Kawabata Megumi

Summary

Kawabata Megumi is an old woman who has been living for over 100 years in Zenmetsu Village. Originally sent as a spy to the Four Mountains village to split the villagers apart and cause internal conflict, she took over and modified the village's Toubyou Package by mixing it with the Orochi to try to give birth to a third Youkai, the Aoandon, by gathering participants from the outside world to complete the Hyakumonogatari, the telling of 100 ghost stories.

Powers and Stats

Tier: 10-B normally, at least High 8-C with Kusanagi, Unknown with Toubyou

Name: Kawabata Megumi

Origin: The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village

Gender: Female

Age: Unknown (Has been an old woman for more than 100 years)

Classification: Human, Specialist

Powers and Abilities: Magic, Weapon Mastery, Shapeshifting, Spatial Manipulation, Time Manipulation, Memory Manipulation, Resistance to Fire, Immortality (Type 1)

Attack Potency: Human level normally, at least Large Building level with Kusanagi (Easily slices through several cars, Hishigami Mai's body and through entire rooms and multiple machines of a factory; the sword leaves the realm of anti-Youkai techniques and enters the realm of the gods, so it should be stronger than any normal Youkai or specialist), Unknown with Toubyou (A swarm of hundreds can devour a human body in seconds, large groups of Toubyou can transform into a giant serpent replica of Yamata no Orochi)

Speed: Supersonic (Mai couldn't dodge any of her sword strikes)

Lifting Strength: Average Human

Striking Strength: Human level normally, Large Building level with Kusanagi

Durability: Likely Street level

Stamina: Above Average

Range: At least several meters with Kusanagi, unknown with Toubyou Package

Standard Equipment: Sake container

Intelligence: Average

Weaknesses: Normal human weaknesses

Feats/Statements

“	The change started with Tanishita Hajime, the industrial spy. “Uuh…bah…?” I heard a muffled noise. That questioning voice sound like it came from a mouth forcibly plugged by a gag. “Gh..bh. Gfh!? Ghh!! Gbgbh!!” He suddenly held a hand up to his mouth and he doubled over. Initially, he looked like the victim of poison. But that was not the case. What spewed from his mouth was a large number of snakes. Snakes as thick as a little finger fell to the ground as if a faucet had been opened. He held a hand to his mouth, but the snakes slipped through the gaps between his fingers. [...] The change did not stop at his mouth. I heard a popping noise. Some foreign substance was flowing out like tears. More than ten snakes came from his eye sockets as if forcing their way out of his eyeballs. They came from his nose and ears as well. At this point, anyone could imagine what had happened. It was like snakes or moles moving through the dirt. Tanishita Hajime’s head had to be filled with countless tunnels. There was no way he was still alive. [...] Both the prisoners and the jailers collapsed as they were taken out by the snakes. Gogan Sakura may have held a real gun, but snakes even slithered out of the gun barrel. After her gun malfunctioned and blew her hand off…well, it wasn’t pretty. Silence fell over the area. The snakes continued to slither around. I did not think these were some strange parasites or aliens. They were most likely Youkai. Snakes. A swarm. A sudden appearance. There were several candidates, but I could not be sure of anything yet. When it came to snake Youkai, I suspected the rulers of water, the ones related to ironworking which were derived from them, or possessing spirits. [...] I was keeping the optimum level of tension and burden on my muscles so I could move at any moment, but there was no sign of the snakes attacking me. It seemed the attack condition was something other than distance. [...] The old woman said nothing more. In the very next moment, a great number of small snakes unnaturally slithered out from within the fog. Dozens of them appeared only a few centimeters from my face. I instinctually took a step back and gravity dragged the snakes down to the parking lot asphalt. The old woman looked confused. “Is it that surprising?” I asked with a scornful laugh. “The snakes all came from within the others’ bodies and wounds. The medium is likely the fog. When the victim breathes it in, you can call the snakes into their body to kill them.”	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Megumi uses her Toubyou to kill several people by making the snakes appear inside their bodies through mist

“	She was about high school age. As one of the prisoners in the corporate prison, she had been forced to wear unrefined workwear. Or so it had seemed. However, the Sunekosuri was trembling and said, “Wh-what is that?” “Don’t ask me.” “Why is that girl’s skin peeling off to reveal an old woman’s face!? Who is she!?” “Why don’t you ask her?” I replied offhandedly before smiling. “But the kind of person that disguises themselves as a beautiful girl tends not to be a decent person in reality.” [...] “There was a rumor of a free pass in the corporate prison and alcohol would occasionally find its way in. Whether the person using the free pass was a prisoner or a jailer, they were part of a group that wanted to destroy the corporate prison and they were using the alcohol as currency to negotiate and make deals with people. That way they could gather the items they needed for a Youkai or Package. …That was our theory so far, but it looks like the situation was actually a bit different.” “Eh? …Oh, I get it! If that old woman could disguise herself as Suzukawa Izumi…!!” “She could disguise herself as other people too. A single person was using the free pass the entire time. By periodically faking her death and taking over someone else’s face, she could continue taking action while escaping suspicion.”	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Megumi can disguise herself as other people

“	“Since this was a snake Youkai related to the water in the fog, I assumed it was an Orochi or Uwabami, but it seems I was a bit off.” I got to the heart of the issue as I glanced over at the gold ring-like objects the teary-eyed Sunekosuri was spitting out. “The Toubyou. If I recall, it is a Youkai raised in a jar or pot that comes in a set of 75. In exchange for periodically giving them sake or a rice ball, they allow the master of the home to prosper by stealing gold, silver, and treasure from other houses. They are a stereotypical possessing spirit. …That must have been the characteristic used to make the 8000 people from the corporate prison vanish…no, to make the few of us here go missing. This Package automatically “steals” the people needed for the master’s objective. That produces this spirited away effect	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Megumi used the Toubyou to spirit away people to an alternate space

“	Dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of snakes rained down around the old woman. They coiled around each other, bit into each other, became strongly intertwined, and branched off complexly. All together, they created a giant serpentine silhouette. Wait. Wait just a second. “You mixed in the characteristics of the Orochi!? Dammit. I should have investigated the abandoned village!!” [...] She held a container filled with water, sake, or some other liquid. She buried that hand in the branching Orochi behind her. “That is why I overwrote the Toubyou Package with the Youkai and ritual that village was originally meant to have.” And she pulled her hand back out. As if that were their cue, the giant serpent all too easily scattered apart. “Originally, the serpent was nothing more than the scabbard.” The old woman held a sword in her hand. Instead of a single-edged katana, it was a double-edged sword from an older era. The old woman spoke quietly as she casually lowered that sword that emitted a brilliant light as if it were shining in the sun. “Its true nature is the production of a sword. The name of the sword that appeared after the defeat of a serpent branching into eight was Kusanagi.” …Not good!!! She seriously has the ability to illegally access and forcefully draw out the power of one of the Three Sacred Treasures by following the diagram of defeating Yamata no Orochi!? This has gone well outside the realm of anti-Youkai!!	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Megumi can have her Toubyou make a replica of Yamata na Orochi and do a small ceremony to gain the Kusanagi sword

“	“How long ago do you think I am a survivor from?” spoke the old woman in a whisper with her back to the giant branching snake. “Would you believe me if I said I have been this old woman for over 100 years?” “I see no reason not to. I have remade and swapped out everything from my fingertips to my internal organs, so it doesn’t surprise me you can alter yourself like that. I don’t really see the point, though.”	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Megumi has been an old woman for more than 100 years

“	By the time I realized I had completely misinterpreted how much distance I needed from her, the situation had already begun to move. A fearsome slash assaulted me like a flash of lightning. [...] A stick-like object spun through the air as it flew in an arc. It spun and spun. Yes. I still felt no pain, but I could tell. That spinning object was my right arm. That spinning arm had been mercilessly severed at the shoulder. [...] The old woman swung Kusanagi three times. Three meter long slices appeared in the surrounding fog and equal slices appeared in the neatly lined up vehicles. Several explosions soon followed. I swung my upper body around to avoid it while charging with the speed of an artillery shell toward the factory’s emergency exit that I could see clearly through the slices in the fog. [...] “C-can’t you run out there while evading like before?” “Do you really think I was evading that?” Uuh… This feels terrible. It’s because monsters like this sometimes appear with no warning that you can’t take this business lightly. “I’ve been sliced up good. I didn’t dodge even one of them. It’s just that the cuts were so sharp the damage hasn’t caught up yet. If I don’t do anything, my entire body will fall apart into tiny blocks within 10 minutes.”	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Megumi attacks Mai with Kusanagi

“	The area was large, but it had so much production machinery that it felt like a labyrinth. “That old woman’s Kusanagi sliced right through all of the cars in the parking lot. I doubt anything in this labyrinth will protect us,” he continued. “I know that. In fact, you shouldn’t even be thinking about standing up to Kusanagi which is linked to Yamata no Orochi. Our power is only effective against Youkai and things derived from Youkai. We can’t defeat an ability that enters the realm of the gods like the Three Sacred Treasures.”	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Mai remarks it's ridiculous to think about standing up to something that enters the divine realm like Kusanagi

“	The giant semiconductor factory had been sliced diagonally. The walls were sliced. The production line was sliced. The two layers of doors for sterilization, the conveyer belts, the robot arms, the thick metal pipes, the electronic control system, the lights, the floor, the ceiling, the tempered glass, and everything else were all sliced. Kusanagi had cut down everything like mowing over grass. My upper body had been sliced through again, but that no longer mattered. As long as I could retrieve the kit from the rental car’s trunk within the time limit, I would manage. The difference in speed between the factory falling apart and my body falling apart was due to the moisture and oils along the slices of my body holding everything together somewhat. Not that the reason mattered so long as I could move.	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Megumi slashes through the factory

“	“Is it the ethanol for sterilization? If you ignite it, you can likely envelop me in flames, but you underestimate me if you think that will kill me.” “True. For one thing, the name Kusanagi comes from it being used to cut down flaming grass to escape harm. It would be difficult to kill you that way.”	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Megumi and Mai mention the Kusanagi can protect the wielder from flames

“	The sounds coming from her mouth were no longer words. The snakes had clearly left her control as more and more slithered out. “Wh-what is going on…?” asked the Sunekosuri while looking flustered. “The Toubyou are a possessing spirit Youkai that protects its house. But a lot about how the Toubyou distinguished between someone of Four Mountains and an outsider is actually still a bit of a mystery. After all, it seems Zenmetsu Village was a group brought in from outside to quarantine them. And yet the Toubyou were able to distinguish between their family and outsiders. That means they must have used some distinguishing factor.” I raised my index finger. “Was it the people who gave them rice? Was it any baby born in the village? Were the people bound to the Youkai in some sort of ceremony? …But that raises questions about a certain incident. Why were the residents of Four Mountains living in Zenmetsu Village so opposed to the semiconductor factory being built? Or more accurately, why did they refuse to allow it to use the underground water?” “Y-you don’t mean…” “It was who drank the underground water of Four Mountains. …I think that was what was used to distinguish between the Toubyou’s ‘family’ and ‘outsiders’.” I then pointed my raised finger at the old woman who was suffering as she coughed up more and more snakes. “A standard characteristic of all possessing spirits is that they will provide some form of benefit if used correctly but will bare their fangs at their own master if used incorrectly, used without respect, or used cruelly. This old woman focused more on the Orochi than the Toubyou, so she tried to eliminate as much of the Toubyou side from within her as she could. In other words, she treated it cruelly. …She had likely been careful not to drink any of the underground water so that she would be deemed an outsider despite being a resident of Four Mountains.” [...] “By drinking the underground water, you are now considered the master of the Toubyou. And due to your continued use of Kusanagi which denies the existence of the Toubyou, they have bared their fangs against you as a master who treats them cruelly. …Unfortunately for you, your fate has already been sealed. There is no saving you now.”	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Megumi's control over the Toubyou can be broken if she ingests the water from Zenmetsu Village, as that would mark her as a member of their 'family' and thus invite punishment for mistreating them

“	It was dozens if not hundreds of snakes as thick as a little finger. They slithered up from below the water and quickly covered Hasebe Michio’s entire body. It seemed the man no longer held any will to resist. He did not cry out or scream. As that eerie sound continued, that pure black “mass” clearly shrank in volume. The arms and legs sticking out from it turned at odd angles. Is he being eaten? That was what my instincts told me, but it made no logical sense. Snakes ate their prey by swallowing it whole. They had fangs, but they could not bite off flesh. No matter how many snakes as thick as a little finger you had, it should have been impossible for them to eat something the size of a human. But then what was I watching? The volume of the mass within was visibly decreasing. It was like watching butter on a frying pan. [...] The next thing I knew, most of the snakes had vanished as if dissolving into thin air. And in the spot Hasebe Michio had been in were nothing but a single arm and a single leg floating at the water’s surface. A few snakes remained eating them. The limbs shrank and ultimately disappeared. The snakes had eliminated every last trace that the man named Hasebe Michio had been here. And after Hasebe disappeared, every last snake disappeared as well. [...] A sticky sound drowned out everything else. The woman collapsed to the ground and the snakes slithering from her mouth enveloped her body. The Sunekosuri let out a frightened cry. As we watched, that lump made up of hundreds of snakes gradually shrank. Eventually, every single snake disappeared, leaving nothing behind. Not even the old woman’s body remained. [...] The rag-wearing man had supposedly been controlling the Youkai known as Toubyou, but he was now being swallowed by a lump of hundreds of the snakes. “Let go, you idiot! At this rate…!!” “It’s already too late!! Even that man who held the right to control those possessing spirits was taken out. Those snake possessing spirits will never act kindly to a complete outsider like you!! If you approach, they’ll swallow you up as well!!” “But!!” It was not that I had all sorts of dreams about the job of police officer. This man had seemed suspicious and I did not believe everything he had told us. But was it okay to just let him die? I was not going to let someone else die before my eyes! I could hear no screams. The lump of snakes that had been so large was visibly growing smaller and smaller. That meant the rag-wearing man at the center was losing volume. “The assembly of the Toubyou Package was incomplete from the beginning! It should be more surprising that it functioned up until now than that it failed now! The engine is already spewing smoke. If you get in the car, you will only be caught in the explosion! There is no safe area!!” Finally, the snakes began disappearing before our eyes as if they were dissolving into the fog. Just as before, no trace was left of the man who had been enveloped by them. He had completely disappeared.	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - A group of hundreds of Toubyou can quickly devour an entire human body

“	“And I doubt the culprit who wanted to complete the Hyakumonogatari would have created a stage that would let the puzzle-solving participants escape. The Toubyou are powerful enough to drag us from reality and into some other place. This might be a dream, an illusion, some different coordinates, some different phase, the past, or the future, but it doesn’t matter. …Those snake possessing spirits can steal whatever is necessary, so they might automatically warp us right back into Four Mountains if we leave.” “Then what are we supposed to do?” asked Jinnai Shinobu with an audible gulp. “Can we not leave until the Hyakumonogatari is complete? But that means the Aoandon will appear!” “Yes, it does. It looks like our only option is to have it appear and then defeat it. At any rate, our top priority is destroying the balance that prevents us from leaving the Hyakumonogatari stage. And to do that…” I trailed off. My next words never came. I had realized something. Shit! I just realized!! God dammit!! I see! I see! So that’s it! I should have questioned it more when my hand and leg broke through the asphalt too easily when fighting the Kusanagi woman at the corporate prison or when I moved the ruins of the shrine barehanded so easily!! Even if my body has been altered, it should only be effective against Youkai!! [...] The Sunekosuri let out a cry of fear before the detective could. There were snakes. A mountain of snakes. The next thing we knew, everywhere we looked in all 360 degrees was filled with a tremendous amount of snakes. It was not that everything had been covered up by a giant swarm of snakes. It looked more like the landscape was made out of a giant mass of snakes. In fact… That may not have been wrong. “Uuh!? What is going on? The ground is soft!!” “Hey, detective, that man said the entire basin of Four Mountains functions as the Toubyou’s jar, right? Does that mean…!?” “Everything we saw – the ground, the mountains, the forest, the run-down buildings – was all…all…” The detective looked down. He likely regretted having done so. The ground had transformed into a giant black carpet created from tons of snakes weaving around each other. The dead grass had turned into a collection of small, narrow snakes that looked like tubifex worms. If we had gone to the village, we would likely find the silhouettes of the buildings made out of snakes. “Is everything here made from the Toubyou!? Everything but the people needed for the puzzle-solving was fake!?” “It looks like the stage was made to destroy itself if the Hyakumonogatari was not completed within a given period of time. That may have been one of the conditions for creating the Aoandon. If the Aoandon with the abilities the culprit wanted was not created, it would all reset like this.” “Reset…?” Jinnai Shinobu frowned. “You just said reset, right? This isn’t just cleaning up after slicing us to pieces, is it!?” “If my estimation is correct,” I replied with a slow sigh. I gave the worst possibility I could think of. “This is probably not the first time we have attempted the Hyakumonogatari.” “Wha-…?” “From the fact that they can drag us to this ‘alternate location’, it is clear the Toubyou have been assembled in a convenient way. Their ability to steal whatever is necessary may go beyond simply manipulating distances and coordinates. It may allow them to grab objects from the past or future on the timeline.” If the Aoandon was not completed, they would destroy everything and return it all to the initial point. In other words, it was constructed in an eternal loop that would never end until the objective was complete. [...] At some point, the thick fog had disappeared. I looked up at the blue sky that had appeared behind it, but then I grimaced. In the sky, a pure black mouth opened wide. No. It was all Toubyou. This went beyond just dozens or hundreds of them. Were hundreds of millions if not billions of those snake Youkai monitoring us while creating a dome over the false Four Mountains area!? [...] In the end, we had reattempted the loop more times than I could remember. I had not made it to the final time limit every single time. Once, I had been strangled to death by a middle-aged man wearing an orange prison uniform. Once, Madoka had crushed my head with a giant rock because she had reached her psychological limit. If at least one person made it to the final time limit, it seemed we managed to retain our memories during the next attempt. …That meant there had to have been times when no one made it and we simply did not remember them.	„
	~ The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village 03 - Mai realizes the alternate space people are spiritited to is entirely made out of Toubyou and the people inside can be trapped in a time loop

Notable Attacks/Techniques:

• Toubyou Package: Toubyou are small snake Youkai only as thick as a little finger and 30cm long. They are raised in a jar or pot in sets of 75. In exchange for periodically giving them sake or a rice ball, they allow the master of the home to prosper by stealing gold, silver, and treasure from other houses. They are a stereotypical possessing spirit, they will attach to and cause illness in those who get in the way of their house's prosperity. Megumi took over the Package and modified it to use it as a tool to create and give birth to the Aoandon by dragging certain people inside the Package to take part in the Hyakumonogatari. The Package and the Toubyou will continue to function even after Megumi's death.
  • Spatial Manipulation: By setting an area as the "jar" (such as the Four Mountains area, a large patch of land surrounded by mountains), the Package's territory is established. The jar is created as an alternate space so that unrelated people can't interfere. The only living things beside Megumi and the Toubyou inside this alternate space are those brought in by the Package. Everything else in this alternate world is actually made of Toubyou: grass, ground, trees, asphalt, buildings, fog, mountains, the sky, etc...
    • Stealing: The Toubyou can "steal" whatever items their master wishes from the world outside their "jar" by warping them inside the alternate space. Even people can be dragged away from reality into the "jar", creating an spirited away effect, and they'll likely be warped back in if they try to leave.
    • Fog: Megumi can call the snakes into an enemy's body to kill them from the inside if they breathe in the fog present in the area.
  • Time Manipulation: The ability of the Toubyou to steal whatever is necessary goes beyond simply manipulating distances and coordinates. Mai speculates it also allows them to grab objects from the past or future on the timeline. The Toubyou were capable of forcing all participants inside the "jar" to go through an endless loop as they created the 100 riddles for the creation of the Aoandon. If 100 riddles were not created within a given period of time, the landscape would turn back into an endless swarm of Toubyou, crush the survivors and loop them back to the moment they entered the Package with their memories intact. If all participants were killed before the timer ran out, the loop would also restart, but their memories would be wiped, forcing them to start from zero. The time spent inside the Package is unrelated to the time outside. The protagonists spent countless loops inside, and once freed they simply appeared in reality as if no time had actually passed from the moment they had been abducted.
  • Orochi: Thousands of Toubyou can join together to intertwine and branch, creating a replica of the giant serpent Yamata no Orochi.
    • Kusanagi: By burying a sake container in the Orochi replica, Megumi can follow the diagram of its defeat and illegally access and forcefully draw out the power of one of the Three Sacred Treasures, the Kusanagi sword. Kusanagi takes the form of as a double-edged golden sword that emits a brilliant light as if it were shining in the sun. Kusanagi's sharpness can reach the point of making cuts so sharp that damage doesn't catch up with the enemy's body until minutes later. Its slices can cut things without actual physical contact. Due to the stories about Kusanagi being used to cut down flaming grass to escape harm, it apparently protects its user from being harmed by flames.
• Shapeshifting: Megumi is capable of assuming the physical appearance of other people through unknown means. When she's revealing herself her skin peels off to reveal her true face.

Notable Matchups

Notable Victories:

Notable Losses:

Inconclusive Matches: