At first, Takemichi thought that after that incident, he had returned to the embrace of his ancestors until he opened his eyes and saw a beautiful woman holding him.
Takemichi was very confused at that moment.
It took Takemichi a while to realize that he had been reborn as a citizen of the continent of Teyvat, a world ruled by gods. The time had just passed the Archon War for a long time. Takemichi was told by his mother that in that war, many gods participated in vying for the seven Archon seats on the Celestial Island. In the end, there were only seven gods representing the seven natural elements: Anemo, Electro, Hydro, Pyro, Geo, Dendro, and Cryo. As for the other defeated Archons, they refused to live under the rule of the Seven Gods and fled to the islands in the Dark Sea and became evil gods.
And the place he was born was the land of Eternity, Inazuma, ruled by one of the seven victorious gods, the Electro Archon, also known as the Raiden Shogun.
Especially in this life, he is a half-yokai.
That's right, he was reborn as a half-yokai.
Half of his blood is human, and the other half is the blood of the Kanekori-musume (Ice Pillar Maiden) demon.
Inazuma and Japan used to have similar cultures, but they are only similar, not completely the same. For example, the demons here, the Kanekori-musume, share the same origin as the Tsurara-onna, but unlike the Tsurara-onna in Japan, the Kanekori-musume can only give birth to half-demons, can live outside of winter, are quite gentle, dynamic, like to make friends, and have a tendency to take care of and protect others. Basically, the Kanekori-musume are demons that are very loved and welcomed by other races.
However, the Kanekori-musume have very few members. The main reason is their weak physique and the descendants they give birth to. Although they can live outside of winter, they still need to be supplied with ice and snow from the outside to maintain their lives. But in return for that physical deficiency, they possess extremely powerful ice and snow powers.
As for the descendants, for some reason, the descendants born by the Kanekori-musume are almost entirely of the other party. It is not known whether it is because the Kanekori-musume's demon bloodline is too weak or the constitution born is not suitable for the demon bloodline and self-destructs. The probability of a Kanekori-musume half-yokai appearing is extremely low; out of every hundred children born by Kanekori-musume, only one child is a half-yokai. That's why Kanekori-musume are often told the very tactless joke of being "surrogate mothers." Although it's true, it's not something to be happy about. Another thing is that the gender imbalance in Kanekori-musume is also unbelievably high; out of every five hundred children born by Kanekori-musume, only one is male. That's why the demon clan is named Kanekori-musume.
And luckily, Takemichi was not only born as a Kanekori-musume half-yokai but also male. Takemichi is the first male Kanekori-musume half-yokai to be born since a male Kanekori-musume half-yokai was born two thousand years ago.
Because of this rare birth, Takemichi was loved by both the Kanekori-musume clan and his father's family. Takemichi was extremely happy, perhaps this was his reward after so much hardship traveling through and changing the past.
When his fourteenth birthday took place, Takemichi suddenly received a Vision of the Anemo element right at his party. A little bit about Visions: Visions are gifts bestowed upon those who live in Teyvat by the Seven Gods. They help users with elemental skills based on the element of the Vision that is bestowed.
Takemichi vaguely received the Vision flying down in front of him in the joy of everyone around him, completely not understanding why he received the Vision so easily.
However, Takemichi did not live such a happy life for long. The Ancient Cataclysm appeared very suddenly. Monsters from the Abyss surfaced on the land of Teyvat, causing damage everywhere. At that time, in order to protect Takemichi, his parents sent him to Narukami Shrine, entrusting him to the care of the great priestess Yae Miko, promising to return to pick him up one day after they had cleared the Abyss monsters outside Narukami Island.
For the first ten years of waiting, Takemichi received a few letters reporting the situation of his parents, a few questions about his situation, and a few words of advice. From the eleventh year onwards, the war situation seemed to be increasingly tense, and Inazuma became more and more chaotic due to the ravages of the monsters. Takemichi no longer received any letters from his parents, but this did not worry him because he was attracted by another event.
In the third year after his parents went to the battlefield, Takemichi volunteered to join Narukami Shrine, becoming a Kannushi (male priest) and Gakkai (male Shinto musician). But saying "volunteered" is not entirely correct; this was thanks to Yae Miko's persuasion. In the past, Narukami Shrine only accepted women as shrine maidens and priestesses, and men only as Gakkai. However, the great priestess of this generation is a Fox with the blood of the White God. Although Yae Miko is a great priestess, the nature of that Fox still has cunning and always comes up with unique ideas. Yae Miko was bored with the traditions of Narukami Shrine and wanted to change something new, so Takemichi became the first guinea pig to be experimented on for that change.
At first, Takemichi did not know that this was Yae Miko's conspiracy because he did not know much about Narukami Shrine, having only been there for three years as a lodger, and because his previous life memories had male priestesses in the shrine maiden group, so he thought Narukami Shrine was similar to Shinto shrines in Japan. So he accepted to become a member of Narukami Shrine because of Yae Miko's persuasion. Later, in order to become a Kannushi, he went through a training process, and in that process, he learned history and rules, and then he knew that he had been tricked by Yae Miko. But even if he found out, he couldn't withdraw in time because Yae Miko had already recognized him as the Kannushi of the shrine.
Although he was painfully tricked like that, Yae Miko at least protected him quite well from a few other female priestesses who objected and some elders of some Associations when they knew that Yae Miko wanted to break the law and let a man become a shrine maiden (those old men made a terrible fuss for a long time, it took nearly ten years to compromise), and also accepted him as a student and taught him quite diligently.
Although being a student of the great priestess is very good, mainly having rights that ordinary people and ordinary priestesses of the shrine do not have, Takemichi still has one point of dissatisfaction about being Yae Miko's student.
That is the outfit that Miko forced him to wear!
Yae Miko believes that if Takemichi is her student, then the outfit must be the same as the teacher's outfit. So the Miko's Guidance outfit has another version, a version for Takemichi but with blue-black shorts, and the red part of the outfit is changed to black. Takemichi has never worn such revealing clothes, even though he is a half-demon with good cold resistance, but he usually wears long pants instead of shorts or culottes. Now that he has become Yae Miko's student, Takemichi has to get used to wearing shorts, and also growing his hair long, obviously this idea is also from his master. When his hair grew to half his back, Takemichi chose to braid it instead of having the same hairstyle as his master.
As time went by, the Ancient Cataclysm spread like an epidemic, and monsters rampaged into Inazuma City. Takemichi, who at this time looked like a ten-year-old due to being a demon, went with Yae Miko and some female priestesses who were able to fight down the mountain to fight monsters together with the army of the Tri-Commission and purify the Abyss power left by the monsters after they died. This job was really hard and seemed to have no time limit. Takemichi fought monsters and purified so much that he forgot how much time had passed.
Until one day, after completing the purification work, Takemichi was chatting with Inazuma soldiers and heard that Mikoshi Chiyo - an Oni general directly under the Raiden Shogun - had pointed her sword at her. As a result, she was defeated and exiled. This betrayal tarnished the reputation of the Mikoshi family. But that's all there was to the story; it didn't affect Takemichi, who belonged to Narukami Shrine. After the chats by the campfire, Takemichi returned to his battle the next day.
Before being sent to Narukami Shrine, he had studied his father's swordsmanship school. After being sent to Narukami Shrine, he was led by Yae Miko to his father's family to be taught by the people of that family. After three years, he stopped studying because he had to follow Yae Miko to study the training of the shrine maidens of Narukami Shrine (including the fighting style of the priestesses). Even so, he still spent his free time practicing swordsmanship. Therefore, Takemichi can use both swords and catalysts to fight; he can ensure both vanguard and support.
A long time later, the monsters with the power of the Abyss gradually decreased. Everyone received a simultaneous announcement that the Raiden Shogun had to go somewhere, entrusting everyone to deal with the remaining monsters. After that, a giant cherry tree suddenly appeared on top of Mount Yougou.
Takemichi was very confused by the appearance of this cherry tree because, in his memory, it clearly existed long ago, but the existence of this cherry tree was very strange. Even Yae Miko had the same feeling as him (and she naturally stared at him, her eyes full of planning something that he had a bad feeling about), while the others were very indifferent, as if the cherry tree had existed a long time ago.
Although he didn't know where this cherry tree came from, thanks to it, when the Raiden Shogun returned, she was able to defeat the remaining monsters (a large number, not a few), successfully quelling the chaos in Inazuma.