[The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox] - Chapter 235 - Trial Day in Heaven, My Way
Blurb: After Piri the nine-tailed fox follows an order from Heaven to destroy a dynasty, she finds herself on trial in Heaven for that very act. Executed by the gods for the “crime,” she is cast into the cycle of reincarnation, starting at the very bottom – as a worm. While she slowly accumulates positive karma and earns reincarnation as higher life forms, she also has to navigate inflexible clerks, bureaucratic corruption, and the whims of the gods themselves. Will Piri ever reincarnate as a fox again? And once she does, will she be content to stay one?
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Chapter 235: Trial Day in Heaven, My Way
Trial day in Heaven was a serious affair. And like the New Order we were trying to establish, it had an air of earnest do-goodery.
I blamed Bobo for that.
“But we have to give them a chanccce to defend themssselves,” she protested when she overheard Aurelia and me pre-determining the gods’ punishments. “What if they had a reassson for doing ssstuff?”
“They tortured Flicker!” Aurelia and I burst out in unison.
“Oh…oh…you’re right, hmmm. But it ssstill feels…weird.” Bobo tilted her head so far to the side that her neck looped all the way around and popped back upright.
Bobo does make a valid point, said Stripey, backing her up the way he always did.
The first thing I’d done after taking the throne was issue a decree granting Eldon a chimera to legitimate his rule. Stripey and Bobo were here to pick it up. And to advise me before my first great show as Jade Empress.
If we’re not careful, one of these gods you plan to punish will turn into a second Piri.
“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked indignantly.
“It means that we can’t afford to alienate anyone, because they might come back and depose us,” Aurelia translated, but she was frowning. I suspected she’d been looking forward to punishing Cassius even more than I had.
“Uh-huh, uh-huh!” agreed Bobo. “It would be really mean of us to treat anyone like how they treated Rosssie!”
Curses. She and Stripey both made valid points. Demolishing the Ministry of Fate and hauling out Lady Fate by her hair would backfire. Holding a sham trial to humiliate her and the ex-Jade Emperor and Cassius and the Goddess of Life and everyone else would backfire. Even if we crushed them utterly and completely, we’d lose the support of the star spirits and imps. And we’d seen how much power they had when they chose to wield it.
“Fine, fine,” I conceded. “We’ll give them the chance to tell their side of the story. Happy?”
“Yep yep! Sssounds good!”
Aurelia marveled, “I will never understand how the two of you ended up as friends.”
Gravely, Stripey replied, I often wonder the same thing.
///
First up was the ex-Jade Emperor. I wanted to get him out of the way before he reneged on his abdication or the other gods kicked up a ruckus about re-crowning him. Since he’d been so cooperative throughout his house arrest, we allowed him the embroidered blue robes of a star god instead of making him don the white prison sackcloth he’d forced on me. (No, I wasn’t still bitter about that.)
All the seated gods rose to their feet and bowed when Dusty escorted him into the Hall of Purple Mists, and some of the star sprites even genuflected. The imps, on the other hand, melted into the shadows behind the columns, presumably so they wouldn’t need to show respect to a deposed ruler or be seen not doing so. Their pragmatic self-interest never failed to impress me.
Down the length of the hall strode the ex-Jade Emperor, head held high. I watched him closely to ensure he wasn’t making eye contact with any supporters in the audience, but Dusty got him to the foot of the dais without a rebellion breaking out. I took that as a win.
A second win came when Dusty poked him in the back with his nose and the ex-Jade Emperor actually bowed to Aurelia and me. The gasps from the gods practically sucked all the air out of the room.
“Star of Eternal Justice.” Aurelia’s voice rolled out clear and firm. We’d decided that the gods and the ex-Jade Emperor himself would accept his punishment more readily if a fellow deity took the lead here. “You are charged with negligence in your mandate to act as the final arbiter of justice in Heaven and on Earth. How do you plead?”
Here we went! This was my biggest gamble. If he confessed his failure to serve as a just ruler, then no one could contest his removal. On the other hand, if he’d had a change of heart, if he denied it….
In the silence that filled the hall, I could practically hear the ka-thunk of moon blocks hitting the floor. It was my imagination, though. Lady Fate had sealed herself into her main hall and severed all communication with the rest of the world.
“I plead guilty” came the ex-Jade Emperor’s firm response.
The exhalations from so many gods raised a wind that tinkled the beads on my headdress. Slowly, the ex-Jade Emperor rotated to face those over whom he had once ruled and by whom he had been puppeted.
“I plead guilty. I took the throne of Heaven believing that I could be a more just, a more benevolent ruler than I had been on Earth. I believed I understood the challenges of ruling over a court with such deeply engrained factions and practices.” (I noted that he didn’t say “corruption.”) “I believed that I could bring peace and prosperity to everyone in Heaven and on Earth. But I was wrong. For so long as I sat on that throne, nothing in Heaven changed, and conditions on Earth only worsened. It is time for others to take up the mandate.” He turned back to the dais and bowed deeply.
“We hear and accept your confession,” Aurelia pronounced before any of the gods could start fussing. “Your humility and clear-sightedness move Us to clemency.”
Without a break, I picked up where she’d left off. “Therefore, We offer you the same chance for redemption that you once offered Us in your wisdom and mercy. Star of Eternal Justice, you shall re-enter the cycle of reincarnation as an earthworm, a creature whose actions bring much benefit to the lives of those on Earth and hence, indirectly, to those in Heaven. Live your lives well.” The murmurings began then, but I spoke over them. “Fiat. Let it be done.”
“Fiat,” repeated Aurelia. “Let it be done.”
The ex-Jade Emperor bowed to us once more, and Dusty led him out of the hall.
And that was my final victory over the god who had presided over my sham trial and made such a mockery of justice so many centuries ago.
///
“But Heavenly Majesties! I was ordered to do it!”
Lady Dan, Aurelia’s treacherous – no, allegedly treacherous – crane maiden lieutenant was much less cooperative than the ex-Jade Emperor.
“Where have I heard that defense before?” I muttered to Aurelia, who kept her face as impassive as a statue’s.
I studied the thief – no, alleged thief – at the foot of the dais. She was dressed in the white prison sackcloth, but we’d forgone the chains. I didn’t want her using her appearance to solicit sympathy as I had, and it wasn’t like she could escape with Dusty guarding her.
“Crane Maiden Dan, tell Us who ordered you to steal the Peaches of Immortality,” I commanded, keeping my voice stern but not menacing. Just. I had to be seen as just. “Omit no details.”
Licking her lips, Lady Dan clasped her hands before her. Without looking at Cassius, she said, “I – I was – walking in the gardens with the Star of Heavenly Joy.”
A puff of air escaped Aurelia’s nostrils.
Lady Dan blushed, gulped, and went on. “We were near the Bureau of the Sky. He said…he said he needed….”
She garbled the words, maybe because Cassius was radiating threat at her. (He, too, was drowning in baggy white robes like the criminal he was.)
“Please speak up so Their Heavenly Majesties can hear you,” Floridiana said sharply.
Hanging her head, Lady Dan mumbled, “He said he needed…Peaches of Immortality.”
Since I doubted those beyond the first row of the audience had heard her confession, I repeated it. “He needed Peaches of Immortality?” I injected appalled disapproval into my voice, and the gods rumbled sententiously. “Did he tell you why he ‘needed’ Heaven’s most precious treasures?”
“No…not so much in words, but I knew he’d been seeking – ”
“This is absurd! Preposterous!” shouted Cassius. “Why are we listening to the fantastical ravings of a bird?”
“Silence!” Floridiana snapped. “Their Heavenly Majesties have not given you permission to speak!”
He loosed a contemptuous laugh. “Their Heavenly Majesties! That one is the most evil demon Serica has ever seen, and that one is my ex-wife.” He half-turned towards the rows of gods and goddesses. “This is a farce! A perversion of justice! How can you sit by and watch them corrupt the natural order?”
“Heavenly Lord, if you cannot be silent until you’re called upon to testify – ” began Floridiana.
“And you! You’re nothing but a human! An ordinary, lowly human! How dare you speak to me?”
“I,” Floridiana bit out, “am a mage.”
“You are a former dancer in a traveling troupe!”
“ENOUGH!” I channeled Mistress Jek scolding Taila and unleashed a bellow that echoed off the walls. “Anyone who refuses to respect this court will be expelled from Our Presences!”
Cassius scoffed. “What – do you intend to try me in absentia? Piri?”
The gods actually cried out. Torturing clerks and murdering humans were all fair play – but addressing the ruler of Heaven by name? O, the sacrilege!
“Cassius.” The name fell from Aurelia’s lips like a headsman’s axe. “If you cannot be silent, you will be gagged.”
“You would never dare! Aurelia.”
More gasps of horror from the gods. The imps grinned and elbowed one another, eager to watch a god gagged like a common criminal.
Aurelia simply lowered her eyes from the middle distance to meet his. “Try me.”
He stared back at her, and wonder of wonders, I saw his throat work as he choked back whatever invective he’d been planning to spew next. Jaw tight, he broke their stare to feign interest in the nearest column.
Wow. That was actually really impressive.
“Now,” said Aurelia, and her tone had returned to one of dispassionate inquiry. “Lady Dan. You were telling us about the night the Star of Heavenly Joy ordered you to steal the Peaches of Immortality.”
The crane maiden twisted her fingers together. “Ye–es, Heavenly Majesty. He – the Star of Heavenly Joy – he told me he needed the Peaches. I was the only one who could get them for him, so….”
“Were you aware of why he needed them?” I repeated my question.
“Not – explicitly, but I knew – he’d spoken often – of his struggles to get an audience with the Goddess of Life….”
Cassius’ fists clenched and his face went a most unattractive shade of mottled purple.
“And were you aware of why he needed this audience so desperately as to commission the theft of not one, not two, but multiple Peaches of Immortality?” I pressed.
Lady Dan stared at the floor as if it might turn into a cloud and let her drop through it. “Yes…. He – he was always very open about the – animosity he bore towards Your Heavenly Majesty. As it was the Goddess of Life, his predecessor at the Bureau of Reincarnation, who authorized you to keep your memories when you reincarnated, he needed her permission to revoke it – ”
She broke off as a chorus of distressed commentary rose from the gods. That decree had apparently not been common knowledge, or common practice.
“Order!” snapped Floridiana. “Order in the Hall!”
“And that was why he commissioned the theft from the orchard belonging to the Queen Mother of the West: so he could meddle in the reincarnations of one single soul?” I inquired.
“Yes, Heavenly Majesty.”
“Lies!” exploded Cassius. “You make her sound like just any soul! She is not! She is Flos Piri, the most depraved demon in all history! She who destroyed and devoured until she consumed an entire empire! She who plunged all Serica into darkness and despair for centuries, impoverishing Heaven as well! She needed to be leashed! She needed to be controlled! She needed to be crushed so utterly that she could never rise again! I alone foresaw what she would do and tried to stop her. And now you see that I was right! You see what she is capable of!”
He raised an arm and stabbed his finger at me as if he were driving a stiletto through my heart.
“You see a nine-tailed fox demon on the throne of Heaven!”
///
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Posted Feb 6, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC