The time has come for Keagan and the newly named living suit 'Kazu' to try linking together again. Kazu is determined to make the merger they experienced before be perfect this time around.

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I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. I find that these sorts of mental mergers and transformations that don't actually result in a person losing themselves are a lot of fun to explore. :D

Some of you might be wondering about the main character's aversion to furries. I am taking some inspiration from some of my past struggles on the subject here (before I became a scaley officially), and I thought it would be an interesting thing to explore in this story.

This chapter is one of the main turning points in this story , and I really would love to hear what people think so far!

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The next few days proved to be an interesting experience for Keagan. The living suit which he had just named ‘Kazu’ became quite talkative once he installed a voice box in it so it could speak unaided. At first Keagan was terrified that his housemate James was somehow going to hear Kazu’s synthesized voice even through his workroom’s soundproofing, but to his relief James seemed completely distracted by a new VR game that he had purchased and didn’t bother them at all.

Most of Keagan and Kazu’s conversations took place while Keagan was hard at work repairing and replacing the suit’s damaged fur. Somehow, he found that talking with his creation as he worked was calming and helped him focus on the cutting and spellcasting he was having to use to do the repairs properly. It helped that most of Kazu’s questions were focused on one of Keagan’s favorite subjects: Kitsune. Kazu seemed to think that it was its duty to learn as much about ‘real kitsune’ as possible because it was modeled after them.

Since Keagan was fascinated by tales of legendary creatures he was more than happy to answer Kazu’s questions. He went into great detail about the different types of kitsune legends from the various Asian nations, and how almost every culture in the world had their own tales about supernatural foxes and fox spirits. Most of their conversations were spent focused on Japanese kitsune however; especially the mischievous ‘field kitsune’ that Kazu was based on.

“Can I do those things?” Kazu murmured after listening to many of the things that Keagan told him, “Can I… control fire, or… possess people, or transform” Though the living suit seemed to be becoming more intelligent by the day, it still seemed to struggle to form its sentences on occasion.

“You certainly can’t create fireballs or change shape,” Keagan replied as he was making the final touches on a new decorative pattern he was creating on Kazu’s fur, “While it scares me to say it, what you did to me the first time I wore you, probably wasn’t very different from possession and I hope you don’t abuse that. I also sincerely hope that you’ll never be able to do some of the other things kitsune were supposedly able to do, like drain the life out of people.”

The kitsune suit’s ears flattened for a moment before it replied, “Are kitsune bad?”

Keagan cringed as he realized he may have been giving Kazu bad impressions about himself, and quickly tried to remedy the situation. “These are just legends about creatures that probably existed back when magicite still naturally existed on the world’s surface. It is hard to say what is true, but there are stories about both good and bad kitsune. For example, many kitsune were protectors or companions to people.”

“I will be one of those,” Kazi said happily, and seemed to puff himself up with pride.

“Glad to hear it,” Keagan replied a bit awkwardly as he made the finishing touches to his work, “Alright, I’m done!”

As Kazu excitedly examined himself to inspect the changes, Keagan looked over his work as well with some measure of pride since he had done more than just replace the damaged fur. The improved markings on the suit gave it the appearance of a supernatural creature, not just a mere fox. It had a few patterns before, but now it had new intricate designs on its chest, back, and thighs. Keagan was especially proud of the glowing designs he had added to the suit’s forehead and chest. The chest sported a glowing diamond shape flanked by black markings, while the forehead had a trident like symbol centered on a smaller diamond shape.

The costume’s two glowing areas were actually letting light from the suit’s power and control crystals shine though, and he hoped that by letting that light escape that it might help the suit stay cool. The overall look actually resembled a fox character that he had created and roleplayed a few years back, and he felt a sense of nostalgia when he realized that he had unconsciously mimicked that character’s design.

However, Keagan’s sense of accomplishment was dampened as he realized that it was almost time to test Kazu’s linking abilities again. He had not worn the suit in the nearly two weeks since it had overloaded, and while he wanted to try it again he couldn’t help but feel anxious. Even though he had seen no signs that Kazu intended to harm him in any way he was quite worried about how much control the suit might have over him when worn.

There was an even bigger issue on Keagan’s mind than that however. Kazu had been meant to just be a piece of clothing with magitek enhancements, but now that it was ‘alive’ Keagan felt like wearing him was wrong somehow. The feeling that trying to continue to use Kazu as a simple costume would be like some form of slavery, was a worry that Keagan simply could not get out of his mind. On top of that, Keagan found himself imagining what other people would think of him if they found out about all this.

Keagan took a deep breath and tried to force these thoughts out of his mind, with only a little bit of success. Ever since he had been a child he had been plagued by these anxiety issues, and he hated how he never seemed to be able to get them to go away. He constantly had to find ways to distract himself to keep them out of his mind, and for a long time his crafting had served exactly that purpose. However, with the creation of Kazu, now even his creations were making him worry. It was like he had no escape now.

“Can you wear me again now?” Kazu suddenly asked, “I’ll do better!”

“Do better?” Keagan replied as used the conversation to distract himself from his thoughts, “What do you mean by that?” He found himself feeling glad that Kazu was actually interested in being worn, since that made him feel better about the whole living costume thing.

“Won’t overload this time,” the kitsune suit excitedly said, “And I’ll link better. Do kitsunetsuki properly this time.”

Keagan’s eyes got wide when he realized that Kazu had just used the term for ‘fox possession’, and he suddenly regretted telling the suit about that specific ability the ‘real’ kitsune had. “Kazu… are you saying you’re going to take control of me?”

“Not control,” Kazu replied with a frown after thinking for a moment, “Synch...ronize with you to help you be kitsune.”

Despite Kazu’s assurances, Keagan still felt a bit worried about the implications of what the suit was planning to do. The best guess that he had been able to come up with for how Kazu worked was that it connected its neural pathways to its wearer’s mind, and the term ‘synchronize’ seemed to support that theory. In a way, connecting to the brain in addition to all the other nerves it already connected to was simply an evolution of the suit’s original design. It was a bit disturbing, but significantly less terrifying than the outright mind control that Keagan had been worried about.

“That’s good. Please don’t try to control me,” Keagan finally said, and then paused for a moment as he tried to put what was on his mind into words, “Ummm, if you promise to not make me do something I don’t want to do while I wear you, then I’ll try to avoid making you do things you don’t want to do. Does that sound good?” Keagan awkwardly held out his hand.

Somehow, Kazu seemed to understand what the gesture meant, and grasped Keagan’s hand with one of his paws. Grasping the furry glove when it didn’t have a hand inside of it was an odd feeling. “I promise!” Kazu said excitedly.

Kazu’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Keagan couldn’t help but smile. “Well, shall we try again? I’ll go put the link suit on.”

After picking up the freshly fabricated neural link suit he had created to replace his damaged one, Keagan brought it to another room to put it on. Wearing spandex-like suits like these still felt a bit odd to him, but unfortunately he had not been able to think of a better way to design the linking system. In theory he could have worked the neural link system directly into Kazu’s internal structure, but that would have made modifying or repairing the living suit significantly more difficult afterwards. After he finished putting the link suit on, he activated it by snapping a small magicite into place and watched as the circuit-like patterns on it began glowing blue with its energy.

Keagan came back to his workroom to find that Kazu was twitching with excitement. “Honestly, I didn’t expect you to be this enthusiastic about being worn Kazu,” Keagan said as he picked the living pile of fur off the table.

“Feels better than empty,” Kazu replied without a second thought, “Makes me feel complete.”

“Complete?” Keagan asked with a bit of concern and curiosity, “Complete how?”
The living suit furrowed its brows as it replied, “Hard to explain.”

“Well, let’s see if you can explain better after I try you on again,” Keagan said as he opened up Kazu’s zipper and slipped a leg inside.

Donning Kazu on himself, now that it was ‘alive’ was a quite different experience from when Keagan had worn the suit last time. Rather than Keagan slipping into the costume, it was more like Kazu was pulling itself onto Keagan. As soon as Keagan got his feet into place, he was surprised when Kazu’s tails suddenly wrapped around his shoulders and then used them as leverage to pull the rest of itself up and fully engulf the human’s legs. Moments afterwards, Kazu had somehow already gotten one of Keagan’s arms into its sleeves and was pulling it into place.

“Whoa, um, Kazu?” Keagan began saying as he was struck by how weird this was. The way Kazu was pulling him inside of itself made it much harder to ignore the fact that he was going to be essentially wearing a living creature in a moment. “You don’t have to…”

“Faster this way!” The suit interrupted enthusiastically. Now that Keagan was part way inside Kazu he could hear the costume’s synthesized voice coming through the zippered opening rather than through the mouth. Using its free ‘arm’, Kazu finished pulling Keagan’s left arm into place, and then it straighten itself out so that Keagan could insert his other arm, “Hurry up!”

Despite his misgivings, Keagan complied and inserted his right arm into Kazu’s remaining sleeve, “Alright, just don’t link up with me right away. We need to take things slowly to make sure I fixed you properly.” After feeling that the suit had fully closed around both arms, he lowered his head to speed up the next step.

Kazu seemed disappointed by Keagan’s request, but didn’t slow down. The suit’s mask lifted up of its own accord, slipped itself over Keagan’s head, and then quickly adjusted itself so that he found himself looking through Kazu’s eyes. Moments later, the suit tightened around his body as it adjusted itself to him. Unexpectedly, Keagan felt one of his arms get pulled backwards towards the suit’s zipper.

“Kazu, I’ll handle the zipper,” Keagan said quickly as he reasserted control of his arm and pulled the zipper closed himself, “Please don’t do that without warning, one of us could get hurt if you try to force me to move.”

“Sorry,” the suit replied, its moving its jaw mechanically even with Keagan wearing the mask. Luckily, this didn’t force Keagan’s jaw to move as well.

“Alright then… let’s start,” Kegan began saying, “First, try just linking your movements up with me. Don’t link your sensations or mind.”

The suit seemed to tighten around Keagan more, briefly restricting his movements, before suddenly softening. Feeling that he was fully in control, Keagan tested his range of motion before walking up to the mirror. It appeared that while Keagan had control of the costume’s movements around his human body, Kazu had full control over the non-human parts such as the tails and ears. “How do you feel Kazu?” Keagan said, finding that Kazu’s mask was now moving in perfect sync with him as he spoke.

“Fine,” Kazu said, this time its voice seemed to echo within the mask without it moving its jaw.

The lack of enthusiasm was quickly noted by Keagan, “You don’t like this?”

“It is good,” the costume replied with more enthusiasm this time, “Much better than being empty.”

After looking at himself in the mirror again and seeing Kazu staring back, Keagan realized that he was still feeling uneasy. He still didn’t fully understand what exactly it was that Kazu did when it fully linked with him. However, since Kazu couldn’t explain exactly what it was going to do they were going to have to learn via experience. After bracing himself for the inevitable disorientation, he decided it was now or never, "Alright Kazu, let’s do it. Just be ready to disconnect if something goes wrong.

Almost as soon as Keagan finished speaking, strange sensations all over his body told him that Kazu had already gotten to work. Almost immediately he was greeted by the sudden sensation that he had one, two, and then three tails extending from the base of his spine. Then, starting from where the tails met his body, the feeling that he was wearing a costume began disappearing and slowly spread outwards in all directions.

For a moment Keagan wondered if this was something like what being transformed might feel like, though ‘merger’ was probably a more correct term in this case. Like before, there was a period of disorientation when the changes reached his head. Keagan’s eyesight and hearing faded away and were slowly replaced with the costume’s own senses. He was pleased that the linkup felt far more controlled and pleasant than the first one, and Keagan theorized that Kazu was doing a better job now that he was becoming smarter.

It took about half a minute for their merger to complete, and once again Keagan felt like his body had been replaced with that of an anthropomorphic kitsune. Even though he had experienced this before, Keagan found himself overwhelmed with how amazing the sensation of being a legendary creature was again. Without really thinking about it, he hugged his tails like he was embracing an old friend again. To his surprise, the tails seemed to suddenly wrap around him as Kazu briefly took control of them and hugged him back.

After untangling himself from their tails, Keagan spent a few moments testing his movements. Unlike last time, his movements felt somewhat awkward. He could walk in a digitigrade manner and could freely control the suit’s tails, but somehow it didn’t all feel as natural as before. After wondering about this for a moment, Keagan realized that while he looked and felt like a Kitsune he wasn’t thinking he was one this time. All he felt was an odd sensation in the back of his mind, a sort of fuzzy feeling that something else was looking through his eyes.

“Kazu...whoa,” Keagan began to say, but was startled by his computerized sounding voice. Apparently his vocal cords had been overridden this time as well. “Uhh, are you there? Can you hear me?”

Yes, I am here, Keagan felt rather than heard a voice say in his mind. This is fun! Do you like it? The sensation of having the suit talk to his mind directly was distinctly different from the emotions he had been able to feel from Kazu before.

“Yes, I like it! But, this is… different from last time,” Keagan began to hesitantly explain, “I remember thinking that I was a kitsune as well.”

Keagan could swear that he felt Kazu thinking things over for a few moments before he finally got the suit’s reply. You need to... help too. Think like kitsune so I can help.

That statement made Keagan flash back to the last time this had happened. He had been trying to imagine what being a kitsune would be like moments before everything suddenly seemed to become real. After closing his eyes, Keagan tried to imagine how he would act if he were one of the creatures of legend. A powerful and free spirit which tread the line between animal and mankind.

Within moments a new wave of disorientation hit him. This time, it was far worse than when his senses had been overridden. Unfamiliar sensations assaulted Keagan’s mind as he felt Kazu connecting to him.

At first he simply seemed to be able to hear Kazu in his head, and Keagan grabbed hold of a table as nausea threatened to overwhelm him as he tried to grapple with having two minds in one body. However, something deep inside Keagan seemed to resonate with Kazu’s mind, and soon some of his thoughts didn’t seem so different from the costume’s thoughts. It was hard to tell how long this went on for, but slowly Keagan and Kazu became less discordant as they merged together.

Eventually the confusion seemed to pass, he looked at himself again in the mirror. It felt totally natural and expected that a kitsune was staring back at him. His tails twitched with elation as he realized that the merger had worked. No, he was sure that the merger had worked even better than last time. He figured that between the improvements he had made to Kazu’s power conduits and the new pathways he had formed for the connection to Keagan, he had been able to form a far more complete link.

For a moment a new bout of confusion overwhelmed him as he realized he remembered doing both Keagan and Kazu’s actions. “Wait… am I Keagan or Kazu?” He asked out loud, finding that he was still using the costume’s synthesized voice. No one answered his question. There was no sign of another voice or another presence in his mind. There was only himself. After thinking on this for a few moments he realized that he already knew the answer: he was both Keagan and Kazu. Somehow, they had perfectly merged their minds together.

The kitsune looked in the mirror and grinned with excitement. With both Keagan and Kazu’s combined knowledge, he understood exactly how this had happened. Ever since the last time Keagan had worn the costume, Kazu had been shaping itself into an idealized version of a kitsune. Now Kazu had combined itself with Keagan and created a gestalt being. Now he was Keagan, but he was also the kitsune that Kazu had turned itself into.

For several minutes the kitsune bounded around the workroom as he thought of various ways to test himself. His agility was excellent, somehow he was able to move and flex in ways that he never had been able to as a human. After that, he tried testing his magical ability, and was overjoyed to find that by tapping into Kazu’s power core and Keagan’s knowledge he could cast some basic spells. Truly kitsune-like magic such as fire or electricity were beyond his capabilities, but at least he could manipulate objects remotely.

After that, the kitsune got down on all fours and tried to indulge in his more feral side. Kitsune were foxes at heart, so he figured he should be able to act like a normal fox. Unfortunately, he quickly found himself disappointed. Walking on all fours in an anthropomorphic form just didn’t feel natural, he didn’t know how a normal fox ‘spoke’, and only had a few basic instincts. The kitsune awkwardly stood up and hoped that he would be able to find some way to address this later on.

“Well, I know that there is one part of this that I can fix right now,” the kitsune said to himself as he listened to his synthesized sounding voice. After spending a few moments focusing, he found that with some effort he could become aware of his components. He could feel both Keagan and the costume surrounding him. However, for now he just wanted to focus on his magitek voicebox. Once he isolated that part, he spent several minutes testing and adjusting how he spoke until he created a more natural sounding voice that suited an anthropomorphic kitsune such as himself. The voice he settled on was soothing and melodic, unlike Keagan’s deeper voice.

“Watashi wa kitsunedesu… amazing!” The kitsune was elated beyond words now that he felt like he had taken another step towards realism. Not only did he feel like a kitsune, sounded like one and could speak perfect Japanese because of the chips installed in the Kazu part of him. It was an illusion of course; he knew that he was just a man linked to a magitek suit that wasn’t even anatomically correct, but he still felt so alive and real!

“I wonder what I should call myself?” The kitsune asked himself as he looked in the mirror again, “Maybe I should just call myself Kazu since it is a more fitting name? No… that would get confusing.” He began mentally going over the names he remembered researching when naming Kazu. There had been one name that sounded similar to Kazu, but ended in ‘ari’. That was a common ending for a kitsune name.

“Kazunari,” he finally said out loud to test the name. It was a combination of words that meant ‘one’ and ‘become’. It was perfect.

Now that he had settled on a name, Kazunari wondered what he should do now. As much fun as it would be, he knew that Keagan would have a nervous breakdown later on if he went galavanting outside in public. It also seemed like it would be best to not stress their body out too much just in case the ‘costume’ part of himself still had any bugs to work out. That meant that he needed to stay inside the house for now despite how boring that was going to be.

Kazunari smiled as he remembered that his housemate James was home, and he began imagining just how much fun messing with that human would be! After quickly leaving the workroom he used his keen sense of hearing to track down James’ movements to the living room, but was surprised to realize that he couldn’t smell the human. He supposed that was because he was still relying on Keagan’s nose within the mask, and he hoped that his human self would do something about that later.

It turned out that James was playing a virtual reality video game in the living room. The human was wearing a visor, and from the way he was moving his hands around it seemed that he was playing a shooter. Kazunari smiled as he realized how perfect this was. The magic enhanced VR games that people played nowadays involved a lot of their user’s senses, so if he was careful he could have a lot of fun with this.

The kitsune carefully walked closer to James before settling on how he was going to mess with the human. After whispering a few words he easily drew a little power from his reserves and focused it into a telekinesis spell. Then, he used the magic to poke and prod James’ body at a opportune moments. The human glanced around in a panic; he clearly thought that some enemy in his game was attacking him, and his confusion was made worse as Kazunari didn’t let up on his trickery.

Eventually, Kazunari couldn’t stop himself from giggling as he continued his antics, and James finally realized what was happening. “Damn it Keagan!” James yelled as he pulled his headset off, “You shouldn’t do that when… oh!” The human’s eyes grew wide with surprise when he saw an anthropomorphic fox standing in front of him.

“Well? How do I look?” Kazunari said as he posed and stretched out his tails, “I just managed to get everything working!” He was careful to say things in the way that he thought Keagan would say them, but didn’t bother to change his voice just to get an extra reaction out of James.

“Like, uncanny valley levels of good,” James replied as he circled around Kazu, “Though, I’m not sure uncanny valley is the right term here. Aside from a few pieces that look a little plastic, you look just like the real thing. How did you change your voice, and how are you controlling those tails so well?”

“Oh… you know,” Kazunari began to explain while barely keeping himself from bursting into laughter, “I added a voice box to the costume. Since the thing links right up with my nerves I’m controlling it as if it were my own body. It really feels like I’m the real thing.”

“You know, I thought you were crazy for making this thing, but I can’t argue with the results,” James said while sounding very impressed, “I like the glows you added too, it gives it a bit of an Iron Man vibe without it being too overt. So, you’re planning to wear that thing to conventions, right?”

“Oh yea, there is an anime convention in two months,” Kazunari’s ears drooped a bit as he spoke. Two months was a long time, and he didn’t want to wait that long to have fun in public. “I have a nice traditional Japanese Kimono to wear and a staff to carry around to make myself look perfect there.”

A mischievous look crossed James’ face as he leaned forward a bit and whispered, “Or, you know you could just go to that furry convention that’s coming up a bit sooner. You’ll fit right in, and you won’t even have to kill yourself by wearing a hot robe over all that fur.”

Before Kazunari could give out a Keagan-appropriate denial, he found himself feeling conflicted. A kitsune would fit right in at a furry convention, and it was a lot sooner than the alternative. After thinking about it for a few moments, he realized that Keagan actually did have some desire to go, but was so worried about being seen with furries that he was afraid to. Kazunari wondered if a push in the right directly would help. “Actually, that might not be such a bad idea,” Kazunari finally said, “Would you want to come too?”

A look of surprise appeared on James’ face, and it took him a moment to stammer a reply, “Wha… no, I’m not interested, but seriously? I thought you wanted to avoid associating with those people. You always go on about how furries are into ‘cartoon animals’ and they don’t make any sense to you.”

Before Kazunari could reply, a wave of disorientation hit him. For a moment, his previously focused thoughts seemed to break apart into two conflicting voices. The kitsune had to quickly place a paw on a nearby wall as vertigo threatened to make him fall over.

Seeing that his costumed friend was in trouble, James dashed forward and grabbed one of Kazunari’s shoulders to help him stand up. “Are you alright?”

After a few seconds Kazunari’s thoughts seemed to steady, though he found that he had something like a headache afterwards. It took a few moments for it to dawn on him that the merger had almost come undone for some reason. “I am fine,” the kitsune lied, “I just need to fine tune some things. I am going to go back to my workroom and… take this costume off.”

“Alright,” James replied with a tone of concern before switching to his usual sarcasm, “Well, don’t fry your brain and die or something.”

As the kitsune made his way back to the workroom, he idly wondered if splitting himself back into Keagan and Kazu would be like a sort of temporary death for him. Unfortunately, it seemed that he didn’t have a choice in the matter if the merger was unstable. Besides that, it wasn’t like either the suit or human that made him up could live like this for very long; Keagan needed to eat and use the bathroom, while the suit needed fresh power cores on occasion. He also supposed that it wasn’t fair to take over their lives for too long.

Once the workroom’s door was closed behind him, Kazunari steadied his nerves and began searching for something underneath the fur on his back. Eventually he found the tab for the costume’s zipper near the base of his tail. Even though he knew that he was really just a human wearing a magitek suit, the cold metal of the zipper’s tab felt foreign and unwelcome. It was a reminder that he was a fake, and somehow it made the headache he was feeling get worse.

Kazunari shook his head and drove these thoughts from his mind. Worrying was not befitting of a kitsune, and he would not allow his parting thoughts to be focused on such things. “Alright you two,” he said out loud in hopes that it would make it more likely that Keagan and Kazu would listen, “This was short, but It was fun while it lasted. Please don’t keep me waiting too long.” Then he pulled the zipper open in a single swift motion as he simultaneously ended the link.

There was only a moment of disorientation before Keagan found that he was himself again. Using his still gloved hands, he pulled his head free of the kitsune mask in a near panic. “Holy shit…”

“Don’t be so rough!” Kazu quickly complained, speaking with the voice that they had just been using as Kazunari.

“Kazu, what was that?” Keagan asked as he used his still gloved hands to turn the suit’s mask towards himself so they could talk face to face, “Wait, nevermind. We already figured that out when we were… merged. You added our minds together, and Kazunari was the result.”

Somehow, Keagan intuitively knew that the suit hadn’t simply hijacked his body. While they had been Kazunari, he distinctly remembered still feeling like ‘himself’. Something about that feeling made Keagan wonder if there had been something more complicated than a simple merger at work.

“I hoped it would work better,” Kazu grumbled, “It only lasted ten minutes before we started splitting.” Somehow, the suit seemed to be speaking much more clearly and more confidently than before. It seemed that Kazu had somehow grown significantly while they were linked.

“Splitting,” Keagan repeated, still finding the fact that all that had even happened quite surreal, “As weird as that was… thanks Kazu. That was a wonderful experience.”

The suit’s tails wagged happily as it replied, “I liked it too! It was like I was a real kitsune. Can we do it again at that convention we talked about?”

Keagan’s chest seemed to seize up for a moment at the mention of the convention. “There is no way we are going to a furry convention,” he said firmly, “The other ones are fine, but furries? No way.”

A perplexed look spread across Kazu’s face. “You’ll have to help me understand,” the suit replied while looking a bit sad, “But I really would like to go...”