Leonard had gotten off of work early that evening, and was strolling towards his apartment at an easy pace. It was a clear night, the moon nearly full, and he was in a wonderful mood - besides the inherent goodness of getting off work early, it meant he’d be able to spend some time with his girlfriend, Shinobu, before they got to bed that night. 

    He’d met her six months ago, and the romance had been something of a whirlwind; they’d hit it off right away, and last week she’d come to live with him. He’d been in something of a rut, before then - same routine of eat, work, sleep. But Shinobu’s presence had cast his life in a new light, and he couldn’t be happier.

    He was whistling to himself as he walked up the stairs to his apartment, rooting through his pockets for the keys. The door slid open and he found that the lights weren’t on - had his girlfriend turned in early, perhaps? That would be unusual since Shinobu was usually something of a night owl, but not impossible. Stepping through the apartment room by room, quietly, he made his way to the bedroom. He didn’t want to disturb her if she was asleep after all. 

    Unfortunately for him, being quiet would have rather more consequences than waking her would. 

    When he entered the bedroom, she wasn’t in the bed - instead, he saw a figure on the moonlit balcony. His first instinct was that it was probably Shinobu just taking in the night air, but his second was “wait, what’s all that fluff?”. The figure on the balcony had a pair of rather large vulpine looking white-furred tails, drooping lazily and being pushed this way and that by the wind. They also had similarly white fluffy ears on their head. 

    Leonard involuntarily gasped - the sound just slipped out, even though he’d meant to be quiet. The vulpine woman turned to him, eyes wide; while her eyes didn’t look quite human at this point, Leonard still recognized the face as indeed belonging to Shinobu. Who was… a fox girl?

    “Leo, I, I-” the girl stammered. Leonard couldn’t speak from the surprise. And desperately wished that he could, as she turned back to the balcony, “I-I’m sorry!” she leapt from the balcony, down to the ground five stories below. 

    “W-Wait, Shinobu-” he started as she leapt, and he chased her to the railing. Was she nuts? There was no way she could survive that kind of fall right? But when he looked over the railing, he saw a flash of white disappearing into the park nearby. 

    “...And that was the last time I saw her, nearly a month ago…” Leonard finished, “I didn’t get to say goodbye, didn’t get an explanation… didn’t get to tell her that I don’t care what she looks like or… whatever it is she is.” 

    The elderly woman in the chair across from him nodded, apparently more to herself than to him. The dingy little shop on a corner just outside of the mall was, at least supposedly, a shop for magical curios and knowledge. Leonard didn’t know that he believed it, but well, he also didn’t believe foxgirls were real before the previous month when it turned out he’d been dating one. 

    “Kitsune.” The woman said. After Leonard stared at her for a bit, she elaborated. “Japanese fox spirit. Tricksters, some for better and some for worse. They often take human form.” 

    “Well, that answers one question. Not why she ran off when she saw me.” Leo said with a sigh.

    “Fear of discovery, perhaps. If she was playing some sort of trick, then she wouldn’t be able to continue if you knew her nature.” The woman said.

    “Or…” Leonard prompted. 

    “Or, if she was genuine, she believed you wouldn’t want to be with someone who isn’t human. Truly, it’s hard to tell without having met her myself.” The woman said. “Why do you wish to find her?” 

    Leonard blushed a bit. “...To tell her I love her, and ask her to come back. I don’t care what she is, she’s still Shinobu, right? Foxy bits or no foxy bits, she’s still the same person.”

    “And if she’s not? If that whole thing was a lie, a cruel trick of the spirits?” Amelina asked.

    The youngman felt like he had a stone in his gut as he responded. “...Then that’s that, but I won’t know until I try. And I would rather be rejected than never try.”

    “Wouldn’t it be better to believe a sweet lie? To believe she loved you and ran for fear of rejection, rather than that she was simply a trickster who fled when her ruse was discovered?” 

    For a few moments, Leonard thought about it. He wanted to believe she loved him back. He so desperately did. And maybe it would be easier, if not better. “...I don’t think I can be satisfied with never knowing.” 

    The woman nodded again, and smiled enigmatically. “Well then, young man, I do believe old Amelina can help… if you hold to that conviction...” she said, standing slowly and hobbling herself to the back room. 

    Leonard waited for several minutes, and Amelina eventually returned, carrying something under her arm. “So what is it? Dreamcatcher? Potion? Something else?” 

    “Mask.” Amelina said cheerfully. She placed it gently on the table. It was a large, japanese style fox mask, “I only had female ones in stock, but I’m sure it’ll be fine… what are you willing to give up to see her again?” The change from ‘jovial granny’ to deadly seriousness was instant and jarring. 

    “You’re not asking me to drop a grand on that, are you?” Leonard said suspiciously.

    “I’m not asking you for anything but trust. But you might be giving something up anyway. Let’s assume I’m not just a crazy old bat, yes? What are you willing to give?” 

    Leonard frowned. “...Anything, I think. We were… really happy together, you know? And I just can’t keep moving with my life without some kind of closure. I have to see her again, at least one time.”

    Amelina looked at him with a suspicious gaze, but nodded. “Very well then. Take the mask. No charge. Go to where you last saw her tomorrow night, at the height of the full moon. Put on the mask, and you’ll find her soon enough. While I might not charge you anything, mind that as with any magic, there is always a cost. Focus on the image of her, as you saw her before she fled.”

    When Leonard looked back into the shop after leaving, the building was abandoned. Well, at least he could be reasonably sure of the magic…

    The next night, he stood at the spot of the park where he’d last seen the flashing white of his girlfriend’s tail, mask in his hand. It was a cloudy night, but the moon was definitely full. He waited, and waited, the clock ticking closer and closer to midnight. 

    He really hoped he hadn’t been scammed or anything. Sure, the old lady’s shop disappearing rather indicated that she was magic, but it didn’t mean she hadn’t just given him a feather and told him to believe in himself. 

    When his phone alarm went off, he sucked in a breath and put on the mask. For a few moments, nothing happened besides his field of view shrinking dramatically. It was the sort of mask that only gave you the smallest view-holes it could. Leonard waited for a few minutes. Then a few more. 

    And then something happened. As the moon came out from behind a cloud, he reached up to take the mask off… and couldn’t. It was bonded to his face. He pulled harder, and harder, but it wouldn’t come off. 

    “What the…” he muttered. It was getting tighter, tighter. He felt a strange heat through his body. He stumbled over to a nearby pond just into the trees, and as his field of view started to widen, he saw his reflection in the pond. 

    The mask had changed from that of a stylized fox to that of a young woman. She looked a lot like he did, like she could be his half-Japanese sister, if it wasn’t, well, a mask. But the porcelain was beginning to gain a new quality to it. As he examined himself in the pool, the mask started to move, like it was his own face. Touching it, it didn’t feel like porcelain anymore either. 

    That wasn’t it though. As he watched, his body began to morph before his eyes. His shirt stretched and distended as his chest pushed out, buttons popping out as they reached a breaking point. His jeans started to tear apart at the seams as he grew an impressive bubble bottom and childbearing hips, and his legs grew longer and more shapely, especially in the thighs. His short hair behind the mask grew out in a curtain of black, falling down to his bottom. 

    He was staring, dumbfounded, as he felt another change down below and inside, as that which made him a man vanished and was replaced with the appropriate, female reproductive system. The mask had merged fully with his face, as well - he looked for all the world like a cute Japanese girl in men’s clothes. 

    It was around then when the core effect of the mask came into play. His ears shifted, traveling up to the top of his head as they grew large and pointed, with black fur the same color as his hair. His pants finally gave up the ghost as a large, fluffy black tail with a white tip forced it’s way out of the back, although they were shortly replaced as his shirt transformed into a long, flowing robe. 

    Leonard had been transformed - he, or rather she, had been transformed into a kitsune by the mask. ‘What are you willing to give up’, the old woman had asked - apparently, she’d meant her humanity. And her manhood. But mostly humanity. 

    Falling back onto her bottom, Leo looked around in the forest. Thin trails of ethereal light, formerly invisible, trailed every which way. It was even more dense in the city. Trails of magic, a voice inside told her - instincts? 

    There were so many, and the newborn fox inside her wanted to investigate them all. She nearly did, running after the nearest. But she stopped. She had transformed for… a reason, right? Well, if she didn’t remember, it couldn’t be all that important-

    The image of Shinobu forced itself through the fog in Leonard’s mind, reminding her what she was here for. She didn’t have the time to go gallivanting into the night. As she focused on Shinobu, her appearance and her smell and everything about her, the light trails faded… except for one, which Leonard knew beyond doubt led to her. 

    It was several hours later. The trail was long, turning this way and that, turning back on itself, and going this way and that. And beyond that, Leo wasn’t sure she was in the park anymore. The trees were a different kind, the air clearer and quieter than it could ever be in a city. She’d gone somewhere else as she tracked Shinobu, somewhere she couldn’t have gone as a human. Leonard couldn’t skip around on the trail, for fear of following it the wrong direction and ending back where she started. But eventually, she found a little hidden cave, beneath an outcropping of rock, and saw a white tail poking out.

    She didn’t loudly announce herself. Instead, she waited. And waited. Eventually, a head poked out - Shinobu, just as when she’d left. “...Who…? I thought I was the only one in this city…” 

    “You were, Shinobu…” Leo said softly. “Not anymore, though.”

    The woman’s eyes widened. “I thought it… it’s really you, Leo?”

    “It’s really me.” Leo said, nodding. 

    “But what… how?”

    “Old witch. Magic mask. Only female ones in stock, apparently, but…” 

    “You… why did you do something like that? You don’t know if it’s permanent or not!” 

    “Because I was desperate! You ran off, with barely a word, you didn’t give me time to say anything!” 

    “B-Because you saw I was a monster-”

    “I saw that you’re you!” Leo had accidentally raised her voice, and lowered again. “Did you really think I’d care if you had fox bits? I did some digging, I know what kitsune are… and I know that you’re not one of the bad ones. What we had wasn’t a trick, right?”

    “Leo of course it wasn’t… but… but…” Shinobu looked like she was coming to tears, although whether it was sadness or something else was hard to tell.

    “Why’d you pretend to be human, Shinobu?” Leo asked gently.

    “Because… because I saw you… you were so… depressed. You looked like the world was grinding you down, like there wasn’t anything left in your soul. But you still tried to be kind to others anyway. That was… I had to help you be happy again. I had to.”

    Leonard wasn’t sure how she felt that she’d been watched without knowing. But… well, she couldn’t be mad. She took a few steps closer, bringing Shinobu into a hug. “...Thank you. You did exactly that. I was the happiest man in the world when we were together… and fox or not, I don’t want to be separated again.”

    Shinobu sobbed some more. “I… I don’t think the mask comes off…”

    Leonard smiled. “If it let me find you again, then it was worth it.”

    “...Leonard doesn’t work anymore, huh.” Shinobu said, pulling back from the hug and wiping some tears away. “...How about we go home, Hina? I can introduce you to my family…”

    Hina smiled. She liked the name well enough, if Shinobu thought it was good for her. “I’d love to.”