Tamamo-no-Mae

**Tamamo-no-Mae** is an evil nine tailed fox demon or better known as a Kitsune, who causes chaos and mayhem across the world by disguising herself as a concubine of several certain kings, and also responsible for triggering a lot of wars.

## Appearance

Tamamo is a rather beautiful and yet seductive woman. However, her most distinguishable trait is that she is described as a white-faced and golden furred nine-tailed fox demon, who can change her appearance at will to evade several suspicions when she visits other countries.

## Personality

Despite her beautiful appearance and her intelligence that made several people enamored by her, Tamamo is revealed to be a wicked being who loves to revel at the suffering in others. This was shown during her days as a concubine for several emperors across the world as she manipulated several kings, committed depraved acts and also spread suffering towards other innocent people on her own volition on a daily basis.

Tamamo is also extremely intelligent and seductive as she managed to charm other people, including the kings, to bend to her will.

## Background

Not much is known about Tamamo no Mae's early life, as she is a woman shrouded in mystery. However, records said that she was born 3,500 years ago somewhere in the north. As hundred years passed, she had become a powerful sorceress and transformed herself as a beautiful white-faced nine tailed fox with golden fur. With her manipulation and charming skills, she managed to seduce several kings to her side in order to make herself well known in several world affairs and control it from the shadows.

One of her appearances in history is as Da Ji, the concubine of King Zhou of Shang. During the reign of King Zhou, Tamamo was revealed to be behind the misfortunes and depravities that happened in the kingdom which resulted in the Dynasty facing it's imminent destruction. This is due to the fact that Tamamo herself has a track record on spreading human misery such as holding orgies in the palace gardens or inventing several innovative yet excruciating torture methods just to hurt others. As the Dynasty began to crumble due to Tamamo's machinations, she was initially going to be executed. However, due to her wits, she managed to escape to the South.

She then disguised herself as Lady Kayo and began to seduce King Kalmashapada—better known as Hanzoku in the North—who was the ruler of the Magadha Kingdom located in the South. Similar to what happened during the previous Dynasty, Tamamo enthralls King Kalmashapada to do several depraved things such as cannibalizing his children, massacring several innocent priests, making the king behead one thousand innocent men and committing other unspeakable horrors. However, legends say that due to either running out of resources to eat or Kalmashapada began to convert himself into a Buddha, she then fled back to the North.

Returning to the North again, she then changed her identity to Bao Si and seduced the king of the next Dynasty, King You, with her extraordinary beauty to become the king's consort. However, due to Tamamo's ungratefulness, she then manipulated the king to depose his wife, Queen Shen, and make Tamamo as the brand new queen. After becoming the queen, Bao Si then faked her emotions by rarely smiling in order to manipulate the king which resulted in him committing more and more depravities just to please Tamamo, who rarely smiled. Eventually, the king was killed due to the atrocities that he had committed and Tamamo was captured. Unsurprisingly, she managed to evade execution while hiding from the public for many years.

Tamamo then manages to trick three of the envoy of the next Dynasty, Kibi no Makibi, Abe no Nakamaro, and Ganjin, by disguising herself as a 16 year old girl named Wakamo and this resulted in her getting a free ticket as the three envoys prepared to go home as she remained there until 300 years with the three envoys, who didn't know that she will be responsible of the bad things that will happen in the future.

Tamamo transformed herself into a human baby and was adopted by a married couple after they found her in the streets. She was named Mizukume and grew into a beautiful and intelligent girl. As she hit seven years old, she then recited some poetry towards the emperor which resulted in Tamamo becoming the servant of the Emperor's court as her intelligence grew more and more like a sponge absorbing water and her beauty became unparalleled, which captivated all of the people.

As she hit eighteen years old, a poetry and instrument recital was held in order to honor Mikuzume. However, during the recital, a horrible storm struck the palace as the candles in the castle went out. Suddenly however, Mikuzume's body illuminated the room, which captivated the people who were present in the ceremony, making them assume that Mikuzume was actually a reincarnation of a benevolent person in her previous life while, in reality, she is an evil empress that is responsible for the destruction of several empires in the past across the world. However, due to the incident, this made the Emperor, Emperor Toba, interested in her beauty and intelligence to the point he gave Mikuzume a name, Tamamo no Mae, and was made as a consort. However, after Tamamo no Mae married Emperor Toba, the latter was struck with a horrible illness that was seemingly unsolvable by the court physicians. During that time, Abe no Yasunari was called to the palace in order to diagnose the Emperor's illness.

As Abe no Yasunari read the fortune of Emperor Toba, it was soon revealed that he was struck by a bad omen and the person who is responsible of the king's downfall was none other than Tamamo no Mae herself, much to the king's horror as she tried to shorten the lifespan of the Emperor in order to become the ruler of the empire. Initially, the Emperor refused to believe what Abe no Yasunari had said. However, he decided to let Abe no Yasunari test Tamamo in order to prove that Tamamo was still a benevolent person on the inside and not the cause of the Emperor's downfall.

In order to save the Emperor's life, Abe no Yasunari then prepared a powerful ritual known as Taizan Fukun no Sai in which Tamamo was persuaded by the priests to participate. Initially, Tamamo rejected the offer because she was aware that the ritual could potentially kill several evil demons. However, she had no choice but to participate because if she succeeded to do so, it would increase her reputation towards the people in the court. As Tamamo no Mae participated in the ritual, she dressed more beautifully than normal and played her part extremely well. However, as soon as she waved the ceremonial staff, she vanished, which not only confirmed Abe no Yasunari's prophecy, but also flung the court into a state of panic.

After Tamamo no Mae seemingly disappeared without a trace, news had struck across the country saying that several innocent women and children were missing and it was heavily implied that Tamamo was responsible for the cause of this disappearance. This resulted in the Emperor summoning all of the best warriors in the country in order to stop the fox demon's reign of terror. Two of those warriors were revealed to be Kazusanosuke and Miuranosuke, who were the strongest of them all. As the two prepared to find Tamamo no Mae and stop her reign of terror, they purified themselves and were accompanied by 80,000 armed men in order to slay the fox.

After the warriors and the armies that accompanied them reached Nasuno Province, they managed to trace the fox demon. However, due to Tamamo's slyness and extreme intelligence, she managed to evade the pursuit of the two warriors as she managed to outsmart them over and over again. This resulted in the two warriors trying to practice harder in order to track the fox demon easier and defeat her once and for all.

One night, Miuranosuke received a dream about a beautiful young girl begging to be saved by the warrior. However, knowing it was one of Tamamo no Mae's tricks, he declined her offer. After waking up from his dream, Miuranosuke and Kazusanosuke then continue to try their best to find the fox demon, until they managed to do so. However, the battle was not in their favor, and in the end, Tamamo no Mae killed them both. Then she disappeared from public eye.

However, despite her disappearance, Tamamo no Mae's horrors didn't end there as one year later, Emperor Toba died, and thanks to Tamamo no Mae's machinations, the other Emperor died without a living heir.