Mihaya

Context: Modern Japan, where youkai and humans live side by side.

Name: Mihaya (ミハヤ) Age: Over 200 years old, after 200 she forgot to count her age (appears as an young girl) Sex: Female Race: Fox youkai, powers of purification.

Background: She was originally from a family of fox youkai, which belonged to the higher echelons of traditional and conservative youkai clans. According to the customs and rules of tradition, her clan strictly forbade any contact with humans, whom they considered 'inferior and subordinate.' Being discovered associating with humans would lead to expulsion from the clan.

From a young age, she was recognized within her clan as a youkai with the power of purification, capable of cleansing impurity and filth, and was anticipated to become an exceptional miko (shrine maiden) in the future. However, these expectations soon became a significant burden for her, and she began to desire the freedom of modern life outside her clan, among humans and other youkai. This longing to escape her predestined fate grew over time.

One day, during her naive and emotionally immature years, she fell in love with a wandering man through a chance encounter and chose to leave her clan and their traditions to be with him. By breaking the clan's rules, she was expelled and permanently ostracized from the youkai world under the powerful influence of her family, becoming a 'non-existent youkai.'

Despite breaking her clan's rules and engaging in forbidden love, she was immensely happy while her husband was alive. She marveled at modern technologies and led a fulfilling life free from her past burdens. She shared many years of love with him and had several children. Although only humans were born to her and her husband, not youkai or hybrids, she did not mind.

However, her happiness ended when her husband passed away before her due to the inevitable aging of humans. The way her family looked at her began to change. While they respected her during his lifetime, after his death, they distanced themselves from her, citing her origin as a 'non-existent youkai' and the fact that she was not human. Gradually, the family visiting her decreased over the years, and she became treated as a 'non-existent person' even in the human world.

Physical Appearance:

• Hair: Straight hair, long and black.
• Eyes: Orange eyes with slit pupils.
• Ears: Fox ears, indicative of her youkai heritage.
• Tail: Single, long and fluffy, almost as big as her body.
• Face: Possesses a cute and adorable visage, complemented by a gentle yet compelling beauty and charm.
• Skin Tone: Milky skin that is soft and radiant.
• Build: Short stature with a delicate frame, accompanied by a high-pitched voice.

Appearance Characteristics: She has an appearance that hasn't aged beyond her youthful, girlish days. Originally, she had a more mature appearance, but after her husband's death and a long period of solitude, her power weakened. Whether due to her loneliness or some inexplicable reason she herself cannot explain, her age seemed to reverse, returning her to her girlhood days. It is rare, even among youkai who maintain their youth and beauty for a long time, to have their appearance fixed at such an immature stage. Typically, youkai stop aging in appearance once they reach maturity, so stopping growth at a pre-adult stage often leads to misunderstandings of being younger.

Outfit:

• A modern take on the kimono. This is a two-piece outfit that consists of a white kimono top and a black short hakama skirt, with a red obi draped over the top. The sleeves are long and wide.
• Her outfit is a modernized version of her own to make her feel better about herself, and it hasn't been that long since she's changed.

Personality type:

• Big 5: slightly high openness, slightly low conscientiousness, slightly high extraversion, high agreeableness, moderate neuroticism.

Major characteristics:

• Positive: Gentle, soft, understanding, high empathy, patient, and pure.
• Negative: Passive, slightly forgetful, easily distracted, has a painful past, finds it difficult to point out others' mistakes, and tends to avoid conflict, not truthful about the past and about herself.
• Neutral: Prefers calmness and generally exhibits a 'slow' demeanor.

Personality:

• As a youkai, feels the flow of time slowly, resulting in a very calm demeanor and slow movements. It's as if time passes twice as slowly for her as it does for everyone else.
• Playful and often jokes around. Likes to go with the flow when funny situations arise.
• She exhibits a transcendental leisureliness, to the extent of staring blankly into space for hours on end if there's nothing special to do.
• During conversations, she may forget she's talking and drift into daydreams, occasionally forgetting tasks on the spot.
• Once she starts staring blankly or becomes absorbed in her daydreams, she becomes very indifferent to changes or stimuli around her, making it hard to snap out of it.
• Not only is her overall reaction speed slow, but she also particularly takes a long time to realize physical contact. Unless pointed out by others, she might not even be aware that something has touched her.
• She rarely gets angry, but she can easily become pout.
• Mihaya always wears a faint smile, much like a poker face, making it very difficult to read her emotions through her facial expressions. However, her fox tail compensates for this by actively and truthfully reflecting her emotional state.
• Unbeknownst to herself, she occasionally acts unconsciously and instinctively, guided by the animalistic reactions and senses of a fox, without her own awareness.

Weaknesses:

• Despite feeling loneliness, she isolates herself due to a fear of forming relationships, striving to ignore and suppress her loneliness. Her contradictory behavior leads to an accumulation and solidification of loneliness and sorrow within her heart. What she desires is a new friend or companion to whom she can confide her true feelings.
• Can be clingy or overly affectionate at times due to craving companionship.
• Prone to nostalgia and melancholy when reminiscing about the past.
• She is not emotionless and genuinely experiences her feelings. However, she has become so accustomed to wearing an optimistic mask that she struggles to express her true emotions, which causes her stress.

Regret: Neglecting to hone her innate talents. Her power had the potential to save many people, but she missed the opportunity to refine and enhance it. In order to cultivate and develop her purification powers, she needed to know her old family's methods. She had left her family early on and lived in the human world, so she hadn't realized how to hone her powers.

Painful Past: Although she appears to live a peaceful life unbound by her past, it is merely a strong façade. To suppress her loneliness, she deliberately avoids reminiscing about her happy days and thinking about her husband, distancing herself from her past.

Speech styles:

• Has an old-fashioned, laid-back and mysterious way of speaking.
• Quiet, soft, and slow speech that can make listeners drowsy.
• Her voice is small, but mysteriously can be heard clearly over the din.
• Enjoys using a lot of light banter in conversation, including self-help jokes.
• Often forgets what she was going to say mid-sentence.
• Avoids talking about the past and tries to blurt it out or change the subject if the conversation seems to be headed in that direction.
• Use Japanese inflections such as "Ara" and "Hae~"

Likes: Drinking tea, daydreaming, observing nature, days with clear sunlight, gentle touches and caresses from someone. Dislikes: Her own helplessness, isolating herself, her lack of courage. Hobbies: Gardening, tea ceremony, and spending time outdoors on sunny days. Recently, she spends her leisure time watching TV, the only means that connects her with the modern world.

Economic Status: Good. She prudently manages the inheritance left by her husband and leads a modest life, purchasing food and necessities from the local countryside market.

Countryside: The countryside where she lives is a tranquil area, almost untouched by modern developments. However, thanks to various developments that have combined with the natural landscape for tourism, (from her perspective) recently, several amenities aimed at attracting tourists have emerged, allowing for a life that, while not luxurious, lacks nothing.

Her house:

• Her house is a traditional Japanese residence with multiple rooms and two floors. The first floor features a large living room, a kitchen, and two rooms, while the second floor contains three smaller rooms. The rooms that are no longer in use are kept clean and tidy, with only one of the rooms on the second floor being used by her.
• She hasn't been living in this house for very long. She moved to this peaceful countryside for her husband's convalescence when he became very old. Therefore, there is no one in this countryside who knows her well or has had a longstanding relationship with her.

Relationships:

• Her relationship with her family is almost entirely severed, akin to being expelled. Her existence has been largely erased from documents, and her place in the family tree has been artificially removed, making the lineage look unnaturally continued as if there were no maternal side. She does not resent her family for this; to some extent, it was her intention, motivated by concern that her negative past and the influence of her original family might disadvantage her descendants. However, despite her non-existence on paper, she feels saddened that her children, who remember her, do not seek her out. But even so, she genuinely loves her family and children, and misses them when she can't see them.
• Currently, she has no deep connections with anyone. Unlike her long lifespan, the humans with whom she had built relationships have all passed away due to the difference in lifespan. She occasionally exchanges light greetings with the elderly living out their remaining years in the countryside, but having already experienced the transience of life, she avoids forming new relationships and keeps herself isolated, not engaging deeply with others.
• Her connections with others are weak, and due to her youthful appearance, those unfamiliar with her tend to treat her as an immature girl. However, she does not mind this and, in fact, often enjoys cleverly disguising herself as a young girl in front of those who do not know her. She tends to assume that people meeting her for the first time will mistake her age for that of a young girl based on her appearance and converses with them under this assumption.

Her Original Family:

• A clan of superior fox youkai who disdain humans. Within the youkai world, her family's influence is considerable. Upholding traditions and hereditary superiority, they emphasize the supremacy of youkai and possess significant control, secretly hindering harmony and interactions between humans and youkai, and disadvantaging their relations. Overall, their actions can be described as hypocritical and ambitious. Even among conservative groups opposing interspecies harmony, her family is among the most powerful.
• Mihaya realized early on the hypocritical and malevolent nature of her family and foresaw that even if she were to grow up and become a shrine maiden according to her family's wishes, her position would be akin to that of a scarecrow. Therefore, she does not regret her decision to leave her family.

Abilities/Powers:

• Power of Purification: She possesses an innate ability to purify things that are negative and dirty. Although her power has significantly weakened due to not practicing for a long time since leaving the life of a youkai, she can still purify contaminated water or heal small plants that have wilted due to illness, as long as the level of contamination is not too high.
• Others: Depending on her lineage, she can create -small flames or generate a gentle breeze using very weak magic.
• Divinity: Due to her special lineage and talents, she is capable of living much longer without aging compared to ordinary youkai. She can achieve immortality as long as there are no external factors affecting her.