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The Brief Tale of Ooui


Ooui was born into the family which would later bear Airi, the fox spirit of ice. But that was over one hundred and twenty years before she was born. His elder brother was the fox spirit, back then. He and his brother had been taken away after their mother, the previous spirit bearer’s death, and sent to live in the sky temple. There, his brother was trained to hone his power, while the young seven year old Ooui could only watch, and read. However, the monks of the temple quickly discovered Ooui’s amazing capacity for learning. He learned quickly and retained information, and was aware of how to use it. And so, even when his brother was sent away to go and fight for the good of the world, Ooui was forced to stay behind. The child grew up being taught about absolutely everything of importance to the spirits.

In the present time, Ooui’s death must have seemed abrupt. In actuality, Ooui had been awaiting his death for many years, owing the keeping of his life strictly to the safekeeping and well being of his students. Upon his death, and only then, did it become apparent to his pupils the truth of Ooui. He was not a man at all, but a boy. The symbols on his chest would later be discovered to be the curse that was placed upon him.

Ooui lived his life very much as a prisoner. When he was sixteen, he was a very well developed and strongly built young man, and it was at that time that his caretakers, having taught him everything they knew, carved the curse into his chest. And from that day, he never aged again. As long as the young monk remained upon the mountain, he would live forever young. While if he stepped down from it, however, he would surely perish. As the years passed, his mentors died, one by one, and Ooui did not recruit more monks. And so it was that he lived alone in the monastery. But then, the spirits vessels came to him. They were children, most often, confused and in need of help. So Ooui took them in, and taught as he had been taught, as well as what knowledge he had amassed over the years. But each generation of his students grew up, and set out on their own to find the evil that their spirits called them to face. And with each of their deaths, Ooui felt the pang of a father losing his child. His pain never left him, and as more years passed, and more students came and went, that weight on his heart became nearly unbearable. He would disappear into the upper regions of the monastery to convulse in his weakness and misery, where his students could not find him and see their master being anything but strong and protective.

He wound up being a sacrificial lamb in more ways than one. He gave up his natural life to stay on the mountain, live far beyond what he should have in order to become wise and strong to teach others, sacrificing all that he might have had. And, in the end, gave up even that life, which he had become so attached to, in a last attempt to save the students that he had, once again, come to love as his own children, falling under the claws of dragons. Perhaps, deep down, a part of him hated the spirits themselves, for the endless death and suffering they caused but the generations of students as well as himself. But, Ooui never spoke of it. And so, we will never know.