History

Ishiko, then Kokin was born over five centuries ago and enjoyed a normal life for a good while. Her family consisted of kitsune who preferred to spend most of their time in fox form. They left the nearby village alone, and in turn the village left them alone. However the village was ravaged one day by a powerful nogitsune, hunters and holy men set out in revenge killing any fox they encountered. Not taking the time to tell nogitsune from kitsune or even normal foxes for that matter. One by one Kokin's family was killed. She attempted to seek refuge in an Inari shrine, and even set up an illusion of a pit before her to deter would be hunters. Her ruse worked... for the hunters. Not so much for the Head Priest, he saw right through her illusion and once his foot touched the illusion, the pit vanished accompanied by Kokin's pained squeaks as her illusion was forcibly dispelled. But when the man approached Kokin he found he couldn't stomp out the kit's life. Instead he Sealed the little fox, entrapping her within a statue in a magic sleep that would go on to last centuries.

Eventually Kokin's statue was dug up on an archaeological expedition and found its way to an art museum where she spent several decades. But one day some artifacts, Kokin included were set to be on loan to another museum. While her crate was being loaded, there was an interaction with another artifact and her statue prison vanished, waking Kokin up to the sights and sounds of the modern world. Rightfully terrified she ran away in a panic.

Ishiko spent weeks living in a box and eating out of trashcans, trying to make sense of this loud and strange city bigger than any she’d ever seen before. One day she worked up the nerve to shape shift human – a strangely clothed human, but a human nonetheless. She went where she knew she could at least get some information; an Asian supermarket. It ended badly, her English was rudimentary and her Japanese was archaic. The workers saw her as a troublemaker and she was forced to leave.

But, all was not lost. An elderly Japanese man with some small Talent that let him see through glamours and shapeshifts Saw Kokin for what she really was and took her in to his home. Kokin spent the next four years with the man, learning about and becoming better acclimated to this new world. The old man gave her a fitting new name, Ishiko, after hearing her story about being trapped in a statue. He helped her to learn the English language and even get an identity and a job. He was like an adoptive grandfather to Ishiko, and she paid him back by taking care of him as he began to grow ill. It was a very sad day for Ishiko when the man passed, made worse by what was to come.
The old man had changed his will to leave everything to Ishiko as his own family never visited or even called him anymore. She would have had a home and money to take care of herself, but his family contested the will and won. They claimed the old man was crazy and not in his right mind to leave everything to some girl they had never even known about. Ishiko had no idea about the legal system and was forced away, alone again. It has been a year since then and Ishiko currently lives alone in a small studio apartment, it is warded by a special Feng Shui arrangement intended to redirect Evil away from her, and should that fail – there are some surprise fox-fire “bombs” set to go off at the ill-intentioned.