YAKUMO NO KITSUNE
by Sarielist
Story 1: Teatime at Alice's house.

-- Inspiration and AI disclosure:
I fact-checked the plausibility of some aspects of the story with the help of the Touhou Wiki and ChatGPT.
Any plotholes discovered through this process were stitched up with my own ideas.
ChatGPT also made a few suggestions for details, of which the only one I adopted was the eye colour change.

The plot, character choices, and format choice were developed by me.
Obviously, the underlying worldbuilding is that of the Touhou Project by ZUN, with whom this fan-written story is not affiliated.
The format is loosely inspired by the works of Shakespeare and Schiller.
All of the writing, wording, grammar, formatting and spelling are my own, with no input from AI, grammarly, Word, or any other spell checker.
--

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Chapter 1.
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Music: Touhou 2 - Forest of Tohno

*Alice's house in the Forest of Magic.*

*Wooden terrace at the back of the house. A rotund wooden table for two, featuring a teapot and two small cups. In the left chair, a 5'9'' doll of Alice's design. Eyes open but empty, face neutral, palms flat on the table. Two antlers on the doll's head.*

*Enter Yakumo Ran from the house's terrace door on the left.*
*Ran walks into the foreground of the table, pulls the right chair, places her hat onto the doll's antlers, and sits down.*
*She places both elbows on the table, closes her eyes, assumes a neutral face, and forms O shapes between her thumbs and pointer fingers.*

Music: Touhou 7 - Charming Domination ~ Who done it!

*About two seconds pass, then the doll's eyes turn brown and start moving. A few seconds later, the nine-tailed fox reopens her now blue eyes. Both the doll and the fox start moving their limbs.*

Music: Touhou 2 - Forest of Tohno

Doll. Good morning.
Fox. *slowly* Wh- what happened? Who are... who am I? Am I... awake?
Doll. It feels nice talking to you face to face. You look good.
You might have heard of Yak'mo Ran. That's me. Hi. *raises right hand while keeping her elbow on the table*
Fox. Wait... oh. Oh wow. I've definitely heard that name before. I think it's what people have been calling me...
You're my shikigami, right?
Doll Ran. I think technically the phrasing would be that I'm Yukari's shikigami, and that you're my vessel...
but yeah, essentially. You've got the idea.
I must admit, I haven't spent much time thinking of a name for you yet. Maybe "Yak'mo no Kits'ne"?
Kitsune. Yakumo no Kitsune... You know what, I like it. Practical, straight to the point, and it also has a nice ring to it.
And after all, I've never heard of Satori or Murasa complaining about their names.
Ran. I'm glad you like it. *sips tea*
So how does it feel being awake?
Kitsune. It feels... different. A lot to take in. And a big marvel that I feel I could spend centuries exploring.

*The conversation continues for a while.* (to be expanded or imagined)

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Chapter 2.
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*Enter Reimu and Satori from the front left. Satori stops, visibly confused, while Reimu keeps walking.*

Reimu. *facing Kitsune* Good afternoon, Ran. Nice to meet you here. Wait, why is your hat on that doll?
Satori. That's... not...
*Kitsune and Ran giggle*
Ran. Kits'ne, would you like to introduce yourself?
Kitsune. Okay so, funny story. That doll is... or rather, is inhabited by, Ran Yakumo, my shikigami.
Ran. *softly clears throat*
Kitsune. Or I guess, Yukari's shikigami. And I'm normally her vassal.
Ran. Close enough.
Reimu. Oh that's cool. What's your name?
*to Ran, whispering* Does that count as an incident?
Satori. *to Ran, whispering* She's joking of course. Ah you got that. Good.
Kitsune. I think we landed on "Yakumo no Kitsune", right?
*Ran nods*
Reimu. That's... so simple that it's good again.
Kitsune. K man.
Ran. Different type of croc.
Kitsune. Oh right. Arigatou.
*Satori giggles*

*The conversation continues for a while.* (to be expanded or imagined)

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Chapter 3.
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Music: Touhou 7 - Necrofantasia (arranged as a ringtone)

Ran. Oh, Yukari calling. Better get on our way then.
Was fun talking to you guys. Until next time!
*Ran takes off her hat and hands it to Kitsune, who looks into it for about half a second, then puts it on.*
*Ran straightens up, hands flat on the table, closes her eyes, and assumes a neutral face. Kitsune does the same.*

Music: Touhou 7 - Charming Domination ~ Who done it!

*After a few seconds, the nine-tailed fox reopens her once-again brown eyes, stands up from her chair, and exits to the right.*
*Shortly after, the doll's eyes fling open, lifeless and blue.*

Music: Touhou 2 - Forest of Tohno

Reimu. Woah, would you look at these antlers!
Satori. What an encounter... I'm still trying to process what just happened here.
Same for you, I see.
Reimu. Satori, is the doll thinking anything?
Satori. Let me see... Nope, complete silence. Seems to be an entirely inanimate object.
Reimu. I wasn't sure if Alice could even make lifeless dolls.
Satori. Yeah. I wonder what went into that.

Music: Touhou 7 - The Fantastic Tales of Tohno

*Enter Akyuu from the terrace door.*
Satori. Hm... Mhm... Yeah... Checks out... Oh... Oh wow... That's smart.
Reimu. I'm not quite following.
Satori and Akyuu, in unison.
Alright, so the. Sorry. You first.
Reimu. Akyuu, you look excited to tell me.
Akyuu. So the way this doll works is sometimes referred to as a "Haniwa", a ceramic statue designed to house a beast spirit.
Reimu. Oh yeah I've come across some of those in the Beast Realm. Usually they're not this elaborate though.
Akyuu. True. Alice really put her heart and soul into this one.
Alice yelling from inside the house.
Not literally, for once!
Satori. I can see why.
Akyuu. Yeah. So Ran was originally a beast spirit, before Yukari turned her into a Shikigami.
So normally, Ran is installed into this Youkai fox, but in theory she can inhabit any vacant Haniwa.
Reimu. Really? Shikigami can exist outside of their host?
Akyuu. Yeah, that's called detaching. Chen detaches all the time when she gets hit with water.
If Chen couldn't exist outside of the bakeneko, I would have said that she "crashes" or "throws".
Reimu. Riiight, Chen. Wait, did the bakeneko ever get a name?
Akyuu. I think she's been called "Chen" for so long that she simply identifies as Chen now.
Anything else probably wouldn't fit into her head anyway.
Reimu. I guess.
Akyuu. Now in Ran's case, detaching from her fox requires permission from her master Yukari.
So we had to get that separately for the doll.
Now you might argue that that stretches the boundaries of what a shikigami can be, but...
Reimu. That's what Yukari's best at anyway.
Akyuu. Reading my thoughts.
Satori. Thanks for making me feel useless.
Akyuu. Sorry.
Reimu. Neat. So what are these antlers for?
Akyuu. Mostly to hold her hat.
They do also help in channeling her focus when she connects her hat, but without her focus, they don't do much.
I originally meant to suggest antennae for this, like the ones on an ant, but I think that got lost in translation somewhere.
In any case, antlers also work just fine. They're basically just more decorative antennae.
Satori. Would fox ears have worked too?
Akyuu. Yeah, probably. But considering that Ran already has access to a fox body, that might have gotten a little redundant.
*Technical crackling noises emerge from the antlers.*

Music: Touhou 18 - Banditry Technology (with a radio filter)

Antlers. Another thing to note about these antlers is that they're super easy to hack into.
Reimu. Takane???
Takane. Bingo! As a result of their design, these antlers basically function as a Radio Access Node (RAN).
So I've been able to listen in on that nice little conversation you guys have been having.
Akyuu. That's wild. I will never forget how tech-savvy the Yamawaro folk are.
Takane. Also, if you could see my thoughts right now, Satori *laughs*
Satori. Dang.
Reimu. But you wouldn't hack Ran, would you?
Takane. What? No, of course not! She's a white hat. Us teal hats always respect the white hats.
Akyuu. *taking notes* Thought I had heard somewhere that "white hat" meant something different?
Takane. Not really a distinction we care about. White hat's a white hat. And Ran's hat is undeniably white.
*The crackling noises from the antlers shut off.*

Music: Touhou 2 - Forest of Tohno

*Reimu and Satori look at each other, processing the events they just witnessed.*
*Satori nods in agreement to Reimu's thoughts.*
*Exit Satori to the right.*

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Chapter 4.
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Music: Touhou 8: Retribution for the Eternal Night ~ Imperishable Night

*Reimu and Akyuu on the way back to the Human village.*

Reimu. By the way, what made you decide to help Ran? Thought your stance had been that Humans were the enemy of Youkai?
Akyuu. I used to think that indeed, but I've since realized that what Youkai need is simply for Humans to believe in them.
Fear is an easy and powerful way for that, but the more connected we are, the more we can believe without needing fear.
Also, Ran being Yukari's Shikigami makes it easier for me to trust her. Yukari's always had my number.
Reimu. I thought your number was just... 9?
Akyuu. Why don't you try it?
Reimu. *pulls out flipphone* Nine. *presses 9*
Phone. *beep* *beep* BAA-KA!
Reimu. You've let me walk straight into that.
Akyuu. Thank you. I will cherish this memory for the next 500 years.
Reimu. ...
Akyuu. How'd you get the flipphone by the way?
Reimu. I don't know. I sorta just... believed I had one.
*Phone disintegrates.*
Reimu. Guess I was wrong about that.

Music: Touhou 3 - Maple Dream
*The camera zooms out and fades into white.*
*Still images from the story show for about 10 seconds each.*