A girl named "Kaguya" was born from the bamboo, her beauty without equal in the world.
All who heard of her found themselves haunted by longing; all who laid eyes on her forgot to eat or sleep. Her looks were simply without compare under heaven.
Five proud nobles came forward to court her:
Prince Ishitsukuri sought the Buddha's stone begging bowl — what he brought was a sham, and his lies were exposed for all to see.
Prince Kuramochi had a jeweled branch crafted — exquisite work, yet the craftsmen who made it came to collect their payment and gave the whole game away, leaving him red-faced and disgraced.
Minister Abe no Miushi spent a fortune on a robe of the fire-rat of China — only to watch it burn to ashes, leaving him with nothing but false hope.
Grand Counselor Ōtomo set out to claim a jewel from a dragon's neck; Middle Counselor Isonokami sought a cowry shell born from a swallow's nest. In the end, both came back with empty hands and ruined fortunes, their power and prestige utterly spent.
As a certain verse from the Central Plains put it: When the feast is done and the birds scatter into the trees, all that remains is a stretch of white emptiness.
That was The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter in its original form — a divine being briefly walking among mortals, while the mortals wagered their entire lives on a game the gods were playing for sport.
But now, as Shin looked out at these streets full of Japanese residents marching with fanatical, worshipful zeal, even an idiot could tell something was wrong.
[Moon Princess]: I am absolutely livid. LIVID.
[Moon Princess]: [I've cried so hard I can't even.jpg]
Kaguya was losing her composure — not surprising, really. She'd been stuck inside a bamboo stalk for a full day and night with nothing to do, and now the group livestream was telling her that someone had stolen her identity and was parading around as her.
[Moon Princess]: In MY story, I'm the one who strings people along — there's never supposed to be someone else running around using MY name as a con!
[Moon Princess]: If you're going to play the bridal selection game, at least do it properly! Do I look like the kind of person who lacks all sense of dignity?!
[Moon Princess]: Infuriating — and I'm still stuck in this bamboo like a bamboo shoot!
In the group chat, Kaguya's messages kept coming in a continuous stream. It was obvious that the chat was the only entertainment she had left.
Shin could see it clearly — this princess who normally sat back with a cup of tea and watched the world burn was genuinely rattled. She'd even busted out an emoji that cutting-edge.
[Queen of Britain]: Stay calm, Your Highness. Perhaps she's a long-lost twin sister who doesn't know where you are and is searching for you using your name?
Morgan was trying to offer some comfort to Kaguya, but clearly she wasn't well-versed enough in the details of Human History lore.
[Moon Princess]: A twin? …You know, I'm not going to touch that. That's not the point right now!
[Moon Princess]: @Spreading Witch Factors — Boy, forget looking for me for a moment. Go to Heian-kyo and find out who this is. I want to know who's bold enough to impersonate me.
[Spreading Witch Factors (Great Witch)]: Heh. Curious, I have to say. I've read the human-authored Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, but I had no idea the Moon Princess's true name was actually "Kaguya."
(For readability, the MC's account and the Great Witch's account will be distinguished from here on.)
[Spreading Witch Factors (Great Witch)]: Go ahead, little Shaya. Be careful out there. Remember — the moment you sense danger you can't handle, come straight back.
[Spreading Witch Factors (temp account)]: Understood. I'll be careful.
Shin closed the chat window and, joining the river of humanity pouring toward Heian-kyo, stepped onto the imperial road.
The entire journey could be summed up in two words: spectacular excess.
Vermillion ox-carts stretched as far as the eye could see, their wheels grinding against the flagstones with heavy, rhythmic creaks. These were the conveyances of lords and nobles from every province, silk draperies hanging from every window.
Some had gone even further — arriving with entire cartloads of jewels, a level of extravagance that made Shin feel like he'd genuinely stepped into a mythological tale.
He also spotted processions leading enormous captured beasts — a colossal golden tiger, and some exotic birds he couldn't identify.
They really will spare no expense for a single glimpse of her.
And she's supposed to be a fake, too.
Shin found it strange — it wasn't as though Kaguya never posted photos in the group chat. He'd seen plenty.
Kaguya was genuinely beautiful — more beautiful than any woman Shin had ever met, several leagues ahead of Melusine on looks alone. But it wasn't the kind of beauty that drove a person mad at first sight. Shin certainly hadn't been struck dumb, anyway — though he didn't know anything about the ancient world's particular vulnerabilities.
Compared to his own Great Witch, Shin figured she was fine, but nothing spectacular — purely because mothers are the best in the world — and absolutely not because said Great Witch occasionally set him death-or-death choice exercises in her spare time.
Shin blended into the crowd, using his Ultimate Being ability to mask his aura. His frame was a little taller than the average Japanese man of this era, but he passed unremarkably as a wandering ronin swordsman.
And he noticed: the closer he got to Heian-kyo, the thicker the air became — a sweet, cloying fragrance, almost like incense, but with a subtly hallucinogenic quality beneath it.
It reminded him of Miquella and St. Trina. The way a holy lance made him think of Heaven-Attained DIO.
The eyes of those walking toward the capital had lost their last traces of clarity. Only a burning, consuming desire remained.
At last, as the final embers of dusk faded and the full moon climbed high and bright, Shin entered the brilliantly lit venue of the "bridal selection" in Heian-kyo.
It was an enormous pavilion.
This was no original Kyoto structure — it looked as though it had been thrown up in a matter of days, raised entirely from gold and silver and jade. Under the moonlight, the whole building radiated a blinding, dazzling luminescence.
At the very top of the pavilion, sheer curtains billowed in an unfelt wind.
Behind layer upon layer of violet drapes, a slender silhouette sat motionlessly on a long divan.
That waterfall of black hair pooled onto the floor. Even from hundreds of metres away, Shin felt something pull at his mind — a "beauty" so absolute it bordered on the transcendent.
It wasn't the beauty of flesh. It was something closer to the nature of the Tao itself.
The crowds packed around the base of the pavilion held their breath collectively, not daring to make a sound. They knelt on the stone plaza below, their burning, reverent eyes tilted up toward the shadow behind the drapes.
So that's "Kaguya-hime"?
Shin frowned. Every instinct he had told him something was deeply wrong with that silhouette.
To get a clearer look, he quietly stretched out one hand. A small patch of skin on his fingertips rippled and shifted — morphing, in an instant, into a sparrow the size of a fist. This was the Ultimate Being's flesh-manipulation at work. Shin could share the bird's vision perfectly.
The sparrow took wing, using the darkness as cover, deftly evading the patrolling samurai, and shot up along the pavilion's sweeping eaves to the top floor.
It landed on a rafter just metres from the curtains, its sharp little eyes fixed on the girl behind the drapes.
But the result wasn't what Shin had hoped for.
The girl's face was covered by an additional layer of sheer veiling.
By all rights, at this distance and angle, with vision that dwarfed any human's, he should have been able to pierce that thin veil without effort. But no matter how the sparrow adjusted its angle — from the side, from above — the girl's features remained in that same hazy, indistinct state, as though perpetually hovering just on the edge of visibility.
Even her hairstyle, her posture, even the intangible quality of her presence — all virtually identical to the Kaguya in the group chat. And yet her face simply refused to resolve.
What exactly is this?
The sparrow flew off and vanished into the night. Shin's expression was grave.
He was beginning to doubt whether this was even the same Tale of the Bamboo Cutter that Kaguya in the group chat had arrived in — especially because he still hadn't run into Fairy Knight Lancelot. With Melusine's abilities, there was no way she could have failed to notice him in a crowd this size.
At that moment, a commotion erupted from below the pavilion.
A woman serving as the ceremony's mistress of rites stepped forward, her voice sharp and high:
"Today, Kaguya-hime has declared a new trial!"
"Whosoever can make her smile — regardless of birth or station — shall be permitted to enter this pavilion and be granted an audience!"
The announcement sent the crowd of nobles below into an uproar.
The threshold changed daily. Some days it was presenting a treasure; some days it was composing a waka poem. Today, of all things, it was making the beauty on the high platform smile.
Simple as it sounded, for a "Kaguya-hime" who had, from the moment of her arrival, been cold as ice and utterly unreadable — it was harder than climbing to heaven.
And so the performances began.
An onmyōji from Shikoku performed feats of paper sorcery, conjuring fire from folded parchment.
A legendary swordmaster performed a transcendent blade form in the moonlight, every sweep of steel flashing with lethal beauty.
But the silhouette behind the curtains remained like a perfect sculpture — not a single movement, not a single breath of change.
"Out of the way! Move!"
"A bunch of performers showing off for nothing — you think any of you can make her smile?"
A wave of shoving cut through the crowd.
A young noble of extravagant wealth and dress swaggered forward, dozens of muscular men behind him hauling a massive, cloth-covered cage.
With a single sharp pull, the black cloth fell away.
"ROAR!"
A thunderous tiger's roar split the air, driving the crowd back in terror.
It was the golden tiger Shin had seen on the road into the city.
A beast the size of a small house, standing nearly two full zhang tall when upright. Pure muscle from neck to tail. Its eyes were twin points of burning crimson, its gaze swirling with something unnatural and wild.
"This man-eating beast took a hundred men to capture in the deep mountains!" the young noble bellowed, his face flushed with mania, shouting up at the top of the pavilion.
"Your Highness dwells on high, surely weary of the mundane performances of this world!"
"Only something primal and pure as this can be worthy of your nobility!"
"Today, following the old example of the wicked King Jie of the Xia Dynasty, I release this tiger into the crowd — let it hunt and kill among them, and let this offering make Your Highness smile!"
With those words, ignoring the screams and panic spreading around him, he wrenched open the cage door.
"ROAR——!"
Free of its restraints, the golden tiger let out a bellow and its crimson eyes immediately locked onto the densest mass of people — those with no way to flee in time.
The first in its path —
A black-haired girl who had been too stunned by the tiger's roar to move, left behind while her father scrambled away in his expensive robes.
"No — that's Prince Kuramochi's daughter, she's frozen in place!"
"Someone help — no, run!"
Under the horrified eyes of the crowd, the tiger's paw — capable of crushing solid stone — was already descending toward the little girl's head, hot breath washing over her face from that gaping maw.
The very top of the pavilion, where the silhouette had not so much as twitched until now, seemed to stir faintly at this sudden development.
But in the very next instant —
Something moved.
Just as the golden tiger's massive paw was about to reduce the girl to pulp, a figure burst in front of the beast.
Nobody thought it could actually stop the tiger. Nobody was paying attention to who it was — some samurai in service to Prince Kuramochi's household, probably.
But what happened next defied every expectation —
Thud.
A muffled impact.
In the frozen silence of the crowd, the thousand-jin golden tiger, fierce and unstoppable, was arrested in mid-air.
A young man's palm — belonging to someone a fraction taller than the average man — had snapped around the tiger's thick throat with perfect precision.
And just like that, single-handed, he held the great beast aloft as it clawed the air helplessly — like a man lifting a kitten by the scruff.
At that very moment, a laugh rang out from the top of the pavilion.
"Pfft — hahahaha…"
To be continued…
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