Side Story: A Miko, and a fox girl?
"Issei-kun? I've gotta ask you a pretty important question." His senior, Rias Gremory, approached him early in the morning for whatever reason. He didn't know what for or why she needed him, and he honestly didn't want to go through the whole thing or help her with whatever the hell she wanted, but the fierce look on her eyes convinced him otherwise. She led them to a secluded location in the school, somewhere near her club room, a sinister vibe that surrounded the area like the frost on a window on a cold winter morning.
Walking up to the girl who stood on the other side patiently with an irritated look on his face, the high school boy responded with an irritated, "Yeah, well, what do you want?" Tapping his front pocket impatiently, she waited for the question to be asked. She gave him an odd look, and with a quick snap she asked.
"Why are you a kitsune?" The high school boy blinked, and sighed, planting a palm to his face. He whispered some words underneath his breath, and suddenly they were no longer behind the school, but instead inside a traditional Japanese household. The redheaded girl looked around the apparent illusion, thinking of the many different explanations that could come up for this, and thinking that perhaps she should've jumped the gun to set the stage in her advantage, but as it was the illusion was blocking the vision of everyone around her.
She heard a windy sound breeze through the windows, and Rias Gremory looked at the position of the once high school boy who was now enveloped in a bright yellow glow. Suddenly he shifted forms from a plain looking high school boy to a beautiful pink-haired woman with fox ears wearing a luxurious blue kimono. She had 3 golden fox tails poking out of the fabric behind her, and was holding both a mirror and a gohei fashioned from a branch, though Rias wouldn't have been surprised if her observation was incorrect. She looked mildly irritated, as if she didn't want to explain herself to her, if ever.
"Are you satisfied, Miss Gremory? I know you're a devil, by the way, so don't even bother trying to recruit me to your damned peerage." She tapped her fingers on the kotatsu that they suddenly found themselves sitting on, as she slowly poured some tea for her guest. "Well? Don't you have any questions?"
She did, but if she wanted to make the most out of this, she would have to word her questions very carefully. Coughing into her fist, she began. "Where are we?" To this, 'Issei' responded. "My mindscape, dear. It's somewhere I could relax and feel comfortable in after the stresses of the day. I've brought you here so that none could witness us talking to each other by such a sensitive topic as this." To prove her point, she suddenly willed a porn mag she witnessed her hiding inside of her locker, a glint of schadenfreude on 'Issei's' eyes upon seeing the otherwise calm and cool president sputter incoherently. Drinking a cup to wash the dirty taste in her mouth, Rias continued.
"What is your name?" An eyebrow raised, oh dear. "I mean, what is your name as in right now, not in the form you take normally—"
"I know exactly what you mean and to answer your question, I am basically two. You know me normally as Hyoudou Issei, and that is something I identify with, yes. Now, for the other name... You would have to ask another question to gain anything from me, dear." The fox girl's eyes narrowed menacingly, her mouth slightly open to reveal sharpened fangs. An illusion or not, it was pretty scary, but that wasn't really what Rias was afraid of. The girl oozed divinity and malice, but outwardly she seemed like the perfect Yamato Nadeshiko. A cool beauty, stoic and benevolent, but she seemed just as prepared for a confrontation as she would a traditional tea ceremony.
Rias gulped, and taking a moment to think about something fast, she asked hastily. "How did all of this happen?" The fox miko stared at her for a moment, and sighed. Scratching the back of her head a little bit, the first truly Issei thing that Rias thought was she had done, she began an overly simplified version of what happened to the high schooler.
"Basically, 'I' was sealed into a magical circle in the park one day, Rias-san. 'I' walked into it, then 'Issei' met 'me' inside of it. She turned me into a clone of hers before we fused completely, Rias. That person I fused with though..." Looking down a bit, her fox ears drooping down slightly. She played with her hands a bit, nervously trying to hide her anxiety. Her eyes showed great pain and sorrow, and as she coughed into her hand, she mentally prepared herself for her confession,
"That girl I fused with... She was—no, I was one of Japan's greatest Yokai. I was, and am, Tamamo no Mae. In a way, I am both her and him. There was not much I could do about it then and now, so I simply learned to live with it..." She tapped her hands expectantly, but a large bead of sweat flowed down her chin down to her bosom, to which the kitsune shivered in response.
"And you, Miss Gremory, are the current heir to the Gremory family, right? Well, it's nice to meet you!" Tamamo-no-Mae said, offering her hand to the other girl. Rias smiled nervously, but accepted the hand inviting her to shake. Taking a moment to consider what she had just said, however, came a question that sprung up in her mind. She pulled her hand back as Tamamo gave her a questioning look, her head tilting to the side.
"Do your parents know?" Starting with the hard question, Tamamo-no-Mae thought deeply. Yet, she could only shake her head in a negative.
Issei Hyoudou, in a way, replied directly. "No. Not at all. If you couldn't tell, us kitsunes' ability to morph into just about anything came to me as an advantage. So they don't know at all that their beloved child was the bane of Japanese royal succession..."
She sighed, looking at the ceiling fan with some degree of hesitance. Breathing a deep breath, she continued. "In a way, I really am that boy. He lives on within me, another facet of my personality among the other 9. All I wish for in a life nowadays is a quiet life, one with no trouble at all. They'll live, unaware that the child they're raising was me. A fake, somewhat. Heh." She chuckled bitterly for a moment, tears settling as she glanced at her cup of tea. "Not like there's not much of a difference."
Rias held in all of her surprise that such a major figure in the world of Shinto was studying at Kuoh the entire time, but one question didn't slip past her mind. Why her? "Why tell all of this to me? You don't seem to trust me all that much, so why confide all of this to me? You didn't need to tell me basically everything, you know." Tamamo looked at her with a smile on her face, taking note of the confused expression on the occult research club president, and basically dictator of the entire school and considered, yeah, that was kinda dumb. But there was a very good reason for all of that.
"I needed someone for me to confess to after all of this years." Noting the brief look of confusion on her face, she continued. "I mean, it's very hard to keep such an important secret within yourself after all this time, right? I just wanted someone to talk to after all of those years, a listening ear who wouldn't judge me for who I was. And," she scratched her cheek. "If I withheld any information from you, the heiress of the Gremory clan, I'd be in really hot water, right? Telling you what you needed to know was all that I needed to do for the most part."
With all that said and done, the imaginary expanse disappeared, and they found themselves in the high school campus once again. Tamamo immediately took Issei's form, and looked at Rias patiently. He called for her attention and addressed one very important thing. "I don't want any trouble, Miss Gremory, and I just want a quiet life. We'll keep in touch about club membership soon enough, but not now."
"I won't help you in any of your personal pet projects unless I had something better to gain out of it. Understand me?" Rias could only agree. She had no clue to Tamamo's true parameters, nor of her skills, or abilities. Left behind with such a disadvantage, she didn't know what kind of compromise to accept except that one already handed over to her.
The two of them nodded to each other, and walked their separate ways. Everyone at least mildly familiar with Issei gawked at the thought that he could possibly find time to converse with Rias of all people, but as they stomped their way to his general direction, a pair of hands found their way to a certain pair of idiots, the owner of said hands glaring at the two to back off. Anyone who asked either of them on their perspective then were told off, both of them saying "None of your business."