Release - Part 2

To Part 1

---

Vezin felt a little nervous. While he accepted that the person he was going to meet was only 'partially' his wife, and was elated to have her alive and no longer suffering in any way that it could be done, it had also been made clear that her memory may be imperfect, or even broken entirely. It would break the selfish part of his heart if she were alive again, but didn't recognize him at all. Or if this 'new person' built of the two of them hated him, or...

His worries were interrupted by the little orb of pink light in front of him brightening its glow, dimming, brightening again, three times in a row: A prearranged signal from the witch. Immediately he stepped forward, reappearing in the room his wife, trapped in crystal, had been kept in for all those years. Lyra was standing there, and also a girl who was largely the spitting image of her, with a only a few slight details' difference. "Hello—?"

"Vezin!" His worries and nerves evaporated when the first thing the blond-haired fox-girl did on sight was call out his name and practically pounce a third of the way across the room to tackle him into a close hug. He hurried to gently return the embrace, letting a feeling of relief wash across him as she gently nuzzled his cheek for a moment.

"M-my dear...you're alright," he said quietly, a couple of tears coming down his cheeks.
She pulled her head back off of his cheek to face him, smiling. "Indeed I am! I've lost..some memories, but I think not the most important ones. May I..?" He quietly nodded, and she planted a brief but loving kiss on his lips before letting go and hopping back slightly.

"Listen..I'd like you to call me Joanna," she announced. "One thing I am missing is my 'old' name, and 'Johann' hardly fits...but overall, I feel it's better this way. You can remind me what it was once we're used to the new one, perhaps. Any objection?"
"Not at all. That's a lovely name," he said, nodding.

"And—it's gratifying to know how much you've done to try and help me..but do you know I only have one tail now to your nine?"

"I..thought as much might happen," he admitted. "I can certainly help you along in that regard, if you'll allow me."

"We'll see. First—what sort of Deal did you make with this witch in the first place?"

"There are some..historical artifacts she's most interested in. I agreed to help seek them out. And.."
"Wait, allow me to guess—you already found one, to prove your sincerity," she said, a hint of sarcasm in her tone
"Well..."

"You do love doing things that way," she said, "even did it with me, now I think of it. Well, now I'm curious what's got such a powerful person so interested?"

Vezin turned Lyra's way, quietly summoning the item he planned to give her from his private collection into his hands. He had some idea of her interest, but wasn't certain how much she really wished to share—and, even though he'd happily give away all secrets he knew to his wife anyway, it'd still be rude to do it in front of their owner.

"Let's see.." Fortunately, Lyra appeared willing to share; she was just trying to think of the best place to start. "You're both aware there are multiple Earths, right? And universes in general?"

"Indeed," Vezin nodded. Joanna jumped slightly.

"That's...huh, I feel half-surprised? I don't remember specifically being told that, but it feels familiar anyhow," she said. "That is—Johann certainly didn't know that, but then, Kitsune were a surprise to me 'till today!"

"Well, I'm..let's say, not from around here," Lyra said, "I've been to lots of places, and observed many more, and the ancient civilization I'm interested in is unique to this particular Earth—yours. They don't seem to have been around for very long, and took up a pretty limited geographic area, but the fact that they existed at all is a little odd all on its own."

"It sounds as if there is another reason for your interest?" Vezin said, walking closer and offering her his piece. It was a broken-off chunk of a wall with some pictographs on it; the person he'd acquired it from thought they were Egyption heiroglyphs, but they were clearly nothing of the sort.

"I guess I can let you in on it, since you're helping me out," Lyra said, carefully taking the piece of wall from him and staring into it for a couple of seconds before continuing. "They appear to have had some level of, let's say, premonitional knowledge of certain major events in your world." A translucent pink bubble appeared around the piece in her hands, and then the whole thing vanished—likely to her own abode. Then she waved her hand to one side, making the image of another chunk of wall shimmer into view next to her for the two foxes to see. "For example: This one I found earlier says something about, 'Descendants of the sun...conflict, or 'attack' as a verb...demons and monsters. That sound familiar?"

Vezin nodded, his ears folding down slightly. "The war.."

Joanna tilted her head. "Wait, which one?"
"The very same one I lost you to," he explained to her. "A group of humans—descendants of celestials, who were made by 'the sun', took up a 'righetous war' against us 'monsters'. The demons' help was indispensible in resolving the crisis. Although.."
"Yes, that wording makes it sound like the 'descendants of the sun' were on the side of right," she nodded.

"That's the way it is with a lot of prophecy," Lyra said. "Even knowing that the grammar clearly places them as the aggressors, your first instinct is to assume they're meant to be the heroes, compared to some 'demons and monsters'. This isn't the only major event they seem to have predicted either, although in most cases it's nearly impossible to tell what they're talking about until it actually happens.

"The piece you just handed me says something about the touch of—hmmh, a few words I haven't seen before, I think the last one is something like 'rejection' or 'defense'? Then, the sun...and then it says 'the moon bears a new...'" The witch paused, tilting her head slightly. "The last word's usually used for something like 'powerful', but here it's in the place of a noun."

"So, overall: Something—we aren't certain what—involving touch, rejects the sun, and the moon bears a new power, or 'powerful one'," Vezin said.

"Something like that. Obviously it must be talking about Sol and La Lune, but the rest of it doesn't make much sense to me," Lyra said with a shrug. "Maybe some more fragments will help, or maybe it'll only make sense in retrospect, like the rest of them. Either way, I'm very interested to see what else they had to say."

Joanna said, "So, I take it you're intending on traveling around the world looking for more of their stuff to handle your end of the bargain?"
"Indeed," Vezin nodded.
"Then—let's go together! I've got a pretty limited view of the modern world from Johann, and the other part of me hasn't been anywhere in over half a century. Adventuring around the world sounds like an awful lot of fun~," she said, smiling beautifully and wagging her tail a bit.
"Well—certainly. If you'd like to so much," he nodded. Then, to Lyra he said: "I will contact you the moment I find anything of interest."
"Heheh, very well. I'll leave you two alone, then," Lyra said, starting toward the door. "Don't mind me—I know the way out."
"I'd have guessed as much."

Vezin turned to the girl who was, at least partially, his wife, and gestured at the door out of the room she'd been trapped in for so long. "Shall we?"

"Certainly!"

So he led the way across the hall toward a much more pleasant room, a sort of lounge with plenty of comfortable seating. While they walked, Joanna said: "I wonder, if you'd let me borrow some of your power? While there's such a gap between us, at least."
"Anytime you like," he said, nodding, as they came into the room.
"Well, what about...right now? There's just one thing I'd like to try out with you, if you don't mind."

Turning toward her, Vezin found the blond vixen standing with her arms behind her back and a small grin on. It didn't take a genius to figure out she had some trick in mind, but—to see her as happy as that, he'd be tricked by her a thousand times. "Very well," he shrugged, granting her unrestricted access to his power.

She smiled a little wider, and came up close to him. "Alright~! Hold still a moment, would you dear?"

Vezin's heart raced as she pulled her arms around him again in a close hug, her fingers touching his ears for the first time in so many years. He shuddered slightly as she began exercising his power through her hands, sending a tingling down through his ears to the top of his head. It ran down his scalp to his face, and from there flowed down through the rest of him. His arms wrapped around Joanna as this happened, and he gave in to an urge to start nuzzling her cheek as she continued petting his ears, a soft, low vulpine churring coming from his throat.

The old fox could feel the tingling progressing into a gentle pressure all across his body. One of Joanna's hands moved from his ears to his hair, brushing through it as it started growing longer and longer. In the front it brushed across the fox-girl's hair with the motion of his nuzzling, and in the back he could soon feel its weight on his shoulders. At the same time, he could feel that pressure starting to shrink his form. His frame softened, his shoulders narrowing and his waist, arms and legs all slimming down; his clothes fell steadily looser around him as it happened. Joanna's weight had been entirely in his arms at first, but he felt it leave him as his height diminished. First her toes, then the balls of her feet, and finally her heels landed on the ground—leaving him just as short as her.

"Mmh—mrr~rrh...!" Vezin's cheek rubbing against Joanna's felt softer and smoother than before. His churring voice rose in pitch, starting to sound decidedly less masculine. He could feel through his clothes the slight weight of hair as far down as the small of his back. "Mnnh—aa~aah..!" And now..a tingling, slipping sensation began to hit him between the legs. It wasn't hard to guess what she was doing to him by now, but he was also..enjoying it to a rather unexpected degree. Joanna nuzzled him back, her tail curling itself around his, and kept on petting his ears, as he felt the thing between his legs steadily shrink smaller and smaller, his form slimming the rest of the way down to a slender, effeminate shape. The resulting looseness of his clothes didn't last, however, as the suit he had on began to pull closer and tighter around his small frame, reshaping itself to fit what he was turning into...

"Mrrh, nn~nngh..!" A dark, sultry alto tone emerged from Vezin's throat as he felt the change down below progressing into one final, sharp tug down there. "Mrr~rffh..! Oo~OOO~OOh...!" Finally, the gray-haired Kitsune's sex changed, and immediately she was hit with a burst of wonderful, fuzzy feelings down there, at the same time as her pants and undergarments pulled snug and flat right between her legs. "Mmr~rrfh..!" Her hips pressed themselves outward, her thighs and bottom growing plump—all of which pushed against the suit bottom, making it grow just enough to fit them while staying tight. Then her chest erupted in a burst of tingles, just as something tickled the base of her tail and made her let out a high "Y-yip!" That something turned out to be her hair, the bright gray locks now falling far enough down for their tips to touch her there.

But she was, of course, much more occupied by what immediately followed that tingling, as her chest immediately sprang to life. "M-mrr~rnnh..!" A bump rose up from under each nipple, pressing her shirt, vest and jacket all out at once as they quickly grew larger and larger. "O-oo~ooh..!" The way Joanna was holding onto her made the growing breasts press directly into hers, a very strange yet pleasant sensation all its own. "Aah, aa~aah...m-mmr~rrrnnh..!" The feeling of her breasts blossoming out larger and larger treated the newly-female fox to still more fuzzy, pleasant feelings down between her legs, and she helplessly squirmed in the other girl's arms, alternating between human and vulpine noises to express these intense feelings. But before she knew it, her breasts were giving one final, hard push, drawing a helpless high, breathy "Aa~aah...!" from her lips as her girlish pleasure finally, satisfyingly resolved...and then, at last, the change was finished.

"Mm-mrr~rrnnnh...!" Vezin helplessly nuzzled the blond vixen for a moment longer.

"H-heheh..!" Joanna giggled, rubbing the other girl's ears in return, before finally letting go and pulling herself back enough to get a good look at her. "My goodness, you look good in that!" she announced—not clarifying whether she meant Vezin's curvy new female form, or how it looked wearing a tight, female-tailored suit.

"I-I'm glad you think so...this was, quite a surprise," Vezin said slowly, trying to get used to hearing a deep alto tone ring out from her own lips.

Joanna had done a little more than just shift her form; while the tail she'd had out before was just as present as ever, the other eight were now partially sealed, able to reapppear only with the other fox's permission. The power from them was still present, of course, but it still made her feel a little more vulnerable. Joanna..probably had in mind for them to 'match' available tails, a next-best thing to them having close to the same actual number.

"N-not that I'm..complaining, but...what ever gave you the idea to do this?"

"Well, I just changed from male to female, and somewhat enjoyed it," Joanna said. "And—I'm a 'new person' after all, and you must have changed some in the years since we last knew each other. I thought it might be nice to get to know each other anew on this adventure...and perhaps it'd be nice to give you something unfamiliar to enjoy it with?"

"Unfamiliar..yes, I've certainly never tried this before," she admitted. "Did you have in mind..being the 'husband'?"
"Mmh, perhaps later. For now, I rather like it like this," Joanna said, coming near again and pulling her into another tight hug. "Don't you~?" she asked teasingly, a teasing, blushing grin on her face—which was not two inches away from the other girl's.

"Er...yes..."
"Heheh..you're exceedingly cute, looking so nervous," she said, rubbing one of Vezin's ears again.

"M-mrr~rrh.." This time, she couldn't help returning the favor, even as her head slid forward to start nuzzling Joanna's cheek again.

"Aa~ah..oh, that's nice too! Mrr~rh..."

They stayed like that for a minute or two, wordlessly enjoying each other's affection, before Joanna finally let go of her ears, using that hand to stroke down through her long hair instead. Vezin slid her hand down to hold the other girl in her arms, feeling her chin lean against a shoulder. "I'm thinking..maybe a new name would fit you, too. How about Ziva?"

"I could..get used to it," she said.

"That settles that, then! Maybe we can set out tomorrow. For now..would you like to lie down for a bit?"
"Y-yes...my legs are, feeling a little weak..."
"Heheh~! I don't know if I could stand without leaning on you right now, either! Come along, then...!"

Joanna gently guided Ziva over to one of the couches and down onto it, landing on top of the gray-haired vixen. Immediately they were back to petting and nuzzling, their tails winding around each other. This was...very different from how things had been before. But Joanna clearly liked it this way, and Ziva was quite happy too...if anything, happier than ever before!

---

Ziva's image was generated, of course. I just couldn't find anything drawn that quite matched what I wanted for her, which contributed a lot to my writer's block for even part 1 of this story.

Lyra's a pretty important character in my "multiversal setting", but tends to be off in the background of most stories; she kind of prefers it that way. She's been mentioned before here and there as "the pink witch", and just about anytime in a caption/story that someone shows up with bright pink hair and is never named, it's probably her. I thought it'd be fun to have a small story that properly semi-introduced her.

Release - Part 1

What appeared to be a young woman wearing a long, dark-blue dress and a somewhat wide-brimmed, conical hat in the same shade, with distinctive bright, bubble-gum-pink hair trailing down to where her knees probably were under that dress's skirt, walked what most would think to be a meandering, lost path through the midst of some particular woods. Eventually she arrived at something which didn't really belong—and, indeed, which most people who entered those woods would never encounter: A grand mansion, with architecture dating from at least a century prior to the present day. She came to the front doors and used their ornate, fox-themed knocker, waiting patiently for the mansion's owner.

Before long, one of the gigantic front doors opened, swinging inward to reveal a tall, light-gray-haired man, sharply dressed, with the telltale ears and tail of a fox. This was a Kitsune, and while he only had one tail visible at the moment, this was one of the older and most powerful of their kind, possessing nine tails and a great deal of experience and wisdom. He smiled to his visitor. "You came after all!"
"Mmhm, I found a little bit of spare time," she said. "You know, I don't usually take requests, but the Deal you offered is still attractive. Just be forewarned that I don't take too kindly to being tricked." She kept a pleasant smile on the entire time.
"Oh no, my intentions with you are entirely honest, miss Lyra," he said. "Please, come in, and allow me to explain what has made this old fox so desperate as to make offers." He gestured politely inside.
"Sure." She followed him into an antechamber, and from there through several hallways and rooms; the mansion was a maze full of furniture, appliances, and decorations characteristic of many different eras placed not quite where they would entirely clash, but enough to give it all a distinctly surreal, timeless feel.

"I wanted your help in particular, first and most obviously because I know that you are exceedingly powerful, far more than your better-known actions would suggest," the old fox said as he guided her. "Obviously, if I or someone with equal power to me could resolve this, it would already be done. And secondly, I know that you dabble sometimes in souls, and in unsealing things."

Eventually, they arrived in a mid-sized room, empty apart from just one thing prominently on display in its center: Seemingly a statue made of bright blue crystal depicting, in detail, a badly injured Kitsune woman in a state of obvious distress. Without even looking at the statue, one had the strange, unsettling impression that someone was screaming in pain nearby.

"This is the woman I love," he said as an initial explanation for this sight.

"Uh...huh." Lyra took a few steps toward the statue. "Yep, there's...definitely a soul in there," she nodded. "And this is, awfully complicated-looking—no run-of-the-mill petrification, that's for sure."

"Those fools a few decades back—you know, in the war—used very poorly understood celestial magic to do this to her. I believe that they were unsure whether they wanted to try to seal or kill her, and this confused, tangled state is the result."

The witch nodded. "I could brute-force this crystal back into flesh, but it looks like she'd just die then. I assume you don't want that."

"Not, except as a last resort," he said. "But if nothing else will work, I am willing to accept that. Better she be at peace than...this."

Lyra came close enough to reach out a hand and gently touch the statue at chest-level, closing her eyes as though listening in. After a long moment she said, "Hmmh, this is no good. It's not too difficult for me to pull a soul into a different body, so in theory we could just make a simulacrum, but—that's..not gonna do it here. There's...damage, to the soul itself." She opened her eyes again, looking at him and seeing an expression close to despair. "Believe me, I've seen worse—far worse. This is less like a bunch of torn-up rags and more like some frayed edges here and there. I'd guess, from being in this state some sixty years? But on a soul, that's still really bad; it leaves openings for things to really break over time, even after it's in a healthy body."

"Can anything be done?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah, sorry! I didn't mean to worry you quite so much," she said, stepping back away from the statue and turning fully toward the nine-tailed one. "It's just—what I'd need in order to fix this is more complicated than just 'power' or 'stuff'." She sighed. "It requires...a person. And I have conditions if we are going to use a person."

"Name them," he said without hesitation.

---

A dark-haired, middle-aged man in a disheveled suit followed the fox through a door, passing from a hospital hallway into one of the mansion's many lounges, pausing a moment to look around the suddenly opulent surroundings in wonder. "Goodness..."

"This way, please. Across the hall." There was a little bit of eagerness and impatience in his voice; the visitor picked up on this enough to hurry and catch up to him. Lyra was waiting in the room with the statue, standing next to a complicated magic circle freshly chalked onto the floor.

"So.." The visitor shuddered, looking across at the statue and feeling it 'scream'. "That's, your wife? The one I'll be sharing a body with?"
"Ahem.." He turned toward the pink-haired woman when she cleared her throat, and paused again; there was something about her hair, he thought, that made it seem...alive? Like the way it was moving around couldn't quite be accounted for by the movement of the air across it. "So, my name is Lyra. And you?"
"Er..Johann, miss."
"And are you aware of what's going on?"

"Sure." Johann gestured to the fox standing opposite her. "This fellow introduced himself as Vezin, said he could cure my brother and make him rich. Set for life. Sure I didn't believe him at first, but he proved his wealth pretty convincingly already, and then did that first part for free. And..in exchange for him taking care of Harry, I'm supposed to help him revive his wife trapped in crystal by letting her share my body. Is that about the size of it?"

"Hmm, pretty close," Lyra nodded. "To be absolutely clear about this, though—it's not that you're 'sharing a body' with another, separate identity. If we go through with this, you would merge your entire being with hers. You'd still be you, but you'd also be her—one person with all of the memories of both..or at least, yours plus those of hers which have survived the damage. You might find your personality entirely different as a result. And, this is pretty much irreversible."

"Huh, well—that's better than I thought," Johann said. "I thought we might be on some sort of time-share where it'd be hers most of the time, but I could still visit Harry now and again. But from what you're saying....I'd still, care about him, wouldn't I?"
"If you feel that way now, then almost certainly," Lyra said with a nod. "You'd also care just as much as she does about other things. Like him," she said, pointing at Vezin.
"I suppose that's alright."
"This would also make you a Kitsune, since that's what she is."
"That being...a fox-person like Vezin there?" Johann said, gesturing. "Is that why he can do miracles?"
"Sort of. But that level of power takes a long time to build up, and isn't guaranteed anyway."

"Well, that'd only be a bonus in the first place."

Vezin stepped slightly closer to his visitor. "What do you think, then? There is no rush to make a decision now that your brother is no longer on the verge of death. But if you are prepared to make a Deal..."

Johann nodded. "I'll do it." He glanced Lyra's way. "Vezin told me that a 'Deal' is something special to him. He can't go back on his word with that?"
"Kitsune have a very hard time not abiding by a Deal that was willingly made," she said nodding. "But it is important to be clear and explicit on the terms."

He looked back at the old fox. "So..."

"In exchange for your help in reviving my wife, I will take care of your brother Harry, keeping him wealthy and successful throughout my life. And, since you will 'be' her, I will also take as good a care of you as you wish," he said. "Are those terms acceptable?" He was looking Lyra's way with this question, and when she didn't object, extended a hand Johann's way.
Johann shrugged, taking the hand and shaking it. "Agreed."

"Then the Deal is struck. I'll step out of the way," the Kitsune said, taking a small step backwards and then fading entirely from view.

After briefly looking around the room and finding only Lyra and the statue present, he said, "Alright...what do I need to do, then?"
"Just stand in the center of the circle," she said, pointing, "and take deep breaths. I'll handle the rest."

Once he did as instructed, the witch began softly chanting, taking slow steps up to the statue to place her hand on its left arm. Some sort of bright, golden-yellow light slowly trailed out of the statue, winding istelf around her arm; this process terminated with the statue suddenly, loudly shattering and crumbling into a bunch of bluish dust on the ground. Then Lyra raised her hand up toward the ceiling, the light coiled around it arcing up into the air between her and him before darting down into the outer edge of the circle drawn on the floor, filling the chalk making it with the same golden glow, which ran all the way around its perimeter before progressing steadily inward along the lines of the diagram.

When the glow reached the middle, it became almost blinding, and he found his body becoming seemingly weightless and lifting slightly into the air, followed by a feeling like wind blowing upward against his body and clothes. It caught his hair and made it grow longer, the glow settling into it to brighten its shade rapidly into a brilliant blonde. Meanwhile, the glow pushed into his body, presenting as a distinct sensation of warmth spreading inward toward his core.

His ears tingled sharply before stretching out, pulling themselves up taller and wider as fur quickly spread across them, finally settling into the shape of some very large, vulpine ears. The warmth likewise spread out from the base of his spine into a slim tail, growing a foot or so out before tingling sharply as its fur spread out thicker and fluffier, growing steadily longer at the same time until it become a huge puff of bright yellow fur with a white tip.

Alongside these first few changes, Johann felt like he was starting to remember something. It was fuzzy and distant at first, like he'd been caught in a dream for a long time and was only just beginning to wake up, but they began to grow slightly more distinct at this point. In these memories, he had the same blond hair and bright yellow fur—and was, besides being a Kitsune, a woman as well.

Tingling raced across Johann's skin, making him shudder slightly, and was followed immediately by the warmth gently pushing his body inward. "Mmnnh..aa~aah...!" His voice lilted a little higher as he squirmed in place there in midair, feeling his body collapse shorter and smaller around him: His shoulders narrowed, his waist trimmed and flattened, his arms and legs grew shorter and slimmer, and even his face grew smaller, softer, and rounder. "Aah, aa~aah..." Yet, even as strange as this shrinking felt, there was also something familiar, and even right about it.

A bunch of scattered individual memories were starting to put themselves together into his head in the proper order: Growing up a girl in Japan in the late 19^th century, falling for a man and eventually eloping with him, traveling the world, settling down, and growing old with him before learning he was a fox, and regaining her youth by accepting his help in becoming one herself. Not all of it was completely clear, with gaps and fuzzy blurs in several places, but the overall story was clear enough.

Johann's clothes fluttered around him in the 'wind' of the magic changing him, the suit's coat and vest combining into a single garment, tightening around his slimming torso even as its sleeves billowed out wider, the tie undoing itself from his neck to wrap around his waist as a sash instead, the pants slipping off of his hips and splitting apart to reform into some tight, soft leggings. His underwear lost its leggings and pulled increasingly tight around what they did still cover, especially between the legs...

The cloth pulling closer and closer down there made it quite clear that something between his legs was smaller than before, and now it was tingling quite sharply, tugging and slipping itself inward. "Oh~...mn~nngh..!" A high, soft, cute voice came from Johann's lips now, as he felt—perhaps even welcomed—the steady loss of masculinity from his form, all of the shrinking resulting in such a slender, slight appearance that only the bulge between his legs marked him as male. But even that was rapidly getting smaller and smaller, until—with a soft cry of "Aa~aah..!"—it, too, melted away, and he'd turned entirely into a fox-girl.

"Mnngh..aah~nn...!" She squirmed in place a little more as an increasingly familiar fuzzy, pleasant feeling erupted between her legs, joined by the sensation of her hips and bottom puffing themselves out into some proper curves, her upper thighs following suit soon after. "Mr~rrfh..!" She barked happily, feeling the heat of a blush on her cheeks and a grin across her lips as her chest tingled before beginning to push itself out. This felt..almost as nice as being with him, soon after he'd helped her awaken as a fellow fox. Their life together after that moment flashed through her mind, a bit blurrier than what had come before it...but definitely, wonderfully blissful throughout. And..she knew from Johann's memories that something..terrible must have happened to her at the end of all that, but couldn't remember it at all—nor anything else past the night of their wedding anniversary in 1939.

"A~ah..ahh~nnnnNNNNhh...!" Oh, now this felt good! Her chest continued to push itself out, stretching and brushing across the cloth to become a proper bosom, fit for a beauty like herself—and the sensation of all of that brought on some very strong girlish pleasure! "Mnn~nh..rrfh, RRFH~!" She simply enjoyed the ride as her transformation completed, treating her to a perfectly wonderful resolution to all of that excitement just as her breasts pushed out one last time to their full new size, and then let out a high, soft sigh of relief as it ended, slowly opening her eyes as she felt herself starting to float back down toward the floor.

"H-hahah~! That was amazing!" Her top was a sort of kimono-dress, but its skirt-like hem didn't actually reach far enough down to hide her new panties, and the only thing on her legs were a pair of stockings that barely reached past her knees. But—that was fine! It showed off her looks pretty well.

"You're feeling okay?" Lyra said, moving slightly closer to the fox-girl as she landed, gently and gracefully setting her stockinged feet onto the floor.

"I'm not sure I can rightly describe what I'm feeling right now, but it's awfully nice! I guess—'good to be back'? But also—'this is a nice surprise'!"

"I needed to allow the 'new' soul to reshape your body however it saw fit to regain as much of that 'self' as possible," she explained. "Vezin or myself could now reshape you again, if you're uncomfortable with that look."
"No, no—not at all! I mean I hadn't imagined myself as a young woman before, but it certainly beats being an older man. I'd say 'I think I could get used to this', but I feel rather like I already am. So, no trouble with that, then. Could..is there a mirror around near here?" she asked, looking quickly this way and that.

"Here," Lyra said, waving and summoning a full-length mirror next to herself in a brief, blurry shimmer of motion. The fox-girl hurried up to right in front of it to get a good look, leaning in slightly. Johann had been blue-eyed, and..she was pretty sure 'she' had had green eyes...so it sort of made sense for her to have one of each. Getting to see herself full-on like this made her even more certain she approved of this form; it was, after all, even cuter than she'd hoped!

"How are your memories? As 'her', I mean, although you should tell me if you're having difficulty remembering Johann's life as well."
Johann stood up straight again to face the pink-haired woman. "Hmmn...pretty good? There's some holes, and it cuts off I think earlier than it's supposed to. I can't remember at all how I got in that statue, like? Aaaannnnd..." She leaned forward again just slightly, tapping the side of her head a couple of times. "Don't know my old name. It just comes back 'Johann', although I don't feel that fits me too well, either."

Lyra nodded. "That's overall pretty good news. Having one's soul damaged is about as bad as it sounds like it should be. And, while you certainly are both of those people, there's a sense in which you're a new person as well. You should not feel overly bound to whatever obligations either of them had, or at least—don't allow yourself to be weighed down by them. Coming up with a new name may help you feel freer."
She put a finger on her lips. "Joanna, perhaps?" Then, looking around the room: "By the way, where'd Vezin disappear to, exactly? From what I can remember...and how he was acting a couple minutes ago, I'd think he'd be jumping into my arms by now."

"I had conditions for doing this for you," Lyra explained. "Such as making sure you—'Johann'—knew exactly what you were getting into. And allowing the 'new' you as much time as you want, alone, to sort things out. It would be wrong to allow Vezin to impose who he thinks you should be before you're ready to meet him."

Joanna nodded. "That's awfully nice of you, but really...I've got one set of memories that never knew any romance, and a ready-made partner sounds pretty nice to that end—and another that was his wife for over half a century. I don't think there's all that much 'sorting out' to do. Only thing is.." She paused, twisting around slightly to run a hand down along her tail. "I recall having four of these?"

"The Ruler sees you as a 'new Kitsune', so no free tails—you must earn them from scratch," Lyra said.

"Makes sense. But Vezin was up to six back then. Where's he got to now?"
"He is a nine-tailed fox," Lyra said. "He might have fast-tracked the power gain in his desperation to get you out of that state."
"That's sweet, but also...hmmn, a bit disappointing. We were having a fun competition back then, and now the gap's so big?"

The Kitsune paused a moment, getting an idea—perhaps even more than one of them! And her frown turned into a slightly mischievious smile. "Pardon me about all that, miss Lyra. Those are complaints for him, not for you. I've got nothing but gratitude when it comes to you getting me out of that crystal cage, and alive again besides!"
"All I ask is that you make sure he holds up his end of the Deal he made with me," Lyra said.

"Certainly, but anything else—you just ask! Now, I'd really like to see him again, honestly," she said, rubbing her hands together. "Feels like it's been a near century."

"Very well," Lyra nodded.

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To Part 2

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This is a little standalone story with ties to lots of the long-runners, but it should make plenty of sense without having read any of them.