Inside the Golden Bear Bakery, Zalina sauntered her way into the building with a playful stride. Her tails swirled, funnelling through the bakery's double glass door like ice cream being dispensed from a machine but in reverse as they shrunk into their comparably smaller form. Once reaching their five-foot lengths, Zalina's curled-up tails unfurled into ten separate tails, revealing the starry-eyed Saigo hidden within before she scaled up her fellow kitsune's back and sat on her shoulders.

  "Orange and pineapple crepes!" Saigo exclaimed with unadulterated glee, followed by her throwing her fist into the air. Saigo's gleeful demands brought a content smile to Zalina's face; the girl's lack of hesitation and simple order made Saigo her favourite client. Before long, Zalina reached the counter with an adjoined freestanding cake display and set down Saigo on one of the many bear-looking stools. Letting out a tempered huff, Zalina peered over to the entrance as something behind her drew her attention.

  "There's no need to be shy; this isn't a temporal anomaly or something," Zalina remarked smugly, sensing the nervous shaking from Faithilia. The half-dragonling cast her cautious gaze at the various teddy bear-themed furniture as she found it hard to believe something so pre-apocalypse could exist. The dining room's layout was a collage of a traditional diner mixed with a cottage bakery, all smothered in a layer of bear aesthetic.

  "I don't get it why a bear theme?" Faithilia murmured as she clung to the door frame and looked at the colourful tiles lining the lower half of the walls.

  "You'd have to ask Grandma Ina, also stop blocking the door," Nana-Ka remarked sternly before kicking Faithilia in the butt, sending the canine dragonling flying into the building and directly in front of a free-standing muffin display with distinctly non-bear products.

  "Oh, this one even looks like... me?" Faithilia remarked, her cheerful expression turning to one of confusion as she looked at the other muffins, which also oddly resembled Temperance, Saigo, and her siblings. "I feel muffin me is kinda out of place in there.". Faithilia slumped her shiba ears, unable to decide if her muffiny counterpart should be weirding her out; but, ultimately let it go with a sigh as Nana-Ka marched into the building.

  "Come on you, my sisters will know you've been in the bakery's vicinity and would give you hell if you don't bring them something from here," Nana-Ka stated as she dragged a reluctant Temperance inside by his wings, clutching at his feathers with such a firm grip it made the guy mildly wince in discomfort.

  "And how would they know?" Nakamai asked as she abruptly popped her head out from one of Temperance's kitsune tails.

  "Naturally, this place is covered in Granny Ina's spiritual energies so they-". Nana-Ka froze, darting her head down and locking eyes with the unsuspecting Nanakai, obliviously unaware of the trillions of neurons in Nana-Ka's brain she had just fried with her presence alone. Nakamai defensively slumped back and rested the back of her head against Temperance's tails, the crazed look in Nana-Ka sensing a wave of unease through the small kitsune visage.

  "Can I hug her?" Nana-Ka requested bluntly and devoid of shame as her infatuation-filled eyes bore down on the small kitsune visage. Nakamai shot her eyes open at hearing Nana-Ka's coldly excited request, causing the little visage's tails to involuntarily spike up as she pitifully looked up to Temperance for help with her puppy dog eyes.

  "If you release my wing," Temperance stated swiftly before Nana-Ka released her grip on him so fast someone would accuse her of exploiting/hacking if they were in a game. Nakamai gasped in betrayal, not that she judged him, before freezing up as she felt Nana-Ka's focus flutter back to her. With a sparse side eye, Nakamai sprung from the safety of Temperance's tail, landing on the eco-friendly spruce floorboards before booking for the exit while screaming, "I regret summoning myself to the tail space!".

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  However, try as she might, the distance between Nakamai and the door remained consistent even when she picked up her pace. Confused, Nakamai peered backwards and instantly frowned at seeing the transparent energy hand holding onto one of her tails.

  "Crud...," Nakamai uttered disapointedly as she continued running in place. Following the arm of the energy hand, Nakamai's eyes locked onto Naka-Ka's outreached hand, now sporting a fingerless glove with a clear magical pearl from which the energy hand projected from.

  Cut to a few minutes later, Nakamai had gladly accepted being captured in Nana-Ka's vice-like bear hug as she opened her mouth and allowed the snow leopard kitsune to feed her her seventeenth slice of cake. Temperance held his hand to his forehead and let out a disappointed sigh.

  "What a sweet-toothed baby," Temperance said in a disappointed tone.

  "You got a problem with sweets, bub?" Miya uttered coldly as she hovered her face right beside Temperance's head. With the demanding buzzing of wing flaps in his ear, Temperance turned his head with a ticked-off expression. He intended to ask Miya to give him some space but the sight of Miya's face caused his heart to stagger with terror. Despite having the appearance of a kid, Miya was the spitting image of Lola, even more so than her children, and Temperance felt his fight or flight instinct kick in and leapt away from Miya.

  (Loumiya is a kid-sized, adult kitsune ego of aggression with the appearance of a five-year-old human girl; she has neck-low extremely curly dark cyan hair with metalic silver ends, golden eyes with five-pointed star pupils and silver rings around her eyes, dark cyan skin with dark areas[forearms, hands, and from the knees down], six large dark cyan bee wings with metalic textured ends, fuzzy silver bee antennae, an hourglass figure, and a football-sized dark cyan and silver striped bee-abdomen-shaped tail with a metalic bee stinger)

  (Miya is wearing white see-through stockings with dark cyan silk suspenders, silver baggy cuffed shorts which the suspenders are attached to, a silver baggy shirt, and a cyan apron)

  "Lola must have done a number on you for Miya to make you jump," Zalina mentioned smugly as she placed a plate stacked with orange and pineapple crepes in front of a greedy Saigo. Saigo's eyes beamed with joy, her swishing and lashing through the air at a deadly speed which would spell a death sentence for anyone stupid enough to enter its range.

  "You're saying that like Little Miss Face Presser here isn't sporting a permanent frown," Temperance grumbled exhaustedly as said frowner pressed her cheek against his face. Miya pulled back, giving Temperance the false impression she was going to leave him alone only to slam her face into him seconds later. Her headbutt hit him with the force of a semi-truck, knocking him off balance before the two of them went tumbling into a nearby booth bench.

  "Miya, how many times must I tell you? Most people don't function like plants so you can't get their magical energy or kai from smashing your face into them," Photon barked as she stuck her head out from the doorframe behind the counter that led to the kitchen, one filled with hectic bangs and clanging of utensils. However, much to the kitsune visage's spiteful annoyance, Photon slumped her lips into an annoyed pout as Miya stonewalled her and even nibbled the cheek of an unfazed Temperance.

  (Louphoton is a rather short, humanoid kitsune visage[dragon serpent of family] with the appearance of a four-year-old girl and an identical face to Miya; she has slightly long unkempt purple hair with metalically silver hair tips with bangs long enough to cover her eyes, golden eyes with five-pointed star pupils, pale white to the point it's faintly cyan skin, two thin metal fifteen-centimetre pale purple horns on her forehead, a dark purple and purple scaled fifteen-foot-long snake-like tail with a pale purple kitsune fur end, and two on her back and eight dark purple dragonic wings along her tail with pale purple wing membrane)

  (Photon is wearing a black apron, black bear paw-themed oven mits, three multi-coloured[purple, pink, and yellow] banana-shaped beaded bracelets, and a sleeveless dark purple bodysuit that also covers her legs and feet)

  "Guess she really is a bee if she's trying to bite me," Temperance murmured, a deadpanned glint in his eyes as he led on the booth bench.