The Rising Sun Saga

Interlude: Enter Sun Leaf

Oh, hey.

You're awake.

Hold on. You're speaking a little too fast for me. Who now?

Oh, I see. Hm... let me see if I can try to explain everything for you.

I am not Sun Duza. And you are no longer at Flower-Fruit Mountain. I'm not quite sure how you got here, but this is the Cave of Slanting Moon and Three Stars. A mouthful, I know.

It doesn't surprise me that Sun Duza promised you a full monkey god tale reading. That's so like him. It seems that he waited until you were asleep before arranging your removal from his stomping grounds around the Water-Curtain Cave. He must have brought you here knowing that I wouldn't mind picking up where he left off.

Look, don't take it personally. Duza just doesn't know how to say no. He was probably exhausted from the first part of the tale and needed more than one night to recover. He's kind of a traditionalist. Doesn't think it's polite to make a tourist wait longer than twenty-four hours for the next part of a story.

So then, it looks like I'll be your new bard for a while. Don't let these green sideburns fool you, I take my job very seriously. Your monkey god tale won't be lacking in quality or length, so chill out, friend. There's nothing to worry yourself about.

You don't have to catch me up on anything, I know exactly where to proceed. Just sit back and enjoy the view while you open your ears to the next phase of the tale.

My name is Sun Leaf by the way. I hope you don't mind if I smoke a little while I narrate. It helps me focus.

Yes, the tobacco I use is rather... strong. I apologize for that. Good news is that you'll eventually get used to it.

Now then.

Let's begin.

To start, it might have seemed like our hero, Sun Ritsu, had made several steps forward by uncovering his legendary staff. But truth be told, Dear Traveler, Sun Ritsu somewhat regressed after Anari the Spider left the cadre. Not long after that happened, Ritsu started working as a fry cook in a neighborhood just outside of Kawaii Village.

Now that I think about it, Bodhi the monk was also partially to blame for this. They became a little unstable after finding out that Anari had left without saying goodbye. There was an incident of public indecency involving, well... heh, you guessed it. Alcohol. It seemed that Bodhi was in fact able to render some from a basket of ordinary fruit.

Normally, being drunk in public might get someone a warning, perhaps a swift kick in the rear, but in the case of Kawaii Village, it resulted in a very serious offense. Without even thinking twice, Sun Ritsu took up a job flipping burgers in order to pay for Bodhi's bail. The pig, if you can imagine, was quite furious about this. He wasn't pleased about staying longer than necessary in the Rabbit Province.

Our beloved, cursed hog had some valid reasons why Sun Ritsu shouldn't waste any more of his time in that place. But of course, when has anyone ever listened to dear old Ham Song?