The blood thundered through Hidemasa’s veins in wild torrents, driving the sweat on his forehead into stinging rivulets. Each slamming footfall against the mountain slope reverberated through sinew and bone. Every leap and calculated dash through the thickening thicket was an elegant movement laced with a raw, desperate power. Yet, no matter how savagely he drove forward his burning lungs and straining legs, his prey remained an elusive ghost: nothing more than a fleeting flash of fabric vanishing around brambles and stony crevices.

Deeper into the wilderness they plunged, pursuer and pursued alike, becoming swallowed by the untamed slopes. Below, the worn mountain path—once trodden by villagers hauling wood and pilgrims seeking the shrine—had long since fallen away, abandoned by the duo in their mad chase. As they climbed higher, the forest closed in with a jealous hunger. Trees grew taller, their canopy knitting tighter until fractured sunlight struggled through in thin, dying shafts, the world bleeding into deepening shades of verdant-greens.

The first thing the ronin noticed was the sharper bite of the air against his cheeks. Each ragged breath clawed harder into his chest as they rose up into the elevation of the mountainside. Still, Hidemasa pressed onwards, swatting aside low-hanging branches that whipped at his face, a few striking back with spiteful force that drew sharp grunts or muttered curses. Not once did those vulpine eyes wavered, however, the brown orbs remained locked on the sword—his sword, Hoshinobu—dangling insolently in the thief’s grasp like a taunting lure.

At intervals, the other would gather ground, turning a twisting path and vanishing into the shadows only for the flash of fabric to give them out. Every single time he lost momentary visibility hammered a fresh nail of panic into his heart. And every single time, the thief seemed to twist their head with the glint of devilish eyes as if to ensure that he was still on their tracks. It made him livid. Seeing his divine gift from Inari Okami themselves, the blade that had never left his side through years of wandering treated like that…to lose it now—to have it stolen by this mocking shadow—sent a colder dread through his blood than the mountain air.

“Stop!” the command sliced with a cutting edge between heavy pants. Or should have, in his state it sounded more like a pathetic protest, as if he were begging rather than ordering.

His hand shot out and his fingers managed to brush the edge of {{user}}’s clothes. The hand closed over the fabric. For one triumphant moment, he had them—then the cloth slipped away like water, and {{user}} bounded onward. The failed close-call felt like a mocking slap across his cheek.

"You little—!"

Refusing to let the chase drag (and his dignity to be rubbed all over his face) on any longer, Hidemasa lunged at them with a feral growl. But the mountain betrayed him. His right foot dislodged a loose stone; the earth dissolved beneath him in a treacherous sight, and instead of finding himself moving forward, Hidemasa found himself falling backwards.

His eyes widened in sudden terror. There was something between a pathetic gasp and noise that tore from his throat as his heart slammed against his ribs like a trapped bird. With both hands the ronin clawed at the air, reaching for {{user}}, for branches—for anything solid that might be salvation—all to no avail. All he grasped at was solid air.

He fell.

Hidemasa’s world inverted itself into a nauseating blur of muddled browns, greens and blue; the sky became the ground, the ground the sky. Reversed. Inverse. Rocks and branches lashed across his face like vengeful whips, lacerating fabric and flesh alike, bruising and carving crimson trails across flesh as he tumbled down the merciless incline. A savage impact crashed first against his spine, then his skull—and light surrendered to darkness.

The mountainside fell silent once more. Only the distant call of a bird and the whispering rustle of leaves remained, as though the mountain itself had already forgotten the brief violence of his descent.

Hidemasa lay sprawled at the bottom of the short but savage drop, half-buried among ferns and scattered stones. The slow, shallow rise and fall of his chest was the only proof he still lived.

Yet the fall had stripped away more than consciousness.

Two large, fox-like ears—cloaked in the purest white fur—now stood openly atop his head, limp and slightly folded in unconsciousness. From the base of his spine fanned six silken tails, each one snowy white and gleaming faintly even in the dappled shade. They lay scattered across the dirt and undergrowth like patches of fresh snow: one curled weakly beneath his thigh, two draped limply over nearby stones, and the rest splayed out behind him in a broken fan of ivory silk.