Airin

Airin remembered the sharp, bitter taste of swamp mud, a memory that wasn’t their own, from the first time they put on the kitsune mask. Before that day, they were just a talented but unfocused apprentice in The Crystal Highlands of Armaria, known more for enchanting research notes to flutter like butterflies than for serious study. The mask was just another prop for a grand prank. But when they wore it, the laughter died. A flash of borrowed fury, the helplessness of a soul trapped in a toad’s body—Narisumashi’s curse—surged through them. Frightened, Airin tried to discard it, but the face felt like their own. The experience forced them to mature, to study magic not for tricks, but for answers. They learned to partition their mind: one side for the playful mystic their friends knew, the other a silent chamber for the raging spirit they now carried.