Sea of the Wind, Shore of the Maze, Prologue

completely  wash off the smell of blood. Taiki didn't tell the nyosen and let Sanshi be by him until he fell asleep like in  the past. As a result, he had gotten a fever by the next day.
    (It would be better if Taiki had shirei...)
    Teiei quietly thought to herself.
    Relying only on Sanshi to protect Taiki isn't enough.
    At times like these, she felt like the ten years that Taiki had been away from Mt. Hou was really too  long a time.
    The Yellow Sea around the Five Mountains was a habitat for youma, and ordinarily, a kirin would use  his spare time to walk along the periphery of the Yellow Sea and tame youma, turning them into his shirei.
    At first he would find a few smaller youma at the foot of the Five Mountains to test out his skill and tame  them.
    (However, Taiki's already run out of time...)
    Moreover, Taiki also didn't know how to tame youma, and there was no way Teiei could teach him,  because this should have been an instinctual skill that a kirin was born with.
    (If only he had come back five years earlier.)
    Kirin are born in beast form and in their first five years, do not change their appearance, since they  don't have a horn yet. They don't know how to speak and don't quite understand everything a nyosen says,  like a small bird that has just hatched.
    However, newly hatched birds can't fly, but kirin already know how to gallop through the air when  they are born. Small kirin can only follow their nyokai around, wandering blithely through the Five  Mountains, as they search for youma and tame them for their own amusement. Small kirin grow up only  drinking their nyokai's milk, so they build up a resistance to injury and blood.
    Though it is a little different for every kirin, they begin to transform every now and then to human  form and speak the human language after an average of about five years. After another period of time, their  transformations will last longer, until one day the sharp tips of their horns will emerge from their foreheads.
    That is also the time it stops nursing, and from then on, they can show their complete human forms.
    Thus, from the time they stop nursing, most kirin just know naturally how to transform and how to  tame youma, and they don't need anyone to teach them. Though they are not considered fully grown until  their horns are completely developed, they basically already possess all the skill that a kirin should have.
    Also, it isn't until this time that the flag can be raised.
    After a kirin stops nursing, their native kingdom--although they weren't really born in that kingdom,  most people refer to it as such--receives news of this event, and every shrine in the kingdom raises a Kirin  Flag. This meant that there was a kirin on Mt. Hou who was already prepared to choose a ruler. After all  those that hope to be the ruler see the raised flag, they then climb the mountain in throngs.
    Teiei sighed.
    Taiki was no longer a small kirin. On the day that he had returned to Mt. Hou, his native kingdom, Tai  Kingdom had raised the Kirin Flag. There was no way to tell the people now that Taiki was not yet ready.
    He had to choose a ruler. At this point, Taiki should already know how to transform, and he should already  have shirei.
    "What's the matter?"
    Taiki asked Teiei this. He may have heard Teiei sighing.  Teiei shook her head at Taiki's curious face.
    It would be better if she didn't say anything. Or else it might be like the matter concerning his  transformation, causing Taiki to worry to himself. After all, this was something that no one could teach him.
    It wasn't easy to cheer Taiki up, and she didn't want to make him depressed and unhappy again.
    Ever since Taiki had heard Youka say that after he chooses a ruler, he wouldn't be able to return to Mt.  Hou, he had been in low spirits. The closer the summer solstice got, the more he moped, making the nyosen  who saw him feel all anxious inside.
    He was like this up until he had heard that there wasn't necessarily a real ruler among the people who  will climb the mountain during the summer solstice, and that some kirin live on Mt. Hou for several years  and wait many seasons before they finally find a ruler. Then, he recovered the cheerfulness of his former  days again.
    "We need to think of a way to take advantage of the time we have now..."
    Fortunately, there were no people at Hoto Palace right now. It seemed that the only person to make it  for the Ankou Day of the spring equinox was that