The damp earth under the roots of the fallen oak was cool against Derek's belly. A whole month. Thirty days of living as a fox, of feeling his nine tails drag behind him like heavy, unwanted scarves. He'd carved out a small, hidden hollow here, his latest in a string of hideouts, always moving when the sounds got too close.
With a crooked stick held clumsily in his jaws, he scratched words into the soft dirt floor. It was slow, messy work, and his jaw ached, but he had to get it out. To see it. Everything he could remember about this world's rules, scraped from the fading memory of a life spent watching anime.
Chakra: physical energy (from cells) + spiritual energy (from mind/heart/soul)
Mix them. Like… mixing dough. Hand seals guide the mixing?
Kitsune. Yokai. Fox spirits. Illusions. Fox-fire (kitsune-bi).
He dropped the stick, spitting out splinters. Beside the scrawled notes sat a fist-sized rock. He'd drawn a crude face on it with a bit of charcoal—two dots for eyes, a squiggly nose, a straight line for a mouth. He'd named it Arnold Rocksnigga on a particularly lonely night. It was stupid. It was also the closest thing he had to a conversation.
Derek: It's a good thing becoming a kitsune and struggling to survive has kept my sanity intact.
He nudged the rock with his snout, rolling it a few inches.
Derek: Right, Arnold? Who needs a therapist when you've got the constant, gnawing threat of starvation and shinobi patrols?
The rock, predictably, said nothing. Derek sighed, the sound a low rumble in his chest. He picked up the stick again, the rough wood grating against his teeth, and added more beneath the first lines. Hypotheses. Guesses in the dirt.
Hypothesis 1: Spiritual energy dominant. Soul is old (reincarnated). Body is new/fox. Imbalance. Can't mix properly.
Hypothesis 2: Different energy system entirely. Yokai energy. 'Youki.' Not chakra. Explains failure of standard methods.
Hypothesis 3: Too much chakra. Overloaded system. No control, like a baby or a jinchuriki pre-training.
He stared at the words, his blue, slit-pupiled eyes tracing each shaky letter. Frustration was a hot coal in his gut.
Derek: Look at this crap, Arnold. I sit here. I try to meditate. I breathe deep, try to 'feel the flow' like they do in the shows. And I get nothing. Zip. Zero.
He paced a tight circle in the small space, his fluffy tails swishing against the mossy walls, the glowing blue patterns along his flanks pulsing faintly with his agitation.
Derek: Okay, let's break it down for the rock audience. Chakra 101. Physical energy comes from every cell in your body. It's the energy of motion, of life, of strength. You get it from food, from exercise, from just being alive. Spiritual energy is from the mind. From your consciousness, your experiences, your willpower. Your freaking soul. You mix those two together in some internal alchemy, and bam. Chakra. The fuel for all the crazy ninja magic.
He sat back on his haunches, the dirt cool under his pads.
Derek: But what if the ingredients are wrong? Hypothesis one. My spiritual energy should be through the roof, right? I've got a whole other lifetime crammed in here. Death. Trauma. Twenty-eight years of human memories. But my physical energy? This is a kitsune body. It's strong, heals fast, but is it producing human-style physical energy? Or is it making… fox energy? Maybe the recipe is different. Maybe I'm trying to mix oil and water.
He pawed at the dirt, smudging a line of text.
Derek: Hypothesis two is simpler. Maybe I don't have chakra at all. Kitsune are yokai. Spirits. They have their own thing. Fox-fire. Illusions. Possession. In the stories, they don't do hand signs. They just… will things to happen. Maybe my power is based on intent. On emotion. On whatever weird, mystical rules govern fox spirits.
A bitter laugh escaped him, more of a sharp yip.
Derek: And hypothesis three is the scary one. What if I'm a chakra bomb? What if this body is packed with so much raw energy that I can't even access a trickle without the whole dam breaking? I could try to make a tiny spark and accidentally blow up this whole forest. Happy thought.
He glanced at Arnold. The drawn eyes offered no comfort.
Derek: You know what the worst part is, Arnold? And I mean, besides the obvious 'trapped in an animal body in a death world' thing?
He lowered his voice, his ears flattening slightly against his skull.
Derek: The little human comforts are gone. I can't… you know. Relieve tension. This body has the… equipment. Sort of. But it's all wrong. And I have paws. No opposable thumbs. I tried once. It was the most pathetic, ridiculous, humiliating thirty seconds of my entire existence across two lifetimes. Nothing even happened.
He paused, his throat tightening. Memories, vivid and unbidden, flashed: his old apartment, the glow of his computer screen, the curated images of fantasy. Specifically, images of a certain golden-furred, voluptuous kitsune from an anime he'd watched. Yasaka. Her confident smirk, her impossible curves. Another, more legendary figure surfaced: Tamamo no Mae, the seductive nine-tailed fox of myth.
Derek: Tamamo no Mae was supposedly this beautiful, cunning creature. And Yasaka… yeah, I'll admit it to a rock. Back when I had hands and a human brain wired for that stuff, she was… inspirational material.
A hot, stinging pressure built behind his eyes. He blinked rapidly, but it was no use. The tears came, silent at first, then shaking his small frame. He curled in on himself, his nine tails wrapping over his face like a living blanket.
Derek: Damn it. Damn it all.
The sobs were ugly, muffled by his own fur. The loneliness wasn't just an absence of people; it was an absence of self. He was untethered, a ghost in a fluffy costume, mourning the loss of the most basic, private human functions.
Derek: I'm losing it, Arnold. I'm crying to a rock about not being able to masturbate. I'm fucking bricked up, This is rock bottom. Literally.
He lay there for a long time, until the storm of self-pity passed, leaving him hollow and exhausted. He slowly uncurled, wiping his wet muzzle with the back of a paw. The rock sat there, its charcoal face impassive.
Derek: You're right. No time for a breakdown. Survival first. Whine later. Or never.
He grabbed the stick again, the familiar ache in his jaw a grounding sensation. He scratched out a new heading: EXPERIMENT LOG.
Derek: Let's think this through. If it's an imbalance, I need to train the physical side. More running. More hunting. Exhaust this body, build up that 'cell energy.' If it's a different system, I need to experiment with intent. With emotion. What makes the glow brighter?
He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the lingering ache of sadness. He focused inward, searching for that faint hum of power he'd felt before. The warmth that sometimes spread from his core. He thought of simple things. The satisfaction of catching a fish. The sweetness of a ripe berry.
The blue patterns on his fur began to glow. Not a lot, but noticeably. A soft, cerulean light emanated from the intricate swirls along his sides and tails.
Derek: Whoa.
He opened his eyes, looking at his own flank. The light pulsed gently, in time with his heartbeat. It was beautiful, in a way.
Derek: Did you see that, Arnold? It reacted. It's tied to… focus? To feeling something? Not just any feeling. A positive one? A focused one?
He tried to push it. To take that warm, glowing feeling and shape it. To push it out of his paw. He pictured a tiny spark, a mote of fox-fire.
Nothing. The glow remained, but it went nowhere.
Derek: Okay, okay. Don't get ahead of yourself. Naruto's training didn't start with fireballs. It started with control. The leaf exercise.
There were no leaves in his den, but there were pebbles. He nosed a small, smooth one from the floor and, with immense concentration, tried to stick it to his forehead using only chakra—or whatever this energy was.
The pebble stuck for one glorious, heart-stopping second. Then it clattered to the ground.
Derek: …Was that it? Did I do that? Or did it just… balance?
Hope, fragile and fierce, flickered inside him. He spent the next hour trying to replicate it. The pebble stuck maybe one time in ten, and never for more than two seconds. But it was something. A reaction. A connection between his will and the energy inside him.
As the afternoon light faded to a deep twilight blue, exhaustion set in. The mental effort was draining. Hunger, his constant companion, growled in his belly. He ventured out for a quick, cautious forage, returning with a mouthful of bitter greens and a few late berries.
Back in the hollow, he ate slowly, talking to Arnold between bites.
Derek: Kurama didn't need hand signs. He just raged. His power was pure, raw hatred and chakra. Tamamo used trickery and seduction. Yasaka seemed to command respect, to have a civilization. What's my angle, Arnold? Am I a beast of rage? A trickster? A leader? I'm none of those. I'm just… Derek. A scared guy from another world.
He finished his meager meal and lay down, curling his tails around himself. The glow from his markings was just a faint ember now.
Derek: Maybe that's the answer. I'm not any of those legends. I'm just me. So maybe my energy, my 'youki' or whatever, is just… me-energy. A mix of everything I am. The fear, the loneliness, the stubbornness to survive… and yeah, the leftover human horniness too, I guess.
He nudged the rock closer with his nose.
Derek: Hypothesis four, Arnold. The Derek Theory. The energy is personal. Unique. It responds to my intent, my emotions, my memories. The mix is already there. I don't need to force a blend of two separate things. I just need to learn how to turn the tap.
The thought felt right. It settled the frantic, scattered panic in his mind.
Derek: Tomorrow, we work on the tap. More focus. More pebble-sticking. Maybe I'll try to make the glow move from one tail to another.
He yawned, a wide, jaw-cracking gesture that showed his sharp teeth. Sleep pulled at him, heavy and insistent.
Derek: One month down. Not broken yet, buddy. We haven't cracked the code, but… we've found the lock.
His breathing slowed, deepening. The last of the blue light in his fur winked out, leaving the hollow in peaceful darkness. Outside, the forest night sounds began their chorus. But for the first time in weeks, Derek didn't feel entirely lost. He had a hypothesis. He had a rock. And he had a faint, stubborn glow that was entirely his own.