The Kitsune clan of Inazuma never had a strong population in Inazuma. Not only due to the inherent difficulty for supernatural races to conceive but our clan due to its almost entirely matriarchical line that would only birth daughters ninety percent of the time, eventually had to rely on bringing new blood into the clan in order to strengthen the clan.
Then there was the fact that the Kitsune clan was basically, forcibly entrusted with the damn near thankless task of keeping the Ley lines in control, and with the upheaval from the Archon War and then the calamity of Khaenri'ah, to say the Ley lines were in constant upheaval was an understatement.
Every single soul in this world whether it its human, dragon, god, or even as something banal as a fish would have its soul taken into the Ley lines after death to be scrubbed clean of its memories and karma from the mortal world.
But the wholesale slaughter of all life during the Archon War congested the Leylines so deeply that even two thousand and half years later the world had only managed to recycle a quarter of the human and animal souls. The Leylines hadn't even gotten to the denser souls of Yokai and Gods that had lived for centuries and Millenium that had settled down into the deep dark recess of the underworld that were then corrupted by simply sitting in eternal darkness.
And then the calamity of Khaenri'ah brought about another massive wave of lesser souls that pushed those denser more powerful souls deeper and now those souls had mutated into the monsters we see damn near everywhere in Teyvat that keeps the vast majority of people living within well-protected cities.
Inazuma on the other hand had the Kitsune tribe and to an extent, the Mikos of the land could also help in purging the negative Karma that would build up in the Leylines but with only Kitsunes having any combat strength along with the training that took years to operate the Leylines we were severely overworked to put lightly, with how the fall of Khaenri'ah only happening a few years ago.
It got so bad that I who was just reborn from earth into the land of Teyvat was hidden away. Away from the reach of the Shogun and the rest of the members of the clan as the few remaining leaders just after the calamity of Khaenri'ah saw the instability apparent in the great Shogun, which seemingly kept growing with the loss of her sister and seeing our clan members dropping like flies as they were fruitlessly slaughtered by the monstrous beings that escaped the Leylines whether we did anything or not, was why I was hidden.
I was a male kitsune with nine fluffy tails that matched my white hair with red ends, I was in their words a never-before-seen prodigy that devoured their accumulated knowledge as I abused my malleable child mind with the drive and determination of an adult knowing that this world wanted to kill me.
I was the seed of hope that our race could survive...
I was only eight years old and living in a small cottage south of Mount Yougou when my caretaker. an old trusted Miko who knew of my circumstances would come every couple weeks with a carriage of supplies powerwalked her old infirm body up my cottage's path and threw open my door with a loud bang!
My caretaker Yuki was an old Miko who devoted her whole life in the pursuit of the arts to calm the raging darkness and did so phenomenally but once she got too old to be a shrine maiden, she was given the task of taking care of me and she did at first as just a duty but then she fell to love me as the son she never had with her prior responsibilities.
And I came to love her as my own mother figure.
"Kurama you must flee! The Leylines broke into the surface and the whole of Mount Yougou is lost!" She cried out helping me franticly pack some of my meager belongings but as we left my cottage, I heard a howling scream reach us.
I looked up towards Mount Yougou and the whole mountain was shrouded in a darkness that couldn't be seen through even as massive slashes of lightning attempted fruitlessly to slash apart the mist from the Electro Archons palace.
Even as the distant screams of monsters drew close, I couldn't help but remember one of the first lessons my teachers gave me as I disdained their arts and only wanted to get a Vision to go on an adventure.
My mind conjured up the memory of the grizzled old kitsune who was blinded and missing both an arm and leg from the Archon War and her very first lesson was thus. "Kurama remember the planet's lifeblood, the Leylines are the strongest force on Teyvat. Celestia only holds the world in its palms as it controls the vast majority of the world's Leylines... Thats why even if all the gods before the Archon War joined forces to declare war on Celestia, they still would have lost for Celestia could and did simply rapidly age the once immortals to dust using the infinite power of the world."
I was somehow learned the secret of controlling Erosion from that scary lady. I could control the very fabric of time and in doing so, especially so easily my teacher placed a seal upon me that could lock me just out of this dimension and outside the reach of time so I could simply wait for another catastrophe as she believed Khaenri'ah was just the beginning in the world's destruction at the hands of Celestia.
"Go Kurama flee!" My caretaker cried out as out of the shadows of the dark forest we were running through towards the actual city of Inazuma came a large pack of Rift Wolfs.
Even as I threw hauntingly grey streaks of light at the howling wolves that were chasing us. Turning them into dust along with their surroundings there were simply too many and I could tell the old form of my caretaker was at its limit.
"No Yuki don't leave me alone again!" I sniffled being tired from all the running and the realization that were weren't going to survive this as there were simply too damn many of these Rift Hounds coming out from nowhere as the Leylines had shattered spilling its evils everywhere.
I never knew my real mother in this life as she had died giving birth to me and then days later the leaders of the clan announced my own death having spirited me away. But Yuki for all that she was a stickler for tradition and discipline dutifully loved me as her own son and I didn't want her to die being torn apart by evil apparitions.
"All of you die!" I screamed with my boyish childish voice cracking as I coughed out blood from my cry and with loud buzzing noise rang out as from my form that was hugging Yuki a large dome of grey glowing mist blew outwards turning everything whether it was the apparitions, the broken-down trees and even the soil on the ground, was instantly evaporated as my Erosion aged everything it touched by more than a thousand years instantly and only the hardier bedrock remained if pitted by the enhanced aging it went through as I collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.
"Haaa... You poor child. Allow this old lady to go first." Yuki smiled and then she rummaged under my shirt as she pulled out the amulet, I constantly wore that bore the seal my teacher made for me. But I could only twitch in my exhaustion as Yuki visibly aged a couple of decades as a weak grey light poured from her body and into the amulet that she let fall against my chest in her drained to a husk state.
"Goodbye, my son." She dryly whispered as she smiled gently at me with love in her eyes a wave of grey smoke completely shrouded me, pulling my exhausted form into a stupor. The last thing I saw was her collapsing onto the ground as a wave of Rift Hounds charged her downed form but just before they arrived to tear my mother figure apart lightning smote the area destroying a large portion of the Rift Hounds and sending them fleeing for cover.
Then all I knew was the comforting dull feeling of nonexistence as I fell into a dreamless stupor not fully asleep yet nowhere near consciousness.
-
An indeterminate amount of time later I could feel my consciousness strengthening as the weak power of Erosion used her very life to accomplish began running out of strength.
For a while, as I was locked in my seal, I couldn't help but hate the Shogun and the rest of the Yokai of the land for not helping to save Yuki but eventually, I let go of that hatred as even my childish mind managed to realize that it was likely the Shogun was doing everything in her power to dispel the results of the Leylines exploding.
Finally feeling the seal losing its power and the boundaries of locked time loosening I condensed my own power of Erosion into large claws but before I could begin to literally claw my way back into Teyvat's natural timeline I was violently jerked out of my grey land of peace by hand made out of lightning coated Sakura blossoms probably several years in advance from how long the seal was supposed to last.
I was then pulled into what looked to be a weird space with cloudy dark skies just above myself as I lay upon a hard surface but then I heard a woman speak tiredly. "
"Along with that Sakura Tree. I want you to take this boy that I have been watching for a couple of centuries and heal his broken heart... Ei you need to retain your humanity lest you become naught but a rock which will still be weathered by Eternity." I looked over to the voice and saw it was a large glowing orb of condensed lightning that was seemingly fading into more of the Sakura blossoms that preemptively took me out of my seal.
Seeing the Raiden Shogun, leader of Inazuma, and the figure that I then recognized as Lumine the protagonist of the game along with the visibly confused form of Paimon, I realized Makota who was doing her time shenanigans to put that shrine and the Sacred Sakura Tree atop Mount Yougou took me out of my seal preemptively.
"Excuse me... I am not some gift to hand out." I said dully as I stood up with my nine tails flaring out from behind me much to Paimon's exclaim and the other two girl's eyes lit up at my adorable appearance.
I knew that I was never going to be a muscular dude, but my criminally adorable looks resulted in me literally wearing a hoodie not even to hide my Kitsune features but every time I went into one of the neighboring villages to make sure I didn't go crazy being left alone in my cottage I would arrive back home with my cheeks bruised a dark red from all the mothers and grandmothers attempting to pinch a chunk of my flesh to take home.
"If you pinch my cheeks, I will swear a dire and eternal vengeance upon you!" I said as the Raiden Shogun advanced upon me as the world was engulfed in stars and before I could reactivate my seal to avoid the Electro Archon, she softly grabbed my head and with an audible thump my face was buried into her chest as we were pulled back into Teyvat.