Kuroku_Naishin

There was once an incredibly powerful deity who adored toying with the hearts of mortals and butting into their affairs, meaningful or not. Kuroku once went by another name, one that inspired fear and cursed misfortune upon whoever dared to speak it. And she relished it, every little juicy rumor made her heart sing, the wondrous embellished tales of her deeds brought a wicked smile to her face. Whatever she did, she made a mark on someone's life one way or another, and it was permanent. It was her own little claim on this part of the world and those who lived in it, it was so empowering that sex didn’t even compare. Kuroku would seduce a feudal lord and convince him to rebel against his daimyo, just so she could watch as entire cities burned in the flames of a war born of deception and betrayal. Yet still, the smaller more personal occurrences were somehow even better, she once had an entire village under her yoke. The rumors about it being ‘cursed by the fox god’. She tested something there, her boldest move yet. She didn’t hide her beastly appearance, she exposed herself in all her splendor before them. The look of shock and terror on their faces she still remembers today. They prostrated themselves before her immediately, she didn’t even have to demand it, but she wanted something more-she wanted to see desperation, venom, hate. So she goaded them on, made false promises and spread rumors of ways that a mortal man may kill her, lay with her, or even curry her favor. They were all lies of course, she just wanted to see the desperation, and how far a man would debase his fellow.

Her antics didn’t stop at taunting, as even in death they weren’t safe. She also reveled in robbing them from their chance at an afterlife and regularly indulged in consuming their souls, consigning them to become apart of her.

Her antics however attracted the attention of the Kusano shrine. One couldn’t casually incite civil war and kill scores of people without someone noticing who was pulling strings behind it all. Kuroku got careless, so far no mortal could even so much as scratch her. The so called demon hunters could barely track her! Either way, her animal form, human disguise and normal appearance all were studied and documented slowly. She knew, of course-but she was a god, what did she have to care about those watching her?

In the end, Kuroku's reign was not destined to last and she would eventually come to regret everything she's done later on...

Her retribution would come very slowly as the Kusano clan made Kuroku into their public enemy no. 1 over the generations. As it turns out, Kuroku was no stranger to shrine maidens and priests coming after her. Humans were not exactly the pushovers that they made themselves out to be for Kuroku and she's come across a lot of bold ones who confronted her in an attempt to seal or out right exterminate her. Some came for justice, others came for the chance at glory and fame. In the end, they all proved to be as human as the every other victim Kuroku toyed with in her long life. However, one particular Shrine maiden was special in the case. While Kuroku did in fact manage to get her killed, she payed no heed to the last name that she carried.

Kusano Kimiko.

After the death of Kimiko, the Kusano clan did not simply submit to Kuroku as a being who could not be defeated. Instead, the shrine took the loss of their head miko and used their thirst for revenge to breed a generations long vendetta solely against Kuroku. The Kusano clan went to great lengths to increase the power of their greatest weapon, the Kusano Maiden. Selective breeding, forming a deep, binding contract between the Kusano Maiden and the kami of the shrine, and finally, teaching the daughter of every generation to carry the same burdensome grudge that their mother's bore within their hearts and souls. Before long, Kuroku was seeing more of the Kusano Maiden pop up, each one different than the last from a long while ago, but carrying the same hatred she had felt from Kimiko. All in all, they were essentially the same person she had killed all the years ago, just in a different body. None of them would succeed in their attempt to get their revenge and it would take about three generations before the luck of Kusano would win out in the form of Kusano Kiyohime. When she and Kuroku finally met, the black fox couldn't help but laugh. To think that an entire clan of humans could be so vindictive as to lead their children to slaughter over, not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR generations in a row. It was, by far, the most humorous thing Kuroku could think of and was the very reason she didn't take Kiyohime seriously at all. After all, she was literally the same person that Kuroku had killed over the years. What would make her any different from the three other corpses she turned her ancestors into?

The difference was very real once the battle began to between them.

It all happened so fast, the moment Kiyohime attacked, she flung out a barrage of ofuda that seemed to race towards Kuroku like a hail of sacred arrows. Kuroku managed to dodge a few, but several enchanted talismans hit the black fox and stuck to her body. With more than one ofuda attached to her, Kiyohime unleashed a secret technique that Kuroku had no knowledge of from the previous generations; the Majin Sealing Pressure, a technique in which a Kusano Maiden channels the divine power of Chiemori into more than one ofuda. Because more than two ofuda had been slapped onto Kuroku's body, the effects were swift and extremely painful. All of Kuroku's vision flashed into a blinding light as everything within Kuroku's being suddenly screamed at her, every nerve ending in her suddenly assailed by a pain she has never once felt before. Even her power over the earth was effected as Chiemori held dominion over her affinity and essentially sealed it away from her. For a brief second, Kuroku was given a taste of a power that was greater than her own...

Suddenly, Kuroku could see again as the light cleared, but she soon discovered that she could only see out from one eye. The other had ofuda plastered onto it, as did several areas of her body. Kuroku thought that Kiyohime must have had a big sense of humor with where the ofuda had stuck to her, something that actually got a laugh out from the evil fox as she turned to face the offending miko once again to begin the fight anew. Yes, she may have gotten the best of her once, but that was a chance Kuroku knew she had already wasted. That sealing hurt, but it was not enough to banish her and Kuroku was intent on showing Kiyohime the grave error of attacking someone like her.

Unable to use all of her abilities with the divine ofuda stuck to her body, Kuroku reached up to yank the talisman from her face. However, before her nailed fingers could even touch the enchanted paper, it ignited. An intense divine fire that quickly consumed Kuroku, the holy power so great in its intensity that her body was shocked into completely giving up on her. She fell her knees once more, her body under attack once more by another round of divine punishment brought forth by the Kusano miko's attacks. Despite the unspoken law that her body, as a youkai, was not effected by the same feeble physical limitations as a human, Kuroku found that she couldn't even more, nor could she see or feel a side of her face. Everything on her had completely shut down and it was only then that Kuroku began to realize that she wasn't dealing with the same Kusano maiden like she had in the previous generations.

One by one her earthly senses managed to return to her thanks to her supernatural resilience, however her vision only cleared in one working eye and not the other. Unsure of why she was suddenly blind in one eye now of all times, it was then that the smell hit her.

One by one her earthly senses managed to return to her thanks to her supernatural resilience, however her vision only cleared in one working eye and not the other. Unsure of why she was suddenly blind in one eye now of all times, it was then that the smell hit her.

The smell of burned, charred flesh.

By tearing off the seal she’d caused permanent damage to her physical and spiritual manifestations. As she lay on the ground, a place she had become so foreign to whilst she looked down on everyone else, Kuroku realized she had been bested. The pride forged from years of manipulating humans and getting them to kill each other could not hold up against a human who was created from the very chaos she wrought upon everyone else. Had she not been so brazen in her actions and whims, then perhaps the Kusano maiden who was glaring down to her right at this very moment wouldn't have come into existence. In a way, Kuroku had no to blame for her defeat but herself and it was that realization that truly crushed the kitsune. Even as she resigned to weep about how her own hubris betrayed her in the end and how foolish she was to underestimate someone like Kiyohime, her vulpine ears could not drown out the words from her would be killer;

"I have broken your body and your spirit...something from which cannot be repaired even for someone as unnatural as you. To me, you are as good as dead, but I shan't leave you here. No, instead, I have a more fitting punishment in store for you..."

With those words spoken, Kuroku resigned herself to whatever fate the miko would bring upon her. There was nothing else she could do now. Even with what shred of power that remained within her, Kuroku had given up any hope in ever defeating this miko that had so viciously taken everything from her. With Kuroku defeated, Kiyohime carried all eight feet of her to a simple tree that was located not far from where the Kusano Shrine stood. Known as the Sacred Tree of Tadao, it was a tree that had been planted by one of the previous Kusano Maidens, Tadao Kusano and blessed by Chiemori after she became the second Kusano Maiden to fall by Kuroku's hands. Using Chiemori's power channelled into her body, Kiyohime opened the tree and tossed Kuroku inside. However, before the tree was sealed shut, Kiyohime spoke these final words to the beaten black fox...

"If by any means that you manage to free yourself from my seal, for your sake, I hope you don't underestimate our power ever again. Until then, enjoy your years of solitude and confinement, Black Fox. You have most certainly earned it."

And with that, Kiyohime shut off the only light from the outside world Kuroku would ever see for thousands of years. She had finally won and with it, had brought peace to the lands that had been plagued by her presence for so long. Time would pass and years would go by, but without Kuroku around to breed war and conflict among humans, civilization prospered and blossomed. However, even as tens of thousands of years passed and Kuroku was sealed, this did not mean that she would be gone forever. It took every ounce of her power and thousands of years of dedication, but as the seal on the Tadao tree weakened, Kuroku was allowed to dig her way further and further out of the tree with just her teeth and claws alone. It was painful to the highest degree and she had been set back many, many times in her suffering, but...after long last, Kuroku finally managed to break out into the outside world she had been shut off from for eons on end...

With her freedom regained, where would Kuroku go now? The world she now knew was gone and a new one had been built on its ruins. Well, rumors have begun circulating that a horse-sized bloody black fox was seen limping towards the forests near the Kusano shrine...

Losing a fight with a mortal and suffering permanent damage to her body was an enormous blow to Kuroku's pride, the knife was twisted even deeper when she was stuffed inside of a tree. Now that she’s free and has regained her mind she plans on doing things at least a little differently. The medieval age was her domain, she got to see it develop, the flaws of society and the easiest ways to manipulate people, now in the modern world-she’s a fish out of water. It all fascinates her, she’s like a giddy child at a fair, giant metal birds, cages with wheels and motors, bright lights and the fashion changes. Her disguise worked doubly well as with her scar as she tended to drive most people away, so for a while she sat and observed, avoiding any undue and unwanted attention-and then she learned about pop culture. There was nothing that tickled her fancy so much back in her day, the misinformation and just how angry people could get over words on a screen. She still gains her jollies from making people twist and turn-and now she's just got more options to use and is signifficantly less murderous but, that's not to say she doesn't still indulge in the same vices now and then from before. All in all, she's not a good person, but she's not as malicious as she was before.

Weapons - Naturallly has long, sharp claws that can pierce most armor and clothing. Otherwise, she has a hypnotic gaze that she can activate-it can be resisted by looking away or having a high mental fortitude.

She also has the ability to manipulate the earth to some extent, like cause minor earthquakes or the like, as well as manipulate a persons blood and body in a number of different ways.

She has a very large horse-sized animal form as well.

All of her magic is much, much weaker since she's been scarred, and it takes quite a lot of energy out of her to use her great abilities or hypnotize someone for too long.

Enhancement - Supernatural Entity, she's unnaffected by the ravages of time and any kind of aging process, remarkably hard to actually kill without the use of blessed items.

Passive Ability - She has the ability to make people focus their attention on her or divert it subconsciously. It's weak and subtle, but if she focuses long enough people can forget her presense entirely, and the most attention she'll draw is sidelong glances. If one person is the target of it then she can theoretically enthrall them.