Gulping down her saliva, Miko went to inspect the petal. It shimmered softly in the moonlight. Just what could this petal mean? Gazing out of the window, Miko found her answer. Just right outside of it stood the sakura tree, extending its branches towards the room. Miko jumped out, landing perfectly on her feet. She inspected the area around the tree, even climbed it, but found nothing. When she was nearly about to give up, on the assumption she was just overthinking, she glanced down at the base of the tree, and noticed a small slip of paper. It was placed at such an angle where it was faced away from the house and towards the wall, hiding it from view. She carefully examined the paper, careful not to touch it, lest she released whatever the paper and inscriptions were trying to seal.
"Hmm... Spirits don't usually learn human skills like inscription... But why is it here? It seems to be eminating a dark aura..." Miko thought. Just then, another breeze blew by. Miko felt a presence near her and looked up. Sitting on the tree was a little girl, no more than twenty years of age. She had beautiful, dark brown hair that cascaded down her back. It was so long that it could have passed her body length. She wore a beautiful pink kimono with floral imprints resembled that of a wealthy and beautiful maiden. Strangely, there were no pieces on her hair that matched the aura of high status she was exuding. Miko knew why.
"There you are. I have been looking for you," Miko smiled, a smirk appearing on her face. Slowly, the maiden on the tree turned her head. Naturally, many would expect that her face would be extremely beautiful, but it was nothing of that sort. Her face was charred black and disfigured, skin melting of her cheek, blood oozing out of her forehead. Whats worse, she had no eyes. All that was left where they should be was empty darkness.
"EEEEEEEEEE!!!"The woman on the tree shrieked, so loud it could have woken Tashi. However, it could not be heard, as it was clear she was no longer human, but an evil spirit. Miko immediately backed away from the tree, knowing that being near it would harm her. This spirit was an evil sakura spirit. Normally, there are four types of spirits. One would be spiritual beasts, who could turn into beast, human or spirit at will. The other was nature spirits, formed when a plant absorbs enough spiritual energy, usually taking over a few thousand years. These plants gain sentience and conciousness, and are eventually able to cultivate to immortality. They are one of the rarest of spirits, since they must survive for a long time, but have many threats. Some are hunted by spiritual beasts, while others are nurtured by them for other properties. The third type of spirit was elemental spirits, formed from the elements themselves. This was the rarest, taking ten thousand years to gain sentience. The element must also be extremely dense in spiritual energy to condense a spirit, such as how a heavenly tribulation always bears a thunder or lightning spirit. The fourth type of spirit was a human spirit, formed when a human dies. However, some of them loose their humanity, becomming evil spirits as they are blinded by negative emotions they once held. Usually, they would need to be exorcised, before they grew powerful enough to become demons. They usually turn evil due to many grieviences while they were alive, or died tragically. Otherwise, they were docile and would eventually enter the reincarnation cycle when they have fufilled their wishes. Grim reapers were there to take spirits into the afterlife lest they become evil, and exorcise the evil ones. However, there were always some that manage to escape their sights, such as this human spirit here. Although it was a human spirit, it has binded its soul to the sakura tree, becoming an evil sakura spirit. After all, nature spirits could sometimes be born out of a part of their plant, which was more common. If their main plant dies, so do they. Everything has a soul. Or, they could be spirits who binded their soul somewhere. As long as they were withing the range of the item they binded their soul to, their power would increase, but decrease severely once they were out of that range.
Miko knew what those talismans were for now. They were used to seal her spirit, meaning she was powerful. However, those talismans that sealed and absorbed her power became cursed and slowly corrupted, which corroded their power. Once they were completely corroded, that spirit would be lose! Miko summoned her sword, preparing herself to attack or defend. The spirit was still concious, so it could attack her anytime. It was just a spirit corrupted, blinded by negativity. Just as a test, Miko condensed a wisp of energy in the form a thin needle and sent it flying towards the spirit. The spirit waved her hair like an arm, blocking that attack.
"EEEEEEEE!" It screeched once more, before summoning thousands of sakura petals and hurling them towards Miko.
"Hehe, looks like Asura's attack!" Miko chuckled. Asura was an earth type kitsune, primarily using asago flowers, although she could use other types. Since Miko had sparred with Asura before, using this as her famous technique, Miko naturally came up with a plan to defend against it.
Miko condensed her innate energy into a dome shield that covered her. The trick to this was not to maintain a high area of defence, but rather a small area covered by a strong, concentrated shield without diluting the energy. Still, the spirit continued to attack, sending sakura petals hurling around Miko in an attempt to crack the shield. However, the shield stayed strong. The talismans must be powerful to supress her energy to this state, even with high corruption. Unfortunately, this was not the best of her power. The spirit was intelligent enough not to waste her energy, and dissapeared. However, Miko knew better, and stayed on guard. It seemed to be using spiritual teleportation, a skill Miko once had. It allowed the user to dissapear into thin air and reappear someplace else, usually behind the opponent. However, the spirit was gone for an abnormally long time. Miko could still feel her presence, so she had definitely not hidden her soul back inside the tree. Had she diluted her soul into the surrounding air perhaps? This way, she could remain invisible, and any attacks directed at her would be weakened. The only catch was she couldn't attack either in this state.
Miko immediately released her full aura, condensing a light barrier of radius thirty meters and slowly narrowed it. Even spiritual dilution can only happen within a ten meter radius at best. Eventually, the spirit was concentrated again, such that she had to show her true form. When that happened, Miko immediately threw her sword covered in spiritual energy towards the spirit. The more concentrated she was, the harder the attack. The spirit noticed this and tried to break the barrier, but she got hit. Just as she did, shards of light fell apart, before dissisipating. The spirit screeched yet again, in pain this time, as black smoke eminated from where she had been stabbed. However, was this really the end of the battle?