Eva’s phone ripped her out of sleep early the next day. It took her a moment to remember why she set such an early alarm on a saturday. A few seconds later, once she had fully woken up, she quickly vacated her capsule and headed for the showers.

Once her, mildly abridged, morning routine had been completed, she packed her things and checked out of the hotel. Pulling her invitation to the weekend of celebration out of her bag, she focused on where the ship was supposed to be waiting. Immediately a path appeared to her mind's eye, which she promptly started to follow.

Of course, as she was unfamiliar with Osaka and her powers showed her the shortest route, the Kitsune soon had to take some detours. First to a nearby bridge instead of going straight across a river, after which she decided to use a pedestrian bridge instead of running through traffic. Luckily after that she arrived at a tiny shrine, with an equally tiny Torii before it.

Despite the early saturday morning, when she looked around Eva saw a handful of people around who would notice her turning into a fox. As most of them didn’t seem drunk enough to not remember, she headed for a nearby alley before turning into a fox. With her now smaller size it was quite easy to squeeze through the Torii and onto the foxroad, where she quickly returned to her human form.

The Torii she stepped out of was set up on the pier noted on the tickets, with her mental thread to her destination pointing straight at the ship before her. The exchange student wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it was definitely not what she saw. Sitting in the water before her was a massive cruise ship. With how many balconies she could make out on just this side it must have been built to house thousands of passengers.

On the upper decks she could make out a handful of figures. Though from down below she couldn’t make out many details of what they were doing. And as she walked up the gangway she quickly lost sight of them. Reaching the end of it, she stepped inside the ship and as she brought her attention back to her more immediate surroundings found herself before a pair of what seemed to be siblings.

They both had white hair that curled just a bit at the ends, which contrasted sharply with the black suits the two were wearing. Their faces looked near identical, same as the pair of fuzzy white, somewhat cat like ears poking out of both of their hairs. If not for the fact that only one of them was female they could have easily passed as identical twins.

“Good morning.” The female Security guard greeted her as she stepped closer to the Kitsune. “Mind showing us your invitation and ticket?”

“One second.” Eva replied as she began to look for them in her bag. “Here you go.”

“Ah there seems to be a bit of a mistake here.” The white haired woman said as she looked over the paper she had been given.

“What mistake?” Eva wondered, wondering if there was anything written in it she had missed or forgotten about.

“This invitation is for a Kami, not some Gaijin[1] messenger.” came the growled response.

“Well it is the invitation that was delivered to me personally at my shrine.” Eva retorted as her ears and tails popped into existence, the latter stiffly raised up.

“Or you’re just some wannabe that didn’t actually deliver this and took it for herself.” The other woman snarled as her left forearm turned into an oversized, white furred paw, poised ready to swipe at the Kitsune. Her brother began to nervously shuffle towards the two women, though it was hard to tell if he wanted to help his sister or try to defuse the situation somehow.

Luckily, before the Situation could escalate any further, a kind, old voice came from behind Eva. “What has you young ones so riled up?”

Turning around, Eva saw the oldest looking man she had ever seen step into the ship behind her. His back was so crooked he needed to to bend his neck all the way back just so his greying eyes could look forward. On it rested what looked like a heavy burlap sack bigger than he was himself. He was wearing old farmers clothing that belonged in a museum about ancient paddy farming, though instead of a straw hat, his bald head was covered by a dozing, white furred fox pup.

“Greetings Inari-sama.[2]” The two Security guards shouted with a bow, the female hiding her paw like arm behind her back. “It is nothing to concern you with.” she continued as her brother took the man’s invitation and tickets. “Just dealing with a fraud.”

“What makes you say this lovely vixen is a fraud?” The Inari inquired as his gaze narrowed.

“She claims to be the Kami of the Mumeikitsune shrine.” She replied showing the invitation Eva had given her as proof. “But she clearly is just some uppity foreigner, not Mumei.”

“So instead of trusting that young Mumei would have contacted Ō-miya-hime if there was anything amiss you jumped to conclusions.”

“No - I mean - ah-” She began to mumble as the elderly man waved for Eva to follow him into the ship.

“Come. Please don’t hold it against them, the two of them are only a couple of decades old and still rather inexperienced.” He tried to placate the Kitsune with a smile as they stepped into a breathtakingly stunning atrium topped by a skylight many decks above them. The walls were filled with immaculate mosaics of nature scenes. Mountains, rice fields and rivers dominating the designs. As she followed him to one of the glass elevators off to one side of it, his smile turned just a bit more forced when he inquired. “So how did you end up taking over young Mumei’s duties?”