As it turned out, the room she had been taken to was on the first floor of the bigger building in the outer courtyard of Onyu's castle, so it took them only a few minutes to cross the courtyard and over into the workshop, where Sumi was hard at work, raining blows on a piece of steel. This time even Takeko had the common sense to not interrupt the smith as he was striking the steel as if it was his most hated enemy.
"Ah hello again Sumi." Laura greeted him after he had placed the piece of metal in the forge again.
"Glad you are awake again." Sumi replied, concern and empathy filling his voice, which formed a stark contrast with the angry expression on his face. "I hope you don't hold Onyu's actions against all of us, and if I may say so, you do make a very stunning Kitsune. Not that you weren't good looking before mind you."
"I'm trying my best not to." the orange haired spirit admitted, a pair of tails wagging happily at the compliments. "And thank you, I guess. Not quite sure how to feel about getting complimented about my looks just now."
"I am a bit surprised you came to me to be honest." Sumi offered after he checked the color of the metal, "I was fully expecting that the guards would need to stop you from barging in on Onyu demanding answers."
"She wanted to avoid facing Onyu so soon." Takeko commented, sitting against a free bit of wall.
"Well that, and I wouldn't have gotten far, I have yet to learn how to move my ears and tails like I want, let alone fight guards." Laura offered, as she leaned against a wall, before letting out a quick shout of pain as she changed her position. The source of her pain became rather obvious as she tucked one of her tails to wrap it around her, petting the part she had probably bent against the wall.
"Careful there, you don't want to actually hurt your tails." Sumi said while drenching a piece of cloth in water he had standing a bit away from the forge. Placing the wet cloth carefully on where Laura seemed to have pinched her tail to try and dull the pain with the chill water. "But why did you come to me? I am just a smith after all, and not well versed in whatever magic Onyu used on you."
"Thanks." Laura said as she took hold the wet cloth. "As for why we came to you, Takeko said you were arguing with Onyu after I passed out, and I wanted to ask what was said back there."
"I mostly demanded answers about why she did this, as well as how." Sumi began to explain as he made some room on the tables around his workshop for everyone to sit down. "The seal Onyu has been maintaining for eons is supposed not only to keep our and the human world seperated, but also from our magic affecting humans."
"Well that's not working right, obviously." Laura retorted, waving a hand towards her tails, most of which were twitching angrily from side to side, knocking over some of the tools lying on the table.
"As it turns out, it's not actually humans it's protecting, but the people of Japan, meaning as a foreigner you were not protected." Sumi says with a shake of his head. "Of course Onyu would try her best to abuse this loophole."
"And then why did she go to all this length to turn me into this?" the Kitsune asked, her tails even more agitated than before.
"Well she claimed that the seal's powers have been weakening for the last 4 decades due to Yo-tsu, a bandit and warmonger, and his minions. As she deemed no one but herself strong enough to confront him, Onyu decided to turn a Human into a spirit powerful enough to do so as she claimed that to be easier than empowering one of us."
"So she assumed whatever human was dragged here would just nod and be her little soldier?" Laura shouted, licks of blue flames playing over the tips of her tails. "Well not with me." She continued, taking her jacket and hoodie out of her backpack. "Is there anyone who can help me get home except for Onyu? If not I'll just have to ask this Yo-tsu for help getting back home." As she finished her rant, Laura put on her hoodie and tried to hide her ears by pulling up the hood, with some slight measure of success.
"I don't think you want to work with Yo-tsu. From what I learned he was the one that pushed Onyu and an Old human monk to create the seal in the first place. But Inuka might be able to help." Sumi offered as he carefully moved anything flammable away from Laura, while Takeko jumped onto the table the Kitsune sat on, careful to avoid the swings of her tails. "If the seal has been weakening indeed that is. Takeko probably knows better where to find her than me"
"That's good enough for me." Laura said as she stood up and picked up Takeko carefully who had just nodded to confirm the smith's statement.
"Where to?" she asked as she put the small spirit on her shoulder and marched out of the forge and towards the gate leading out of Onyu's castle, flames slowly dying on the flicking tails.
"Well she normally prowls the same area of the mountains where the path you followed was in the human world." Takeko explained as he carefully held onto her shoulder, careful to neither harm her, nor slip off. Making her way through the spirit town, which extended a decent bit onto the mountain side below and above the plateau, Laura took note of the many different spirits she crossed paths with, most just letting her pass, others looking at her hoodie and jacket with curiosity. The former human meanwhile took great interest in all the old fashioned buildings she passed by. Soon they had reached the edge of Kami-Mura and made their way into the, seemingly much darker and sinister, forest covering the mountain side.