the sad miko story

The sad miko story
by vivian

One time there was toyosatomimi no miko. "Im sad," she sighed. "Life is complicated," she continued. She felt like she was on top of the world sometimes, but in reality she had been hurt a lot and was often paralyzed with indecision, spinning her wheels endlessly in her lofty, unlikely ambition to become a celestial. "Who cares about becoming a celestial! Stay down here with me, cheat death and eschew heaven and live in eternal debauchery!" said Seiga Kaku, her former mentor who appeared after carving out a hole in the wall. Seiga was a creep who liked to mess around with corpses. It was good that she liked herself so much, because no one else liked her.

retorted miko, "no way, you creep, i want to be a celestial. if i can be a celestial, i'll finally be really cool. i mean, i am cool now, but i actually kind of suck, yknow, and i hate myself." Seiga nodded with enthusiasm. "It's good that you hate yourself, because you do suck." Compounded Yoshika, Seiga's luckless cadaver pal, "becaaause yoooou doooo suuuucckkkkk~~~" and miko was like "yes, its true, im terrible, i am somehow the worst combination of smug and self-loathing. i am just some self-satisfied, self-hating taoist, who thinks she's sooo great just because she's powerful and beautiful and stylish and glorious. refined sigh. i would be good if i was a celestial instead, or if i was someone like byakuren the magic buddhist nun, even though i am supposed to hate her and look down on her in my arrogant faithlessness." yoshika was gnawing on some kind of unidentifiable object, but it was not nue. like, come on, not every suspicious, hard-to-recognize entity you encounter is "actually nue." like cmon. nue is a busy woman. how about we all cool it on the harsh nue accusations.

oh, and miko was still sighing and looking up at a wall mounted picture that she had of the buddhist temple made especially for youkai myourenji run by byakuren the magic buddhist nun. she liked to look at her myourenji picture and pretend like she was looking out the window and really sighing at the real myourenji where the real byakuren was at. meanwhile, in the real myourenji, byakuren did not think that miko was smug and self-loathing. well, no, she totally thought these things because they were both true and she would have no reason to think otherwise. what byakuren actually thought was that miko was not such a bad and terrible person, and that miko was not the most glorious and great person ever, which were both things that miko thought about herself. mostly, she thought miko was cute, and kind of sexy even though byakuren had a lot of hangups about sex, and that she would make a handsome girlfriend. but the problem with byakuren is that even though she is objectively a lot better than miko (who is honestly not that bad) she has similar but even more pronounced issues with self-loathing. and even though she is surrounded by people who love her this love often has a hard time reaching her. she has been through a lot you know? it didnt mean that she wasnt strong, her youkai disciples loved her and supported her all the more for her faltering, for her mistakes, for her imperfections. shou adored her. murasa revered her. ichirin treasured her. nazrin saw potential in her. nue yearned to grow closer to her. kyouko grew happy and energetic from her doting. and mamizou respected her as much as she was wary of her. kogasa was an umbrella monster who liked to spook people. but still, byakuren had trouble loving herself.

this was why she had trouble hitting on other women.

at night she would have dreams that were special magic buddhist dreams that showed her important things. important things like this one: