"Boys don't cry!" How many times in his short life had Satori heard this phrase! But now, his tears flowed against his will, nourishing the thick grass of the hospital garden. Satori was not in danger of reproach here, however: anyone who knew the story of this pale boy with unruly blue-black hair would feel only compassion for him.

He was a long-term inpatient of the Kata Ki hospital in the Eastern Mountains. Word first spread about him several years before, gossip whispering through the region like the wind. Local reports carried headlines like: "Freezing baby found next to dead black fox in the mountains", and "The boy and the fox — the mystery of the Oriental Mountains."

One family, hearing the story and feeling a wave of empathy, decided to adopt the boy. Unfortunately, in spite of their best intentions, this plan did not go very well. The child began to suffer terrible pains, crying bitterly for days on end, and his skin turned as white as marble. Moreover, on his forehead and wrists a strange rash appeared: scarlet marks in the shape of ominous symbols.

His devout foster family panicked and hastily got rid of the boy, believing him to be possessed by demons. The priests of the Kuraku temple, where the family brought him, took the story very seriously and decided that the poor child needed treatment. So, Satori spent the next few months trapped in an underground dungeon, suffering from both physical and mental agony.

Eventually, the priests admitted their inability to get rid of the demons inside the boy but decided not to resort to any extreme measures, seeing how sick the child already was and predicting an early death. So they took Satori to the hospital for the terminally ill, leaving him with just a few prayers, a change of clothes, and a fan — the boy's favorite toy. That's how he ended up at the Kata Ki sanatorium.

As the years passed, Satori's pains only grew worse and worse, plunging him deeper into despair, his heart obsessed with the longing for release. His featureless room, where he spent all of his hours, offered him no soothing respite: just a bed, four walls, a floor and a ceiling. Only once a week, he was taken out of his confinement for a breath of fresh air in the garden, where he was left to lie on a stretcher while his room was cleaned.

And now, unable to hold back his tears, Satori looked hopelessly at the open blue sky above his head, listened to the bittersweet singing of the birds, and dreamed to be free like them. But what was that? His hand, dangling limply from the stretcher, felt someone's gentle touch.

"Good afternoon, Satori," a voice whispered in his ear, and he caught sight of a flash of fluffy dark fur from the corner of his eye. "Do you want to be our little brother?"

"Who... who are you?" the boy asked, forgetting his gloom for a moment.

"We are the brothers of the one whose soul you absorbed as a baby, and for whom you have suffered all these years. We can take away your pain, and reward you for all your long years of suffering. You must simply agree to accept a special gift, and merge your soul with that of our brother."

"Yes, yes! You will become strong, Satori," another foxy voice chimed in.

"He chose you, Satori. That means you are worthy of this gift," echoed a third voice. "You'll become a real mage!"

"I... I don't know! You can have your brother's soul back if you want it! I never asked for it! the boy muttered through his teeth.

"The soul has already chosen you. The only solution is for you to agree to share everything equally. It's only fair!"

"Well then… very well, so be it," the invalid responded wearily.

"It's done! Come on, get up, we have a lot to do!"

"Come on, get up already!"

Satori suddenly realized that all the pain had left his body, leaving only an incredible feeling of lightness in its place. And... what's this!? Yes, he now had a very fluffy dark fox tail!

He took one step, then another, and then burst into a run, jumping and skipping around the garden with yelps of boundless delight. It felt so great! Satori was overflowing with energy, he raced like the wind, waving his favorite fan alongside him. At the edge of his vision, he occasionally glimpsed a beautiful black fox, running gracefully next to him through the forest…