ATM Rewrite: B3 — 42. Convergence (Patreon)

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1. Mia (Our Mortal Fox Mom!)

1. Fen (Our Envious Huli Jing!)

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The Miami heat pressed against the penthouse windows like a wet towel on skin, but Mia felt cold despite the September warmth. Her nine tails curled restlessly around her legs as she stood on the terrace, watching Noelia pace near the glass doors with that particular nervous energy that made her bushy tail fluff to twice its normal size.

She can be so cute when she’s worrying about Wendy, not wanting to overstep boundaries… How very unlike a tanuki. Nothing can be done. Everything was set in motion the moment I entered this body. But, I suppose seeing your daughter use magic for the first time is a huge thing that I unquestionably adored watching.

The thought circled through her limited mortal mind like a mantra of past joy and dread, each repetition tightening the vise around her chest. Recalling her daughter’s unconscious use of her Desire Magic to amplify her senses in her bathroom, a smile tugged at her lips.

At least I didn’t strip those memories from my soul… Oh, Jarlath, what am I doing?

Her eyes—even in their mortal state—kept drifting toward the moon, hanging in the clear noon sky. Somewhere up there, Jarlath was standing motionless in some sterile hallway.

She knew he was, despite not being able to see it; her foreknowledge told her that unusual fact. He’d been still for nearly ten minutes now, just…standing there.

What are you thinking, love? Are you regretting letting me make these choices? 

The guilt gnawed at her. It wasn’t like she was spying on him; it was foreknowledge of where he’d gone, so she couldn’t help herself! Yet, the result was the same.

The silence from his end felt heavier than words.

He hadn’t told her he was going to the Foundation. Of course, he probably figured she knew. Still, it would have been nice to have at least him say the words.

He was anxious.

“Mistress,” Noelia’s voice carried that careful note she used when trying not to seem presumptuous, “should I prepare refreshments? You’ve been standing there for twenty minutes, and your hands are shaking.”

Were they? Shoot! She’ll be making that smirk at me all day now. Mia glanced down at her fingers, surprised to find them trembling against the railing. Pathetic. Even in this weakened state, she should have better control… I’m three million years old! And…a new mother. Give room to yourself, Jar would say… Calm, like the breeze…that isn’t a hurricane.

“I’m fine. Easy for you to call it a lie—and maybe it is—but we both know I’ll keep it. On that note, you should be watching!”

Noelia’s tail somehow bristled further, the tip twitching with barely contained energy. “Is it that time—oh! High Queen!”

The tanuki practically bounced as she pointed toward the wall, where Titania’s regal form materialized in a swirl of starlight and gossamer. The High Queen’s entrance never failed to make the air itself seem more refined, as if reality politely adjusted its posture in her presence.

It’s such a simple trick, yet it can set the entire mood… Why am I getting annoyed?

Smirking eyes flashed in her memory, face half-hidden behind a veil of white tails, reminding her to remain still during meetings.

Ah… It’s something Inari used to grind into us.

“Lady Mia,” Titania’s melodious voice carried warmth that didn’t quite reach her young eyes—well, young to her. “I thought you might appreciate some…distraction. I assume you knew of my arrival.”

“Naturally,” Mia giggled, hiding her fear behind a smile. “No need for explanation. Show us. We’re dying to see the visual results.”

With a graceful gesture, the fae opened several shimmering portals along the terrace wall, each one revealing a different scene. Mia’s breath caught as the first showed Sela moving through what looked like an ancient corridor, her wings catching dim lights along its muraled walls.

The second portal revealed Kari’s battle—and Mia had to grip the railing as she watched the fenris wolf’s savage grace, power barely contained beneath that deceptively small frame—by their grandfather’s standards.

She’s so much like her mother… Now, she knows Eric’s truth. I’ll need to provide answers to her at some point, but what a mess you’ve laid on me, Alva… Playing to my tender heart seems to have worked. The only question is…how did you know I’d changed so much? There’s something I’m missing, or that I willfully left out of my memory. Mmm.

But it was the third portal that made Noelia emit a sound somewhere between a squeak and a growl of pride.

“Wendy!” The tanuki’s tail went completely vertical, fur standing on end as she pressed closer to watch. “She’s—look at her go! She’s so confident now! Yes, she’s tapped into my spiritual genes… Mistress!”

“I see her,” she chuckled.

“No, wait—look! Multiple illusions, and she’s actually winning?! Her first battle! I am going to replay this with her for weeks!”

Mia found herself smiling despite the knot in her stomach. On the screen, her adopted daughter danced between reality and illusion, her magic flowing with the kind of natural grace that said she’d trained hard with Sora.

“She’s using tanuki techniques naturally. It was only a short time ago that she was using Null-Void, and now look at her,” she observed, glancing at Noelia with genuine interest. “It looks like she has natural talent. It runs in the soul, after all.”

Noelia's cheeks flushed pink, her tail swishing with embarrassed pride. This was how she fought back against the devious minx—and she could be a minx when she wanted to be!

“S-she got genes from us both—and Jarlath. She was always curious as a child, always asking how I cooked or fixed clothes. Quick learner, hard worker—that one’s definitely from me,” Noelia blurted, stumbling through her pride before Mia could tease her.

Titania giggled from her corner seat, seeming to enjoy their budding sister-wives dynamic. The fae queen was respectful and patient, waiting here for something Mia didn’t know. One of the few things she didn’t know.

“Oh, wait until you can really show her a few tricks with that overly bushy tail of yours.” Mia’s tone held a teasing jab as she poked the tight-eyed young mother with one of her tails. “You’re clever. Though I notice you haven’t mastered half the techniques I’ve given as homework.”

The tanuki’s ears flattened, eyes averting for the first time with almost a pout. “I’m still learning! And I recall someone dusting up the entire living room with a vacuum bag because she sucked up her earring.”

“Wha—” It was Mia’s turn to flatten her ears. “You told me you’d put a void spell inside! There’s a limited time I could have gotten it out before it vanished. You lied to me!”

“Maybe I did,” she grinned back, hands finding her elbow behind her back. “Yet, you still broke it open in the middle of the living room instead of over a trash bag or the sink. And here I thought an old lady of three million years would respond well under stress…of losing an earring.”

Mia’s narrowed eyes met hers for several tense seconds before they both started giggling.

“Yes, we both have a ways to go,” Noelia chortled, jabbing Mia’s face with the end of her puffy tail in retaliation for earlier and making her sneeze. “But perhaps my teacher had better step up her game if the student is failing.”

Mia’s mouth opened and closed like a startled fish before she managed a strangled laugh.

“You didn’t go there! I am more than qualified, you ungrateful bag of fur!”

“Mistress, you can’t just—I mean—you’re literally a Founder-level being who happens to look like she couldn’t bench press a feather right now!”

“You minx! We are both Founders, so don’t play that card. And my tails could lift nine feathers, thank you very much,” she huffed, using one to toss a nearby throw pillow at the tanuki.

The banter felt almost normal, a pocket of warmth in the growing cold.

The End was nearing.

At least, that’s what her knowledge told her, and everything she’d prompted in the background was about to come to a head.

Titania cleared her throat, and the temperature dropped ten degrees.

“Lady Mia,” the fae queen said, her voice carrying new undertones, “we have a visitor.”

Jin materialized on the terrace with characteristic lack of ceremony, appearing between one blink and the next. She looked exactly as she always did—bored, slightly irritated by existence itself, dark hair falling across features that were beautiful in the way of distant stars.

Mia’s lips curved into a knowing smirk. “So, it’s that time already, hmm? You’ve been rather busy lately, haven’t you?” she observed, noting the subtle signs of recent magical exertion around Jin’s aura. “How curious that your power has become so…liberated all of a sudden. With all that tournament drama.”

“Something like that,” the dragon replied with her usual flat disinterest, though her gaze swept over the portals showing the ongoing battles. “Hope I’m not interrupting your little pillow fight pow-wow or anything important. Peeping is—”

But as Jin settled more fully into the space, Mia caught something that made her senses snap to attention—her scent.

Not just a Founder, she knew Jin was likely the youngest Second-Generation, yet there was something fundamentally familiar about it.

Vision becoming glassy, her memory from over two and a half million years was dragged to the surface. “…Your smell,” she interrupted.

The atmosphere immediately grew deathly silent as Titania and Noelia’s focus became razor sharp.

“Excuse me?” Jin’s left eyebrow creased while leaning against the terrace railing. “I mean, I haven’t taken a bath in a few days, but give me a break. Something’s wrong… You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Mia turned slowly, tone transforming into a dagger as she moved to stand over the dark-haired Korean girl, slightly shorter than her.

“Don’t play dumb, Jin—your magical signature. It’s far older than your eldest sister, so cut the game. You weren’t pulling power from The Darkness against Aiden and Aelion earlier, like they…and I assumed. No, you’re using it to cover up the truth. How could I have not seen it sooner?”

The casual tone, the perfect mimicry of disaffected youth—it was flawless, real.

But Mia had lived too long, had seen too much. Her breath came ragged, heat crawling up her spine until it bristled out through every tail-tip.—memories of Jin interacting with her daughter, threatening her daughter, were now held under a new, and very different light.

The way Jin held her shoulders when she thought no one was looking. The unconscious tilt of her head when processing information. The particular quality of unbridled pride, those flash moments, such as against Eric’s mockery.

She knew those mannerisms in a dragon.

She’d seen them in nightmares for literal ages.

“Mia?” Noelia whispered, magic already swirling, ready to act as Jin’s eyes slowly drifted away, a lump dropping down her throat. “What do you want to do?”

She swallowed hard, tails rising like a storm front. “You’re him.” The whisper scraped her throat raw, fury sharpening each syllable. “You’re actually—how is that possible?”

Jin’s expression shifted, boredom flickering into something more complex. “You’re going to have to be more—”

“Gong-Gong.” Mia’s voice cracked like a whip on the name that had Noelia’s own fur puff up. “Do not take me as a fool. The dragon my eldest sister killed. The one who—”

Her fists clenched, wishing she had every ounce of power she’d given up. “How are you here? Inari eradicated him and retains his essence—his orb—as payment for his—for your sin!”

In that tense moment, the Miami wind flowed against them, hot and heavy, then Jin curled in, fingers finding her elbow, her voice dropping a few octaves.

“…You should know the answer to that already. This is your territory, which means you got rid of those memories. Do you question why you might have—”

“Shut up and talk,” Mia snarled, nose twisting and not budging an inch, despite the girl being vastly stronger than her at this moment. “Destroy me and trigger my reawakening or I can just jump off this balcony.”

“Mia, don’t do anything drastic!” Noelia hissed, lurching forward to wrap her arms around her stomach and pull her back. “Jin’s not wrong. You should know this.”

“Then clearly I wanted you to explain it,” she spat back, tails unable to force the far stronger tanuki away. “How did you survive Inari’s fury for killing our sister?”

“He didn’t survive…but wasn’t fully destroyed,” Jin corrected quietly, her usual sardonic edge completely absent as she focused on the floor. “He was recycled. Repurposed, you could say. I’m not him…but I sort of am, I guess.”

She closed her eyes, breathed in, then released it in a slow stream. “When your sister killed him—when Inari tore Gong-Gong apart after he was exhausted, beaten, and recovering from his usual tantrum against the First Generation—there was still a lot of his essence scattered. Even in that state, he could put up a fight… And my mother gathered what remained. Every fragment. Every whisper of shaved soul…”

Titania had gone very still, her eyes fixed on Jin with intrigue; this was history before this very omniverse was formed. Noelia was still holding her back, peeking out between Mia’s struggling tails.

“He was her firstborn…despite committing the first known sin against our unity.” The dragon’s yellow eyes lifted to Noelia. “That would later be acknowledged when it came to light that your grandfather killed Amy, Mia’s mother.”

The tanuki’s lips became a line in the corner of Mia’s vision, shame on her face for the family she’d been born into, and exiled from for the simple curse of being a barren Founder.

“My mother couldn’t bear to let him go,” Jin continued, her voice barely above a whisper. “The Dragon Mother—she took what was left of her son and…and made me. Fashioned a new egg, injected everything that remained of Gong-Gong into it during her grieving process, fusing that with my unique soul.”

Mia’s chest constricted at the revelation.

She’s…like Noelia, forced into a role she didn’t ask for?

Jin’s laugh was as bitter as winter wind. “I got his memories—parts of them, at least—none involving your sister. I have his instincts, fragments of his power… The strongest 2nd Generation, ever. But I’m not him. I’m what grief looks like when it tries to resurrect the dead without all the pieces attached.”

Mia stared, her fury warring with a terrible, growing understanding.

“A living memorial,” she breathed. “She made you as a monument to her loss.”

“You caught me.” Jin’s smile was sharp with old pain. “Ninety-nine years old, with soul fragments from the firstborn dragon. All the guilt, all the rage, all the cosmic-level identity crisis you could want—” she choked off the laugh, reaching up to scratch her cheek with a heavy breath.

“Wrong body, wrong gender, wrong age… He is still a god amongst my brothers and sisters. Me? I’m just the monster of the family that steals Mother’s attention. Honestly, I don’t know what my purpose is…so I rebelled, befriended a Primordial, and…well, the rest is history.”

She gestured vaguely at herself. “And there you have it. The ugly truth I’ve only told Eyia, because, for some odd reason…I can’t stand to think I’d lose her as a friend. I…don’t have any other friends. No attachments. Just…this stupid, innocent little valkyrie. Isn’t that pathetic? I delight at the thought of my mother raging at that…”

The silence stretched, broken only by the distant sounds of Miami and the soft rustle of Noelia's tail as she continued to hide.

Finally, Titania spoke, her voice careful and measured. “Ahem. This…explains certain anomalies we’ve observed from your actions that are forcing this dream to a close. The disconnect between power and presence… You hold knowledge and the means to accomplish things no one else can.”

Jin snorted. “Sure. You can view it that way if you prefer. Yeah, well, as Sora might say, cosmic identity crises aren’t exactly covered in the standard reincarnation handbook. Mmm. Maybe shouldn’t say that.”

“Wendy would,” Noelia offered with a strained smile, releasing Mia’s belly. “Personally, I can see your intentions and reasoning clearly now. The plan you’re enacting? Well, that is a tad more complicated. You’re the trigger point, so if you’re here…all evidence points to you killing Mia and forcing her return to power.”

Mia found herself studying Jin’s face as Noelia laid out her theory—really looking, not just seeing what she expected to see. There were differences. In body, naturally, yet even in spirit. Perhaps, twenty-five percent of Gong-Gong’s soul had been fused with her.

“…You hate him too,” Mia realized aloud. “You hate what he did… What your mother did. Yet, despite that…you love your mother underneath all that pain.”

Jin’s laugh was sharp as breaking glass. “I wouldn’t go that far, lady. But how do you think that feels, having someone else’s atrocities living in your head like home movies? Every night I dream about the things he did—the things I did—and every morning I wake up knowing I could do them again if my mother gets her way… I don’t know myself. That’s the problem.”

She gestured vaguely toward the portals, which still showed the ongoing battles. “Your daughter’s been kind to Eyia, treated her like a sister instead of our mortal enemy. And that, yeah, that would piss my mother off the most…and terrify her. The next generation is changing.”

The raw honesty in her voice hit Mia like a hammer to the gut.

“I see…” Mia said quietly.

It was all she could say in the oppressive silence.

Before Mia could respond, Jin straightened, slipping back into her mask of casual indifference like putting on familiar armor.

“Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. And you can think whatever you want, Ms. Fluffy Tail, but I’m not here for death.” She gestured toward one of Titania’s portals. “I brought you a present. Or maybe a warning. Haven’t decided which. Don’t know which it is, to be honest.”

The scene in the portal shifted, showing two figures moving through what looked like Avalon Academy’s corridors. Mia recognized Aelion immediately—Titania’s artificially created son, moving with purpose through halls that should have been familiar to him.

But it was his companion who made her blood freeze.

Professor Kurosaki walked beside Aelion, his movements casual, unremarkable. In his hand was a vial containing what appeared to be copper strands.

Hair. Her daughter’s hair.

“This is from the past… When?”

“Who do you think put Aelion on the path of collecting samples?” Jin asked conversationally. “Your daughter’s been shedding magical essence all over the Academy without an ounce of recognizing the dangers in it, and our helpful professor has been very thorough in his documentation. Hair, saliva traces from water bottles, even fragments of magic she’s used in his class… As to when? Oh, four days ago, at this point.”

Mia’s vision went white around the edges. “Four days? How could I allow this to happen? Did you take it back? Tell me you did!”

“No, I did not. It’s not my place. And it gets better.” Jin’s tone remained maddeningly calm. “He’s got wards around his activities that even I couldn’t fully track. Complex stuff, layered protections that taste like—”

“Tanuki magic,” Noelia gasped, her entire body going rigid as she stepped fully out from behind Mia’s tail to examine the waves leaking off the reflection in time. Her face had gone pale, but her eyes blazed with a mixture of horror and recognition. “That’s not just tanuki magic—that’s Founder-level tanuki magic… Like mine? I can taste the complexity from here, the layered protections…”

Her tail bristled to nearly twice its size as realization hit. “But that’s impossible! There shouldn’t be any Founder-level tanuki left in vulpes territory, only the memory of it due to Inari and Mia’s purge. They were all—” She swallowed hard. “Either eliminated or exiled. And no Founder would ever willingly step foot in vulpes territory…”

Noelia's claws extended unconsciously. “Unless my father used me as bait to hide another sibling.”

Mia growled. “It would be like your father… He always was one for contingencies. Oh, Noelia,” she soothed, twisting to pull the wide-eyed girl in to stroke her hair. “It’s okay.”

The tanuki’s voice cracked slightly. “Is this why he cast me out? Not because I was defective, or did that just make me the most efficient…” She couldn’t finish the thought, but the implications hung heavy in the air.

Titania’s musical hum filled the empty void. “We do live inside a dream, and dreams are easier to mask inside with illusions since they are only one step removed. Troubling.”

“Yeah, well,” Jin shrugged, “or maybe they’ve got friends on the inside that helped to get you past the barrier, as well. Either way, they’re building quite the collection of your daughter’s genetic material. I’m surprised the girl’s not showing bald patches yet. Question is—what are they planning to do with it?”

Mia felt the world tilting around her, the careful balance of her plans threatening to collapse. Tanuki in Avalon. Her daughter’s essence being harvested. Forces moving in shadows she hadn’t anticipated. And above it all…her uselessness as a mother, failing even to use a computer!

Titania cleared her throat, drawing their attention back to the portals. “Speaking of Sora…you might want to see this.”

The scene had shifted again, now showing Aelion in what appeared to be deep conversation with Sela. They stood in a corridor that flickered between Foundation sterility and something older, more organic.

“My son is about to learn the truth below the moon,” Titania murmured, and for the first time since arriving, her composure cracked slightly. “I do hope everything works out. For his sake. For Oberon’s… For my own heart and everything I have pushed.”

The maternal concern in her voice was unmistakable, and it made Mia’s chest tighten with recognition. Another mother, watching her child walk into danger she couldn’t prevent.

Trust is the hardest thing for a mother…because how can we trust the world to be fair with our children?

“Yes, it is nearing the point where everything we know collapses…and something will emerge. What that is, I cannot say. Frustratingly, I have given myself only enough to not rush to Sora’s side and steal her away from the world under my tails.”

She moved to stand beside Noelia, drawing comfort from the tanuki’s warm presence. Her co-wife had been silent through the revelations about Jin, but Mia could feel the tension radiating from her compact frame.

“Everything will be okay,” Mia whispered, holding out a hand, more for her own heart than Noelia’s, who seemed far more accustomed to letting girls be girls. “We’re a family.”

Noelia nodded, showing a strained smile, yet squeezing her hand. “I have faith in your plan, Mia. Out of everyone, you are the person who knows this board better than anyone else.”

Externally, she grinned. Internally, she cursed a certain purple-eyed, parasol-twirling Pseudo-Primordial who definitely had more puzzle pieces than her—the Herald of Sakura was likely snickering behind her fan, veils, and many eyes.

Before anyone could respond, another portal shimmered into existence—this one smaller, more focused. It showed a single figure moving through corridors that Mia recognized as being closer to the Academy's student quarters.

Fen.

“Titania, take me to Avalon!” Mia demanded, sweat beginning to collect under her armpits. “Now!”

Titania, however, showed a helpless smile, and shook her head. “I’m afraid I cannot do that, my lady, and you know why.”

Ice slid down Mia’s spine, wide eyes drifting back to the scene.

And, suddenly, all my confidence is gone! What have I planned?!

Surely, I wouldn’t... I’d never! But...

✧⸻✧⸻✧

Lying lazily on the grass, Fen yawned, waiting for the next fight to commence. Wendy’s fight was boring. It was obvious who would win.

When will I have the opportunity to reach greatness? One wrong portal step, and I went from stable, power-granting Inari’s territory to the isolationist, fire-queen of instability’s territory. Hmm?

In a shocking turn of events. A shadow hung over her, breaking Fen’s blissful mental exercise of throwing daggers at Sora’s privileged face.

“Excuse me,” the newcomer said, her voice carrying the musical accent of Korean pronunciation. “You’re Fen, aren’t you? Jian asked me to introduce myself—well, no, I asked him to, but he said I should do it myself, but he’d show me to you,” she rambled on, straining a giggle. “Sorry, am I moving too fast?”

Fen’s ears perked forward, curiosity overriding caution as she studied the girl before her. Young—maybe fourteen or fifteen—with glossy gray hair, accessories showing, and amber eyes that held an eager intensity. But it was her single tail that caught Fen’s attention, fluffy and well-groomed, marking her as a first-generation kumiho.

“I’m Yeon-ah,” the girl continued, practically bouncing on her toes, mini-skirt flaring with the motion. “I just got here from Earth a few weeks ago, and I’ve been dying to talk to you! Seeing you in class, I was just so shy. It’s just you have such a—oh wow! It’s even prettier up close!”

Fen followed her gaze to her lifted white tail, eyes going wide with something approaching reverence. A slight smirk bloomed on her lips.

“At least someone can notice beauty and power.”

“Mhm! Mhm! Is that—I heard stories! Did Lady Inari really—uh, can I—”

Without waiting for permission, Yeon-ah reached out, her fingers just barely brushing against her pristine white fur. Fen couldn’t even react; it came from nowhere!

The moment contact was made, the world exploded into electric blue lightning.

Fen immediately kicked backward, skidding to a stop, and her claws coming out in defense, as Jian’s large hand scooped the startled fox up to tuck under his large arm. Naturally, the girl yelped and blushed as she was pressed against his side, backside viewable to the boys lining the hill a ways away—their necks practically did a full turn to catch a peek.

“S-Sorry! Sorry! I just—”

“Fen?” Jian emotionlessly inquired, his vision narrowed as he studied her, asking for an update. He should have been able to tell by her soul. The fact that he was asking her said he couldn’t find anything wrong.

“What was—my tail feels… Did you use magic? No, that felt…different?” Fen managed, shaking her head to clear the ringing in her ears. “Did you touch my soul—past my defenses?”

Yeon-ah had tears in her eyes, but she was grinning inside Jian’s arm like a schoolgirl who had found her first crush. “That was amazing! I’ve never felt anything like—the stories are true, aren’t they? About Lady Inari’s blessing?”

Fen stared at the kumiho, pieces clicking together in her mind. The eager questions. This was a targeted encounter, and her paranoid mind told her there was more to this girl than met the eye.

Yet, before she could interrogate Yeon-ah, a number materialized above Fen’s head, glowing softly in the Academy’s ambient light.

Tournament selection.

And the magical display over the stadium sparked to life with her opponent, making Fen’s grin widen.

“Sora… And a little fire pixie? This will be interesting.”

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