#equals

That morning, with the warm sun shining down on her, Mizuki was greeted with the sight of soldiers as she approached the Yae estate. The walls around Miko's home towered high but, clearly, proved inefficient at stopping one of her kind. Even if in her heart Mizuki doubted that humans, further slowed by armour, could stop a fox, she acknowledged the reasoning. 

The standing officer nodded as she went past him and further into the courtyard towards the Tengu General, exchanging words with her subordinates. Mizuki stepped up, attracting Sara's attention. 

“Greetings, Yumemizuki Mizuki.” She bows formally, a gesture returned by the newcomer. 

“Good afternoon, general-sama.” 

The soldier bows deeply and walks away, leaving the two women alone. Sara glances towards the building and sighs. 

“I assume you are here for Factorial? He made a lot of hassle, I'm sure you've heard.” The Tengu crosses her arms. “He sneaked between the house staff and left shamelessly through the front gate in his fox form. It is a curious mental image - a kitsune in fox form. I wish I could have seen it.”

Mizuki nods, smiling. “I have to agree, it would be quite a sight. Anyhow, I wonder, if I may… Isn't it too trivial of an incident for you to get personally involved?”

“Not at all. Ultimately, the fox escaped because of the incompetence of Tenryu guards. It's no insignificant matter as the escapee was a kitsune. As you know, they are highly dangerous.”

The doctor frowns. Wasn't Factorial supposed to be docile? From Miko's previous descriptions he sounded more like a traumatised child than a violent one. 

“Was anybody hurt, general?” She asks, looking around for any bandaged or limping soldiers. 

“Hm. Well… Sort of.” Sara clears her throat. “During his extraction from a cave by the beach, two officers tried to take him in by force. Factorial resisted, scratching and biting.”

Sara turns and waves a duo of soldiers closer. “See, despite what Yae Miko told me, not only did they escape with their lives, but also with little to no harm done to them. Show her.”

One of the soldiers passes his spear to the other and, saluting his superior, wraps up his sleeve to reveal… Nothing on his left forearm. Mizuki takes his arm and moves her face closer. There are no obvious marks - no blood, no scars, not even redness of the skin. Eventually, her sharp eyes spot two barely noticeable dents. She runs her fingers over them. It's almost as if this wasn't a bite, but a simple poke with two fingers. 

“That's… Strange.” She mumbles to herself, seeking out more of these bite marks. There are very few, as if the kitsune was playing, not seriously intending to defend himself. “Did he attack you anywhere else?”

“Mhm. Here, on my face.”

Indeed - Mizuki’s eyes quickly found multiple bruises and red lines across the man's right cheek. Again, however, these didn't seem like an honest attempt at doing harm, even superficial. The markings clearly signaled the fox's hands to be the weapon, but he must have had his nails trimmed so significantly that they lost any hardness in them. Was that even possible? 

Mizuki nods. “Thank you, soldiers, general. Is Lady Miko home?”

“She is, waiting for you and keeping an eye on the Yokai. Go in, we shan't keep you here any longer.”

After a brief exchange or parting pleasantries, the women part ways. Mizuki skips up the stairs and places a few polite knocks on the door. Almost instantly it opens, revealing Miko's exhausted, but smiling face. Without a word she moves to the side and motions towards the house’s depths, inviting her guest in. Mizuki enters. 

“What's the situation? How does he feel?” She asks, looking around to guess where Miko is leading her. 

“Asleep”, comes the answer. “The Naku Weed brew will keep him like this for the next three, maybe four hours. We can work in peace.”

Mizuki lifts her perfectly groomed brow. “Isn't that poisonous?”

“Heh. Not at all, for us kitsune at least. This kind of dose would do irreparable damage to the nervous system of most yokai and humans, but our race is more protected against it.” Miko explains, pressing the knob and pushing open the door to his room. “No need to be quiet, he's out.”

Her eyes land on his unconscious body, his back facing her. The long, grizzly scars carved into his pale skin assault her eyes. Some are new, staring back at her with recently scabbed crimson, but some seem old - so old that their only remnant is a colourless, white line left on uneven skin. Snow-white bandages snake around his torso, some stained with dark, red blood. There are many scratches and sickly, purple bruises across the arms and torso, likely there from his mad dash of an escape. In places untouched by harm, the skin is clean, pristine, so soft that just looking at it feels like caressing velvet. The hair on his head, as white as the bandages, seems to grow messily around two pointy, fox ears, only barely relaxed even in this unconcious state. 

“He went through much trouble, I can tell.” Mizuki sits down on one of the chairs facing the bed. “Who is he? A warrior?”

Miko looks down on her hands, tone nonchalant. “Hardly. I'd say that the term… Slave… Would be more descriptive of his life.”

“S-slave…? Yours?” There is surprise, but also worry in the baku’s voice. After all, the wretched act of taking away another's freedom was prohibited for centuries, ever since Makoto came to power. The thought of Miko enslaving one of her kin…

“Not at all. I should feel insulted by the mere notion that I would stoop so low as to chain another, but I'm willing to forgive your ignorance.” Miko's gaze hardens as she looks at her friend. “You don't seem to know the basics of our history.”

“Then, please, enlighten me.”

Miko crosses her arms. “Inazuma was always welcoming towards Yokai, was it not? No matter the age, all of us could find shelter here. Baku, kappa, oni, tengu… Even malicious spirits like umibozu or ningen were left to their devices, provided they did no harm. But to this rule there was an exception. Us, kitsune.”

A sigh escapes her lips. “Before humans settled here, Inazuma was primarily a mess of city-states belonging to Yokai species, constantly warring for influence and territory. Kitsune were, of course, major players. Even a single fox could strike down tens of oni or swat even the most nimble of tengu from the sky. Our power was grand, but so was our thirst for conquest. My kind would have long conquered this land if it weren't for a major burden nature left us with. Kitsune mature slowly, so slowly that replenishing losses took centuries, millennia even. Every war was a blow to our population. Vixen like me bring litters into the world, counting up to seven kits true, but we can't reproduce at will - starvation would quickly set upon us. We knew we were a dwindling race, but we didn't bother changing our disposition.”

The Guuji stands up, starting to walk up and down the room at an even pace as she recounts. “We accumulated hate, curses, hexes. We drowned in evil, but we made light of various nithings and omens. Most of those bad charms were able to be nullified, but the more we turned against our kind, the more powerful our next opponents became. Until one fateful curse befell us.”

Mizuki stays silent, a part of her surprised at Miko's voice growing ever more silent. The next words are spoken with great care, as if to avoid insulting whatever being cast that spell. 

“May your daughters forever weep, for your unborn sons and brothers shall repent for your crimes and writhe in agony within the world below. Plague shall befall your fathers and husbands and brothers and sons until only the ninth remains standing, able to raise his arm in the name of evil.” Miko says, staring out the window. “These words, clear of any hatred towards its foxian killers, were spoken by a dying Qilin.” She turns, a somber expression on her face. “Indeed, it is as you think. We, kitsune, murdered a Qilin. And we were punished for it.”

Factorial moves in his drug-induced sleep. Miko quickly comes to his side as he turns over on his back. She places a hand on his pale, scarred breast. 

“That day every male was brought to his knees by an illness unlike we saw before. It acted fast, so fast that most weren't able to even go home, let alone get help. Choking to death on their own blood, clutching their throats with veiny, purple hands, they fell and died on the street, corpses soon littering every corner. They died in agony and panic, no matter who they were - a soldier, a hunter, a doctor, a farmer… All paid for something our entire race was responsible for. Not even children were spared… They… Died the quickest. Newborns died in their cribs while infants spasmed in their mother's wombs. As it said - the majority of our dogs died, leaving the nation’s vixens in maddening grief. Only one in nine males survived, and each was only decades old… Far too young to hold a spear.”

She continues, stroking his soft hair; a unique chance to touch him without fear of scaring him by accident. “In a matter of years our society plummeted into disarray. From the lack of engineers to keep our cities whole to a dreadful absence of warriors to fend off other, vengeful races. A male birth was an event so grand that entire towns came to greet the kit. We crumbled into dust, gradually pushed back to the brink of extinction, saved only by the coming of Makoto who chose to enforce peace between the Yokai.”

Her hands roam around to his, her index finger stroking the bruises and scratches around the wrists. “Dogs became previous. They had to be protected, at all costs. We kept them inside, we monitored their every step, rushed to their side with medicine at the smallest cough. Their extinction meant our end - we couldn't allow that. Us vixen took it to heart so much that, over the centuries, males went from priceless treasure to slaves. To goods, like gold or the purest jewels. They were trained from birth to obey, forced into a rigorous training regiment to remain healthy and appealing to their owners, and sold when the time came - for Mora or political favours. Some vixens treated their dogs well, while some enjoyed torturing them for their sick entertainment; but no matter the personal preference, we sent them a clear message - they weren't people.”

Both women remain silent; Mizuki takes in her friend's words while Miko grips his wrists gently, clenching her teeth. For what they did to Factorial, they deserved to be treated likewise. They deserved to be fed from a bowl, to be fed raw meat, to be assaulted whenever their captors wished. To have their clothes, their children, their dignity, their foxhood stripped away. 

“They deserve to be treated like animals. For what they did.” She hisses through her teeth, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes. Helplessness. 

“Hm?” Mizuki shakes her head out of deep reflection. She was listening, but her mind was desperately trying to not only comprehend, but also accept Miko's words.

“Nevermind.” The kitsune sighs. “There is a reason, Mizuki, that even the benevolent and kind Makoto could not bare to see what we were doing to them. She ordered our race to cease our barbarity or be gone from this land. The answer to what happened next should be obvious - most of us, noblewomen and mistresses with their entourages, families, entire clans even, left. Some of us stayed. I was, for example, abandoned at just three years of age during the exodus. Those that remained took me in, raised me to be who I am today. Our matron Hakushin was one of the fair few who did not choose to participate in this cruelty and tried to fight back when we were exiled, to wrench at least one male from the claws of her kin. Kitsune Guuji chose to live a childless life of chastity in the name of those crushed in our claws. And she failed.”

“I see. I'm… I can't even imagine what he went through. How old is he?” The baku asks. 

“Six hundred years old. Can you picture that? Six centuries of slavery, torture, rape. Six centuries of being fed like a canine, kicked away or being forced upon. Six centuries… Tens of litters, either pried from your hands or never allowed to be there in the first place. A living nightmare. A hell that, for him, was reality.” She raises up and turns back towards Mizuki. “As for what he'd been through, we shall see.”

The woman freezes. What? Surely, Miko wouldn't be willing to metaphorically crowbar his mind open and see inside…

“Oh my, I can tell what's going on inside your head, Mizuki. Are you perhaps thinking I would violate his privacy without proper cause?” Miko turns, her gloomy expression now replaced with a light smirk. “Whoever do you take me for?”

Mizuki stands up and crosses her arms. “Sure, sure. I know you have a reason, but we'll see if it's convincing enough. I never force myself into any mind, and I wouldn't make an exception for you.”

“I understand. Let me tell you, then, why this course of action is not only the best, but also the necessary one. I doubt you understand the true scale of his mind's corruption. If things were, indeed, less severe, I would have just waited for him to rest and taken him to the bath house.”

Miko leans over Factorial and places a hand over his forehead, checking the temperature. It's normal, making her breathe a sigh of relief. 

“When I caught up to him and had the rickety old house he hid in surrounded, I went in on my own. I didn't want to scare him, you see. Factorial pounced on me from the ceiling wielding a rusty knife. I shielded myself, making him fly across the room like a rag, collapsing into some shelves. He didn't surrender though - he rose up, coughing, and attacked me with his bare hands. I had to push back yet again, but this time he fell and did not strike again. Instead, I saw tears in his eyes. The words he spoke are why you are here.”

—

“Ugh…” He clutches his chest, trying in vain to stop the blunt ache from spreading across his body. The dust and sand raised by the commotion gets into his lungs, forcing cough after cough. Her pink hair pierces through the colourless cloud of dust, slowly coming closer. 

His hand desperately pats your closest surroundings in search of a weapon. Nothing. 

“Calm down, please.” She speaks, raising both her hands in an attempt to look less threatening. But he knows these tricks like the back of his scarred hand. Even the softest of tones can carry the most hateful of words. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“Liar! Do you think I'm… Ah… Stupid enough to believe you?!” He crawls back but soon feels the woodworm-chewed wood of the hut against his dirty skin. There is no way out, but he won't go quietly. “What is this new torture? Did you find my screams and pleads boring enough for you to invade my dreams too? Do you think that you infesting my waking life is not enough?!”

She stops, her hands lowering. He can't see her face through the dust-caused tears, but she looks… disoriented. A soft “what” reaches the male's ears. 

“So that's how it is, Matsui. If you think you can fool me with a simple change of face and name, you're wrong. And if you think you can rape my mind too, you're mistaken! This is my dream, I have the power here! And I can do whatever I want. I can kill you. Or I can kill myself.” You look around, spotting a dusty razor blade, half-buried under the debris. You make sure not to look at it directly. “You may hurt me in the physical world, but you won't hurt me in the only safe haven I have left. Fuck you!”

Leaping forward towards the weapon, Factorial quickly feels his body freeze in mid-air. Thin, purple lightning wraps around his wrists, arms, ankles… He's stuck. He wiggles his fingers, desperately trying to reach his way out. His proof of agency. His display that he can influence what happens to him, that he's not a mindless object. This simple tool that will break her toy once and for all. 

But regardless of his ambitions, Miko snares him with her elemental powers, just short of the razor. An ancient painting of helplessness and dread. 

“I hate you! I hate you!” He screams, ears folding in rage. “I hate you and everything you stand for!”

Miko doesn’t respond. She simply does not know if any word could convey the feelings brewing in her mind; neither the confusion about the reason for his outburst, nor the astonishment at just what came out of his mouth, are expressible. She observes Factorial as his malnourished body trembles with rage, with hate. Vitriol rolls freely off his tongue. The dog calls her every single insult he knows in a hopeless attempt to… Scare her, make her back off, make her react somehow. The silence confuses him… Does she not want to kick him into shutting up? His futile resistance against the bindings falters, wrath turning into hopeless sadness. Yet again he feels tears rolling down his face. 

“H-hate you… W-why…”

His body is lowered back onto the floor and Factorial immediately falls limp. The world, his nightmarish past, his uncertain future and his dreadful present overwhelm the fox's senses. He doesn’t want this, he never did. He didn’t plead in the face of Gods to let him come into this world, experience neither the pleasures, nor the pains of what surrounds him. Factorial cannot deal with this by himself. He cannot be a hero. He cannot be an example for all other male foxes that it’s possible, that he can decide for himself for just this once. He is weak. 

So weak and witless that he can’t even kill himself. 

He hears her shuffle closer. Normally he would move away from her, dodge her touch as best as he could. But this time his hands wrap around her loose sleeves and pull them closer. Before long, Factorial's face nuzzles into her chest, attempting to hide from the world, even behind the one that hurt him so much. One that will likely now skin him for his rebellion.

Nonetheless, he wants the comfort for now. Just once more before he dies, he wants to feel loved. Even is love for him, a male, means agony and servitude between hugs.

She strokes his white hair, softly speaking into his ear in an attempt to ease his nerves, fruitlessly. Because, sobbing, Factorial realises why he clings onto her so much. Even after she broke his tails, even after she broke his ribs, branded him, starved and humiliated and assaulted and belittled and objectified him. 

It’s because he has nobody else. 

Only her. Only Matsui. 

The mistress of his life and death.

—

Mizuki listens intently to Miko’s report, her mind already picking apart Factorial's words and analysing them for potential basis. Her conclusions come swiftly and decidedly. 

“Derealisation”, she says. “Clear signs of post traumatic stress disorders, suicidal ideation and rock-bottom self esteem. White Plains syndrome.”

“I’m unfamiliar with that. What does it mean?” Miko sits by your side, eyes boring into his unconscious face with a vague, hateful expression. She wants to hug him, shelter him from the world like she did just hours ago. But she would much more tear out the throat of Matsui, whoever she was - sky kitsune or a lowly fox, it did not matter. 

“The White Plains, near the souther rims of Snezhnaya, were conquered by the Cryo Archon, who quickly began decisive repressions against the local culture and ethnic identity.” Mizuki explains. “However, thanks to circumstances, local power play and propaganda, the native people of the land became thankful and loyal to their oppressor, the destroyer of altars and the murderer of entire villages. In the same exact way, Factorial seems to cling to Matsui - in this case believing you’re her in disguise - despite everything she did to him in the past.”

Miko clenches her other hand, keeping the one on the male's shoulder soft and open. She nods. “I understand.”

There’s a moment of silence before the baku picks up the conversation. 

“Would you let me examine him?” She stands up. “I might not be a trained medic, but I think I can pick up some things you might have missed.”

The other woman, having shaken off the gloom of her memory, sends her friend a playfully indignant expression. 

“With respect to your own skill, Lady Guuji.” 

Miko smiles. “Ah, such compliments. In that case, you may have a look.”

Mizuki nods in thanks and takes the spot just freed by her host. His defence seemed rather timid - the reason could be simple restraint or mercy, but judging by Miko’s accounts of his mistrust and paranoia, something else was at play. She guides her finger closer to the fox's lips and carefully lifts up the lip, revealing perfectly tended, pristine teeth. Upon a closer look, she notices what exactly stands out among them. 

“His canines. They are filed down, see?” She opens Factorial's jaw a little, revealing just how even his teeth are, deprived of the four points in the corners. “The ends are imperfectly flat and there are small chips on the inside of each tooth. It could have been done with a simple nail file… I barely see red, meaning they must have been fairly long before.”

Ignoring the chills running down her spine from the mental image for curiosity’s sake, Miko leans in to get a better look. “Isn’t the pulp inside the entire tooth?”

“It is.” Mizuki nods. “But here it has a large circumference, meaning this is the base of the tooth.” Her own teeth hurt as if in solidarity with his. “By the Shogun, I pray he wasn’t awake for this…”

Miko refrains from speaking to avoid words unbefitting of the Guuji slipping from her lips. The psychologist’s eyes wander down to Factorial's hands. The sight of perfectly clipped nails, so much so that they end with not the thinnest of white lines, seems odd to her. Surely after an extensive journey to Narukami Island by sea, and presumably no manicure from Miko, they would have grown even a little bit. She takes tje left index finger into her hand and pauses right away. The nail… It’s not tough. To verify her suspicion, she scratches at it with her own fingernails, only to find that they meet no resistance. What’s more, something brown flakes off. Mizuki does this some more and proceeds to gather up the shavings onto her palm, turning around and presenting it to Miko. 

“Can you please tell me what they smell like?” She asks. “I touched his fingernails and they flaked off.”

Without question, Miko lifts Mizuki’s hand up to her nose and takes a careful whiff.

“Hm…” She muses. “His scent, sweat and… Leather? Yes. Tanned leather, the sort used for shoes.”

“Then it is just as I had feared. Miko, I think he’s been… Declawed, in a manner of speaking.” She presses his fingers into her arms, as hard as she can, but she feels no toughness digging into her skin. 

Miko’s heart begins to beat faster. “Declawed? Like a cat, you say? How is that even possible if he is in human form? Human nails grow all the time…”

“That’s a good question. I’d guess that the techniques they used to subdue dogs became advanced enough to do that. Even if it’s impossibly cruel… It’s impressive.” She shows Factorial's hand to Miko. “These painted strips of leather do look like normal fingernails.”

His new caretaker glances at his hand, then back at his peaceful face. It seems like Factorial's owners didn’t like their toy having any capability to fight back, or just show displeasure. Like a cat that paws anybody in defence or a dog biting its cruel owner, he was stripped of his natural defences. She can already imagine it wasn’t enough - judging by how he acted, they tried to remove his very instinct to oppose and protect himself. If not for this episode of confusion between dreams and the waking world, would she never see him fight back? Never see him refuse, stand his ground, all because whatever he could use was taken away and his mind was washed with cruelty and abuse to be unable to comprehend consent, self-preservation?

Most importantly…

Was this done to Factorial right away, or as punishment…?

“I want to know. I want to see what he experienced.” Miko says, her brow furrowing. “He might not be able to tell me, but I must know. I must understand.”

Mizuki nods. “Give me a moment. We’ll see soon enough.”

In Miko’s gaze, resting on Factorial's limp, nailless, tortured hand, there is a promise. 

She’s coming for him. 

She’ll pick up the pieces and put him back together, however shattered he might be.