My name is Yoruichi Shihoin and this is my story.

I was born at the start of what is now called the Edo Period in Japan, but I was not born like a human. No, I was born as a spirit. How is a spirit born you ask? Well, there are two ways that I know of.

The first way is when two spirits come together and, much like most animals including humans, merge two parts of their soul energy which then gestates for a period of time before a new spirit is born. The second way is much more uncommon but it's the way I was born.

The second way spirits are born is when a group of sentient creatures, whether that be humans or spirits, have enough faith in something, that something is born as a spirit. This is how many of the early spirits were born, from humanity's belief in something. In my case, I was born because a settlement of humans believed they were saved by a black cat somehow, and they decided to erect a shrine for it, believing it to be a spirit. Over the years, their constant belief and prayer in that black cat led to a big enough accumulation for me to be born, a Black Cat spirit.

Being born was really weird because unlike most creatures, I was born fully developed. There was no period of time when I was a baby, I just was. One day I wasn't, then the next I was.

Another thing that's different between spirits born of two spirits and one born from belief, is that those born of belief are born with the memories of all the prayers that have been made that led to their birth. We experience those memories the moment we are born, and then we are free to do what we wish.

The first thing I did after being born was walk around the village in my physical form which was obviously that of a black cat. And because of that, many of the villagers that would see me would bow to me or give me food because they thought I was the spirit. Of course, I gladly took the food presented to me because it was free food.

About a month after I was born, I was bored of just wandering the village doing nothing, so I decided to leave the area and see if I could find another spirit to talk to. Thankfully, I was quite fast in my spirit form so I eventually ended up in a bigger village that was surrounding a castle. And as soon as I arrived near it, I felt that there was another spirit nearby.

Going toward where I felt the spirit, I came upon a shrine that was being taken care of by a human girl. I strolled right past her thinking she wouldn't see me, but oddly enough she did. She bowed to me and asked what I was doing at the fox shrine before I told her that I was newly born and wished to see another of my kind.

The girl then went inside the shrine shortly after coming out and inviting me in. Going inside, I could see a big, at least bigger than me, blueish-white fox with red markings. She spoke first, asking me what I was doing in her area so I told her that I was recently born and wanted to find one of my own to talk to. So we did.

She told me everything she had figured out about being a spirit and ways to use our powers, as well as ways to grow them. She told me about how having a family dedicated to your shrine will keep it prosperous longer and that over time their belief will be enough to keep a spirit going even if the rest of the world forgets.

When I asked her how a spirit goes about figuring out what its powers will be, she told me that a spirit is aligned with certain areas and must choose from there what they wish to cultivate. Her talents aligned with healing and support so she chose to cultivate that. She told me that to find out what talent I'm aligned with, I have to meditate and it will come to me. So I did that, and I found out I was aligned with lightning. She told me that it was rare for a spirit to be aligned with something so destructive, but it's not unseen, and I had to be careful with my powers.

After spending the better part of a month with the fox spirit, I decided it was time for me to return to my shrine. Bidding her goodbye and promising to see her again, I departed using my newly trained powers to make my way to my shrine faster than when I left. Glad to be back home, I decided to wander around the city to make sure nothing had changed, and it hadn't. The next step was to train my powers while finding a family that would be willing to take care of the shrine, as at the time it was a communal thing.

Over the next decade or so, I would train my powers, walk around the village, and try to find someone that would be good to take care of the shrine, but to no avail. Until one day, a wandering warrior appeared in the village, his name, Musashi Miyamoto.

From the conversations I heard when I wandered the village, Musashi was a ronin, a samurai without a lord, that traveled all over Japan finding opponents to fight, all while refining his swordsmanship. At first, I thought nothing of it. Wandering warriors would come through the village every now and then, this one would be no different.

But, he was different. He came to my shrine and paid his respects to me, even going so far as to leave an offering. This piqued my curiosity so I decided to appear before him, first as a cat, and then as a spirit. Thankfully, he was a good man and took care of me when I posed as a wounded black cat. So, I decided to finally appear before him. I made him chase me until we reached the shrine.

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That's when I showed myself and talked to him, much to his surprise. I asked him why he cared for a cat he barely knew, and he responded that it is what any man should do. Continuing the conversation to gauge what can kind of person he was, I came to the conclusion he was a good man.

After a few more conversations over the course of a few weeks, I finally asked him if he would be willing to live in the shrine and take care of it. He refused, so I offered him power in exchange, and he still refused. When I asked why he said that his journey was not over and he did not want to rely on someone else's power. I admired his tenacity and didn't ask again.

A few weeks after that he came to say his goodbyes for he was continuing on his journey. Having been the first human I had connected to, I told him he was always welcome in my shrine.

Over the course of the next decade, I still continued to search for someone to take care of my shrine, but I realized it couldn't be forced and so I dropped it. But, I did help out the village so they could continue to pray and give their offerings to me.

I helped them by using my spiritual powers to bless the earth for good harvests, keep the bugs away, and even a few times using my lightning to scare wild boars away. Even though I was more affiliated with lightning that didn't mean I couldn't use other types of spirit magic, it's just that I would use more to do less. All that led to the village dedicating one day as a celebration to me which I quite enjoyed.

Then one day, Musashi came back, older but he looked stronger and wiser. He came to my shrine, prayed, and gave me offerings before I appeared before him. We had a conversation where he told me that he had finally found what he was looking for and came to give his thanks because the few weeks he spent here helped him calm his mind.

I asked him if he was going to stay to which he said no because he had found a wife somewhere else. I was a little disappointed but I understood, as much as a spirit could anyway. The next two weeks were spent in conversation with him telling me about his journey before he had to leave. And before he left, he gave me a box to safe-keep asking me to only entrust what was inside to those I truly trusted and found worthy.

I asked him what it was and he said that it was the culmination of his journey and a technique he wished he had created much sooner in life. He explained it was a technique that if trained properly would let a human reach superhuman heights. I took his word for it and didn't read it because I was a spirit and had no interest in it. And that was the last time I saw him.

A couple of decades later, I heard the villagers talking about a book called The Book of Five Rings that was written by him and released after his death. Unfortunately, no one in the village had a copy so I couldn't read it until many years later.

But other than Musashi, no one had caught my attention so I just let it be. It's not like my shrine was in disrepair. But that was my life for a century or so, until one particularly stormy night.

That night a storm unlike any other in the time I had been alive was ravaging the mountains so I decided to just stay in the shrine since I didn't like to get wet unless necessary. As I was resting, I heard someone start banging on the doors to the shrine while crying, asking if they could be helped. I opened the doors using my spiritual power before a woman with a small child in her arms waddled in, drenched by the storm.

She then knelt before my statute and resting place and prayed to me, hoping I would help her daughter. She even went as far as saying she would dedicate both her and her daughter's life to the shrine. I was going to help her anyway, but I also saw this as an opportunity to get a family to care for my shrine. So I revealed myself to her, causing her to fall into shock. And then I spoke to her, causing her to fall into even more shock before she bowed and pleaded.

Telling her I would accept her deal of her family serving the shrine, I then used my spiritual power to heal her daughter as best I could. Once I was done, I felt a little tired from having expended so much energy. She thanked me over and over before I told her to rest, while I did the same.

The next morning, I saw that both of them were awake and waiting for me to wake up. When I did, they both thanked me again. I asked them for their surname, to which they said it was Shihoin. And from that moment on that was when the Shihoin family became the caretakers of the Black Cat shrine.

Unfortunately, the only one that was worthy of reading Musashi's technique was the girl I saved, whose name was Ina. But she had no interest in being a warrior, so I didn't show the technique to her.

Nearly two decades after the two became caretakers for my shrine, I felt I was on the verge of a breakthrough of some kind, so I went to talk with the fox about it. She told me it was a natural part of a spirit's cycle and I would go into slumber for a few years.

I returned back to the shrine and informed Ina I would go into slumber and that I would awaken in a few years. Luckily for her, she had just recently become a mother and was busy raising a child so not having to be with me all the time was good for her. I entered the shrine, sealed it using my powers, and went into hibernation. I regret doing that.

I ended up waking up nearly three hundred years later. And by then the village that was once there was gone, the shrine I once lived in was in ruins, and the girl that I had come to care for was dead. The only thing that remained was a chest with a scroll with Ina's last words to me. After reading that, I cried for the first time.

Then I shut myself off from the rest of the world, hibernating for who knows how many years until just recently.

I felt someone enter my shrine and as I laid my eyes on the boy, I knew he was worthy of Musashi's technique as well as bonding with me. So, I opened the box and let him read it. And I was right about him because he cleaned up my shrine, repaired it, and prayed to me.

But, I decided to bide my time this time around, only appearing as a normal cat until I decided he was worthy.

Since then he has trained Musashi's technique to the heights he believed it would reach and now we were wandering the world.

And that's my story so far.

~

"Aw." said Yoruichi.