Kitaro used to be a simple man. He was a farmer who worked on a wheat planatation for a rich lizardfolk man named Yot. He had no wife or kids, but was content with his life doing labor. He had a few other friends among the farmers who worked for Yot, but he often spent his evenings alone relaxing. His life was simple but he was more or less at peace with it.

The land Kot owned was vast, and most of it had yet been processed into proper farmland. One day while exploring some of the uncultivated land on a surveying trip, Kitaro stumbled on what looked like an old withered shrine of some sort. Kitaro was curious as to the shrines purpose or importance and began investigating it. The ropes and talismans that had seemingly bound the shrine had long since eroded and rotted away and by the state of the wood it seemed this little shrine had been here for ages.

Kitaro carefully opened up the creaking doors which nearly fell of their hinges, and found a very elaborate fox-like mask set inside alone on the shelf. He reached out to grab the mask and as he did he felt a strong energy suddenly surge through his body the moment he touched it. He stummbled back and fell to the ground but it was too late. The mask whirred to life and attached itself to his face and after a momentary struggled Kitaro blackout for a moment, only to wake up as a passenger in his own body. He could still see outside of his eyes, feel the ground under his feet, and hear what was going on, but no matter what he did he could not control his own body as it crept back to the plantation.

Kitaro yelled in his own mind, as if to try to talk to himself, and heard the reply of a raspy beast. "Oh you are aware in there still? This is my vessel now, boy" Kitaro was forced to watch as the beast got closer and closer to the other farmers, he could feel the beasts hunger. Not after long, the creature managed to slaughter and feast on four men while Kitaro fought for his bodies control back from inside. Eventually the beast relented and Kitaro was able to fling the mask off, transforming back into a human. Unforunately it was already too late as the four men were long dead.

Kitaro picked up the mask with a stick this time and began trying to interrogate it, and eventually the creature within it responded. It introduced itself as, Masanori, the fox spirit which inhabitied the mask, and that it had been sealed in that shrine for a few hundered years. It thanked Kitaro for letting it out, but informed him that the two were now stuck together as he had bound to his soul due to how the curse worked. Shaken by the news of his curse and the death of his friends by his own hand, Kitaro fled from the plantation carrying only the mask and what he could grab from home.

Masanori told Kitaro as he fled that he would be willing to play nice with Kitaro since if he, his vessel, were to die that Masanori wouldnt be guranteed a new body. So the two struck a deal to mutually work together until they could be parted by some means, Masanori would allow Kitaro to "request" him to do things occasionally, and all Kitaro had to do was allow Masanori to feed occasionally. Kitaro intending to find someone who could properlly control or destory Masanori, while Masanori looked for a way to completely free himself from the need to have a vessel all together.