"Amazing," I commented as I looked around the garden that Keru and I had stepped into, "I never would have pictured anything like this..."
Keru gave a soft laugh, "thinking everything will be like it is in the mortal realm?"
I looked around the garden again. It was entirely a flower garden, and had various flowers, and while their colors were real, the flowers seemed larger than normal. They weren't person sized, but they were slightly larger than each flower type would normally be. Even with my human nose, I could actually smell the flowers' scents and they actually smelled quite good. I was tempted to pick one, but I didn't know who's garden we were in, and so I didn't stray from the dirt path that Keru and I had stepped to. After a moment I turned to see that Keru had gone back to the gate and had gone through it to leave the garden and into the area around it. I made my way over to her, but I did find myself in a formal man's kimono, and couldn't move to quickly. Compared to the sky, though, the changing of my cloths through magic was not something I noticed right away. I was unused to wearing such formal clothing.
"Interesting," Keru said slowly as I reached her.
"What is it?" as I made my way through the gate.
"Well, look..." Keru pointed to one of the posts that held the gate up.
I looked to it and noticed it had carvings in it going up and down. I thought it was writing, but soon found that it was Japanese characters, and I couldn't read it. Not a "word," though I didn't know if that was the right word to use.
"What does it say?" I asked.
"Well, loosely translated it says," Keru began, "To Keru and Richard, may their tails fan wide with beauty."
"Their?" I wondered, "Isn't that a promise that your tails are to be magical?"
"The "their" would give the suggestion that YOUR tails hold as much magic as mine," Keru answered, "but you are a pure human. You aren't a Kitsune, not a disguised one, not an ignorant one. You are human. Coming to the magical realm can't trigger any sort of transformation. It's simply another world. There is magic in the mortal world as well, just to a lesser degree. Being exposed to magic doesn't mean transformation."
I nodded, as this repeated what Keru had told me earlier. "I don't suppose it is possible to turn a human INTO a Kitsune?"
"It's possible, but with most spells... they'd require a nine-tail's power level and even then, if that was done, you'd only become a one tail," Keru answered, "this would give the indication that you'd have multiple tails..."
"Assuming it wasn't a grammatical mistake," I commented, "and they really meant that YOUR tails would fan with magic."
"Not likely given that it was carved in Japanese characters," Keru answered, "stay close to me..."
I nodded.
"Something in this is odd and might not be right," Keru replied.
"More than a simple trick?" I guessed.
"If my parents want to turn you into a multi-tailed Kitsune, it is way more than a simple trick," Keru answered, "they've had to have found something powerful or a means that would send a lot of raw magic into you that is abnormal... which wouldn't be for a simple trick... especially when it's related to playing a trick on another Kitsune... me."
"I take it Kitsune don't prank one another," I commented as the two off us began to walk along a path outside the garden.
"By rule we don't," Keru answered, "We're only allowed to "trick" non-Kitsune and even there there are a great deal of rules to follow now."
I nodded and let Keru continued to explain.
"At one point in our history... likely from the stories of our origin as a race... Kitsune were allowed to play any sort of trick they wanted on humanity," Keru explained, "In fact, it is believed that World War II in the Pacific was started thanks to a trick played by a Kitsune. However, magic doesn't exist without some relation to science. It can counter magic in some cases... and in some cases some things are even immune to magic or can affect it. When the atomic bomb went off over Nagasaki, the bomb's effects were so powerful that it not only destroyed the city in the mortal realm but destroyed the main links between the mortal and magical realms and actually killed two nine-tails that had been in the city. The Council of Nine Tails then decided there would be rules to limit what tricks any Kitsune could play..."
"Thinking the atomic bombing was a strike against Kitsune or other magical beings?" I wondered.
"More that the Council didn't want tricks being made that started wars in the mortal realm," Keru sighed.
I sighed and followed her. We went a ways before a new question came to me, "So, how will we get Japan's part of the magical realm?"
"We'll have to get a Phoenix ride... or maybe a Thunderbird ride," Keru answered, "they are good birds. We'll need to get to the mountains first, though."