"Yes… Interesting indeed. Young one, I name you Leon. You can think of me as your father, little kitsune." A gentle smile graced his features for a moment.
"I'll take you somewhere you can grow at your own pace, sleep now, child." A finger gently tapped the kit on its forehead. Drowsiness seemed to layer itself over his mind. As he struggled against drifting back to the abyss, the young kitsune heard an additional snippet of conversation.
"Inari! I will help, but only if I get to cuddled little Leon!" Serafall stated, hearts in her eyes at the adorable young fox. Gabriel followed up barely a moment after.
"I will as well, Inari," a similar expression on her face as she stared at the glossy sheen of the incredibly soft fur.
His eyes closed soon after, missing the remainder of the conversation. Odin shared a look with Azazel, as if to say 'I told you so!' The pair grinned lewdly. A new player had joined the game. Sirzechs lightly chuckled.
"Inari, did you purposefully make his name a pun?" The group turned to him questioningly.
"What?" An incredulous look crossed his face. "You're telling me you didn't name a Yako kitsune Great Earth on purpose?" Inari's eye twitched as a frown marred his normally congenial features.
"Sirzechs, I hate you for this. That pun is terrible." Odin guffawed off to the side. "It's Great Wisdom! I'm never going to be able to forget this now! A kitsune of the earth with the name Great Earth! Damnit!"
….
Leon woke once more only to find himself surrounded by trees that towered over him. As a baby fox, this was to be expected, yet even as small as he was, he could tell that these trees were still massive and ancient.
Memories slowly trickled back in as he took stock of his surroundings.
He recalled being in the darkness for so long, simply being pulled along. Then the tugging had stopped for a time, a time where he simply floated in the abyss of his own consciousness. He had no way of knowing how much time had passed, but there was a marked difference in length when he finally felt something new.
A sucking sensation pulled him along this time. It was brief in comparison to his previous trip, and feeling soon returned to him in a burst of sensation. It was a completely unique experience, one he was having trouble putting to words in his own mind. It was as if his soul and… something else were smooshed together.
No, that's not right. He thought to himself. More like… a warmth permeated my very being. Like a warm bath for my soul. Then the pulling and stretching occurred. It wasn't painful, he recalled. Simply uncomfortable.
Then he opened his new eyes to find colossal beings of immense power from straight out of a world he believed to be fantasy standing around him sipping alcohol.
There's a lot to digest there. He sat on his… haunches. Another thing to contemplate, but in a moment. Running through his memories once more, he came to several conclusions.
Reincarnation was real, the Christian God was most definitely alive, and he was now an animal. The last two definitely required more thought than the first. Leon moved forward through the trees, hopping onto and over large roots as he mindlessly surveyed his surroundings in search of a landmark or potential home. His natural instincts seemed to be assisting locomotion and observation, since four legged travel was a new experience, along with all of the new sights, sounds, and smells assaulting his mind. Learning how to walk and cope with everything all at once would have been immensely overwhelming. Small blessings.
His first moments in this world were a slap in the face of character existence, so there was no debate for the world he found himself within; DxD. There were worse places he could have been dropped, that's for sure. However, the fact that the big man upstairs had stuffed him into this world was confusing. The best theory he had at the moment was his Godly Avatar was what had perished during the Great War, and as such he now had limited influence within this sphere, at least for a time. It was all he could come up with for now, so he ran with the idea and dismissed it as tentatively solved. Unless it wasn't the Christian God, and was another multi-universal entity that deposited his soul in this particular place. Circular thoughts, discussion tabled for now.
The issue of being an animal was a much more prevalent and distressing problem. One that required an immediate assessment.
He was a fox. If his memory of his first moments were accurate, specifically he was a kitsune. A Yokai. That firmly placed him in the Eastern world since his mythology was either Chinese or Japanese, and since Inari was present at his… birth? Birth.
Leon decided it was a safe bet that he was Japanese, and most likely now located in Japan. He doubted his father? would be willing to let a newly formed kitsune out of his jurisdiction. From what he knew, most Yokai likely weren't spawned of the gods anymore in this universe either, which made him somewhat of a special case. With a tentative grasp on the Why, Who, and Where, Leon was left with the What and When of his situation.
He stumbled, the sudden lack of roots and trees blocking his path sending him sprawling. Apparently he still had some work to do on the whole movement thing. It was fine, he'd conquer that just as he planned to conquer everything else in this world.
Stop a moment. Blink. That thought-slash-urge was strange.
A flash of white in the corner of his eye caught his attention. A rabbit, slightly larger than himself sat perched not too far away from him. He had stumbled out into what appeared to be a massive field, though he could still see the great trees towering in the distance.