Yamato nadeshiko, "やまとなでしこ", is the Japanese expression for the epitome of feminine purity and beauty, the personification of the ideal Japanese woman, perfection. I have tried to make this the motto of my life throughout the years, because as the Moon Goddess Tamamo-no-mae, I cannot strive to be anything less than perfect. Even though the people around me may not place much importance on such concepts now and may appreciate them in their own way, it remains the idea I want to present, the values I want to embody, so that when my beloved husband sees me, he sees a woman who acts only for the total benefit of the family, in total submission and perfect obedience, the living representation of loyalty, humility and wisdom. Something that the great Emperor of Atlantis views with joyful grace, so being a Yamato Nadeshiko is the perfect way to be a beautiful woman in the eyes of the ruler I love.
But even with this motto, despite being a perfect goddess, I have one problem, and that is that I am also a kitsune, the most important and the first one.
If I had to choose one fault of mine, it would undoubtedly be that I'm not an honest person; it's just my nature as a kitsune. But don't get me wrong, even for a creature like me, there are limits I would never cross, like the love I have for my Goshujin-sama, which is real, as real as the love I have for the family I live with, as real as the love I have for my daughters. But I've also been a liar about many things, innocent lies to protect them from myself, like the fact of my personality, but even though the truth of my cold and manipulative nature is known, they've let me know that they're okay with it as long as it's to make things better. They have seen me pretend to be foolish or innocent when I want to force an ideal situation, like when Maria wanted to talk to her father. Perhaps the most well-known lie they know is the one where I pretend I can't cook because I am a perfect wife, of course I can cook exquisite dishes perfectly as expected of a goddess, but what's the point when I can leave that role to some other less fortunate girl so she can have her chance to shine with Goshujin-sama.
My most recent lie was telling my beloved husband that I barely knew Xian Fang from afar because I simply didn't want to bother him and add to an already heavy burden. What he needed was to focus on his duel with the millennium mage, not to have his mind occupied with the past problems of one of his slaves, how could I interrupt his sacred rituals like preparing the weapons for his duel with simple tales of legend and the past. But when the cursed magician signed the infernal pact, condemning her to eternal damnation, I felt happy and relieved to end a small part of my past.
However I think the best way to explain it is to start at the beginning.
Amaterasu, Goddess of the Sun, Founder of the Empire of Japan, Ancestress of the Imperial Family, Ruler of the Celestial Realm of Takamagahara, Daughter of Izanami together with her siblings Tsukuyomi, Goddess of the Moon, and Susanoo, God of the Storm. But if there is already a Moon Goddess, why do I exist, you may ask. The answer is complicated, as you can imagine. There is a popular saying that Japan is known as the land of 8 million gods, some big and famous, some small and forgotten; it's natural that with so many gods in such a small place, some things repeat themselves.
My birth was nothing more than the result of necessity, when a novice moon goddess from another planet messed up her work badly, THE BOSS asked Tsukuyomi for help so that she, as her senior, could assist and train her properly. But at the time when the people of Earth did not have the knowledge of the stars, when the work of a moon god was most important, such an important position could not be left unattended. So Amaterasu decided to do it herself, she split herself in two, two Amaterasus existed at the same time to control both the sun and the moon, I was one of those halves, I'm still Amaterasu today, but with time and centuries I began to change, new thoughts of my own began to appear, and with time I thought that the name Amaterasu was no longer something I could identify with, I began to have my own ego, I became my own person, that's why I chose the name Tamamo-no-Mae.
When Tsukuyomi returned, I had more free time, so I started observing people to pass the time. At first, everything they did seemed boring to me - getting up in the morning, working the land, talking to each other, and going to bed. But I was even more bored, so I kept watching. It was like flipping through television channels in modern times; occasionally something more interesting would happen, like a war over there, a conspiracy over here, a party in my honor lost somewhere. But the day everything changed was the day I saw several monsters attack a village. Several Onis invaded a remote village in the mountains that I was watching. I watched as they massacred the villagers, but at the time, I was not the least bit interested. In the midst of the deaths, however, I saw a mother trying to protect her children. She was fast and strong, more than enough to have a chance of survival, especially if she sacrificed her two small children to buy time. But the mother never did. Instead, despite the obvious terror on her face, she picked up a long-handled hoe and began to fight the beast. The Oni was powerful and outmatched her in every way. She knew it was a lost battle, but she fought with such fury and passion that it was impressive to witness her determination. Meanwhile, I wondered why she would do such a foolish thing, what would make her do something so stupid. But then I saw the two children fleeing into the forest, their mother looking back and seeing her plan fulfilled. She simply allowed herself to be defeated in the end, her body shattered by a single blow.
Impressed and curious at the same time, I paid special attention to the two brothers, watching them grow into strong and formidable men. Their profession turned into demon hunters, seeking revenge on the monsters that killed their mother. The two brothers roamed the land tirelessly, fighting the forces of darkness without hesitation. It wasn't until 40 years later that the two brothers managed to reclaim their home from the clutches of the Onis, mercilessly slaughtering them in a cruel battle. But when the battle ended, the two men stayed. They began gathering wood and stones, rebuilding their mother's home, and beside it, they erected an altar in her name. More than 40 years had passed, a lifetime for humans, yet they remembered her as if it had only been yesterday.
Despite what had happened and the passage of time, they still had love.
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I remember that being the first time I cried, the first time I felt envy, the first time I blamed myself for not helping when I had the chance, the first time I felt something other than being a goddess.
With more attention I began to see more people around the world, but now I could see them, I could notice them, they were everywhere, always present, always in the center. Love was something that people had and expressed, it was what they wanted as well as what they gave. Curiosity turned into obsession, with time I became jealous of this feeling, the fact of being born as a goddess was my greatest curse, because unlike any human born into a family, I had nothing, nothing to fight for, nothing to say I was alive, nothing to sacrifice myself for someone else like the mother of the two brothers did.
In that despair and envy, an idea came to me.
What if I could sneak away and pretend to be just another person?
Maybe that way I could at least have a closer look at the love I longed to know. So I made a plan, a small and simple one, because unfortunately at that time I lacked the experience and the cunning to understand the thousand faults I had.
I began by going to a faraway place where no one knew me, and I descended to the earth in secret. In ancient China, in a village in the mountains, I began to wander. In that innocent time, I just walked like any other animal, thinking that I just had to find someone to love me. And to my joy, that day came sooner than I thought when one day I accidentally fell into a river and a man pulled me out. A humble fisherman who even shared one of his fish with me, so excited was I to return the gesture by bringing him a chicken I had found elsewhere. It was the simple beginning of what I thought was love, to my own disappointment. The fisherman would climb to the river in the mountain where we played, and he would give me one of his fish. Every day, without fail, there was a meeting between the two of us, until one day he just didn't come back. I waited for him the next day and the next, but when fall came, I was worried about him, so I went to his house. I found him sitting in the living room with a woman I didn't know; she served him tea, and he thanked her with a smile. Then I understood: the man was married, and the woman with him was his wife, his lover. I was thrilled to see love so close to me, and I thought I was close to achieving it. So one day I waited for the woman to have some business to attend to in a neighboring town, and I took her appearance. I waited for the fisherman to leave to sell his fish, and I sneaked into his house. I cleaned the house and prepared a wonderful dinner, eagerly awaiting the fisherman's arrival at the table with the food already served. But when the man arrived and saw me, he became angry and cursed me for trying to pass myself off as his wife. Scared, I lost my composure and my true identity as a kitsune was accidentally revealed. The man became even angrier and chased me through the forest with his sword until I escaped by running far away from the village.
It was the first time I feared for my life, the first time I had my heart broken over something so ephemeral and short-lived. It may seem ridiculous now, but for my innocence at the time, it was a great tragedy. In that era, I had come to the realization that no one could love a kitsune, that such a monster and the concept of love that had fascinated me were enemies.
But still determined to find love, I came up with a new plan, even more stupid than the last. If a kitsune cannot have love, then all I had to do was pretend to be human and never be found.
I set my plan in motion by transforming myself into a human girl, the beautiful Tamamo-no-mae, the Human, in a Chinese forest near the sea. The next day, I stole some clothes from a house and sneaked aboard a ship bound for Japan, the land of which I was a goddess. My arrival was in the Heian period, during the reign of Emperor Toba. I arrived at the port of Takeshiba, which is now modern Tokyo. Afraid of being discovered, I spent my early years as a vagabond child in the city, gathering information about what people knew about me. But I soon realized the problem of being a nobody in human society, enduring hunger and cold on the streets without a home, but remaining resolute in my goal of always finding love in sight.
After a while, a rather short one since I was already tired of not having a home, I began to look for a way to get one. My opportunity came when a small competition was held; several young girls performed some dances and served tea to some older ladies. It was an audition to enter a teahouse, to enter the karyūkai, and to continue on the path to becoming a geisha. Since the entrance was not limited to anything in particular, I also auditioned with the illusion of belonging to a place I could use as a base for my real goal, and it seems that my performance was good enough to attract the attention of okā-san, the mother, owner, and manager of the establishment. But do not confuse the word of love that "mother" can mean with the position of head of the geisha house; that was a mistake I learned the hard way and paid for with several punishments.
The work of a geisha may seem glamorous and elegant on the outside, but it is overwhelming and demanding in its training. Remembering how to walk, how to sit, how to serve tea perfectly, how to choose the topics of conversation wisely, classes in art and culture, dance and music, it was here that I learned the word Yamato nadeshiko, only perfection was accepted, any failure was met with harsh punishment. The rivalry to be the organizer's favorite daughter, the competition to be popular. The test to become a maiko was to walk around the precinct we were forbidden to leave and make a man lose his step with nothing more than a glance. The lessons were the only thing that stuck with me, because my appreciation for my teacher and classmates faded even after a few years.
Another important moment in my life was my first day as a maiko. Several important men and women gathered for a ceremony at the Okiya house where I lived. Given the magnitude of the event, the hostess naturally called upon her best apprentices to serve the guests. As was expected of each of us, I gave my best performance, both in dancing and playing various instruments. At one point, however, the men began discussing the stars in an attempt to resolve a minor calendrical issue. Unable to resist, as the goddess of the moon, I jumped in to shed some light on their problem. With just a glance, the house mother conveyed her disappointment and anger to me. She was extremely upset that I had overstepped my boundaries as a maiko by speaking on a subject outside my authority. My business in that house was effectively over as soon as the meeting ended.
However, the men, realizing the source of their miscalculation and acknowledging my correctness, were greatly impressed by my spectacular wisdom. Apparently, this impressive act immediately caught the attention of Fujiwara no Nariko, the wife of Emperor Tobe. She invited me to travel to Heian-kyō, now known as Kyoto, which was then the capital of Japan. She asked me to live in the royal palace, to participate as an imperial courtesan, and perhaps one day, with luck, to become the wife of the next emperor, Konoe, her son.
With nothing to hold on to, and seeing this as the perfect opportunity to finally find the love I sought, I gladly accepted her offer.