OK, the shoutbox on ComicGenesis is just that li'l bit too small for all of this. So I thought I'd get it written out here and avoid too much confusion.

Here's the mystery: In this comic, a younger version of Kit tells Kokiro "Mom says there're only six Kokirins in the whole of Ui". But count ‘em if you like. Nizarah, Mitori, Takaru, Kade, Posai. That makes five ’Kirins. And Scary Lady had had an encounter with Nizarah earlier in her life. You'd think she'd be pretty well-informed where Kokirins are concerned.

When I first came up with this, a couple of people raised the possibility that Kokiro itself might be the Sixth Kokirin. The signs are certainly there: the tiny wings, the downturned ears like a Jitai's. But there's one major stumbling block here. Kokiro isn't native to Ui. It was created in a lab on Nia and only came to this planet, what? A few months ago? And we know that Scary Lady died when Kit was still pretty young. There's no way she could have seen Kiro.

At which point, I'm sure somebody's going to chime in with “but Kokiro is a time traveller!” Yes, it's conceivable that Kokiro could find a way to travel back to a time when Scary Lady was still alive. But why would it do so? The major reason I can think of would be trying to fix Kit's past, to stop him being quite so messed up. And the “there are six Kokirins” line came from the current, traumatised-and-slightly-odd Kit.

So if Kokiro is not the Sixth Kokirin after all, we're still at a loss. Except…

I came across this today while checking through my archive, and for the first time I took a proper look at the portrait on the right wall instead of being distracted by Takaru.

It's at times like this that I really hate being faceblind. I'm sure these people must mean something to other readers, whereas all I can think is that the one on the left has the same colouring as Kade (and that the one in the middle of the picture reminds me of… something. Don't know what. Could be someone from the comic, could be a character from something entirely different, could be so obvious that it's staring me in the face). Never mind. Gotta' work with what I have.

Regardless of face-blindness, what we've got here is six people, the smallest of whom is a little girl with light-coloured hair, a blank stare and wings. (Posai?) They look like a family. By inference, six Kokirins. Oh yes.

So. Who is the Sixth Kokirin? What's happened to him/her? Where did s/he go?

And yes, I do know that Star is probably reading this and chuckling quietly at my incompetence…

It's not incompetence at all! I just . . . I like to put in a little thing, here and there, and I don't expect most people to get it. But you caught it!! I'm so pleased :3

Maybe I should be less secretive and just come out and say things, but but it seems like people actually care if I make them wait a little. . . what do you think?