is a manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 by Tamayo Akiyama

Tamayo Akiyama

a Japanese shōjo manga author and artist. She was a former member of CLAMP.Akiyama has also done illustrations for three novels and illustrations for a CD .-Works:Hyper Rune, Mouryou...

, a former member of the all-female Japanese manga artist

Mangaka

is the Japanese word for a comic artist or cartoonist. Outside of Japan, manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese...

 group Clamp

Clamp (manga artists)

, is an all-female Japanese manga artist group that formed in the mid 1980s. Many of the group's manga series are often adapted into anime after release. It consists of their leader , who provides much of the storyline and screenplay for all their works and adaptations of those works respectively ,...

.

Story

The world is hidden in fog

Fog

Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...

, 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

Underworld

The Underworld is a region which is thought to be under the surface of the earth in some religions and in mythologies. It could be a place where the souls of the recently departed go, and in some traditions it is identified with Hell or the realm of death...

 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

Love at first sight

Love at first sight is a common trope in Western literature, in which a person, character, or speaker feels romantic attraction for a stranger on the first sight of them...

, 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

Jealousy

Jealousy is a second emotion and typically refers to the negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, and anxiety over an anticipated loss of something that the person values, particularly in reference to a human connection. Jealousy often consists of a combination of presenting emotions...

, 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

Ghost

In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...

.

Kurama

Leader of the Oni-Tengu

Tengu

are a class of supernatural creatures found in Japanese folklore, art, theater, and literature. They are one of the best known yōkai and are sometimes worshipped as Shinto kami...

, 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

Prophet

In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

, 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).