Shino sat in her office doing her best to manage everything, she was trying to figure out if she could find the resources to build some of the cubs some extra living spaces as they would likely desire more privacy as they grew up.

A little Cub she didn't quite recognize appeared in her office and gave her a wide grin.

"Can I help you, little one?"

Shino asked with a slight frown, she knew every Cub at the shrine why couldn't she place this one?

"That thing right there is that precious to you?

The Cub pointed at a small round medal made of jade that she had proudly placed in open view, it was her token to prove her status as an official head Shrine maiden for Inari.

seeing her expression the Cub didn't hesitate it Vanished from its spot and reappeared plucking the medal out of its spot and simply smiled back at her as to say catch me if you can.

Shino immediately bolted out of her seat and ran after the Cub, but she was impossibly fast, Shino was at the peak of an unascended Kitsune there was no way this Cub should be able to do anything.

but the second they got outside the Cub waved at her to catch her attention and the second she looked the Cub vanished but 9 other copies of her appeared and even more, to Shinos horror everyone of them seemed to hold the jade medal.

Shino decided that she could not afford to hold back and released her full power and went after the mirror copies of the young Cub, Kitsune had always been an emotional creature, and she was quickly seeing red, every time she got close it would simply grin at her and vanish and the real one would poke her and runoff in a different direction.

the thing that confused Shino the most was the cubs' speed seemed impossible and the intricacy and skill of how it weaved its illusions was uncontested, had she even stopped to think for half a second she would likely easily have put 2 and 2 together, she would likely have been outright horrified if she knew that it was Kira She was chasing and shouting profanities at.

Both Nox and Aether had worried about if they needed to do something, but Kira had stepped down into being just barely faster than normal and was now causing a massive scene everyone was watching Shino get more and more riled up and showcasing bigger and bigger displays of power, which was quite something from the mortals perspective so by now was almost all residents watching the tiny fox dissappear and reappear teasing Shino while they were jumping between the top of the buildings and everywhere else in the Shrine, Shino had even gone so far she had started weaving magic to try to trap the tiny fox but the small fox had simply walked up to it and done an air kiss at it and it had completely crumbled before the small fox once again vanished leaving more copies of herself in her place.

Both the small cubs and the humans were watching mesmerized, the elegance of the movement of the small fox and how it basically was playing one of the strongest unascended Kitsune in the realm for a fool was quite something.

most of the Shrine inhabitants had already put 2 and 2 together as they only knew one single fox who they felt would be able to do that, while she didn't look like Kira was the elegance of her movements saying something else, only Shino hadn't thought about it because of how emotionally riled up she was and every time she used more of her power the tiny fox just topped her and grinned like she was simply playing, it felt humiliating and infuriating.

it wasn't before it was obvious that Shino had run out of energy the tiny fox tilted her head, and walked up to Shino giving her the trinket back.

removing her illusion she gave Shino a wide smile.

"Thanks for the fun, hope you also had a bit of fun!"

Kira gave a slight bow and vanished from where she stood leaving Shino staring at the spot she vanished from with complete horror.

it was only now Shino noticed that pretty much everyone living at the Shrine was watching her and she felt mixed feelings, Kira had played with her which was a massive honor, she would never have chased her if she thought it was Kira, she did however feel a bit embarrassed that she had let her emotions run away with her to the degree she had.

everyone in the shrine started cheering in excitement and was shouting their support at Shino, jumping down from the roof she had basically collapsed on out of exhaustion she jumped down and, decided to act as nothing had happened.

It didn't take long before the cubs started emulating what they had seen and they all chased each other while some attempted some basic illusion magic was most of them just taking turns distracting the chaser while the other hid and came out to poke the chaser at the right timing.

Kira had returned to Aether and Nox and even Yin who had been watching the entire event with a beet red expression.

"I'm so sorry, I have no clue what came over me"

Yin shook her head

"Lady Kira, that was probably the best display of Fox Pranking I've ever seen, to think you managed to even make lady Shino collapse in exhaustion and she didn't once realize it was you before the very end.

You said you had an idea about how to burn some energy to satisfy your instinct the other day, I had no clue this was what you meant."

Kira felt odd, part of her wanted to keep on poking prodding, and teasing, it had felt so natural to her, but she had never in her life acted like that so she felt rather odd why she would behave like that all of a sudden, but she couldn't deny a big part of her felt refreshed.

feeling just a tiny last spark of mirth, Kira once again disappeared from their sight and behind Yin, a blond human girl appeared, Yin turned around and upon seeing the girl immediately did her best to not act out again, but when the girl smiled and touched her shoulders she bashed her hands away.

"Don't touch me, filthy human"

The girls' eyes returned to the liquid universe sparkle and her ears reappeared while the hair once again turned silver with purple highlights weaved with the same quality as her eyes Yin much to her horror realized it had been Kira.

but before Yin could apologize or defend herself, Kira stopped her.

"I thought I saw some of this before, I don't know what happened in your past to make you hate humans this much, but just for now I want to let you know all races have bad eggs some more than others, and once I feel you're ready I will try to help you understand what makes humans what they are, but for now would we likely have to travel through the human territory and I would feel better if we didn't draw too much attention.

Shifting back again to her human illusion she watched Yin having an internal struggle accepting the sight of Kira, you might hate humans but would you mind wearing a human illusion for my sake?

beside her had both Aether and Noxes appearance also dulled, Noxs hair had turned from the darkest black to something resembling a more natural dark brown-black and her pupils turned into a deep brown.

Aether followed along with her hair turning into a more natural blond and her golden eyes turned into a light blue.

Yin was not happy with the proposal but she also knew there was a reason for this and not wanting to disappoint Kira she nodded.

She watched in astonishment as Kira waved her hand and she watched her hair change color and tail disappear, it was a really odd feeling because part of her knew everything was still there but it was almost like her tail was resting in a sort of open void, allowing her to pass her hand through the spot where her tail should be but she could still wiggle and feel her tail.

Nox looked at the illusion Kira had both provided herself and Yin with amazement.

Kira had effectively used Inaris inheritance to weave an intricate illusion while using their moms' gift to make a small opening to a pocket space around their ears and tails to make it appear like they truly didn't have tails and nobody would be able to tell otherwise as chairs and everything else would they sit like the tail wasn't there.

With some things, Kira showed her age and inexperience, but it was no denying she was a prodigy, to think she did that without even needing to think about it, she would likely make both Their mom and Inari extremely proud and her limits were hard to grasp

one thing that Nox had noticed was after materializing the mirror had she been materializing more and more items without even needing to consciously act on it.

"Kira, I think you should maybe start to consider materializing fewer things, very few beings can change the atomical structure of particles to make whatever they desire, it might cause the wrong kind of attention."

Kira looked towards Nox, and sighed.

"Believe it or not I'm actually not even doing it on purpose, I've tried to stop but it gets harder and harder, a stray thought of anything I desire and it is simply there, you have no clue how many times I've had to dematerialize stuff from my old world just in the last few hours that obviously isn't from this world?" she pulled out a black device with two different colored handles on each side.

"I don't even know how this is made, but I desired it and here it is, and you have no clue how tempting it is to just sit down and turn this on"

"Can I see that?"

Nox asked and pointed towards the glossy device Kira had waved about?

Kira frowned, "Sure go ahead"

she said and handed Nox the handheld gaming console.

Nox seemed to study it for a bit before poking it a few places and the device seemed to dissipate like smoke.

"Interesting, I've heard about the concept of this but never actually seen it myself.

as authentic as the device probably looked to you I think you would end up disappointed with its use  as it can only do what you've already experienced"

"what do you mean?" Kira asked with a confused expression.

Nox thought for a bit before she replied.

"I guess the concept has many names, the most common is dream weaving"

in short, you're using your ability to weave illusions based on your experiences together with the inherited traits from mom to manifest your desire into the physical world, however, it is unstable and only functions to serve the purpose of what you could have created with an illusion, ultimately I guess you can call it a physical illusion you manifested.

the more vague your idea is of how it is actually functions and is created the less stable it will be, where if you truly understand how something is made it will be a permanent physical thing until you actively desire otherwise and break it down again.

This somehow made a lot of sense to Kira, she summoned another version of her favorite handheld, turned it on, and realized she was not really capable of doing all that much her memories were fuzzy in regards to what it should do when she interacted with it and certain games.

so ultimately it was just a glorified piece of plastic much to her disappointment but part of her had already known that it was the main reason she hadn't even tried.

she could only look forward to visiting Inaris realm where she would go on the biggest nerd binge in her life once this was all over.