The dark streamers had coalesced into the shape of a great wolf. She was not all blackness, though--looking into her was to see seemingly distant stars and nebulas. Her hackles were raised, and in her jaws she held a hastily-stuffed bundle of clothing.

The motion had unseated Shinobu enough that she'd lost control of her shape below the waist; her feet were now paws, and a bushy tail had emerged from beneath the hem of her skirt.

"Don't," she said. Michi said nothing, just stared with her hard pale eyes, her mouth twisted up in a snarl around the bundle hanging from it. She turned, and Shinobu said more loudly, "Michi, DON'T. I have to give the Aetherians my answer by tomorrow--"

Michi sprang away, and Shinobu lost all composure, shouting, "MICHI! DON'T! DON--"

She'd started forward after Michi, but her paws were no longer suited for the geta she'd been wearing, and she stumbled and hit the ground with a cry, and then she was just a fox with a woman's kimono draped around her, sitting at the edge of the gap watching the great wolf clear the fence and race away into the trees.