Gensoukyou:Rumia

Background
--The Beginning--  The darkness, where everything exists before it crawls out into the light in order to grow and live, and also where things return to at the end of their days. The womb and the tomb, as it were, such things are natural. But in the dark, other beings can thrive.

This story of Rumia begins her as a simple spirit, not dissimilar to many of some of the kami-to-be and formless youkai that exist nowadays. As a spirit, she was a simple being, content to hide away in the darkness and watch the things around her move into the light and grow, becoming something else entirely. Of course, the spirit found that it had little to do with the light around it; it in fact hated the light, sticking to the shadows whenever possible when it needed to travel during the day. Over time, the beings that it had witnessed when they were almost specks of nothing, became...something. What exactly that something was, it did not know, and it was curious. It tracked their progress silently in the realms of its known existence, the dark, and when they were spent, they returned to the spirit’s realm as they lay dying.

The spirit became accustomed to these beings growing and changing, seeming to have completely changed whenever it stopped watching them. And so, for a time, it payed attention to some of the other things, around it, studying them curiously, finding other outlets for its time so that the next time that it checked in upon the creatures around it, enough time would have passed for them to have changed again. It is easy to lose the world entirely when in a realm of darkness, after all. And thus they did, becoming something that it hadn’t really expected. What’s more is that they seemed much more aware of the world around them, almost as it was. When its realm was expanded, as it always happened for a certain amount of time before the dreadful light pushed the spirit back into some hole, it came out to examine these new beings.

But...something about them was different. They were more aware of their surroundings and seemed to be fairly intelligent, their creativity was their defining trait. However, their creativity was also their bane, as their imaginations were far too active. In the darkness, they feared what may have been lurking, be it beast or foe, and for the first time, the spirit felt something off about itself. The feeling sprang from the humans whenever there was a stray noise and their instincts kicked in. The spirit drank in such feelings, beginning to go out of its way to create scenarios that invoked this fear in the beings. The spirit eventually became addicted to the feeling it got when the beings froze with fear in the night when something broke the safe, watchful silence.

The spirit began to gain form, shaping itself from the fear that it gathered from these ‘humans’. When the humans saw this shape, a moving mass of black-- darker than even the night air around it-- they were terrified. The spirit could not resist the sweet temptation that it felt and consumed a good few of the humans, returning them to whence they came in the darkness. Certainly, it did not kill all of the humans, but the event generated a feeling that was far stronger than that which it had felt before. From that night onward, it was no longer a formless, night time spirit, but a true youkai. /toggledisplay<

--Progenitor--  Needless to say, there was more than one spirit out there, but, as far as it knew, there were none yet like it-- she-- had become. This fear that she caused radiated and spread to other things, eventually giving life to more and more beings like herself. They each frightened the humans in their own way, like only they could, but deep down, she was connected to that, too. These beings, the youkai, much preferred the darkness where the progenitor reigned, and often launched attacks from within it at the humans. Because of that, the fear of youkai in general was connected to the fear of the dark, which she was spawned from. But why were the humans not wiped out completely, then, you might ask? They were not completely defenseless, and their creativity and intelligence found them ways to adapt and steel themselves somewhat against the horrors of the night time. They figured out that these youkai did not like the light, and even found ways to harness elements that could do harm to the youkai-- magic. --The Black Sun--  Of course, it was not exactly easy for them, despite these advancements, and a sort of dead-lock occurred where one side could not completely overwhelm the other. But the darkness-- Rumia-- bided her time, gathering up all the fear that surrounded her concept, waiting for the right moment. All those years of soaking up fear had a profound effect on the once humble, former darkness spirit; she already had a tough time fighting against the sweet temptation of human fear, and one day she took things too far.

With her gathered strength, she darkened a great portion of the sky, forming a single, pitch-black orb in the center-- a black sun. With the lure of sweet human fear, she swept darkness through all the towns and cities the humans had created, threatening to strangle all of them to death with the deadly shade. Other youkai ran about unhindered, protected by the darkness Rumia created. The fear that was generated was so great, she could not stop herself. But before she could entirely wipe out the humans, the beings that exist in heaven, that also relied on the humans for their continued existence, came down to stop her. While her power was great, she could not stop the combined forces of the divine presence and their scorching light, and so she was eventually defeated, as is the fate of those who do not control themselves appropriately.

--Ensealment--  In order to prevent a similar incident, a seal was prepared for her. They indeed considered destroying Rumia outright, but another would surely take her place if they did so. This was the best course of action in the interests of protecting their faith. The seal itself was one of restriction, keeping her power at a set level, a level that was incredibly low, even for some of the younger youkai out there. In addition, it locked her into a childish state of mind with no memories of her past at all. With such restrictions, Rumia would never be able to return to her former self. And, to make certain that she would not take it off out of curiosity, it was enchanted so that she could never remove it on her own.

With that, the child was left to her own devices. She was still a youkai, and thus had a youkai’s instincts, still seeking to eat and scare humans to the best of her ability, but never able to move past the restrictions placed on her by her amulet-- which she honestly thought was pretty. --Safe Keeping--  When the age of youkai was ending in the world and more and more youkai went into hiding, Rumia was snagged and taken to Gensoukyou for safe keeping, in line with the same reasoning of placing the amulet on her in the first place. She is fairly harmless in this state, with the exception of humans, but surely most of the youkai sages know of her past, or are at least aware that she isn’t quite ordinary.

Personality
Rumia is a very childish and carefree individual with no real goals in her life other than to enjoy herself and to scare humans-- which, consequently, is very amusing for her. She is very simple, doing what amuses her without any thoughts of the consequences. The future and the past mean nothing at all to her, as she is only concerned with the current moment. If it seems like fun, it’s likely something that Rumia will do. Humans might be able to escape from her scot-free if they offer her something amusing that can hold her attention for a few moments. If they manage to get far enough away from her, it’s likely that she’ll give up on eating them.

However, in recent times, the Black Sun has been unsealed, and her original power and personality have been once again brought to the surface. For all intents and purposes, Rumia is indeed a youkai sage, despite having been sealed long ago, though one could say that she pushes that line to its breaking point. Having been sealed for such a long time has mellowed her spirit somewhat, and it appears that she has learned her lesson. However, being a very youkai-like youkai, that isn't to say that she wouldn't enjoy toying with people, and indeed likes to push people to their very limit.

Despite being unsealed, Rumia has modified the original seal that was once placed on her, allowing her to access to her memories as well as granting her the ability to remove the amulet if need be. However, the amulet still carries out its purpose of dulling and restricting her powers. With this, it is possible to humble those arrogant youkai that think themselves to be superior to everyone by laying them low with her weak, sealed form. In this endeavor, she hopes to keep youkai from following the path that she once took herself.

Power/Combat
Rumia is the embodiment of darkness and the progenitor of many of the youkai that thrive in the darkness. However, her power has been sealed to the point that it’s incomparable to how it was all that time ago. Her power is still the manipulation of darkness, however, it has not changed in that regard. Her power allows her to create and control darkness, allowing her to set how much light can get through. Even in her sealed state, she is capable of allowing the darkness a semi-tangible form, though the scale that she can do this on is much smaller compared to what it might be if she were to remove the seal again.

However, if it did come to be that she fought with her seal removed, the darkness would take on a new property. Darkness is a thing of nearly infinite potential and Rumia has a sort of pseudo reality manipulation over anything that it is covered by the dark. It is possible for abominations to spawn, the landscape to change, the qualities of basic laws themselves to be altered. Indeed, the only real way to counter such a power is to overpower the dark with an absolute source of light.

Spellcards
Moon Sign "Moonlight Ray"

Darkness Sign "Demarcation"

Darkness Sign "Dark Side of Moon"

Night Sign "Midnight Bird"

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Darkness Sign "Lurking in the Gloom"

Emptiness Sign "Embrace of the Silent Cold"

Darkness Sign "Night Creep"

Void "Forgotten Requiem"

Void "The Black Sun"

Void "Dark Fantasy"

Infinity "The Endless Dark"

Night Sign "Moon-Mist Shroud"

Hunger "Feed the Darkness"

Youkai Saint "Unholy Crucifixion"

Major
- Mystia Lorelei: A youkai that is active during the night time. The two seem to have good synergy and are often seen together. Mystia does her best to teach Rumia some things about how to cook, but it never really holds Rumia’s interests for long enough before she gets hungry or something.

- Wriggle Nightbug: Another night time youkai whom she seems to get along well with. She doesn’t hang around Wriggle quite as much because the lights she makes are bright to Rumia, but she still finds the firefly youkai interesting.

Minor
None, really. Anyone who made a small enough impression on her to end up in the ‘Minor’ rating isn’t thought of very often, though they haven’t been completely forgotten.

Trivia
-While Rumia is incapable of removing her amulet, other people can.

-Ironically, her pose represents herself when she was sealed away as a manner of youkai ‘saint’, but she does not know this.