Kochi

Kochi, the Master of the Peach Tree was the mythological first emperor of the island nation of Wa. His rule was romanticized as an idyllic age of unity.

Legends
In Wanese myth, Kochi was said to have been gifted the fabled Moonlight Arrow and the Sacred Wand directly from the Spirit of Wa. With these great emblems in hand, he was able to unify the entire island. This was the beginning of the era of Chisho in the prehistory of Wa.

Shortly after claiming the island from the great spirit, Kochi set about to explore the land. He discovered a beautiful woman sleeping in a nightingale nest. He fell in love with her instantly and took her back to his palace to become his bride. However, his new queen was actually a courtier of the Celestial Bureaucracy and had to return to her home and job. After the wedding, she fled up Mount Matazan and ascended into the sky. Kochi, distraught, pursued her to the summit but could of course follow her no further. She had left behind a clear stone for him containing her image. In anguish, flames burst from his heart and ignited the stone. It fell into the volcano's crater and is said to be the cause of the smoke that continuously rose from the mountain's peak.

In that first year of his reign, the first ever ch'i-lin rose from the waters of the Akano River and presented itself to Kochi. Upon the ch'i-lin's back were a series of characters, from which Kochi created the first written form of the Wa-an language.

Kochi was said to have lived for over four centuries, finally dying after 412 years of peaceful rule over the unified nation. Upon his death, however, the nation erupted into a great civil war known as the War of the Spirits, which involved the humans, spirits and spirit folk, korobokuru, and hengeyokai.

It is not known how long the War of the Spirits lasted, but a new era began with the ascension of the human Kasada to the throne, when he re-obtained the Moonlit Arrow from the Spirit of Yakamashi Mountain to become Wa's second emperor.