The story of Ayashi no Ceres takes place in modern day Japan. Mikage Aya was in an outing with her twin brother Aki and her friends when they decide to go to a fortune teller. The fortune teller warns Aya, "In the future, you will fall under the control of the star of darkness. I see blood, anger, and sadness. The destruction of the equilibrium of everything in this world. On the day when the 16th star and moon come around, the fated time shall come to pass." Aya shrugs her bad fortune as a fluke, unknowing how in the next few days her life would follow the prediction.

While Aya and her friends walk home across a bridge over an intersection, a man steals a purse from a woman in front of them. Aya quickly runs to the man and snatches the purse back, but in the process she falls off the railing of the bridge over the traffic and begins to plummet towards the street. Images suddenly appear before Aya as she falls and unknowingly, her fall suddenly slows and she lands on her feet. Trying to figure out how she floated in the air, she failed to notice an oncoming car until it was too late to move. For that quick second, a man came to her rescue and ran to the curve with Aya in his arms. Aya's taken back with her handsome savior until she turns away when she hears Aki running towards her. When Aya turns back around to introduce her twin brother to her savior, the man is mysteriously gone.

At home, Aya wonders about her savior and the images that came to her head when she fell. She confides in Aki that she actually found the events interesting because her daily life was dull and repetitive. When the twins walk into the living room, their father informs them their grandfather is holding their 16th birthday party for them the next day in his mansion.

The next day as they walk towards their grandfathers home after school, Aya and Aki notice all their relative's cars going towards the mansion. They wonder why all their relatives would suddenly come to their birthday party. When they reach the Mikage estate, Aya and Aki are taken into a room with a long table, with all their relatives sitting at the sides. Their grandfather takes his place at one end of the table and Aya and Aki take their place at the other end. The twins are confused at the security officers surrounding the outsides of the room and their family's uneasy silence.

Aya and Aki are handed a box and are told to open it. With every move being watched by their family and being recorded with the hidden cameras in the room. Aki warily opens the box, revealing a mummified hand resting on a cushion inside. Aya suddenly has a flash of images appear before her once more, just as when she fell off the railing. She trembles as the images keep flashing and suddenly the stone hand shatters inside the box. Aya opens her eyes, wondering how she had done that and turns to Aki to ask what happened. Aki is hunched over in pain as slashes and cuts suddenly appear on his body and blood splatters on Aya as she holds him, trying to help him.

Screaming for help towards her relatives to call for an ambulance, her grandfather interrupted her pleas. He informed her that Aki will not die, in fact, he will eventually become head of the Mikage household. Then he tells Aya that she will be the one to die. Aya is the direct reborn descendant of a Tennyo (nymph) from long ago that is intent on destroying the Mikage family. In order to prevent the Tennyo from doing so, they must kill Aya.

The fortune teller's prediction is proven true from then on.

The Legend

In all parts of the world, the legend of the tennyo and robe, which Ayashi no Ceres is based upon, is known throughout. This is the legend translated from a Korean fable book of mine:

A woodsman was gathering chopping up kindling in the forest when a deer had suddenly ran out of the deep forest. "Help me, sir!" The deer spoke to the man's surprise. "There is a hunter after me...I don't know where else to go!" The man agrees to help the deer and tells him to hide in a huge pile of kindling he had been chopping. Moments later, a hunter ran out from the forest and asked the woodsman if he had seen a deer run by. The woodsman lied and told the hunter that the deer had run back into the forest and the hunter thanked the man and ran back.

The deer was very grateful the the woodsman and told him he would be willing to help him with any wish the man had. The woodsman replied that he wished for a beautiful wife...one that others can be envious of. The deer informed the man his wish was very easy and told him about the nymphs that would come bathe in the waterfall high up in the mountain. All the man had to do was steal one of the nymph's robes and hide it so she would not be able to go back to heaven, thus getting stranded on Earth.

So the very next morning the man went up high into the moutains to the waterfall and sure enough saw the nymphs bathing. On the nearby pine tree, he saw beautiful feathered robes. He stole one of the robes and hid it. When the nymphs finished bathing, one of them noticed that her robe was missing. She looked for it everywhere around, but could not find it. Without her robe she couldn't go back to her home in the heavens. The other nymphs left for the skies as the lone nymph kept looking for her robe.

The woodsman approached the nymph and she noticed he looked suspicious. She asked him if he had the robe and he lied and said he did not. The nymph was stranded without her robe and the man told her he would take her in as his wife. As time went on, they both had children, but the nymph still yearned for the heavens.

Eventually, she found out the woodsman had indeed took her feathered robe. She approached him one day, begging him if she could see it just once but she wouldn't take it and return to the sky. The man reluctantly agreed and showed his wife the robe. Without a second to spare, the nymph grabbed the robe and headed outside with her children. She ascended into heavens with them in her arms leaving the woodsman behind.

In the story of "Ayashi No Ceres", Watase sensei made it so the legend says that the nymph couldn't return to the heavens at all. She had to stay on Earth with Mikagi to bear his children...and the mysterious story goes on from there.