(Raina POV)
In my newfound excitement, I pulled out a crystal from my storage neckless before remembering something I had forgotten about.
I did not know if the girl had figured it out or had been told, but she was not the only reincarnator in this world. And recognizing this for what it was, I sent up a quick prayer to Stephanie, the goddess in charge of reincarnation who allowed me to come here, to see if adopting this girl would be fine.
"Goddess Stephanie, I am calling on your name to see if you were the one who brought the reincarnator before me to this world. I am sorry for not telling you of her name, as I forgot to ask due to her cuteness and wanting to be the first to ask for her adoption."
Saying this prayer in my mind while I closed my eyes to block out any outside distraction, even if it was useless as I could see everything thanks to my domain, I felt the connection to the goddess, which felt oddly devoid of power, light up with divine energy.
It was then that the frantic and skeptical voice of the goddess Stephanie echoed through my mind, asking, "Raina, is that you? How are you speaking to me? Don't tell me this is one of those waking nightmares again. I thought that I dealt with those two thousand years ago."
The goddess sounded confused at first before saying things that started to confuse me. I mean, why would I be the subject of a waking nightmare for the goddess? Also, what was this talk about two thousand years ago when I only just talked to her last month?
Trying to maintain my calm I tried to treasure her while asking, "Of course, it is me who is talking to you, and why would you think that I am some sort of waking nightmare?"
The goddess did not seem to hear my words as she kept going on without stopping. "Well, that is the first time you have responded like that in a long time. It is almost like you're the real thing. But the only way that could happen is if the mainframe was used, and the only ones who could use it were new gods that were fulfilling their first tasks... Oh no, she didn't; I mean, we told her not to, so there is no way she would have... Right?"
At the end of her musings, she seemed to grow slightly worried about something I had no clue about, so I made sure she knew I was still there by asking, "Hello... Earth to Stephanie... You alright up there?"
This seemed to snap her out of whatever thought process she had receded into, and she responded by asking, "Oh, yes, what is it you were asking about?"
Restating my question again, this time with a little concern, I asked, "I was asking if you were the one who reincarnated this cute little kitsune girl in front of me?"
She suddenly seemed quite interested in what I was talking about as I felt more of her power start flowing through the link before she said, "Oh... I don't know who it is if you don't describe her."
Since that was the case and I had already anticipated doing that, I was able to start describing the kitsune instantly. Saying, "I would say that she is about a sixteen to eighteen-year-old girl that stands at around six feet tall with blood red hair, fur, ears, and eyes on top of a-"
"CR*P!"
Stephanie's shout interrupted what I was saying and startled me a lot, as the goddess rarely curses unless she is drunk.
Then I heard a weird tearing sound followed by Stephanie shouting and a girl I did not know screaming in surprise, "ELINARIA! What the h**l were you thinking! I thought we told you not to touch that part of reality unless you were given permission and someone was watching you the entire time! So why did you go and touch it!"
I then heard the voice of a woman I could only assume was Elinaria ask back, "Stephanie, why did you start shouting at me all of a sudden?"
This did not seem to calm Stephanie as she started shouting once more, "All of a sudden? All of a sudden?! Did you really think that we wouldn't find out that you tou-"
It was then that Stephanie was interrupted by the voice of a man that I could not place explaining, "That's enough, Stephanie. You're starting to scare the girl. All you need to know is that I was the one who gave her permission and supervised her. While I was at it, I chose to fix a few things and rewrote the timeline slightly so things would be a little different. Now, here is a packet of information about all the changes I made.
"Oh, and it's fine for your little eavesdropper to hear this as you did plan for her to join us up here, so she would inevitably learn about this anyways."
While all this was going on, I was completely stunned at what I was hearing and even a little frightened when I heard what the unknown person said, as I was not even doing this intentionally.
Stephanie did not seem that shocked though, and only needed to take a deep breath before asking, "Oh, and one more thing. The champion that I have put on that planet is asking if she can adopt your champion that you just sent there recently?"
Elinaria was clearly surprised by this before she started to vehemently deny my request, saying, "What!? No, she is mine!"
Stephanie seemed to anticipate this and started to say something before changing it into a question for me, asking, "Alright, that should be f-Wait, Raina. Did you touch between her ears?"
This confused me as it should not matter that much, but I answered truthfully regardless and may have even given slightly too much when I said, "Yeah, what about it? She was just so cute with that confused expression on her face that I just had to rub her head!"
The immediate response I got to that was from Elinaria, but it did not explain much as all she said was, "Well, it doesn't matter because I already did that."
Normally, I would have asked for clarification after that, but before I could, I heard both the unknown man and Stephanie say at the same time, "Oh, S**t."
That did not seem very good, and I even expressed that by saying, "Why do I feel like I am not going to like what comes next."
Elinaria even agreed with me, saying, "Same here."
Stephanie then took on that same sweet, calming tone that I knew all too well and was hoping not to hear her use in this conversation as she explained, "It looks like I am going to have to teach you two a bit more about Kitsunes.
"Long story short, unlike what you have both probably been told, a Kitsune can imprint twice. It is just that the parents will usually leave one open, as a Kitsune will almost always imprint on their mother first. The way for a Kitsune to be imprinted on someone as a parent is for a person to touch them between their ears, which is also the main reason why you do not touch a Kitsune ears without permission unless you are their parent as when they are old enough they can resist the imprinting process as long as they know of it."
Elinaria must have been thinking and feeling the same thing that I was and started to say, "So what you're saying is-
She did not finish her words, but she did not need to as I finished them for her, saying, "We are both her parents."
The, what I was assuming, old man took this opportunity to tease the both of us by saying, "Would you look at that they are already finishing each other's sentences?"
This prompted both Elinaria and me to shout at the same time, "We are not!"
Stephanie did not want to be left out, though, as she pointed out, "And they're already in sync too."
The unknown man had thankfully chosen this time to stop all of this while preventing both me and Elinaria from retaliating by saying, "Alright, that is enough. Little Eli needs to go back to her schooling, and you need to get back to what you were doing."
Once he said that, I heard that strange tearing sound again before Stephanie congratulated me, shouting, "Well, there you have it. You have now successfully adopted a cute little Kitsune, and I now have a cute little granddaughter (Finally)!"
Stephanie's excitement was infectious, and I would have gotten caught up in it if it had not been for the last few words that she said, which caused me to ask, "Wait, what do you mean, granddaughter?"
Stephanie almost immediately backpedaled and quickly changed her wording, saying, "I meant grand disciple or something like that. Yep. Nothing to see here."
If this was not a mental conversation, I would have squinted my eyes at her, but as it was, I simply settled to make it known in my voice as I asked, "Alright, ignoring you being suspicious again. Are you going to tell me what you were shouting about?"
Stephanie did not respond to that for a few minutes, but when she did start talking, I noticed a distinct waver in her voice as she started explaining, "Well, you see, the entire region of reality where you are in had to be erased because of something that happened over there, so you and all of Astérion got erased with it before any of us could do anything.
"In fact, it even happened while I had an open link with you.
"The experience of having something that was there, just not be anymore. The feeling of the mind you are connected to, the person themselves just ceasing to be. It leaves a mark on a person's soul... That happened a few millennia ago, so you can imagine my shock at hearing a voice that was part of my waking nightmares for a millennia ring out in my head once more, only to find that it is the real thing this time.
"Just please don't die on me this time, Raina. You have to promise me."
When my wanting to adopt the little kitsune was brought up, it was interesting, to say the least. From at first being told that I could not adopt her to being told that I already did accidentally. Then, having Stephanie and another unknown god tease both another poor young goddess and me by insinuating that we were already married because of this, with all the embarrassment and, though I would like to deny it, funniness to it, what I was faced with now hurt me to my core.
The goddess who was supposed to be strong and powerful was now broken and hurting, asking for something she knew I could not give her. For, unlike some would want to say, neither she nor I controlled fate and what it would throw at us.
I did not want to promise anything I could not keep after the last time I did that, so I tried to compromise by promising, "I promise I won't do anything reckless and get myself killed."
Stephanie did not take it, though, and shouted back almost hysterically, "That is not what I am asking, Raina! Promise me you won't die again!"
Hearing her words filled with desperation this time, a kind of desperation that I knew all too well, so I did as I was asked as I could not stand hearing her this broken. "I promise that I won't die again."
With the promise made, I felt the power receding as I heard a faint whispered thank you from Stephanie before the connection cut entirely, leaving a feeling of pain in my heart.
I put a hand to my chest where the pain was coming from as I looked up at the kitsune to see that she just finished her work.
Elinaria had claimed the girl as her daughter, and I wondered if that was what Stephanie had done with me. If she did, then I can see why Stephanie reacted that way as I know the reaction of a mother when she sees her child now lost forever to them.
Though I don't have that level of connection with the little kitsune now, I probably would in the future, and I hope I never have to feel that same feeling again.