Tale of the Six Kitsune: V

New Chronicles of the Six Kitsune specially adds commentary on old affairs. If the reader finds this volume tedious, you may specially skip it. Yet for the author, what must be spoken and the feelings that must be vented still require wasting ink to set down.

The anecdotes of Black Fox Aida pause here for now. Forgive the author's chatter once more—still a few comments on affairs of years past.

As to what crime once brought Lord Urakusai the Saiguu's wrath, it is long unclear. Yet at that time Lady Yae, having drunk two or three—four, five, six, seven, eight—cups too many, was willing to tell me some history she had lived.

This text is, after all, a novelist's talk; of course I will turn true words into unofficial history.

When the Kitsune Saiguu left Hakushin Lands to take up her post at the Grand Narukami Shrine, Lady Yae had not yet been born. Thus through her young kitsune childhood she grew up hearing of the Saiguu. Her great love for the Saiguu was, of course, reverence.

Thus Lady Yae's wandering years also ended at last with her post at the Grand Narukami Shrine.

Because their blood was close, the Saiguu cared much for young Lady Yae—yet today's Lady Yae always avoids recalling those days as much as she can...

—Though this is guaranteed novelist's talk, as for Lady Yae's origins, to avoid the chief editor's review and cuts, the author will not reveal too much.

Back to Urakusai. What once brought Lord Urakusai the Saiguu's wrath is long unclear. One only knows that what he did may perhaps have been linked to the Abyss's invasion later.

But after Lord Urakusai was forced to leave, the Kitsune Saiguu no longer remained at the Grand Narukami Shrine, but went to dwell long in the Tenshukaku of the city.

"A cataclysm of heaven and earth approaches. This body must fulfill the duty of one at the Shogun's side, guardian of living beings—so I must go to the Shogun's side as soon as I can."

When the Saiguu left a second time, Lady Yae was still only a girl. The one she had always followed left her once more. Who would have thought that not long after, calamity would sweep the islands, and only then would we understand the deep meaning...

Only everything was already too late; everything went against the heart's wish.

Then came the Saiguu's third departure—and she left forever.

Five hundred years may be far too long for mortals, yet the joys and sorrows, the wounds those events left, whether for those who live and die in a day, or for those who live long and hard to fade, are hard to erase.