Caterpillar

Faith

Vanilla biscuits and green tea were being served in the living room of Doctor Fate's tower but, unlike his usual self, the gluttonous fox felt no desire to stuff himself full with the food placed on the coffee table in front of him. Instead, his slit crimson-red eyes were staring intently in the grey eyes of the old sorcerer and his Negative Emotion Sensing ability was focused on him too. Though he had played off Naruto and Wonder Woman's worries in regards to him, Kyuubi himself was more concerned than anyone about the things happening to him.

"How do I make the voices stop? How can I end this?" Kyuubi asked after he finished telling Doctor Fate about his problem. His fluffy nine tails were unconsciously flicking in distress.

Kent Nelson looked like he was hesitating, mulling over what answer to give him.

"You can't."

A low growl came from the fox.

"What are you hiding from me, sorcerer?" Kyuubi asked dangerously. The fur on the back of his neck stood up like needles.

Doctor Fate's expression changed. For all intents and purposes, the demon fox across the table in front of him was like a ticking bomb. He decided it was not wise to test his patience.

"I am not lying. You can't stop it. Not by yourself." the sorcerer said. "To put it simply, the power of faith is pushing you to become a god."

Whatever Kyuubi had expected Doctor Fate to say, it was definitely not that.

"The power of what now?"

From angry and frustrated, Kyuubi had become speechless.

Kent Nelson explained:

"While I was curing Mr Uzumaki's petrification a few months ago, we had a rather interesting conversation. From what he told me, hundreds of millions, if not billions of people in the Vega System had celebrated the annihilation of the Psion race. He said that some of the more extreme and zealous people there even started to create cults dedicated to worshipping the being that had brought them salvation, the being that had freed them from their tyrants. To worship you."

The silence that followed was almost deafening.

"In all honesty, back then, I just brushed those words aside, not paying them any attention. I thought he was exaggerating in an effort to justify his deeds."

With the knowledge and wisdom of Nabu, Doctor Fate could see what lay beyond the physical realm. He could sense the power of faith converging into the fox cub's tiny body and that there was an enormous amount of it.

"The voices tormenting your mind are nothing but the voices of the people that put their faith in you. They are praying to you. For them, you are their god. But since you obviously not a god, things aren't going well for you. Naturally, something like this would not have happened if there was just a small number of people praying. But when there are hundreds of millions or billions of people, the psychic energy generated by their will and their faith is not something that can be easily ignored."

Kyuubi was floored by the revelations.

"How do I make it stop?" he asked urgently. "I can't go on like this. Over the past few weeks, I forced myself to sleep because the voices would quiet down then. But even that doesn't work anymore. I have to stop it!"

The fox was growing desperate as he realized the actual magnitude of what was happening.

"You only have two options:" Doctor Fate said and showed two fingers. "One: to break those people's faith in you. But after what you did for them, I can't imagine a scenario where the people of Vega System would start to resent you unless you started committing some unthinkable atrocities against them."