Shikaisen of ancient Japan
Mononobe no Futo

Ability: Manipulating feng shui
Threat level: Low
Human friendship level: Unknown
Main place of activity: Human Village and so forth

A person from ancient times who put herself to sleep for a very long time with a curse. By dying for just a moment, she's escaped the cycle of reincarnation and become an eternally youthful immortal with her eyes on becoming a hermit. In truth though, it hasn't gone quite so well and she is being watched on by shinigami.

Unlike Toyosatomimi no Miko who arrived in Gensokyo in the same way, she has been unable to adapt to modern times. So if you see an old-fashioned looking girl you can guess it's her. Back when she was alive(?), when Buddhism from the continent was not fully blended into society, she switched from the ancient ways of Shinto to the similar Taoism. She intends to serve Toyosatomimi no Miko even in the modern era, and to practice Taoism together, but from the way she looks and acts it's more like she's a half-finished ancient relic being dragged around on display. Well, that's part of her charm.

Her power has something to do with Feng Shui, or so it is said(*1), but because of the similarities in terms of nature worship, it looks exactly like Shinto. She kept everything from before she studied Taoism, so her current power is unchanged from then. For that reason, even though it seems hackneyed and trite, you also can't feel any of the traditional dignity.

Her personality is gentle, but because her way of thinking is unchanged from ancient times, she's completely out of sync with normal people. At least on that point you can say she's hermit-like.

She acts together with Toyosatomimi no Miko, and sometimes she does training by herself(*2)

1: Abilities are self-reported.

2: Plus, she does curing for her jet-lag.

Shikaisen

The most important job of being a hermit has to be fighting against the limited human life span. This often becomes fights against the shinigami, and it's really not that easy. Hermits are a species who make continuous efforts to achieve immortality.

Among them, shikaisen are hermits who use resurrection as a way to escape the life limit.

There are many ways to become a shikaisen, it seems she used the "completely abandoning the body, transferring the soul onto some object. When the time comes, that object will change into her, and her corpse will change into that object." method. The object she used seems to be a plate. (*3)

Since they have already abandoned their body and flesh when they are resurrected, there is some degree of freedom to the forms they can take on; but most shikaisen will choose to look similar to their old appearances. This is because their attachment to their looks, as well as so others can recognize them. For this reason she has this old-fashioned look, while Miko changed to a more modern look.

3: Miko who resurrected herself in the same way, heard she used a treasured sword.

How to Deal With

It seems like she just enjoys training and strengthening her power. She does not seem to have any hostility against humans. There really shouldn't be any need to be scared of her.

On the other hand however, she seems to be hostile against youkai for no real reason. Perhaps it's because of that, being unable to adapt to the ways of Gensokyo, she subconsciously acts on her fear for youkai she had from the time she was still a human. It is because of this, fighting has never stopped around her.

Although she will save humans from youkai, she already has lots of unnecessary conflicts around her, all of which are very annoying. So it's probably best to stay away from her.





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