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A blue-white moon shone down on an early autumn Gensokyo, bathing the land in its cold, white light. As moonlight is much more agreeable to youkai than sunlight, it illuminated things most people would never see.

On a night like this, the youkai that the moon shines down on stalk the night paths, lying in wait for humans to attack. Youkai can see perfectly by the light of the moon, but humans' eyes are blinded by the darkness. People can't see the path well in the dark, and can't easily tell if what's standing before them is human or youkai.

As a result, most humans don't set out to go anywhere in the dark of night. And indeed, tonight most humans are shut tight in their homes, so nobody noticed the mysterious object that fell from the sky.

Just what was this thing, falling from the sky? At a distance of ten fathoms (about 20 yards) or more, it would appear to be something fluttery, like a piece of cloth, almost like a certain children's program character, flying freely through the night sky, and eventually disappearing over the shrine.


Today is the day of the Monthly Lunar Festival. This festival is held every month on the night of the full moon, when the Earth and the Moon are closest. The festival uses round objects, such as dumplings, as fake full moons as a symbolic attempt to keep the full moon far away. If the moon is far away, then the moon's messengers will stay away, as well. Of course, I was the one who first thought up this festival.

Now, the rabbits should be in the garden, making dumplings. The dumplings they make have various sorts of medicine cooked into them, according to my directions. This medicine is significant for two reasons. One is that, while we say that the rabbit on the moon pounds rice cakes, they're really making medicine, and the other is it's likely that the rabbits will eat some of the dumplings as they make them. Since the dumplings have medicine in them to make the rabbits more excited, the festival will be all the more lively if they sneak some to eat, as I expect they will.

I first saw the glimmering cloth in the eastern sky while listening to the rabbits' noisy activity and gazing at the sky. The cloth shone with a blue-white light. As the sage of the moon, Eirin Yagokoro, I knew ... I knew that the light shone on the same wavelength as the moonlight. That it was, in fact, the lunar veil.


" ... excuse me. Master, the festival is over now."

One of the rabbits entered my room. Named Reisen Udongein Inaba, she's a moon rabbit who calls me her master. Her real name is Reisen, but since she lives on the earth now, I gave her a name written in the fashion used by those born on the Earth.

She originally fled the Lunar War, but I hid the fact that she stumbled upon this house by accident. All of the moon rabbits, including her, have the ability to communicate with each other across long distances. I believed that by hiding her existence here, I could obtain information about the lunar capital.

She has been, indeed, a great help to me. She's done a great deal to help ensure that we can continue to live safely on the Earth like this.

"That was awfully quick, Reisen. I hope you're not cutting corners because it's been so quiet, lately."

"Of course not. We've taken great care, as usual, to make sure the festival ended smoothly. The earth rabbits were happy to eat their fill of dumplings."

"Well, good work. Oh, where is that other girl?"

Reisen's face darkened a bit on hearing my question.

"You mean Tewi? Tewi's ... off playing somewhere, same as ever. It's easier for her to disappear on festival days."


The princess of the moon, Kaguya, lived in Gensokyo, hiding for over a thousand years so that others wouldn't find her.

Why did she have to spend those years in hiding? It's because of the grave sin she committed that condemned her to a life of fleeing the agents of the moon. If humans knew about her, it would be easy for the moon to find her. That's what she thought.

As one of Princess Kaguya's few allies, I've always been by her side to support her with my knowledge. Fortunately, in Gensokyo there is a place called the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, where even youkai find it easy to become lost. Deep within that forest I prepared a special mansion for the princess where no one could easily come across it. That is this place, Eientei.

Eientei is an unusual building. As long as humans don't find it, its history does not move forward. It's the product of the princess' control over eternity and my own knowledge. That the mansion's history never moves forward means that nothing that occurs there becomes recorded history.

For a long time I lived together with the princess in that mansion whose history had been stopped for all eternity. For the first few hundred years, we led a hidden life and paid little heed to the passage of time, but ... one day, a lone youkai rabbit in white appeared, and everything changed.

I still don't know how that rabbit found us out, but it was the first event in Eientei's history since its establishment.

The rabbit told us that she was in charge of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, and it seemed she'd always known we had been living there. Sensing my alarm, she said she had no intention of becoming our enemies, but would help make it easy not to be found by humans if we would bestow our knowledge on the rabbits.

That youkai rabbit took on the name Tewi Inaba, and now lives in Eientei.


"Yes, that girl's always been something of a free spirit."

"It's such a pain. She just left, even though the cleanup from the festival is nowhere near finished. And, of course, all the other earth rabbits disappeared along with her, so now I have to do all the cleaning up. What has she learned from you, anyway, if she can't even stay around to clean up?"

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"This has been on my mind for a while, now, but aren't you a little too easy on her, master?"

With Reisen being so abusive, I decided it would be best to remind her that Tewi had been at Eientei for much longer than she had, but added that I'd "make sure to have a word with her later" to make it sound as if a horrible punishment were in store for Tewi.

"Well, in any case, please go look for her afterwards."

"Okay. But ... This has been on my mind for a while, now, but aren't you a little too easy on her, master? It would probably do her good for you to scold her once in a while. She won't listen to me, but I think she'd listen to you."

"Oh ho. Unfortunately, she won't listen to me, either."

"What, really? Why do we keep taking care of her, then?"

It was clear that Tewi wasn't just a normal youkai rabbit. All the rabbits of the earth listened to everything she said. Though there was nothing at all dignified in her appearance, the idea of her being able to control a great number of rabbits at will brings to mind the image of an ascetic who has achieved enlightenment.

"The earth rabbits only listen to Tewi. Do you know what that means?"

"That Tewi is the most important of the earth rabbits?"

"Without Tewi, we wouldn't be able to control the earth rabbits, which would be a problem."

Something troubling occured to me as we had this conversation. That ray of light was without a doubt the lunar veil. There should be no reason for one of the moon's messengers to come here alone, but ... I just don't understand. I'm sure Tewi saw her, too, and that's why she disappeared.

"Anyway, nothing strange happened during the festival, did it? Say, around the shrine, for example."

"Around the shrine? No ... Is something wrong?"

"Maybe. Hopefully it's nothing"


The lunar veil is one of several vehicles that allow one to travel between the Earth and the full moon. It's often confused with the divine robes of a celestial maiden, but the latter refers to articles of clothing constructed from antimatter, while the lunar veil is a zero-mass garment woven from moonlight. They are, of course, completely different things.

Since the lunar veil has no mass, it's implausible that it would fall to Earth by itself in the absence of a downard air current. The fact that it was falling therefore indicates that somebody was using it. I still didn't know who that person was, or whether they be friend or foe. What was certain is that I had no desire to be found out by the agents of the moon and forced into a fugitive's lifestyle again.

Eientei's frozen history had only begun moving again since *that incident* three or four years ago. But once it started, there was no going back.

Once our history began to move again, we began to live our lives in nostalgia for the way things had been, just like humans. Yet, we had no wish to return to the way things had been when our time had stopped.

"Master? What's on your mind? Oh, I still have to clean up from the festival, so I should go back for now. If Tewi doesn't come back in a while, I'll go out to look for her."

"Ah, yes. Please do."

And so Reisen left the room.

Perhaps it was because I'd seen the lunar veil earlier, but I was reminded of a time long, long ago when I lived in the lunar capital as the sage of the moon. Then, I acted as the leader of a group that travelled between the earth and the moon. I also had been the teacher of two sister princesses since they'd been very young - princesses other than Princess Kaguya, with whom I now live.

The two princesses were my distant relatives. To put it in human terms, one was the wife of a grandnephew of mine, while the other was married to the son of another grandnephew. They were quite distant relations, but I served as a tutor of sorts to both of them.

The older sister was blessed with natural good fortune and never met with any misfortune, while the younger sister was exceedingly sharp and seemed to absorb everything I said. It was commonly understood that one day I'd leave the agents of the moon in their hands.

But after Princess Kaguya's great crime and subsequent exile to Earth, the moon changed enormously.

Well, that's not quite accurate. I was the perpetrator of that crime. I was confident in my knowledge. And, because I was too confident, I committed a minor error.

That minor error was to give the Hourai Elixir, that is, the elixir of immortality and eternal youth, to Princess Kaguya. Princess Kaguya sought the Hourai Elixir out of simple, selfish curiosity. I told her that such a thing existed, and I made it for her.

That the Lunarians would have the Hourai Elixir isn't so unusual in itself. It was primarily given to influential people on Earth to test them, or to start new disturbances.

"If a human drinks this elixir, they will live on forever, and their body will never deteriorate. Yet, no-one must ever drink it."

"Why can't they?"

"If a human drinks it, they will be in pain for all eternity. They will never be allowed to die, yet they will never be able to attain enlightenment, and further still they can't continue to live as a human. This elixir exists as a trial for humans, administered by the Lunarians."

"Then, what would happen if a Lunarian drank it?"

"If a Lunarian, who was not impure like humans, drank the elixir, then ... "

"Then?"

"At the same time they attained immortality, they would receive the same taint that humans bear for having succumber to the temptation of eternal youth, and they would be unable to continue living in the lunar capital."

But my warnings went unheeded, and Princess Kaguya drank the elixir and became immortal. And so, she was expelled from the lunar capital.

As a child, Kaguya had loved to listen to stories about the Earth, and would often tell them herself. To Lunarians, the Earth was a land of impurity and misfortune that experienced brief, fleeting joys. Perhaps that made it more bewitching to her - I can't say. She probably had me make the Hourai Elixir so she could drink it herself.

I regretted my actions, and as a result, when it came time to bring Kaguya back to the moon, I deceived the moon's emissaries and rescued Kaguya, and together we fled back to the Earth.

Those who use the Hourai Elixir take on the same taint as humans. I knew that even if Kaguya could return to the lunar capital, she couldn't lead an honest life. I decided I would atone for my sin by helping find a place on the Earth where she could live an easy life as a human.

Incidentally, the day before I left for the Earth in my capacity as an agent of the Moon to retrieve Kaguya, I left the service of the lunar emissaries in the hands of the two sisters I'd been tutoring. A thousand years have passed since then, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they're still angry over my sudden departure so long ago.

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