In the chaos of the Jinshin War of 672, a child with a small horn in his forehead was born. The child's mother condemned him as an oni and cast him away. The founder of the Shūgendō tradition, the miracle-worker and mountain hermit En no Gyōja, earthly incarnation of the heavenly Jinben Daibosatsu, raised the child as his disciple and named him Utsunomiko, or 'Divine Child of the Heavens', telling Miko that his horn symbolizes the union of heaven and earth, and that his father is Hoku-Ten, the god of the North Star, whose name is Ama no Minaka Nushi no Kami, the primeval creator deity of the Kojiki.

Miko matured in the wilderness and becoming a Yamabushi, learning his master's syncretism of Daoism, Buddhism and Shintoism, and soon started venturing into villages out of curiosity. He found that the common people of the vill]]ages live in poverty and suffering, and began using his spiritual powers to help them. But his anger at the self-serving rulers and their petty power-struggles grew until he came into open conflict with the Imperial Court (but not the Emperors and the Imperial Family itself, as he befriended some of its members, such as Otsu-no-Miko, a prince of the Tenmu Emperor, who, historically, was set up and killed by the Jitō Emperor in order to secure her son's position as Crown Prince), especially Fujiwara no Fuhito, setting Miko down a long path as a champion of the oppressed, and of his perillious spiritual journey.

• Chronicle of Earth (地上編 – Chijō-hen) – 10 volumes
• Chronicle of Heaven (天上編 – Tenjō-hen) – 10 volumes (Miko faces the rulers of the Heavenly plane and seeks his father)
• Uncanny Dream Chronicle (妖夢編 – Yōmu-hen) – 10 volumes
• Chronicle of Purgatory (煉獄編 – Rengoku-hen) – 10 volumes
• Chronicle of Dawn (黎明編 – Reimei-hen) – 8 volumes
• Gaiden Collection (拾異伝 – Shūiden) – 4 volumes

• Keisuke Fujikawa's official website
• Utsunomiko Data