A Kitsute in the Closet

It had been some time since the cataclysmic revival of Tamamo no Mae and Kaito's desperate battle against it. Dante and Alpha had long since vanished from Japan, leaving Kaito's life to settle back into its familiar rhythm.

"Hey, human! Bring me more offerings!" a shrill voice pierced the morning quiet.

Almost.

Tamamo no Mae was now living with them, specifically, in the closet portion of Kaito's room. Due to his passive ability, a near immunity to status ailments and mind controlling effects, he had been tasked with keeping watch over the weakened Kitsune. She was currently in the form of a petulant little girl, most of her immense power gone.

"Hey! Are you listening?" Tamamo's tiny fists rapidly punched Kaito's face. It didn't inflict any harm, barely more than a tickle.

The miasma from her revival had, however, spread across Japan, causing a frenzy of newly emergent Yokai, ghosts, and other supernatural phenomena. In addition, spiritually gifted individuals across Japan also began to awaken their own supernatural powers, prompting the Japanese government to form a new supernatural agency with assistance from the United States to combat these new threats.

"Ora ora ora!"

Sighing, Kaito scooped up the little gremlin, and hugged her close, gently stroking her head to calm her down. "Let me go! Once I regain my power, I will kill you!" she shrieked, though her struggling quickly subsided into grumbles. Aside from being a demanding freeloader, she was, Kaito reluctantly admitted, surprisingly soft and cuddly.

With Tamamo no Mae still clutched in his arm, Kaito stood up. He went to a locked cabinet downstairs, pulled out a bag of chips, and handed it to her. Settling onto the sofa in the living room, he placed Tamamo in his lap, next to a silently observing Durandal whom Tamamo couldn't perceive. Together, they watched the latest anime series of the season. Kaito watched Tamamo ravenously consume the chips. Even for a supernatural being, he thought, consuming this much junk food couldn't possibly be healthy.

A click at the front door announced an arrival. "Kaito, I'm back," Maria called out, stepping inside.

"Welcome back, Maria, how was your mission?" Kaito asked.

"Just the usual," she replied with a weary sigh. "Another mass haunting." Maria then headed straight for a shower.

By sheer accident, the newly formed Japanese supernatural agency had picked up on Maria's psychic ability and scouted her. As part of their cover, she had decided to join the agency, getting sent on missions every so often. Maria could handle most missions by herself, but in the rare cases she couldn't, Kaito was always a call away to step in and resolve the matter. As a result of Maria's high status in the agency, Sakura Academy, especially their classmates, now almost worshipped her in reverence. It was kind of strange, but both he and Maria had gotten used to it.

Just then, Kaito's phone buzzed with a text from Yumi: "Come to the lab, bring Tamamo too."

Kaito, with Tamamo in his arm, and Maria, who had finished showering, soon awaited Yumi in the underground room. Yumi stepped out from a side door that led further into the lab and handed each of them a sleek headgear.

"What is this, human?" Tamamo piped up, inspecting the device. "It looks like a VR headset you humans made, but I can sense nearly imperceptible traces of magic."

Yumi typed a message on a tablet and showed it to them: 'It's a product our Association created; it connects to a virtual world we are currently building.'

Tamamo glared at the tablet. "Can you communicate normally for once, human? I know you can speak!"

Kaito gently patted Tamamo's head to calm her down, her fluffy tails instinctively brushing against his face.

"Stop doing that!" Tamamo squawked, though her voice lacked real malice. "I'm not a child! I'm older than all of your ancestors combined!"

'Please, test it for me,' Yumi ignored Tamamo's remark, texted. Her expression expectant as she gestured to the chairs nearby.

Kaito nodded, a mix of curiosity swirling within him. He settled into a chair and put on the sleek VR device.

A loading circle greeted his vision, swiftly replaced by a flurry of luminous transition lines that converged to form a single phrase: New World Inc. Then, another, bolder command flashed: Link Start.

A character customization screen pops up, which he skipped without hesitation. When prompted for a username, he simply typed Kaito

Suddenly, his five senses seemed to be plucked away, then re-stitched into a new reality of a bustling sights and sounds of a medieval town. Various people, dressed in period attire, walked before him, their voices a low hum of conversation. He found himself sitting on the edge of a large, ornate fountain, water spewing gracefully from a carved dragon statue.

He looked at his hands, wiggling his fingers, clenching and unclenching his fist. It was incredibly realistic, as if his physical body had genuinely been transported here. Through a strange, instinctual connection, he commanded his real body to take off the VR device. He opened his eyes to see himself still seated in the lab, confirming that his physical form hadn't moved abruptly in sync with his virtual movements. Reassured, he re-entered the simulation, standing up within the virtual town.

He reached into the fountain, feeling the cool, wet sensation of the water on his skin. He cupped his hands and took a sip. To his utter amazement, it even tasted like water, possessing a subtle, nuanced flavor that only a professional water connoisseur might discern in the real world.

"Kaito!" Maria's voice cut through his wonder, and she approached him with a wave. "This is so realistic, I can't believe this is Virtual Reality."

"Yeah, I couldn't believe it either," Kaito replied, still awestruck.

Maria grinned, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "Not only that, I can also use my psychic ability here too. Watch!" With a mischievous gleam, Maria lifted Kaito gently into the air, moving him around a bit before lowering him back to the ground.

"Amazing! Right?"

Kaito instinctively tried to summon Durandal, momentarily forgetting he was in a virtual world. But before the thought could fully form, a familiar, childlike voice spoke from behind him.

"What an interesting place you have brought me to, Kaito."

He spun around, startled, to see Durandal in her child-like form, standing there, solid and real, in the virtual space.

"Durandal, what are you doing here?" Kaito asked, utterly bewildered.

Maria, who could also clearly see her, exclaimed, "You're Durandal?"

"Naturally," Durandal replied, her voice filled with quiet wonder. "I am linked to you, Kaito. Wherever you are, I shall also be." Unlike her usual floating form, she was grounded, her small feet planted firmly on the cobblestones. She reached out, her small hand taking Kaito's. "So, this is what having a body is like."

Another figure approached them, a woman with long black hair flowing past her shoulders. "Behold my true form!" Tamamo declared, her chest puffed out, an air of newfound dignity about her. "No longer shall you treat me like a child!"

It was Tamamo, just without her fox ears and tails, appearing as a young woman. She strode up to Kaito, looking down at him despite still being shorter. Kaito, unable to resist, reached out and gently patted her head. "There, there," he murmured.

Tamamo instantly knocked his hand away and, with surprising speed, latched onto his neck, strangling him. "I'm going to kill you, here and now!" she shrieked with real malice.

Suddenly, a red triangle warning sign flashed repeatedly above Tamamo's head. Before Kaito could react, several virtual guards materialized, approaching them. They quickly seized Tamamo's hands, pulling them behind her back as a magical handcuff clicked into place. They began dragging her away.

"Hey, what are you doing! Let me go!" Tamamo protested loudly, struggling against their grip.

Kaito, Maria, and Durandal stood still, watching the bizarre scene unfold.

"Kaito," Maria admonished gently, "you shouldn't provoke her so much."

"Sorry," Kaito chuckled, rubbing his neck. "I just can't help it."

Then, he heard Tamamo's furious voice from outside the VR experience.

Kaito immediately removed his VR headset, blinking as the familiar lab came into view. Tamamo stood in front of Yumi "Hey, human! What was that, make them release me!"

Yumi calmly typed on her tablet, showing them the message: 'That's just the guard mechanic, to stop violence in town.' Noticing Kaito's presence, Yumi added another line: 'I added some currency to your inventory. Pay Tamamo's bail to release her. Also, was that Durandal? It caused quite an anomaly in our system, so I registered her as a player, but it seems like she can only enter the virtual world whenever you're there, Kaito.'

Durandal, now floating beside Kaito in the real world, chimed in. "Kaito, ask her to modify my appearance."

Kaito relayed the request. "Yumi, Durandal asked if you could modify her appearance."

Yumi shook her head, a thoughtful frown on her face. 'I'm afraid not. She's a special entity, and I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to modify her. It would be safer not to touch it until I figure it out.'

Tamamo, glaring at Kaito, interrupted, "Well, hurry up and release me already!"

Kaito re-entered the VR world, the medieval town solidifying around him once more. Maria was still waiting patiently by the fountain, and Durandal materialized at his side a moment later. He quickly checked his inventory; the amount of currency he now possessed was a string of nines, indicating it was at its cap.

"Let's go to the prison and release Tamamo," Kaito suggested.

Maria nodded, and the three of them set off in the direction indicated by his minimap. They soon arrived at a stout, stone building.

"Took you long enough, human! Release me! These guards don't respond to anything. Is this what you humans call an NPC?" Tamamo's indignant voice, still without her fox features, echoed from behind bars.

A stern-faced prison guard materialized at the entrance. "Who goes there? This prison is for those who broke the law of our city. This is no place for you."

"I want to release someone," Kaito stated.

"Regardless of their crime, you must pay 1 gold if you wish to release them," the guard replied. A pop-up appeared in Kaito's vision, asking if he wanted to pay 1 gold. He clicked 'yes'.

"Excellent," the prison guard intoned. "Open the door to the cell of whoever you wish to release."

Kaito entered the prison, leaving Maria and Durandal waiting at the entrance. He approached Tamamo, who glared at him in silence from within her cell. Kaito opened the door, and she strode out, her head held high.

"Sorry for provoking you, Tamamo," Kaito offered, a hint of apology in his tone. "I'll try not to do it again."

"Hmph, as if such a thing would get on my nerves," Tamamo scoffed, though the tension in her shoulders seemed to ease. "But I accept your apology. Be grateful." Kaito let out a soft sigh, a small smile playing on his lips nonetheless.

"So," Maria began, looking around the virtual town with a curious expression. "We're supposed to test this game out. What should we do? I've never really played a game before."

"Well, normally, we'd find and take a quest," Kaito explained, "but for our purpose, maybe we should test combat and the physical aspects of the game."

"There seem to be an adventure guild on the mini map, let head there"