Rapid Etiquette Education (Kitsune Noble Tg) (Patreon)

Rapid Etiquette Education (Kitsune Noble Tg)

“Think fast!”

Before Tom could react, a mountain of used napkins and half-filled drink cartons tumbled out of the toppled trash bin, splashing his shoes with traces of warm milk and orange juice.

“What the hel—the heck are you doing?” Tom pushed against the tide of drinks with his mop as it spread across the once-clean cafeteria floor. Three students surrounded him and laughed as he undid their mess. “...Names! Give me your names right now!”

“I don't see why I should tell you, but let's not be that way. You can call me John.”
“I’m David.”

“Cody. Just Cody.”

Tom glared at the trio. “Full names.” 

“...John Doe.”

“David Doe.”

“...Nah, I’m just Cody.”

The three’s snickering only grew as Tom finished refilling the trash can, gripping it tight as he righted it. “See? That wasn’t that hard. No need to complain, Mr. Janitor.” David laughed as he put his hands in his pockets. “We promise to be more careful when we walk around next time~”

“Well, except if you decide to block our path again. Then I can't promise anything.”

“You three follow me to the director's office. Right now,” Tom declared, glaring at the three boys as he tried to gain some sort of footing against them. 

John fearlessly stepped closer. At over 1.9 meters tall, he utterly dwarfed Tom as he glared straight down at him. “And then what? Tell him that you did your job cleaning after us as you should? What a waste of time.

“In case you haven’t realized, this is Honrade Academy, meaning we students are the promising future of this land. And you’re a guy that gets paid for cleaning the path for us. So do your damn job and don’t get in our way.” John stomped on the ground, making Tom take a step back, to which John and his boys chuckled. “We have places to be. Let’s go.” 

Tom groaned to himself as they walked away. “Some of these kids, I swear to God…” he muttered as he carted his bins out into the hall. Two years ago he would’ve headed straight to Administration to report them, but after dozens of reports with no consequence, this time he just moved to the next row of bins. The office was so toothless when it came to disciplining its students that the simple act of walking away freed all the troublemakers from consequence.

“How have you been, Tom?” Eric Frohman, a history teacher for 11th grade, strolled out the nearby door, throwing his coffee cup in Tom’s bin.

“You wouldn’t happen to know a boy with red hair, real big, about yea high?” Tom held his hand above his head. “Hangs out outside the cafeteria every day with two other boys; they look straight outta Cobra Kai?”

“Oh, you mean John Doe?” Eric chuckled, stifling his laughter as Tom rolled his eyes. “What did he do now?” Tom motioned to his brown-and-orange stained shoes. Eric sighed. 

“Yeah, that kid’s a real son of a bitch, isn’t he? Literally: his mom’s a huge bitch. Lets him get away with everything, refuses to let us punish him whatsoever. Admin won’t do shit, teachers can’t do shit, mommy lets her little angel just walk all over the school. Some of these parents, I swear to God…”

“So I am assuming you got similar problems with that asshole in your class?” 

“You have no idea how often I wish I could skip class, and I’m the teacher.” Eric laughed weakly, looking down. “Anyway, my last class for today is coming up. Still gotta do some prep before it starts.” 

“Alright. You wanna grab a drink after work? I really shouldn’t because of my wallet situation, but today makes me want to drown myself in liquor,” Tom jested, shooting Eric a smile. 

“Yeah, I’m in.”

“Awesome, see you then.” And with that, Eric retreated into his classroom, leaving Tom once again alone in the hallway. He packed the rest of the garbage from the remaining trash bins and stacked it onto his little cart, and made his way outside to dispose of it.

His day was already pretty miserable and he just wanted it to be over, as one confrontation with the school's king was already more than enough for him. But sadly, as he turned a corner around the school building, he ran into the monster trio once again.

“Now look who we have here. If it isn’t the school alcoholic,” John said, laughing along with his friends while looking down on Tom. “I knew you were low, but getting wasted on the job and pinning it on a student is a new pit, even for you.”

“What are you talking about?!” Tom shouted confused, though he feared the answer more than he would have liked to admit.

“Just that a rumor is spreading that you hate students so much that you like to drink on the job along with Mr. Frohman. Man, I can’t wait to see the principal's face when he hears that a drunken janitor refused to do his job today and threatened us.”

“You… absolute…” Tom grit his teeth. He was so close to punching the jock in front of him. If he was to say one more word, then he…

“I… what? Did your school not teach you how to speak words, trashman?” John sarcastically asked, making both of his followers burst into laughter. “How about you…”

“I think you’ve said enough. Time for you to be quiet for a second.” A female voice rang out from behind Tom as a girl stepped forward, seemingly coming out of nowhere. She wore a black and red shirt with a black skirt, had orange hair, and was a little bit on the tan side, which made her all in all very attractive. She then turned around to face Tom and flashed him a bright smile, which shocked him even further.

“The principal already knows that you, sir, and Mr. Frohman are good friends who like to go out for a drink together, as well as that you have done an excellent job keeping the school building clean, even despite the misconduct of certain students. Even should these rumors reach his ears, I doubt he would believe them.” The girl said, not even looking at the three tall boys behind her. 

“Hey! We weren’t done with this loser yet.” John put his hand on the girl's shoulder, his expression filled with anger. “Also what's with your goodie two shoes…”

The girl looked over her shoulder and spoke so firmly that Tom could almost feel his body shake from it. “Leave.”

John stared in shock, blinking a few times before affecting his default look of intimidation. The two glared at each other for a few seconds before he muttered a “whatever” and walked away.

As his toadies trailed behind him, the girl turned back to Tom. “Louts like that are a dime a dozen,” she said.

“That’s the problem, there are dozens of ‘em,” Tom said, forcing a laugh to mask how his response didn’t make much sense. “Who are you? Shouldn’t you be in class?”

“Call me Nagisa. Foreign exchange student, of sorts. I must say, a lot of this school’s students are quite…unruly.”

“That’s putting it lightly.”

Nagisa leaned on one of the bins. “Do you like your job?”
Tom was taken aback. “It pays the bills. Most days aren’t like this. I mean…a lot of them are, but most aren’t. It’s just…” He stared into space. “...some of these kids, man. Some of these kids. And they just let them get away with murder.”

Nagisa put her finger to her chin. She was lost in thought for a moment before her gaze returned to Tom with a suspicious smile. “Do you think you could do better if you were in charge?”

“Tch, a turkey could run this school better than the current admin, you kidding me?”

Nagisa nodded and spun around to walk down the path. “In that case, follow me. Let me show you something.”

Tom followed after the curious girl, leaving his cart behind. The girl led him to a corner of the history department, to a small display case of old Japanese bric-a-brac. The lock on the glass case was broken open, and permanent marker graffiti had been scrawled arbitrarily upon various objects. Nagisa put her hand on the case. “This case has been vandalized. Are you able to clean it?”

Tom’s shoulders drooped. Oh…um…”
“What’s the matter?”
“I mean…I was under the impression that this was going to be at all related to what we were talking about.”

Nagisa giggled. “Oh, silly me. Of course it wasn’t. I just thought it was something you might’ve needed to clean. Completely unrelated. You just reminded me of it. No reason.”

Tom rolled his eyes. He tried to think of some response, but could only manage an exasperated “Thanks for telling me.”

Nagisa just smiled and nodded. As he started to fiddle with the case, she walked back down the hall. “You must be a real patient guy to deal with people like this,” she said as she walked away, “maybe they should deal with you for a change.”

“What do you mean by tha—” She was already gone.

Tom had to stop and blink for a moment. “What a strange girl…” he said, getting back to the broken glass case. Since he didn’t have his cart with him, he couldn’t start cleaning it right away. So Tom just began sorting the objects by their labels to get an idea of what was massacred here. “Let’s see, we’ve got an old folding fan, that's an ‘ofuda’, … I don’t know what that is… Oh, but that's a kitsune statue… though it looks beyond repair.”

Tom sighed as he held the old cracked statue in his hand, his mind still not letting go of that weird Nagisa girl. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “How is it that an oddball girl like that is the only decent student I have met in this building so far…? I would wish that the others would respect me at least half that much…”

Tom opened his eyes and wanted to place the statue back on the shelf when he noticed something exceedingly weird: the kitsune statue wasn’t broken anymore. He turned it around in his hand. There wasn't any marker graffiti on it either. It strangely looked good as new, like the day it was made.

“Huh? What the…? Wasn’t that…?” Hesitantly, he placed it back down on the shelf, its polished eyes glinting under the fluorescent light. He moved on to the paper talismans sitting beside it, covered in errant Sharpie doodles. Tom picked them up only to immediately drop them as the marker lines sloughed off the paper like sand. The graffiti disappeared in a literal puff. Bewildered, he ran his finger along a line of markers on the glass. What was permanently marked just a minute ago now vanished to his touch, not even leaving a mark on his finger. And was it just him, or did his fingers look slightly…different? Like his fingernails were longer?

It was best to stop thinking about it. These last few minutes had been nothing but weird. He slammed close the display case, the force of which knocked more ink off the glass and into the aether. Was this some sort of prank by that girl? But to what end? “I’ll finish this later,” Tom muttered to himself as he started walking back to his cart.

On his way back, he stopped in a bathroom to wash up…only to find a boy scrawling obscenities with a marker on a bathroom stall. “It was you!” The boy took one look at Tom and ran for the door. Right as the boy passed him, Tom reached out and grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back. The boy froze in place, allowing Tom to yank the marker out of his hand. “What’s your name?”

The boy’s gaze was glued to the ground. “P–Phillip Boyd.”

“Phillip, do you have any idea how long it takes to clean this off? What are…” Tom cut his words off when he glanced back to the wrist he was holding. Beneath his grasp, the boy’s shirt changed color, darkening to a deep burgundy. His shirt fluttered and shifted, a wave of excess fabric flowing down the boy’s arm as it transformed.

Tom released the boy’s wrist. The kid didn’t immediately run, which was twice as shocking as what was happening to his clothes. What had once been a grungy sweater and pair of jeans was transforming into a flowing red robe. The wave of change spread through Phillip’s entire outfit, his sneakers becoming a pair of simple wooden sandals, and his long unkept hair tidied itself up. The boy continued to stare at the ground, oblivious.

“You…what the hell just happened to your clothes?”

Phillip looked over himself. “My uniform? What’s wrong with it?” Strands of hair wiggled atop his head as he studied his own robe. Long tufts of fuzz struggled through the locks, and when Phillip whipped his head back up, two long brown animal ears erupted from the top of his head.

Tom leapt back. “What the hell are those?”

Phillip just stared at him like an admonished puppy. His new ears drooped. “What…what do you mean? It’s just my ears.” 

Tom was dumbfounded. “Just…look, just go the front office.”

“But…”

“No. I’m having a very weird day, so I don’t want to deal with this. Just go to the front office, and confess what you did.”

“I promise I won’t—”

“Report to the front office now!” At that word, a sudden pain erupted from Tom’s ears and lower back. The world spun around for a brief second, yet he managed to keep his footing as he stared down the boy.

“Yes, sir.” Phillip turned towards the door, revealing a fluffy tail tucked between his legs. He trudged out into the hallway.

Tom rubbed his temples. “What was that? What was all of that?” He moved his hands to his scalp, only to touch something long, and fluffy.

He spun to the mirror, to find two golden fox ears sitting upon his head. Each was as long as his forearm, with a sizeable tuft of fluffy fur sprouting from the inner base. He stared in awe, watching them twitch as if they had a mind of their own. His trance was interrupted when he saw something flicker behind him. He turned his back to the mirror.

A fox tail. He had a fox tail.

“That statue! It has to be that statue!” Tom burst out into the hallway, sprinting back to the history department. It was difficult to not trip over himself as he ran, what with his new center of gravity. He turned the corner only to collide with a familiar face.

“Uff… Oh, hello there. What’s gotten you so in a hurry?” Eric asked, recoiling a bit from the impact. Tom had to take a few steps back, feeling even more dizzy than he did moments prior. 

“Oh! Eric! God, it’s so good to see you! Something really strange is going on!” Tom declared, holding his head and feeling his massive fox ears twitching. He grabbed his big fluffy tail from behind him and asked in his worry and confusion, “What do you think about this?!? This tail isn’t normal!”

“Your tail…?” Eric asked, eying the golden fluff of fur Tom was holding very closely. Tom had expected Eric to just scream or shout, or at least react to the tail… but he seemed to be in deep thought. And even worse, he seemed to glow faintly… and shrink in height a bit.

“It looks a bit uncombed, maybe a little bit bristly as well,” Eric said, his pose shifting slowly but steadily. It looked like his entire body was getting daintier and softer, while his proportions began to shift drastically.

“And I would even say a bit unpolished…” His hips were growing to incredible sizes, while his waist contracted.

“Definitely not normal.” He declared as two mounds expanded out of his chest, which ended up even bigger than all the female teachers that worked here.

“Do you want me to give you a bit of a spa treatment?” He said, reaching back to his backside and pulling a huge blue foxtail out from behind him to show to Tom.

“As you can see I am quite good at taking care of fur~”

“What the hell…?” Tom gasped, having watched his coworker turn into a female kitsune right in front of his eyes. And a kitsune that didn’t seem to notice anything amiss and offered to take care of his tail for some reason. Although…

“That sounds lovely…” Tom thought out loud, his mind suddenly filled with the promise of pure bliss of getting pampered by Eric. But that’s when he realized he was spacing out, and hastily followed up with. “That sounds good. I command you to get to my chambers after you are done with work. But more importantly for now, do you really not find it strange that the both of us now each have a fox tail?”

“One each?” Eric responded, sounding a bit shocked. “Please, we all know you don’t just have one tail…”

“Wha… ack! Ah!” That's when Tom felt another massive sensation by his rear—though not just near his tail, but encompassing his entire ass. He felt his hips expand to the sides as something even more massive emerged from right next to his fox tail. Then a third thing exploded outwards next to that, taking his butt with it as well as it inflated like two balloons. Tom grasped his buttocks with both hands, and a feminine gasp escaped his lips as he felt bountiful flesh squish between his fingers. His tails wagged instinctively.

…Wait, tails?

Tom turned to find three swishing tails behind him. “Eriko, do you not see we’re changing? I’m sure that fox statue has something to do…wait, ‘Eriko’?”

“Hmm? What’s changing? Are you feeling well, Tom-sama?” Eriko asked.

“I just…I must go!” Tom darted past the foxgirl, into the room with the glass display. Or at least, what was the glass display. Where the simple glass shelf was now stood a massive ornamental red curio, like something imported from the far east. As a matter of fact, the entire room looked like it had been imported from Japan. What was once concrete and linoleum had transformed into plaster and wood paneling.

Wasting no time, Tom pried at the curio’s glass, but to no avail. The once-broken lock had mended itself, and the glass door refused to budge. The kitsune statue sat calmly within the cabinet, its little snout raised as if to taunt him. “C’mon, open!”

“I think that needs a key.”

Tom turned to find Nagisa at the door. “You! You’ve got to help me! This little statue, I think it’s cursed! The whole school is changing, but everyone is acting all weird! Do you know anything about it?”

Nagisa walked up to the display and peered at the statue, ignoring Tom’s repeated kicks to the shatterproof glass. “Ah yes, that statue’s one of the kitsune empress’ highest sought-after treasures, said to be blessed by her own hands personally,” she said calmly. “Didn’t you know?”

“That’s not my point! I think it did something to this whole school! And yet, nobody seems to remember. Please, tell me at least you remember!”

Nagisa smiled. “Remember what, Tamamo-sama?”

His heart skipped a beat. That name echoed in his mind. Tamamo-sama. Why did getting called that feel so…so…

“Do you know where the key is?” Nagisa snapped him out of it.

“I left my keys in my trash cart.”
“Trash cart? Whatever would an illustrious kitsune like you be doing with a trash cart?”

Tom was about to remind her, but after considering the day’s events, figured whatever memory of their first encounter she had was gone. Instead, he asked, “Who exactly do you think I am?”

Nagisa put her hands on her hips. “Why, you’re Tamamo Koyanskaya, Queen of the Kitsune! Surely you wouldn’t deign to have trash grace your divine form?” At those words, Tom’s body shuttered with godly pleasure, as his entire body subtly shrank, getting softer, fairer. “The kitsune have shepherded a hopeless world towards a glorious future, thanks to you: Tamamo, their divine leader.” 

The strange girl bowed, making Tamamo shudder. Nagisa’s words were music to his fluffy ears, and he didn’t know how to handle it. He felt good… powerful even, like the unprecedented bow from the girl was justified. That's when Nagisa spoke up again. “If you want to see the fruits of your reign, I implore you to take a walk around. The fruits of your efforts are plain for anyone to see. And to hear, especially for you~”

“Ahn~” Tamamo moaned, feeling a wave of pleasure followed by pressure onto his entire face. Everything felt so strange, so malleable, making him wince as he didn’t know where to put his hands. It felt like his entire face was shifting and reforming. 

His eyes were getting slightly bigger, his gaze got a bit sharper, while his nose shrank ever so slightly and his cheekbones rose, making his entire face appear a lot more feminine than before. Yet he didn’t know where to put his hands, because another big thing was pulled out from the top of his head. Two things… they were fluffy and long… a little bit twitchy even… did he grow a pair of fox ears…again?

“I… have to go… and find that key…” Tamamo said quietly, not even knowing if he wanted the student to hear what he had just said. Nagisa just nodded and took a step to the side, to make room for the kitsune to go through the door. Though as he was just about to walk through the door, he felt another massive pull from just above his ass, making him wince in pain once again.

“Awooo… ah?!?” There was a fourth tail now, just as blonde and fluffy as the other three. But more importantly, the room had changed again, making it completely unrecognizable. The number of ancient artifacts and Japanese decor in the room had more than tripled in the brief moment Tamamo wasn’t looking, looking now more like a treasury than a classroom.  

Nagisa had disappeared yet again, and near the place where she had stood was now a grand golden mirror, which just showed Tamamo the sight he didn’t want to see. He barely recognized himself. Standing in the mirror was a breathtakingly regal woman in a pair of grungy men’s slacks & polo, barely clinging to her petite frame. Tamamo blinked in disbelief, watching the woman in the mirror copy his motions. Four fluffy ears framed her angelic face like a crown. Tamamo was so transfixed by the odd appendages that he failed to notice his oversized clothes were slipping off his body.

He caught his shirt just as the neckline drooped below his shoulders. No such luck with his pants. They slipped down his slender legs, exposing his hairless thighs. He bent down to grab them to find they were simply…gone. Disappeared, like so many other things today.

“Just great.” At least the shirt now had more than enough fabric to cover his naughty bits, as he was either getting smaller or the shirt was getting bigger. However, he was not about to find out and rushed out of the room, starting to run down the corridors towards the exit of the building, where he knew his cart would still be. At least, he hoped it would still be there. Though more pressure was already building around his behind and…

“...ack!” the world briefly went blank for Tamamo, but he knew exactly what had happened. After all, this was now the fourth tail he sported, and because he knew the legends and myths surrounding kitsune quite well, he had a feeling that he hadn’t even reached the halfway point yet.

Worse, he could feel a pulling force as well, mostly on his private member but on the reality around him as well. The hallways he ran down no longer resembled those of a run-down school, instead, they were highly maintained and well polished, as the brick and concrete morphed into stone and lacquered wood.

“Ah! Not again!” Another bolt of pain shot through his behind, now five tails waving. He tried not to think too much about what was happening around him, but somehow his shirt seemed a bit different to what it should have been. The fabric seemed… loose.

…No, actually, way too much fabric, now that he thought of it. While the neckline had been all but erased, leaving his collarbone exposed as barely it clung to his torso, the bottom extended far further down than it did before, making it look more like a kimono than a shirt. And that appeared to be more true than his initial guess, because as he started to walk past other people, both students and teachers, all of them were wearing kimonos as well.

…Why was he walking? Shouldn’t he be running to get to his trash cart? Somehow… running felt incredibly inappropriate… but he had no explanation why. Also, those teachers looked like…

“Ahh!” Just as he thought that, another pain and another tail sprouted out from behind him, making them six in total. And even though they tended to get less painful with every subsequent tail, Tamamo still rubbed his behind from that pain. Which is when a large strand of golden blonde hair fell into his face and startled him.

It as well as the rest of his majestic hairdo was getting longer in front of his eyes, gaining volume and elegance along the way. It just kept going, down his neck, then his back until it finally reached to about where his tails were just about his behind. 

Thankfully he reached the gate outside not long after, though he didn't remember it being so grand and massive. And he certainly didn't expect the kimono-clad students to bow to him and open the door for him like he was some sort of celebrity. But he had bigger problems at that moment.

“THE CART’S GONE?!? What the actual Faaaahhhh!!!” As the seventh tail was brought to light, Tamamo’s vision grew hazy once again, even if just for a moment. And then he was greeted with a spectacle he expected even less than his own body transforming.

The entire landscape was shifting, gone was the urban surroundings in the gray and dull city, instead being surrounded with mostly greenery that was heavily shifting in front of his very eyes. Without earthquakes or sounds of any kind, mountains were starting to grow both on the greenery as well as on Tamamo’s chest, both at their own constant speeds. 

As Tamamo reached a solid B cup, the mounds around him had become more than just defined hills. With C-cups they had become respectable mountains. And when he reached around a D-cup was when both the mountains and his breasts stopped growing, though both were very noticeable and even defining for both his body and the surrounding landscape.

“Did my surroundings just turn into Japan or did we get transported…? I just don’t understand anything anymore… Yawaooo!” Even asking questions was seemingly denied to Tamamo, as another tail pain shot through his body, bringing them up to an even eight. Though with it, he could also feel a last tug on his most private part, making it the last time he could legally call himself male.

With a dignified stance and a deep breath, Tamamo felt her rod vanish into nothingness as a new opening appeared down below. There was also a bit of movement of her internal organs as some new very feminine ones came into being, but she didn’t want to think too much about that at the moment.

“I have really turned into a full female kitsune…” Tamamo let out in shock. Part of her really hoped that it wouldn't happen and the transformation would just stop midway through, but that didn’t come to pass. So she just stood there, at the edge of the school building…which now looked more like a Japanese palace. “How did this all happen…?”

“Queen Tamamo? Is this where you were?” A voice rang out from behind Tamamo, making her turn around to look at her. It was Erico, standing at the gate looking slightly confused and worried. “I have been waiting in your chambers, like you commanded. But then you weren’t there, so I came looking.”

Tamamo was silent for a moment. There were so many conflicting pieces of information in her head, what she remembered and what she didn’t. Because she didn’t forget anything, she still clearly remembered her time as a janitor at this school—but at the same time, she remembered her coronation, her efforts to improve the welfare of her subjects. Efforts which included this school, which was once much more than a school…

“Erico. Do you think I have achieved what I have set out to do?” Tamamo asked, more or less mindlessly.

“I would say so, your highness,” Erico answered submissively, “Your magnanimous donation of one of your palaces to the academy has bore incredible fruit. Our students are eternally grateful for your impeccable leadership, which has engendered the best schools in the world. And all of that in just a few years… truly a feat no one else could have accomplished!”

“A few years, eh? Yeah…” Tamamo smiled, turning towards the massive gate. “Let us go inside. I believe I still owe my faithful subject a drink—and then you can show me your skills firsthand.”

Tamamo strode down the hall trailed by her attendant, as teachers and students alike all bowed low enough for her to see their tails. The discipline, the admiration, the respect—it was borderline intoxicating. She held her head high with a confident smile as she sauntered past her deferential subjects. The pride welled within her heart and emanated through her body with a burst of euphoria as she felt a final set of ears emerge from her head. A corona of six ears…the mark of my nobility. The pride surged once more, and a final tail burst from her back. An aurora of nine tails…the mark of my divinity. 

Passing by a small hallway, she paused when she saw a familiar figure, leaning on a wall as if she was waiting for someone. “Wait here a moment, Eriko,” Tamamo said as she turned down the corridor. It was obvious who she was waiting for.

“Nagisa!” she shouted, but the strange girl simply turned the corner. Tamamo scratched her chin. Was it just her, or did Nagisa still not possess fox ears? Everyone else had turned into kitsune, so why was she of all people not affected?

Turning the corner, she saw not only Nagisa but also a fragment of the old world still clinging to existence. Metal lockers and fluorescent lights were slowly morphing into something more old-fashioned and oriental as reality was finishing rewriting itself. And at the end of the shifting hall that the mysterious girl strolled down stood three boys, who had all somehow up til now eluded the world’s changes. Although, all of them looked stunned… no… they looked bewitched, swaying almost like they had been hypnotized.

“Nagisa wait! Do you know what’s happening to all of us?” Tamamo asked, to which the orange-haired girl stopped. Nagisa was fiddling with something in her hand. Tamamo walked closer. 

Nagisa turned around, holding up the little fox statue. She shot Tamamo a mischievous and knowing smile. “This world was destined to be reshaped…my role was simply to find someone worthy to lead it.” She handed Tamamo the statue. “Come now, my queen. You still have one thing to do before your life truly starts anew.” Nagisa spoke softly and gestured at the three dazed boys. “The hard part is over, but these three are yours to finish.”

Tamamo understood, no further words were needed. Gracefully, she stepped forward, her tails swaying with every step. She stepped past Nagisa, looking directly at the three boys. All of her six ears twitched before she took a deep breath and spoke in a commanding voice.

“I would like nothing more than to punish you in a way that you would remember for ages, but I refuse to stoop as low as you used to be. However, you all shall be troublemakers no more! You shall all be lovely kitsune with dreams of becoming noble!”

The boys all started to moan as their bodies started to change, all of them losing height. Tails sprouted out from their behinds, their ears shifted upwards like those of everyone else in the building, which made Tamamo grin.

“Diligent students who want nothing more than Ace their exams to show the world how amazing they are.” They continued to shrink as Tamamo stared in fascination. Their faces became much softer and cuter, while their chests and hips subtly expanded. They truly started to look like a group of young and diligent kitsune girls.

“David, you have always been interested in Mana painting and you are trying to get your degree in art here. Cody, you have always been intrigued by the mystic magic we kitsune hold, so you are hoping to become a magic researcher. And John… Hehehe… You have always been rather dextrous and diligent, so your dream is to become a royal maid one day and serve directly under me, the Kitsune Queen.”

And with that, the three boys were no more, instead being three very confused-looking girls. The last traces of the school that was so unbearably corrupt only hours ago, had completely disappeared. And in its stead was a completely new building of appearance and wealth, personally cared for by the Kitsune matriarch to educate only the most promising of kitsune, something the school prided itself on.

Tamamo took a step back and looked up at the ceiling. The three girls in front of her were slowly snapping out of their stupor and immediately bowed the moment they noticed who they were in the presence of. Tamamo however paid them no mind, instead addressing the school building itself. “Tamamo’s royal academy for gifted kitsune… What a great new name for a promising school, no?”

The three girls in front of her naturally agreed, but Tamamo wasn’t talking to them. The Kitsune empress didn’t bother to turn around to look at the person she was thinking of. After all, that mysterious girl was already long gone…

—

“Fuwa~ Erico, your combing skills could make even the gods shake!” Tamamo moaned, lying pleased on her bed in her chamber while Erico kneeled behind her, massaging through each of the Kitsune queens' tails one by one.

“Hehe~ My queen, you say that every time~” Erico giggled, but didn’t stop combing. “But it is flattering every time~ I am glad my practice paid off.”

“Ahh~ I wanted to ask you something, since I am not in the school as often as I once was,” Tamamo turned to look at Erico behind her, who briefly brushed her tails to the side to look the queen in the face. “Have you heard anything from David, Cody, and John recently?”

“...who?” Erico looked confused, to which Tamamo just laughed it off.

“I mean Dahlia, Chiharu and Jurika. You know, those three troublemakers.”

“Troublemakers? I would hardly call them that at all.” Erico replied, to which Tamamo instantly smiled. And Erico even continued. “All three of them are probably some of the best students our school has ever taught. They study very diligently, are amazing at almost all subjects, and are very promising young ladies. Very polite and proper too.”

“Is that so…?” Tamamo closed her eyes and nodded to herself.

“I don't know a single teacher who has something bad to say about those three,” Erico spoke, starting to brush Tamamo’s tails again. “Why do you ask? Did they do something?”

“Oh yes they did…” Tamamo sighed, which made Erico go wide-eyed before the queen flashed another big smile and added. “But that only concerns me and a certain mysterious girl with a tendency for sudden disappearances. Hehehe~”

That's when Tamamo grabbed two of the cups next to her bed and handed one to her best friend. “Thank you so much for the grooming. It's been a while. Do you want to have a drink with me to celebrate the occasion?”

Erico was still confused at that point but decided to let it go. No one besides herself fully understood what the kitsune queen was thinking at all times, but there was one thing Erico knew for sure: If one gets invited to a drink with the most powerful kitsune on the planet, one simply mustn’t refuse…

—

As the saying goes, it's never too late to change. Even for entire school buildings and everyone inside. Sometimes one special visitor is all it takes.

Cowritten with Kiri Kasei