1695/Target Battle: Caverns of Prophecy, Xiaomu vs. Miko Fujimoto

Target Battle: Caverns of Prophecy, Xiaomu vs. Miko Fujimoto
Date of Scene:	01 March 2015
Location:	Caverns of Prophecy (CP)
Synopsis:	Xiaomu goes looking for answers in the Caverns of Prophecy, and finds a tussle with a very strange shrine maiden.
Thanks to:	Miko Fujimoto
Cast of Characters:	589, 707

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Xiaomu (707) has posed:
A few hours ago:

"Gggrrrrrrrnhnhnhnhnh ... !!"

That particularly ominous noise rises from a certain Chinese foxgirl as she grips her controller tighter than she needs to, grinding her teeth and glaring at the [GAME OVER] message displayed on the TV in front of her. Just preceding the noise and the Game Over were yet another attempt at a fight which has been continuously defying Xiaomu's increasingly diligent efforts to overcome the encounter - a boss fight in the final dungeon, but clearly not the FINAL boss fight.

Xiaomu sets her controller down with exaggerated care, turns off the console, then turns off the TV before grabbing her handguns and her staff from their places by the door, and after scribbling out a brief note for her partner, she leaves the apartment.

Right now:

A vest and a qipao are not really ideal clothes for mountain-climbing, but Xiaomu is making the best of it anyway, occasionally using some of her magic to warm back up. She's shivering and looks miserable, but nothing - NOTHING* - is going to make her turn back now. She's heard about the caverns ahead, and she's decided that the Caverns of Prophecy are her best possible resource for finding out what she needs to do in that game to reach the final battle.

(* - Nothing that she's thought of, anyway, but she may be underestimating the Confederacy.)

Miko Fujimoto (589) has posed:
What awaits Xiaomu as she ascends the mountain? While there are Confederate troops all over the area, it is not they that block Xiaomu's path if she is careful to avoid them, or simply blasts them before they blast her. No, the only person who seems as out of place here as Xiaomu herself does is a Shinto shrine maiden who appears to be sweeping snow off the path. She appears to be in her twenties, subdued-looking, and though cold breath steams out between her lips, there is no other sign of discomfort. Her skin is somewhat pale, but pristine. It almost appears as though a shaft of unseen moonlight falls down upon her alone, highlighting her frame in ghostly hues, making her super-luminous in contrast to her dim surroundings. Around her, there are no soldiers.

This shrine maiden appears to carry no weapons. Just a broom. But if Xiaomu can sense or see auras, there is a potent holy aura radiating from the woman. Holy, but also somehow... Cold. It is not just physical appearance, but magic, that makes her beautiful in a haunting way. Not the type you swoon over.

Looking at her is more like looking at a ghost.

And like a ghost, she keeps performing the same repetitive actions, ignoring everything else around her for now. Sweeping the entrance into the Caverns. Keeping the path clear. All alone in the cold. And yet the fact that she is there means she will likely have to be passed by in order to enter.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
It's not like Xiaomu doesn't have an aura of her own, mind you - she's very much on the side of good, but she *is* still a fox spirit, a huli jing if you want to use the proper Chinese term. And she's fine with smacking Confederate troops with gunfire (which might carry, her handguns aren't silenced) or even getting the drop on a couple with ice magic ... which on at least one occasion results in the block of ice starting to slide down the mountain. (The patrol inside that block might get some frostbite on the way down, but it's not like they'll shatter *with* the ice. That might have been more merciful though, given frostbite ...)

Xiaomu comes to a dead halt just before reaching the path, her ears perking up as she senses the raw holy power coming from whoever's up there. She checks the loads in her handguns, swaps a full clip into one of them, then holsters them under her jacket before grasping her Buddhist monk's staff and climbing the last few steps to the path outside the cavern.

"Hail, shrine maiden, and hopefully well-met," Xiaomu smiles. "I hope you don't mind if I come in out of the cold and seek an answer to a rather pressing question?"

Inwardly, though, she's bracing for trouble. The sight of a miko brings back memories of a time when the people of Japan were not only keenly aware of the reality of supernatural beings, but anticipated virtually all such beings to be intrinisically hostile to humans.

Miko Fujimoto (589) has posed:
Gunshots? Ice magic? If any such things gave warning prior to the Unionite's arrival, it seems not to have garnered attention. The shrine maiden doesn't halt her sweeping at first when spoken to. She continues almost long enough for it to seem like she either didn't hear Xiaomu or is ignoring her, before finally ceasing this chor, and holding the broom delicately in both hands, bristles to the ground. Her eyes find Xiaomu's, and she says, "If you can pass, then you are free to. I have no stake in the usage of these Caverns." That isn't necessarily an answer as to if she minds this 'visitor' coming and going, but it also doesn't necessarily imply hostile intent either.

She just stands where she is, in front of the entrance. But there is adequate room to go around her without coming in contact as well. Aside from the broom, there continue to be no indications of weaponry in her possession. Even a broom can be lethal in the hands of a master, of course.

What will Xiaomu do?

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"'If I can pass,' huh ..."

Xiaomu studies the shrine maiden and her broom, then scrutinizes the area around the path. She knows quite a bit about wards and binding seals, and it's quite possible that there are wards of some sort hidden under the snow, maybe the type that'll project a barrier against intruders. Or maybe the sort that are specifically tuned to torment unwitting fox spirits - although that last seems a little unlikely.

She approaches along the path for a start, sandals clacking against exposed stone, and stops when she's about three meters away from the shrine maiden. "You said 'if'. I'm guessing that means there's a trick to it ... I may as well ask, are you with the Confederacy? I passed a lot of their soldiers on the way up."

Miko Fujimoto (589) has posed:
"There is no trick," she answers. "Unless there is." Whether that is meant to be philosophical or just more ambiguity is unclear. There is simply... No violence in her movements. She seems completely calm, completely serene. Also completely cold. But if 'absolute peace' could have a physical form... It might be this woman. While there is no love in her, there is also no hate. There is neither desire nor apathy. Just a neutrality that lies somewhere between infuriating and awe-inspiring.

Or perhaps disquieting.

"The affairs of the Confederacy are not mine. Mine are not theirs, nor are they yours. They attempted to make my matters their own." She lifts the broom to sweep to the side, and a sudden gust of freezing wind blasts through carrying now visibly in swirls and curves and currents right over the nearest ledge. "They realized my affairs were not theirs."

She steps off the path to begin sweeping away the snow piling up along the sides. If the piles get too high, they might fall, after all.

This also means she is now no longer directly in Xiaomu's path.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Xiaomu listens and nods ... and proceeds onwards into the Caverns of Prophecy. If there are any more troops inside - well, Xiaomu's going to try for freezing rather than shooting. There may be some suplexes involved as well. Eventually, she reaches the pool at the heart of the Caverns ...

Gazes into its depths ...

....

And moments later, a loud, particularly beleaguered cry of "*AW COME ON!!!!!*" erupts, echoing through the Caverns and out to the path. Xiaomu herself emerges shortly thereafter with a VERY sullen and angry look on her face, grumbling under her breath and looking like she'd love to let off some steam.

Miko Fujimoto (589) has posed:
When Xiaomu emerges, the shrine maiden is still sweeping, it seems. Right up until the point where the Sage Fox is about to step outside, at least. Right then is when the broom suddenly sticks out to block her path at about waist height. There's still no preternatural hint of hostility. No inflection of tone, when she asks, "Did you find what you were looking for?" But she didn't need to block Xiaomu to ask that, did she? Oh, well. She's unusual, but hasn't hurt anyone so far. Except maybe some Confederates earlier, if what she seemed to be implying was what she was actually implying.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"Well, the fact that I'm eventually GOING to beat that boss and the rest of the game was probably reassuring," Xiaomu responds, her voice halfway into a snarl, "but seeing the ending when I haven't actually GOTTEN THERE yet was like somebody moving your bookmark from the middle of a light novel straight to the climax, missing all the good stuff in the build-up and spoiling the big reveal. Are you going to be in my way, or out of it?"

The rings atop her staff jangle as she slams her staff's butt solidly onto the ground, ready to sweep the broom out of her way if the shrine maiden doesn't.

Miko Fujimoto (589) has posed:
"That depends," the shrine maiden begins while moving the broom out of the way. "There is a rule I must follow, you see." The broom comes sweeping around through the air from the opposite side, aimed at Xiaomu's head. Only it is no longer a broom, but a prayer rod (gohei), with one of the zig-zagging paper streamers white, and the other black. If it hits, it might do more damage than one would imagine a simple wooden stock to be capable of. But it's a holy artifact, with lots of magical power, so there's that too.

"And that rule is to do whatever I wish to. The thought of you dying with regrets..." The shrine maiden turns, her long black hair, tied back, moving through the air like liquid darkness or black wind, to come to a rest behind her as she raises her rod whether it succeeded in striking or not, and holds it ready for usage once more.

"...That is something I wish to see." Even now, even after attacking, there is no sign of violence in her. Somehow... Even ready to kill Xiaomu... There's no hostility.

How can someone be willing to murder and NOT have any hint of violence in their body language or spirit?

An ordinary person might find that kind of terrifying.

And that holy aura hasn't changed at all, even when a promise of causing Xiaomu's death was spoken. Who... And WHAT is this person, exactly!?

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
The gohei comes around and is met with the monk staff, rings jingling again as Xiaomu expertly blocks the shrine maiden's strike. "Oh yeah?" snaps Xiaomu. "Sounds like we're both coming away disappointed, then! Are you *really* a shrine maiden?" She leans into the locked weapons, breaking the lock and hopefully knocking her shrine maiden off-balance. "So are you a shrine maiden or not? You're giving off Ise-level holy power but you don't seem like a human *or* a kami to me!"

Her question is punctuated by a quick, almost 'snapping' pair of attacks with her staff's butt end, aimed for the shrine maiden's knees.

Miko Fujimoto (589) has posed:
"I am Midnight Shrine Maiden," she answers, managing to move back out of range enough that Xiaomu's staff strikes only graze her knees. Those long red skirts of hers conceal her legs just enough to mask where they are at a given time. "I am the outlet through which the shrine of the midnight hour exerts its will upon the world. While the body I am bound to belongs to a Confederate, I care not for their goals, their membership, or the desires of the girl. As one who exists at the point between one day and the next, and yet wholly within the realm of night, I can choose to do whatever I wish without tipping in any particular moral direction."

She walks in a semi-circle at her new range while explaining all this, moving onto the path so that she has the entire area to left, right, and center of the Caverns' entrance within her field of view. "If I wish to help, then I can. If I wish to harm, then I can. Because I have faith in myself, revere myself, worship myself, as the vessel of Midnight, all that I say and do is sacred and holy." She raises the gohei and points it at Xiaomu. "And right now, I wish to make a you suffer and die."

Then she intones, "Prayer Shot." And sanskrit words in glowing white light swirl around the prayer rod before forming into a sphere of concentrated power that shoots out at Xiaomu like a bullet of moonlight.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"Guh!!" Xiaomu reels backwards as the Prayer Shot smacks into her, and scowls as she regains her balance. "Keep hitting me like that and you'll get the 'suffer' part down pat," she snaps. "But dying is against my religion!" She charges at the Midnight Shrine Maiden - sure, she COULD draw her guns and open fire, but she doesn't really feel like resorting to gunplay just yet.

Besides, you can't powerbomb soembody into a snowdrift by shooting at them, and in Xiaomu's current mood, throwing somebody around is a REALLY satisfying idea. So she attemps to grab the Midnight Shrine Maiden, and if she gets the right sort of grip, she does indeed try to powerbomb her into the nearest snowdrift.

It's probably the result of the maiden's own sweeping, for additional irony points.

Miko Fujimoto (589) has posed:
Midnight is seized and slammed into the snow. Somehow, even though the snow is sent flying from the force of it, she seems to land artfully, her hair splayed out around her like the swirling darkness of a black sun, with her pale face at the center. In truth, that is just the magic making her seem pristine and perfectly composed even when suffering pain. She uses the arm with the gohei to attempt to wrap around Xiaomu almost as though in an embrace, if not for the superhuman strength in her limb. Then she says softly into the fox spirit's ear, as though she WASN'T in jarring pain from that impact, "Do as you wish. If you do not wish to die, then survive. Of course, if you do not survive, then perhaps you really did wish to die after all."

In one hand is her gohei, but in the other appears a set of chimes. And those chimes ring at a supernatural tone that would painful to most canines, but is especially meant to chase off minor spirits and demons. Xiaomu is no minor spirit. But it might hurt her ears badly anyway. Especially with Midngiht Shrine Maiden trying to keep her opponent close so that the chimes can keep going off directly into her ear.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"ACK!!" Xiaomu flails almost comically as she's pulled down, almost against the shrine maiden; she manages to get free before long - just long enough for that message to be whispered into her ear. And then the chimes start ringing.

It's true that she's not a 'minor' spirit by any stretch; minor spirits don't live almost seven centuries, with much of that time spent in the company of Buddhist clergy, monks, and nuns. On the other hand, those chimes are exceedingly *irritating* to her, and she was already in a pretty bad mood. "Why don't you just chill out with the freakin' church bells?!" she snaps, thrusting her right hand out towards the Midnight Shrine Maiden -

And shooting a spray of mystical energy beams, like foxfire lasers, from her fingertips.

Miko Fujimoto (589) has posed:
Once she is back on her feet, the blazing energy beams strike Midnight, burning her. She continues to evince no outwards indication of discomfort. But there are clearly neat little blackened holes in her clothing now, with neat little painful wounds on the skin beneath. And she definitely feels it. But she doesn't act it. Because that's part of the magic. She raises the Sacred Scepter above her head and then swings it down, and a spinning blade in the shape of a full moon goes flying like a buzzsaw at Xiaomu.

"Does the sound bother you that much? Then I was correct, I suppose. You are not human yourself." She does not sound smug when she says it, but clearly felt the need to point out she has suspicions that are now confirmed. She is, despite her seemingly elegant mannerisms and calm demeanor, kind of a jerk.

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
"Guwaaaa - !!" Xiaomu lets out a pained cry as the blade plows into her, knocking her flying and, in fact, drawing some blood. Her dress doesn't seem to have been cut, but there's definite splotches of red in the snow between the spot where the sage fox WAS standing, and the snowdrift that she lands in, before pulling herself out of it.

And she's pissed. "Take a look at the ears, smart lady!" she snaps, wiggling the long, vulpine ears which seem to sprout from the sides of her hair. "Do humans HAVE these? OF COURSE I'M NOT HUMAN!!" She grasps her staff by the top of its shaft in her left hand, her right hand grasping the be-ringed headpiece itself -

And draws out a glittering, silvery blade, straight enough that she could sheath it inside her staff's length and nobody be the wiserr. But she's not charging in to slash with the blade; instead, she lunges forward like a fencer and thrusts the blade into the ground. "*You* need to chill out!" she snaps ...

And a series of icicles starts erupting from the ground, the last of them not so much trying to pierce the Midnight Shrine Maiden her as to encase HER in ice. As hasty as the ice attack was, though, even if she DOES get trapped by it, no lasting harm done ...

Miko Fujimoto (589) has posed:
The ice spikes stab her but turn into restraints instead of impaling her. It's freezing cold, obviously, and hurting her, but it's interesting that her opponent chose restraint rather than putting nasty holes through Midnight.

"Having unusual features for a human does not necessarily mean one is not human, just as appearing human does not necessarily make one human. After all..." Those chimes ring again, shattering the ice through sonic vibrations, and sending the fragments flying everywhere.

"...Would you call me human?" She does not raise her gohei again or her chimes. Infact, the latter fades out of existence in a white flash. Midnight Shrine Maiden examines the holes in her clothing - both from heat-based and cold-based attacks, seemingly without concern for further such attacks.

"I no longer wish to kill you at the moment. You may go," Midnight Shrine Maiden offers before starting back towards the Caverns. It would be easy to attack her exposed back. Unless she has some other special trick or trap.

But Xiaomu got what she came for and her enemy isn't interested in fighting, so is it worth the effort?

Xiaomu (707) has posed:
Xiaomu scowls - but she bows, stiffly, and proceeds back to the path, approaching the edge ...

"Xiaomu Surfer!!"

And a swing of her ice-element blade causes a big block of ice to form. She promptly sheathes Suiren, steps onto the ice, and lets out a loud whoop as her weight starts the icy 'surfboard' careening back down the side of the mountain. Somehow she manages to avoid all the obstacles -

*WHAM!!*

- except for a couple of Confederate troops she didn't go out of her way to disable on the way up, but those hardly count as an 'obstacle' for a rapidly-descending streamlined block of ice with a foxgirl riding it like a snowboard, right?