Yukari Yakumo and Ran Yakumo

Yukari: Yukari is known for being a very youkai-like youkai who sleeps all day and lives for the enjoyment of life. Though she rarely leaves her house, she's well-connected and is acquainted with most of the most powerful youkai as well as anyone having anything to do with the Great Hakurei Barrier or the outside world, although she rarely attacks humans.[4] She has a tendency to toy with her opponents rather than use her full power from the start. If anyone is suited for the role of "mastermind", it's Yukari. She excels at mathematics and is experienced due to her long life. She possesses superhuman intellect and especially surpasses in dealing with numbers. In Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, as Ran Yakumo said, this intellect is something that even Ran is not able to understand, to the extent that for example that she is able to determine the depths of the darkness of Avici or determine in an instant how long it would take for Ursa Major to devour the North Star, as it seems. Concretely to what extent this amazing intellect goes is hard to know, but it would be no mistake to think that this intellect far surpasses that of humans. She often has a great deal of insight and understanding about whatever happens in Gensokyo, and possesses considerable intellectual prowess, as well. Though she seems flaky and unreliable most of the time, when the safety or security of Gensokyo is at stake, she won't hesitate to get involved, even if it means using others to do the work for her. For example, in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, she treats Tenshi Hinanawi with much hostility after finding out the plot of the Heavens. She could easily be either a villain or a heroine, depending on her whims. Yukari deals with problems by manipulating others to act to resolve things for her. She seems to rarely act directly except in particularly egregious situations. In all cases, she rarely lets anyone know what her true aims or goals are and sometimes these goals are extremely abstract. Yukari has a well-deserved reputation of being fickle, whimsical and lying often and thus many characters in Gensokyo dislike her. For whatever reason, Yukari takes it all in stride and does not seriously deny any of those comments. She seems to actively try to keep her more obviously-altruistic actions a secret, such as her donations to the Hakurei Shrine in Strange and Bright Nature Deity. She possibly cultivates this image to ensure that people continue to fear her as a youkai, as this is what her true goal for a particularly complex gambit is revealed to be at the end of Cage in Lunatic Runagate. Yukari's main ability is manipulating any kind of boundaries.[16] This ability has been described as logically being able to affect essentially anything.[17] In her monologue during A Beautiful Flower Blooming Violet Every Sixty Years, she explains that this power allows her to control or remove the boundaries between any and all things, like Gensokyo and the Outside World, the worlds of the living and the dead, humans and youkai and even the day and the night. [18] In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, manipulating boundaries is described as a terrifying god-like ability with no weak points which there is no defense or countermeasure against, capable of fundamentally undermining reality itself and as one of the most dangerous abilities that youkai are known to possess, while Yukari's manual profile in Imperishable Night Manual says that "the danger and potency of her ability is beyond imagination". Ultimately, everything is built upon the existence of boundaries; if there were no boundaries everything would effectively exist as a single enormous object. Because of this, the ability to manipulate boundaries is logically an ability of both creation and destruction: by making a new boundary is to create a new existence, and to destroy a boundary is to negate an existence. For example, as said in Perfect Memento, if there was no water surface there could be no lake, if there was no sky line neither mountain nor sky could exist and were it not for the Great Barrier even Gensokyo itself wouldn't exist. Furthermore, it seems that not only are physical boundaries, but also the general idea of boundaries can be manipulated and it seems like she would be able to manipulate the boundary between dreams and reality, which could very well be how she was able to drag the real Sumireko Usami out of the Dream World in Antinomy of Common Flowers. Yukari is also capable of seeing (and seeing through) boundaries that are normally invisible; when the Human Village was displaced from history by Keine Kamishirasawa, Yukari was completely unfazed and still able to see it.[19][20] She also tells Marisa that it would easy for her to manipulate the boundary between Winter and Spring.[21] It's shown that Yukari can control the boundaries and bend them to her will as seen in Immaterial and Missing Power when she adjusted the sky by manipulating the border between the daylight and moonlight to unite the day and the night.[22] According to Marisa Kirisame, Yukari can even control the boundary between "a danmaku for play and a danmaku for battle".[23] Yukari is also capable of sensing and repairing damage to the Great Hakurei Barrier, and although in Perfect Cherry Blossom Yuyuko Saigyouji doubts Yukari could make such a strong barrier,[24] she has been refered to as its creator in various occasions.[25][26] To add to all this, Hieda no Akyuu writes that "manipulation of boundaries" is theoretically a godlike power which would allow Yukari to create or destroy anything, but that all the stories about it are impossible to confirm.[4] Despite how limitless her ability sounds, there are in fact limitations, usually in relation to other powerful entities. Ran Yakumo: Ran is described as a gentle youkai, unless provoked. Although Ran is a shikigami, she sometimes "forgets" her position as a servant and acts of her own volition, such as deciding to attack the heroine in Perfect Cherry Blossom to avenge Chen. Abilities Using Shikigami Ran is an extremely strong shikigami, to the point that she can use shikigami of her own. Her shikigami, Chen, only possesses the wisdom of a child, implying that Ran lacks the level of power that Yukari has with respect to shikigami. While Ran cannot act against Yukari's orders, Chen is capable of disobeying Ran. Because of this, she sometimes has to lure or manipulate Chen with catnip. Clear intellect Ran has super-human intellect equal to that of Yukari's, and excels at mathematics. According to Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, she was able to formulate and prove an equation for figuring out the width of the Sanzu River. The shikigami of Gensokyo have been often likened to personal computers found in the outside world. Miscellaneous One of Ran's spellcards shows that she is capable of quickly increasing her physical capabilities. As part of Yukari's attacks, Ran typically spins at high speed. Ran is shown to use Chen in a similar way in Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost. Occupation As Yukari's shikigami, Ran must do whatever Yukari commands her to do, such as doing Yukari's chores or checking the Great Hakurei Barrier around Gensokyo for problems. Apparently, Ran's own shikigami, Chen, is too unreliable to be entrusted with doing chores. Sometimes she might be sent as a messenger, or be entrusted with investigating incidents.[2] In her spare time, Ran often calculates various things such as the width of the Sanzu River. She may also be seen in the Human Village shopping for tofu. Species Shikigami Ran's true identity is that of a shikigami possessing a youkai fox, or youko (妖狐, "mystic fox"). The fox she is possessing is an entirely separate being, but since it never comes to surface, there's no problem in thinking of Ran as a nine-tailed fox herself.[3] Because she is a shikigami herself, it's highly unusual that Ran has a shikigami of her own. Youkai fox Ran's body is that of a youkai fox with nine large tails, which is a clear sign of great power and intelligence, as described by Akyuu[4].