Hi, I’m Shirou the kitsune, also this story commentator and narrator. Before we start talking about what happened, we must start by understanding where this tale comes from. As yokai we kitsune posses several magical capabilities, which allow us to do very awesome things like travel through realms! This tale happened long ago in a realm called Ren. My family and I came from Ren in the early Muromachi period, these events took place during what would be the beginning of the Heian period-for this realm that is! You’re probably wondering how we managed to get here and why-yes that’s the good part-we left Ren.
To state the first, we kitsune are a special class of yokai, it’s pretty interesting how we have similar reputation in this realm as the one I remembered we had there. But even amongst kitsune my kin and I are special, for we can travel through mirrors or water, and yes this story lead kitsune is one of my kin, and was considered to be the top kitsune of its time and very playful one some say. Normally yokai are feared and considered a bad omen or bringers of problems by people, but at the same they, they seek us-yeah humans-when they need luck and our abilities, persecute us when harm befalls there way. You may say something like that happened in Ren. So once we considered that it was safe for a group to move out, secretly in the night with only our kitsune-bi as guidance we went to the Sakura temple near the imperial palace to use its large mirror, cause the bigger the mirror the greater our magical abilities are amplified. And we traveled to this place, humans call Nihon.
I was just a cub on those days, so what I’m going to tell you is what my mother and the elder kitsune told us, this kitsune tale talks about the apex of the kitsune in Ren until our group left. Beginning now I’m telling everyone what happened in those days of glory and the ones of darkness and mist for us.
The kingdom of Ren as remembered by the older generation was a vast island realm that prospered through commerce and good government. Though it had an emperor, the order of succession wasn’t determined by the bloodline, but by the will of the goddesses of the Sun and Moon, who each nominated a person they considered the best possible choice to lead the kingdom once an emperor passes away. Though if a ruler is graced by either of the twin goddesses, the gift of immortality may be bestowed upon and they could also return said individual to his mortal status. As I said immortality was bestowed to an emperor by the goddesses which mean not all emperors and empresses were granted such grace. For this a ruler was tested by the goddesses to see if the person in question was a capable governor for the kingdom. When the first kitsune arrived to realm where Ren is, several kingdoms where engulfed in turmoil; bad leaders had seized power and invaded other kingdoms to increase their wealth and power. The god of Heaven and his daughters the twins goddesses were in absolute distraught over how their predictions didn’t match the reality the humans created at their own accord. The newly arrived ktisune saw the chaos and decided to investigated, where they had arrived. My ancestors were the leaders of this sort of kitsune expedition-which by the was at its 15th generation, I’ve been told they left from this realm at the last days of the Kofun period on this journey-and separated the group in two packs, one was going to investigate the realm and the other pack was to be ready to leave to another one, if the order was issued, becoming in fact an independent pack in relationship to the investigation group.
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