New Chronicles of the Six Kitsune: Vol. 1

The first part of a traditional Inazuman novel, also known as "True Shadow Forging." It was once banned. This volume tells a fantastical tale of the first Raiden Shogun and her kagemusha, portraying the first Shogun's benevolent rule and the kagemusha's valor. Yet because the work popularly called I Reincarnated as the Raiden Shogun won wide favor, the public hungered for stories of this type—and so this book, by a twist of fate, was allowed into print.

It is often said: "The bow is drawn like a crescent moon; the blade is ground until it is clear as polished jade."

On the day Narukami arrived, she handed down the art of forging blades. Across thousands of star-frosts and hundreds of harvest years, human swordsmiths at last could forge treasured blades even Narukami herself would love beyond compare. The Grand Shrine and the Bakufu thus fixed a sacred festival: take the finest named treasure-blades of this world, offer them at the Grand Shrine, and call them "Divine Blades." The offering of blades is still thronged and unbroken to this day. But of all that lies behind the "Divine Blades," far fewer people truly know.

When a master smith forges, one firing does not yield only one blade. The finest work is called "true forging," inscribed with an elegant name, offered to lord or before the gods, making no killing karma, pure of itself. The rest are called "shadow forging," granted to close retainers for war, often stained with blood and foulness.

From the day the Great Narukami Shrine was completed on the border of Inazuma, the "Narukami Gongen, First Shogun" kept her younger sister at her side. One bright and one dark, one true and one shadow, they moved through the court and fought enemies in the field. That younger sister went by the single name "Ei." Written out in clear characters, it would likely be the "shadow" paired to the first Shogun's name—she is none other than the second Bakufu "Shadow Shogun."

All know that in the war that swept the floating world, only Seven Archons could remain. Though the Shadow Shogun's martial skill touched the gods and her swordcraft was peerless, she felt herself a warrior only, unable to reach the hearts of people. So she chose to fall from the path and vanish, helping her elder sister ascend to the "Capital of Heaven" and become the ruler of Inazuma under heaven. The "true" Shogun then founded the Bakufu and governed Inazuma. Still cherishing old bonds, (Narukami Gongen) called back the "shadow"'s divine consciousness, reshaped her form, and set her at her side as her own "kagemusha."