Mouryou Kiden

Mouryou Kiden: Legend of the Nymph (魍魎姫伝) is a manga by Tamayo Akiyama, a former member of the all-female mangaka group Clamp.

Story
The world is hidden in fog, and is ruled by the goddess of Light, Mikage, from the Fuyo Palace, in which she protects the Pillars of the Sun.

Ayaka, daughter of the goddess of Darkness, Reiki, who has been sealed by Mikage, attacks the Fuyo Palace at the head of her eleven Mouryou to destroy the Pillars of the Sun and revive her mother, but she meets Kai, son of Mikage, and instantly falls in love with him. When Kai, who doesn't know who the girl is, speaks about her and says she's a monster, she flees crying, and he follows her to the kingdom of Reiki, only to discover that the enemy kingdom is being protected by his mother Mikage.

Characters

 * Ayaka
 * At the beginning she thinks to be the daughter of Reiki and a monster, but in truth she's the goddess of the Moon and twin sister of Mikage, who assassinated her, sealed her body in the Underworld and hid her soul; Kai's father found her soul and put it in the body of a newborn baby, child of a Mouryou and a woman.


 * Her love for Kai is not, as she thinks, love at first sight, because she met the prince when they were children, but Mikage erased their memory.


 * Kai
 * Son of the previous king and the goddess of Light Mikage, he's been told that his father has been killed by Reiki and fights to prevent her resurrection. In truth, his mother is the one who killed him, and when he realizes it he uses his power to destroy the Pillars of the Sun with his white flute.


 * Mikage
 * Goddess of Light, was born as the goddess of the Sun; because of Rajin's prediction that one of the twin sisters would become a monster she was separated from her sister Ayaka, as everyone thought that obviously the goddess of the Moon would have been the monster, and while Mikage became the Queen, Ayaka was imprisoned. When she found out that the man she loved, Kai's father, was in love with Ayaka, she killed Ayaka out of jealousy, and then, when she discovered that Kai's father had saved her soul, killed him too. After that she hid the world in a dense fog, and shut her eyes, so that no one could find hints of her guilt.


 * Reiki
 * Initially thought to be Ayaka's mother, and the goddess of Darkness; when the Pillars of the Sun are destroyed, and the goddess of the Darkness is supposed to become the new Queen of the world, instead she's taken to the Underworld and the fog suddenly vanishes. It's later revealed that she's only a manifestation of Mikage's hatred, and exhorts Ayaka to come to her to have a chance of eating her soul.


 * Kai's father
 * He first appears in the story as a man with a death mask, saving Ayaka more than once. However, though his identity is revealed only at the end, he is the one that gave Ayako the chance to be reborn as the Mouryou princess, and the only one (apart from Rajin) who knows the full truth, but he's now only a ghost.


 * Kurama
 * Leader of the Oni-Tengu, he is a skilled fighter and a womanizer, and he too is in love with Ayako. After the destruction of the Pillars of the Sun, he escorts Ayako in her quest to find the Fuyo Palace, and he witnesses Kai destroying the Pillars of the Moon with his black flute. He was born with three lives as he absorbed his brothers' life energy in the womb, but he gives one to Kai and one to Ayaka.


 * Rajin
 * He's a prophet, and the one who prophesied that one of the twin goddesses would become a monster; he also prophesied that the world would be destroyed and recreated by the goddess of Twilight (the final form of Ayaka).