Kumiho

The Kumiho (グミホ; Gumiho), also known as the Disciples of Inari (稲荷の弟子; Inari no deshi; lit. "Apprentices of Inari") were fox spirits that resided within the dimension of Soul Society, scattered around the districts of the Rukongai. They held the power to shapeshift, though only after going through a process known as Possession (憑き; Tsuki; lit. "to be possessed"), where the spirit takes control of a spiritual being such as a shinigami.

Overview
The Kumiho were scattered around the, having no central home within the districts. However, they often possessed locals and interacted with humans to satisfy their loneliness. They commonly took possession of women, though it was not unknown for men to be targeted by their possessive powers. Some Kumiho used their powers to help the denizens with their lives, while others used it to play tricks on the spiritual people.

Relationship with Soul Society
They were well recorded within the archives of Soul Society, since one Disciple was a pupil of. This Kumiho, known only as Abe no Seimei, made an enormous contribution to the reformation of the Central 46, by standardizing the group’s composition and procedure, as well as outlawing sentences deemed barbaric. However, Seimei was not able to revise the laws that he disagreed with and soon disappeared. He was presumed to have returned to the Rukongai as a fox spirit, due to leaving a poem at his desk about returning "to the wild."

However, the Kumiho were not well respected, because of the supposed predominance of the mischievous fox spirits, and the Rukongai residents complained about their activities. The Kumiho grew cautious about shinigami as hunting techniques were designed to catch them, significantly reducing their population.

Powers and abilities
The powers of a Kumiho could be measured by the number of tails that it had in its natural form. It was said that a nine-tailed fox had infinite wisdom and could be easily recognized by not only the number of tails, but by having white fur. However, no nine-tailed foxes have ever been seen: the most tails counted was seven. Abe no Seimei reportedly had seven tails.

Kumiho were capable of creating fiery spells that were just as destructive as, shapeshift in a matter of seconds, manifest themselves in other peoples’ dreams, and create realistic illusions. However, they could only do so after possessing the body of a spiritual being.

The best way to determine that an individual was being possessed by a fox was by examining the person’s shadow for fox-like traits.