Gensoukyou:Yukari Yakumo

"Vines constrict, vines constrain, but worry not for I do maintain such precious vines, these love'a'mines do shelter me from the rain

Do your vines not? Naught but knot? Do they not shelter you all the same? Well come with me, oh do not fear ye, please come tell me your name.

I'll protect you my dear, no more shall you fear, of your life that had gone not your way. And so you went astray, in your dismay, to throw it all away.

Come with me to a world where reality is but a fantasy, Fantasy a reality, in all causality, and youkai and humans live all in harmony~

At least... depending on your definition of harmony~"

-A poem written by Yukari, based off a conversation with a human on the Road of Reconsideration

Beginnings
 As an existence is birthed, it gives way to new existences. These new existences are awfully similar to the first, in that they are different from the existence of the universe as a whole. Sentient, powerful, some with the ability to rewrite the laws of the universe with a flick of their wrist - to level a galaxy with but a batting of their eye. At first, their differences from the space dust was as similar as, say, a star - or a black hole, capable of astounding energy or the ability to tear galaxies asunder, but as time went on, the existence of these beings became all the more varied, each one forming differing personalities - gaining more features that separated them not only from the rest of the universe, but from each other as well. As the distinguishing factors became more clear in these beings, one in particular had started to notice the differences, and such variation interested it.

The curious entity watched the beings from afar as they stayed gathered, but it felt its own need to distance itself from them. It had become interested in the division between the other entities - a division that it wanted to keep for itself. Thus, from afar, it watched the entities converse and shape themselves. As time went on, the deities all took physical shapes... in its strive to be different, the separated deity remained as a cloud of power until it realized that it could not stay in such a way effectively, as it proved just unwieldy, and thus took on her young, physical form.

The form the entity took was not different to what you may see now... in the beginning, all the major deities in this part of the expanding universe resembled little kids in a massive playground, and she was no different. Young, curious, but still striving to remain separate from the rest of the group even as they invited her in. Even when they tried to force her to join them, she fled from them in the effort to remain separated. She played up the boundaries between her and the rest by the universal equivalent of drawing lines in the sand.

Time went on, and even if she chose to separate herself from the rest of the kids in this monumental playground, her own maturing was carried out in much of the same way - albeit without the gravitation towards order and balance that the others quickly took on with working together. The rest of the deities worked together to study their powers over the cosmos, she, alone, studied her own. However, the others worked together to see how their powers were best applied to work together, her focus was on discovering how to utilize her own powers, alone, to their fullest. She found her powers fairly simple and unimpressive at first... her power had manifested itself into what she wanted the most - what she saw the most interesting, and that was the separation between matter and energy, the entities with each other, animate and inanimate, and as such she was able to create borders to further separate herself from the others. How much further could her powers go, though?

Kept to herself, she only watched out of the corner of her eyes how the other beings in the ever expanding universe formed an alliance among themselves. She was focused more, now, on what her powers could do. Creating borders, moving borders - changing that which separates any two things. In the early years of the universe, there was not much her powers could accomplish. She made matter out of energy, and stars out of the matter, but it was never quite what the other deities were capable of. Annoyed by this, she went off on her own into the universe, determined to further research just what her abilities could do.

(( Probably more to put here, but nothing relevant as of right now. ))

Attention to Division
 When the Celestial Bureaucracy came to settle upon Earth, the Deity of Boundaries, as she'd come to know herself as, had not a blind eye towards it. The gathering of the dragon Ryujin, the gods it had made, and the celestial bureaucracy as a whole - beings that she had once observed as a younger deity - all had attracted her attention away from her constant toying with her own powers. By now, she'd learned much about herself - of how to better focus her powers, and even how to go past her own natural limits by using calculations to, say, measure the amount of atoms in any given object. Pushing herself this far, though, had made her mentally exhausted and weary of using her powers in such grand applications. Forcing herself to push her mental capacity to such grotesquely immense ways as counting each individual atom in, say, a star, had even left her mentally unstable, and could only find herself staring at the planet earth and watching it form and shape itself, once more, from afar.

Gaps, as they go by now, were a great means of watching the growing population - trying to give her broken mind something to distract itself with so that it would not further tear itself asunder. She focused on several different societies that had started to form throughout the ages, and in doing so - in watching the human and youkai ways, she gained knowledge to keep herself occupied with, until, over time, her mind had begun to settle and calm, allowing her, once more, to think clearly with her mind filled with things more manageable than previous. She would never be perfectly stable, but at least by now she had something less grand to ease her mind into.

It was only around a few thousand years ago, when great wars started arising and the borders that humanity built between itself started becoming more obvious that she actually found enough interest in earth to make her way onto it for a closer look.

(( More should go here, but will at such a point where I find I can include any further outside world interactions without getting in trouble. Also, pending future rewrites, but the general story is set. ))

Fantasy and Reality
 Time spent on Earth - watching it grow, watching civilizations rise and fall, and even gaining a few servants for herself - had all proved calming for the Entity of Boundaries. She found that, by far, the Eastern Civilizations were the most interesting to her. She adored the culture of the world as a whole, of course, but it was the unique, often times strange Youkai that existed in one island in particular that truly captured her attention. It interested her to watch both them, and the strange rituals the humans undertook to stop such youkai from toying with them. It kept her occupied, and pushing one or another into the other proved as amusement enough.

It became concerning, however, that as humanity furthered itself, she discovered that it was by the humans that youkai had become, and by the humans that they will become naught. Not by means of the humans killing them off, surely, as the youkai were far more powerful, but as the techniques used to deal with the youkai and keep them at bay became more and more effective, humans learned to fear them less. In learning to fear them less, naturally their numbers dwindled, and she learned that such creatures were, in fact, embodiments of the human imagination and fear. If there was no fear, there was no youkai, and the notion of her favorite creatures eventually disappearing saddened her.

An idea had struck to separate youkai from the advancing society, but the question came to where she would put such a place. Her attention was quickly drawn to one area in particular. An area that was teeming with magical energy, for it surrounded the great mountain where the dragon Ryujin has taken himself to rest upon. Perfect and beautiful, magical and untouched by the advancement of society, it was a perfect place for her to settle down and populate with youkai and humans alike, under the dragon god's sleeping nose.

Finding already a small human village among the land, she worked hard to gain favor of the youkai throughout the land that were weak and few. With promise of a land just for them, free from the threat of the advancing human population, the youkai were quick to see Yukari like a sage, following her will to the letter - perhaps as naive as they were. Pleased with the youkai she's managed to gather, she brought them all to the land with but a single rule for them. "Leave as many humans alive as possible; kill only as many needed to instill fear.", a request she knew would be mostly ignored, but still required stating.

Though pleased with her work, she found it troubling that humans would often flee from the village, now under the constant threat of the youkai, in order to seek help. This would not be such an issue, but with society advancing the way it was, she could not brush off the potential threat that other human societies may bring with them should they come with help. One group, in particular, were notably threatening. The Hakurei clan. Specialized in fighting and sealing off youkai, it took Yukari's own hand in the matters to help the youkai against the imposing threat. This showed that this land of hers required constant vigilance to maintain, and that was not something her easily tired mind could quite handle. Even if she could, what if the humans had sent more numbers? Or advanced even more? Such threats were not light, and she needed help in maintaining the balance in such a great land on top of the threats.

The solution was simple enough. Create a border surrounding the land, and hoping that the dragon god would not be wakened by it. Even so, she knew the god's limits, and knew what she'd do to exploit them. The problem came in maintaining it, as such a large border would need to completely separate fantasy - which she reasoned as the land itself - and reality - what she reasoned as the rest of the world, so that humans outside the border would never know it existed. It would need constant maintaining, and, again, something that Yukari was not quite willing to put into it. However... her eyes were cast upon the clan that came upon the land in order to destroy the youkai.

With but one Miko left, there was a clear weakness in the clan, but even one miko, so attuned with sealing rituals and barriers, Yukari could trust the task of maintaining the border to them. As such, she came upon the final miko and posed to her the deal. She maintains the border, and the youkai will only spread as far as the border allows - something that the Miko seemed to quickly agree to. As such, using both hers and the miko's power, the Hakurei Barrier was formed to seal in the land, forever protecting it from the threat of reality.

Entwining the fate of the barrier with the Hakurei bloodline, and leaving the clan to both maintain the border as well as keep the youkai in line so that they would not dispatch of the humans too quickly, Yukari was finally free to simply sit back and watch the events in her land unfurl before her... though, she'd much forgotten that it was not her land to begin with. As the border was created, the Dragon God, Ryujin, was woken from his slumber to having his land stolen from under his nose. Infuriated, a great storm was cast over the land - caused only by the pure anger of the god as it confronted Yukari, too blind to see his anger beginning to flood the land as the vast rain came down.

Yukari had expected the god's wrath, of course, and began trying to reason with him. Though at first the god paid no heed to her words, when it was pointed out what his own anger was doing to his precious land - flooding it with the great storm, causing all its people to beg out to the god for mercy - he had no choice but to calm himself and heed her word, embarrassed that his own anger had caused such a tragedy to befall the land. Yukari explained to the god her intent with his land, as well as the consequences of his trying to stop her - of how the fight that would ensue would leave the closed-off space torn asunder, knowing that the god could not refute nor allow such a possibility. Begrudgingly, the god agreed to pass over ownership to Yukari, provided that she keep it as pristine as it has always been - a term that Yukari easily accepted. Still angry, the god promised Yukari that he'd return to reclaim his land, but for the time being, he left - never to be seen again.

(( And there's that. Pending massive rewrites, but that's essentially the story that I'm sticking with. ))

What is seen
Though her personality has changed over the course of her existence - from an emotionless concept of division, to a childlike curiosity, and to what you see today - what you'd find now is one suiting to the one who has cared enough about the existence of the creatures she views like distant relatives so much as to create a home for them to live within without fear of extinction from the ever dwindling belief and fear in their kind. Carefree yet caring, and motherly almost to a fault in some cases. At least, this is how she often comes off as.

Beyond this, however, much of her caring nature is either a facade hiding how little she actually cares, be it to keep up appearances or what have you, or is general kindness, but not without a manipulative goal attached to it. In truth, she is lazy, and much of the care she puts into Gensoukyou is done via proxy - not to say she does not genuinely care for her land as a whole, lest she let it be razed to rubble.

In the rare times she does put forth her hand into things, it is often because something has caught her interest enough to be deemed worthy departing her mansion to witness first, or has become troublesome enough for her proxies to not be able to lend a hand in, in which case she'll handle it either as swiftly as possible, or in such a way that it provides the most entertainment - dependent on her mood at the time.

Should it come to a point where she is angered by something, then in her usual fashion she usually does not actually seem angered or hostile towards the event in question - rather, she'll often come off as disappointed and scolding. This is more than likely due to the fact that most of the things that would require her direct intervention are not large enough to be seen as truly angering to an entity as old as her. At times, she may even seem happy that such an event is even happening at all - should she find it interesting, at least, which will often result in an odd cross between looking kind, but with a clear malevolence behind her smile.

What is not seen
Kindness and caring gives way to manipulation, and laziness gives way to a busy mind.

Though unrelated to the concept that has birthed her existence, the reason for Yukari's laziness comes more from a fault - an accident caused by nothing more than her desire to overcome her own limitations, that had left her mind in a constant whirlwind of thoughts and calculations. She's always over-thinking things, always dwelling on a point that had played its way into her mind only for it to become stuck there for her to ponder in the quiet confines of her mansion, or to study alone in a library under a disguise of sorts. It's the reason she often comes off as too lazy, not wishing to be caught in yet another thought to multiply and infect her mind, or being too mentally exhausted to want to give thought to much of anything.

At times when caught alone, she may be found muttering nonsensical theories or calculations to herself, only to wave it off as nothing to what few individuals may catch her in the act. In conversation, one may catch her delving off-topic, only to catch herself and return to the previous one, all done without a single word about it regarded - ignoring that it even happens. Such a mind as hers is truly complex, and clearly not under control - even to a being as ancient as her.

Whether such a constantly busy mind, only remedied by sleep, proves a bother to the ancient youkai is something unknown. On one hand, she never really seems in a foul mood unless she truly needs to be, but such moods that she holds have already been noted to often be capable of being mere facades for manipulative intent. So whether she's troubled and says nothing, or has grown accustomed to her situation, is a mystery unsolved, perhaps even by her own self.

Manipulation of Boundaries
A boundary, as applied her, is the division - physical or conceptual - between any two things. From the division between the concepts life and death, the transition between fall and winter, to as simple as merely the wall that divides one room from the next.

The manipulation of said boundaries is just what it implies; the ability to move, reshape, cross over, or even remove the division that separates any two concepts. Limited only by her power reserves, which has only grown throughout her existence, it's safe to say that her power is nearly absolute. However, the key point here is nearly.

In order for Yukari's power to apply to any two concepts is if their is a clear-cut division between the two. For example, there is a clear difference between being alive and being dead, and thus she is able to apply a border to and manipulate the difference between life and death. However, adjusting, say, the difference between 'big' and 'small' is not something she can actually do, as the two concepts are dependent on individual opinion. Likewise, 'far' and 'near', or 'light' and 'heavy'. Whereas things that naturally work is the difference between water and air, the moon and sun, reality and fantasy, youkai and human, here and there, things that have clear differences between them.

To remedy her natural limitations, though, she has adopted other methods in order to manipulate, say, the size of any given thing, the distance between any two places, or the weight of any given thing. This is done by using sometimes complex calculations in order to get the correct size, weight, distance, etc. that she is imagining. It is for this reason as well that she is capable of doing very complex calculations in a matter of mere moments.

Coincidentally, these complex calculations also allow her to boost the abilities of her shikigami, though only a few are actually able to understand the commands she gives in the forms of these calculations.

Magical capabilities
Suiting of a being such as herself, as old and experienced as she is, Yukari is quite experienced in using her magical energy. There are few spells she is not capable of recreating, but rarely ever uses such abilities with a power as broad as hers. The most you'll see of this is in the form of her spellcards, often toned down so that it may be fair for those she may be fighting - unless they pose an actual threat.

Spellcards

 * Barrier "Curse of Dreams and Reality"
 * Barrier "Balance of Motion and Stillness"
 * Barrier "Mesh of Light and Darkness"
 * Evil Spirits "Xanadu of Straight and Curve"
 * Evil Spirits "Yukari Yakumo's Spiriting Away"
 * Evil Spirits "Bewitching Butterfly Living in the Zen Temple"
 * Sinister Spirits "Double Black Death Butterfly"
 * Shikigami "Ran Yakumo"
 * "Boundary of Humans and Youkai"
 * Barrier "Boundary of Life and Death"
 * Yukari's Arcanum "Danmaku Barrier"
 * Border Sign "Quadruple Barrier"
 * Barrier "Charming Quadruple Barrier"
 * Shikigami "Ran Yakumo +"
 * Border Sign "Boundary Between 2D and 3D" Barrier "Objective Barrier"
 * First Card "Quadruple Barrier"
 * Second Card "Manji-Parasol of Yakumo"
 * Third Card "Ran Yakumo"
 * Outer Force "Infinite Superspeed Flying Object"
 * Phantasm "Perpetual Motion Machine of the First Kind"
 * Boundary "Quadruple Barrier of the Imperishable Night"
 * "Profound Danmaku Barrier -Phantasm, Foam and Shadow-"
 * Border Sign "Boundary of Form and Emptiness"
 * Border Sign "Boundary of Wave and Particle"
 * Shikigami "Chen"
 * Fantasy Nest "Flying Glow Worm's Nest"
 * Aerial Bait "Laced with Venom"
 * Abandoned Line "Aimless Journey to the
 * Photon "Doppler Effect"
 * Splitter "Thing That Splits All Into Two"
 * Aerial Bait "Hyperactive High Speed Flying Object"
 * "Yakumo's Nest"
 * Magic Eye "Laplace's Demon"
 * "Impossible Danmaku Barrier"
 * "Casebook of Luck, Resilience and Perseverance"