but it was fine. She pulled into the parking spot assigned to her, slipped the car out of gear, and applied the parking brake.
She didn’t trust the elevators, so she made her way up the stairs to the male dorms, used her keycard to get into her new room, and set everything down on the counters that needed to be cooked. It wouldn’t be long until Bobby got there, so she could unpack her stuff from the car later.
Zack shivered. She knew she looked like a mess, so she took a moment to go shower and dress herself properly while the water boiled at medium heat. By the time she was out, the water was ready, so she got to work.
~~~~
Bobby didn’t let the hug end for a long while. Zack, she, needed this hard. Oh, it wasn’t exactly easy to see the tells in his best friend, given the entirely new look, but they were there. The slight tremor in her left hand, the way she’d glance out of the left corner of her eye at nothing briefly, the way her breath was slightly quickened in that same sort of mild state that said she was panicked but also not totally freaking out so it was a lot more insidious, a sort of long and gnawing worry?
Bobby recognized it all, and so he gave the best bear hug he could because at the end of the day, he just got a little more muscular and redder. Zack got a full blown sex change. Hell, if Zack wanted to have a good cry, Bobby would be there, but Zack never cried. The only time he saw Zack cry was when his pet corgi died. Horrible deal, that was, and Zack had been so messed up even if the tears only flowed for a bit.
So yeah, they stood hugging for a good while, but eventually, both their stomachs betrayed them with loud rumbles.
Bobby laughed. “Guess it’s high time we ate, huh?”
“…Yeah,” Zack said, wandering over to the kitchen and dishing them up some Heaven-Sent Mac and Beef, as his mom liked to call the recipe.
Bobby helped himself to a bowl Zack had thoughtfully laid out on the counter and got himself some good ol’ Mac and Beef, topped with just a touch of Ramano Sauce for that extra kick.
Bobby sat down in the dorm that functioned more as an apartment than a typical dorm. Students were allowed to customize dorms, but given Zack had just gotten here, the dorm was left with the defaults: a black couch, a single mid sized TV, kitchen and appliances, table, two bedrooms with accompanying beds and dressers, and of course nightstands. A little barren, but perfectly livable for someone who just arrived, which was a damn sight better than what some got.
As Zack sat down with her own bowl, Bobby flicked the channel on. It was a news channel.
“—And riots have broken out as members of the Final Flame church declare the end times, resulting in—” the announcer said before Bobby cut it off.
“Hells no, not listening to that shit more than I already have. Ah, I know,” he said, and switched it to the good stuff, aka the 24-hour wrestling channel.
“And here we have the Johnny Speed versus Stocky Bombarda special!” the announcer began, showcasing the two legendary boxers walking up to the ring.
“Fuck yeah. Rerun but who gives a shit, this fight is legendary,” Bobby said with smile to Zack as he leaned back to enjoy the show.
“Mhm~” Zack hummed, eyes narrowed cutely as her tail began to wag, her ears focused and pointed towards the TV as she ate.
Distraction is a go, Bobby thought happily as Zack became engrossed in one of history’s greatest matches.
This? This was what made life worth living, sitting back with a friend and enjoying some quality entertainment and fuck the world if everything’s changed.
AN:
HiddenMaster: And set scene, just two friends enjoying two legends beating the ever living shit out of each other.
Kitsu: Foxxo here is becoming more fluffy, and slowly being forced to accept herself by her body and her inheritance, even if she doesn’t want to.
HiddenMaster: Indeed. There was going to be more to do and likely a continuing thing as new parts of being a kitsune sink in, but it’s a start.
Kitsu: Indeed. Foxxo foxxes foxily, and will fox around a bit more later because foxxos are very foxy, and the foxiest foxxos need to fox around with foxy foxxo things for fox sakes.
https://aikoakiyoshi.carrd.co/
HiddenMaster:
