Chapter I: The Weight of Years
The Ninetails. Not a title. A weight. Years stacked like bricks. Each one heavier. Each one louder. One can hear them when she walks.
Jiuweiyo Shiranui. Not humble. Never humble. Once, a shifu student, once but a little fox child, once exiled of lands that no longer remember her name. Many don't like her. Nobody really does. Too sharp around the edges, too poisoned in her smile. But there she is, still standing. Still refusing to fall.
Refusing her origins. The divine fox. Her blood. All authority from above. All of them. Especially authority.
But she has been torn apart before. A shattered mind, like a wine glass of her favorite flavor. Exiled, heartbroken, loved again, ruined again. She's watched it all disappear - gone in a blink - but never once did she fall quiet. She marched. Broken bones in the rain, bleeding feet, straight into the next disaster. Into the next destruction of her own ego.
Yet, there's a good soul somewhere under all the ash and crumbling ruins. Beating, persistent, stubborn. A soul that never failed it - though it almost has, countless times.
This trauma doesn't leave scars. It leaves ruins. But - who else could do it? Who else could carry the sins of a dying world and smile in its face?
The answer is simple. The god-complex Nine-Tailed Kitsune. Jiuweiyo Shiranui.
Chapter II: The Mission
The mission. It starts there. Balance the world.
An order passed down through her sect, etched into parchment by hands that never carried the weight of it. Deploy into Meranthe and fix it. By all means.
Impossible from the first breath. "Balance" is not an equation, not a sum to solve. It's philosophy. Nebulous, unmeasurable. Balance. A foolish errand. A suicidal task where the heroine burns on her own efforts.
But it wasn't just duty that brought her here. No, it was pain. From family - more specifically, the Prithvi. It all began with Dyaus himself, a djinn of impossible magnitude. Her father Kousei was the direct son of the man himself. A man made hollow by the passage of years, hoping that - someday - the family would be brought together like in his youth. That Mitra would return and not chase the ghost of their father. Wandering through depression and solitude. His ruin became her reason. His weakness, her resolve.
She muttered I will avenge him.
Her sole reason to be here. To do what she does. At least, her personal one. Deep inside, there was a good soul. There is one. But she needed to find it.
Chapter III: The Young Fox
She were young. Too young. Tails dancing always, eyes bright with joy. But when she met Koretheia, a divine dressed in mortal skin, she realized something was different. Then, The Emperor's heir, all perfect posture. Next, The Lumin King. And The Heir Sunsets Over Moonlight.
Towers, all of them. Shadows that swallowed her.
No. They were suns. And her? A small fox staring into unbearable light. But they were not her. None of them had the ambition. None carried the same hunger gnawing at her bones.
So, she held onto the mantra: Balance the world. Hand-me-down purpose. A secondhand crown forced onto her head.
Friends arrived then: Camellia Aubreen, a childhood friend and eventually her sole heartbreak. Oracle Tanya, stern always, someone to share secrets. Captain Saber, the kindest soldier. The Seneschal. Servant. Servie. Another keeper of secrets. Garret Richter (now rotting beneath the soil, because that's what time always do). Teachers, mentors, all for her wellbeing.
But none could seal the chasm inside. Some call it "void" but it is a drive.
Ego.
A god-complex dressed in holy robes.
Chapter IV: The Abyss
So, who else, if not her? The world begs for saviors. And she is a savior. Even if she listened to herself. And realized that this is loneliness. It is hollow. She is patching wounds with delusions of grandeur. It never ends well.
Thus, curiosity pulled downwards. Into the darkness. Where the witches, devils, demons lived and lurked. Waiting to feed on the last hope of one's light.
Morrigan Shadecrest, the death magi. A mentor and tormentor. One who split her mind like glass under a hammer. And just like that: out came three: Sachiko Sasaki, the extremist. Aiko Lei, the gentle. And the heir, Jiuweiyo Shiranui, trembling between the two.
A perfect triad. Balance incarnate. But she is not balanced. She is fragmented. A puppet show where each mask wears the same nine tails.
But this was her curse to carry. The soul of her souls. It was part of who she was; what she was made into.
Chapter V: The Black Flames
Suddenly, blackouts became the norm. Waking with blood on her hands. Waking in places she would never walk into. Denying it, always. "It is not the occult," she would insist. But Varrach proved her wrong. A devil who could easily tug at her strings, made her turn against allies.
Even if The Servant stopped her, it did not take long for Delphina to spat her out like a bad gum, with the offer of salvation, purification. A leash disguised as mercy.
But never did she bend. She couldn't. Exile only pushed her closer to the dark. Now, vulnerable, she sought to learn from the dark; through riftmancy, and even dweeled in other aspects of dark sorcery. Hexes. Dreamwalk. Dealing with things she should not to. All for good purposes....
And it did not take long for the occult to bloom like black flowers in her soul, feeding on the ego. The Black Flames manifest as easily as her divinity - like the fox she was always meant to be. Ambitious. Bold. Daring.
And she felt it. She can feel it in her bones. In her skin. In her soul. The flames crawl along. An old legend turns into a present reality. Jiuweiyo is a story that children whisper before they sleep.
Chapter VI: The Barrier
Somehow, never she fell. Never turned to Shura. The last thread of a shifu's life is when they become the very thing they want to destroy. She becomes its opposite, the one who denies balance, the one who destroys it - for balance is a chain who keeps all of us from ascending. It is meant to be broken, the cycle that all Shifu serve.
A thin, fraying, barrier holding it all - protecting her from ever falling - but still there. Even after the attack on Aquantio. Even after trying to annihilate the tree itself. Even after marching with Queen Pneuma against Delphina. Even after everything.
A barrier remained. But the core never shifted. Always convinced of her correctness. Wrongdoings became tokens she would spend to move forward. Apologies were weaponized. No one could hold her. Those who tried ended up pushed away.
They never understood her.
Genius cannot be restrained. She is the prodigy, fox, savior. Titles upon titles! Or a delusional spiral, where self-mythology hides her rot.
But in the end… she only wanted someone to stop her. Someone to catch her before the fall.
The world did not catch her. She fell alone.
But it was not the end. She would rise again. She would rise again. She would rise again.
She would rise again. again. again. again. And again.
Chapter VII: The Parasite
Jiuweiyo always carried her own coronation: Savior. Prodigy. Master Wayfinder. The Ninetails. The divine heir. Self-proclaimed truths repeated, over and over again, until they tasted real.
Beneath all that, something festers. Not her… Never her... A parasite coiled inside, feeding on every lie she told herself.
It whispers in-between every blackout. Each time she becomes Sachiko and Aiko becomes her. Every core of her being can feel it, from Sachiko to Aiko, it shows in every flicker of her fire. Every time she called herself divine.
And when it blooms, Jiuweiyo will vanish. What remains will not be fox, nor savior, nor heir. It will be plague. A darkness cultivated, patiently, tenderly, like a gardener with poisoned soil.
This is no longer her story. Not really. It belongs to the thing waiting inside.
Chapter VIII: The Transformation
The sickness inside her was never still. It waited. It coiled. It fed on her certainty, her countless proclamations, it grew teeth with each lie. Every time she denied her wrongdoings, it drank deep. The plague loves arrogance. It feeds on declarations like a starving wolf.
But she was only speaking the truth. She is prodigy. She is the heir. She is divine. Or maybe it was a bargain. Every boast was a prayer to something dark.
Her sha drowned in its own reflection. It stopped being a weapon she controlled and became a crown forced on her head. Each tail flared brighter, until they weren't just hers anymore.
The world bends because she says it bends. Or perhaps she has become a host. The tails are chains. The flames, shackles.
Deep inside, there was a good soul. There is one. But she needed to find it. Deep inside, the good soul waits for her. Deep inside, all the illusins - all the hearts she broke, all the lies she told to others, all the pain she caused...
They were cries for help.
For someone to see her.
For someone to stop her.
For someone, maybe, to extend a hand; and not see Jiuweiyo Shiranui as another prize.
Another woman to kiss.
Another lover.
The Ninetails. Ever since the beginning, she was bound to attract glances. Ever since the beginning, a snap of fingers would get her any man or woman she ever wanted. Who would pass on the chance of kissing the beauty of Jiuweihu herself? The divine heir?
It was turned into a weapon. A shield. A tool to hide behind.
A tool to use.
A tool to destroy.
A tool to control.
A tool to abuse.
"I can have any heart I want. I can go where I want. I can do what I want. I can be what I want. I can have what I want."
"I can be what I want. I can have what I want."
"Anything at all."
Chapter IX: The Breaking Point
This transformation was not sudden. It was incremental. Each betrayal of her so-called friends. Each person she shutted down. Each time she put herself first. Each time she said, I alone will save the world.
They piled up. They calcified into something greater. And then it broke.
Someday she did not wake as Jiuweiyo. Not as Sachiko. Not as Aiko. She woke in silence, in a chamber without light, standing before a mirror that showed no reflection.
With the air still. With the void humming. Something was about to enter her… or crawl out of her...
In the end, the mirror was not empty. It is waiting. Waiting for her to admit what she is.
Chapter X: Ego Manifest
Hands placed on the glass. It swallowed her arm whole. Then her body. She sank into it like water, and the other side was fire.
The Ninetails danced in flames. Her own form became taller, sharper, and more terrible. And smiling. It spoke in her voice: You've always been me.
The Divine Sinner. Not born, but cultivated. Every choice, every boast, every denial was a prayer, and this is the god that answered.
The genius fox crowned not by mortals, nor gods, but by her own festering self. Heir to her own ego.
She should've resisted it. Accepting this means others would be hurt. She should claim herself back. This is not the destiny that was fit for her. It's disease– But why? Why resist? This is what she wanted. To stand above. To rule. To balance the world to her own direction.
This is salvation. A twisted self. What remained was the crown of Ego, perched upon her skull.
Chapter XI: The Apotheosis
No longer she was Jiuweiyo. She was Sin made flesh. She is a goddess given body. In the end, that balance she sought was never balance. It was elevation. The world evened out only if it bowed before her will.
And now it will. She was changed. Her tails carried the weight of worlds-- wait, it always did...
Her eyes glowed with the faux-divinity of a long forgotten spirit, no longer that of the Kitsunes but out of her own godly self. Her very thoughts demanded others to kneel, not because they wished to – but because they had to. For their Goddess.
And this… is the death of her. The Death of Jiuweiyo Shiranui. No. This is her apotheosis.
Jiuweiyo Shiranui, the divine heir, the Master Shifu, the prodigy, was gone. Dead. Consumed.
Her name fell away like ash. The nine tails unfurled into banners of coronation. A goddess was being written into existence, not by heaven, nor sect, nor bloodline, but by her own conviction.
Chapter XII: The Self-Made Divinity
And behold. For she ascends. She crowns herself, and the crown obeys. She is not the ninetails, nor heir, nor savior. She is the prayer made flesh, the disease that became deity.
She has become what she always was. In her place rose the Divine Sinner. The Self-Made Divinity.
A goddess enthroned by vanity, radiant in her own reflection. Eternal. Inexorable. The world will bend to witness her. Whether in worship, or in fear.
No longer will her name be spoken as Jiuweiyo. It will echo as scripture. She is The Ego. The Crownless Divine. The Ninetails. Any hymn will suffice, each is true.
And none of them matter. Only one truth remains for her: she has become divine.
