A Brief Chat About This Novel

I rarely watched Japanese anime.

Come to think of it, [Naruto] was the only one I watched after being influenced by others. It felt pretty good, and I really liked Naruto Uzumaki and Mitaraishi Anko.

There was also [Conan], but I watched it entirely because I liked Shiho Miyano—uh, Ai Haibara. Back then, I happened to see the scene where Ai first appeared, and I was instantly amazed. I liked her so much it was ridiculous.

So I watched it, but I only watched the episodes where Ai appeared. Because I liked Ai, I especially hated Shinichi Kudo—uh, Conan Edogawa—and was also really annoyed by Ran Mori, Sonoko Suzuki, Shuichi Akai, and the rest.

I got off topic, I got off topic.

I only started watching [Bleach] last winter. While looking at Naruto pictures one time, I saw the handsome Toshiro Hitsugaya. After searching for ages, I learned he was a character from Bleach.

As everyone knows, Toshiro appeared relatively late, so as I kept watching, I came to like Yoruichi Shihōin—even more than I liked Toshiro.

Although I had not been watching it for very long, I was a standard Yoruichi fan.

Before I had even finished the anime, I already had the urge to write a Yoruichi fanfic. The reason was that there were too few Bleach fanfics about Yoruichi. They were either abandoned, or **, or Yoruichi/Urahara pairings and such. There were basically no serious ones, and reading them made my head spin.

The original concept for this novel was to create a cold, merciless person who lived only for Yoruichi, like a shadow that hid in the darkness and silently protected her.

But my writing was still not very polished. On top of that, it had not ended yet, there were too many uncertainties, and there were many unresolved mysteries surrounding Yoruichi. So as I wrote on paper, it gradually stopped feeling right.

So I decisively gave up on the idea of following the entire plot from beginning to end. You see, I never read manga, only watched anime, and the Thousand-Year Blood War had not been animated.

But precisely because of that, I added Byakuya Kuchiki, Kenpachi Zaraki, Gin Ichimaru, Ganju Shiba, and the others. Although Shadow remained cold and ruthless, he still had some emotions.

And as for being unable to forget Anko, I dare say that was only a strategy. It was only because he could not forget that he... well, you know?

Ran'Tao's appearance was entirely a spur-of-the-moment decision. More accurately, most of the plot was improvised.

Although this novel was not my original idea, I would still write it seriously. I wanted to wait until everything was fully clear before writing the most ideal shadow in my mind, but who knew how long that would take.

In short, my writing might not be very good, but I hope everyone would support it.

My sincere thanks to everyone.

And most importantly, my protagonist was a shadow in the darkness, so he did not talk much when there were many people around.

A lot of the time, it began with Yoruichi Shihōin, so please do not mind.

Also, I focused on when Yoruichi appeared. Therefore, I would write all of her appearances, while I would gloss over anything where she did not appear. Since I wrote from Shadow's and Yoruichi's perspectives, it might not suit everyone's tastes, so please bear with me.

As for the plots where Yoruichi appeared, I wrote them according to the anime. I followed the anime because I did not want to casually alter it. I wanted to write a completely faithful Yoruichi.

Everything followed the plot. Those who had to leave would still leave, and those who had to die would still die. But I had long since decided on the ending: I guaranteed a happy ending with no one left out.

Ha! If it were a tragedy, Feng Ye would not be able to stand reading it himself!

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