of the ruler" required of the one chosen by the kirin to become a true king. In addition to Haku Sanshi, Taiki also has a powerful toutetsu youma, Gouran, as his shirei. Before his disappearance, Taiki was close to Keiki and was called "half-pint" by Enki. After his disappearance, Taiki is eventually revealed to be alive in Japan and attends high school. In the anime, he is a student at Youko, Yuka, and Asano's school and appears repeatedly in volumes four and five of the anime and referred to at times. Due to the sudden stop of the anime, Taiki's story was never finished and leaves the unresolved situation in which Rokuta is still looking for him in Japan. His story is continued in the novels. In A Shore in Twilight, one of Gyousou's men named Asen stages a coup d'état when he becomes dissatisfied with the king's aggressive reforms. Gyousou is lured away and Asen attacks Taiki, cutting of his horn just before Taiki flees to Hourai via a meishoku. The trauma causes Taiki to lose his memory of the year he spent in the Twelve Kingdoms and he remains in Japan for six years. During this time he begins to lose his kirin nature and is slowly poisoned by the meat he is fed by his family. Eventually Sanshi and Gouran start to go wild and begin killing everyone who gets close to Taiki, mistaking them for enemies: this causes his human family, which already distrusted him, to abhor him and pretty much wish for Takazato's death, believing him to be a living curse. The final breakdown comes when Sanshi and Gouran murder the abusive Takazatos when Taiki is away, showing that they have completely lost their nature as shirei and have become wild youma. (As shown in Demon Child.) Taiki eventually remembers everything and is rescued by the combined efforts of Risai and the kings and kirins of the Twelve Kingdoms. Upon his return, he and his shirei are so full of impurity that the other kirin are unable to get close to him, so a goddess agrees to cleanse them of the impurity. Afterward, Taiki (now without his kirin powers or shirei due to the loss of his horn) reunites with Risai and they leave for Tai in an attempt to save the kingdom. In the novels, Taiki's story stops here and the fate of Tai