One of the most notable people I have encountered in my lifetime is a certain human magician, Marisa Kirisame.
Marisa is the sole daughter of a family of merchants who run a second-hand store in the human village. However, she no longer associates with her parents or relatives; I do not know if she willingly cut off ties with her family or if she was disowned for refusing to continue her family tradition.
Marisa claims to run a magic shop, but I have never heard of anybody doing business with her. Her store is in the Forest of Magic, which is in a relatively isolated and dangerous location for most humans. Additionally, Marisa spends much of her time away from her house, which makes getting a hold of her extremely difficult. Regardless of how successful or unsuccessful her shop is, most of Marisa's income comes from doing odd jobs such as fortunetelling, fireworks, and youkai hunting.
Marisa's personality is something I or others can only describe as eccentric, even by the usual standards of Gensokyo. Rather than fighting the stereotypes commonly associated with magic users in folklore, she embraces them entirely, dressing and acting like a witch of European tradition. Due to her behaviour and how infrequently she associates with other humans, she is considered somewhat of an intimidating. In addition to eccentric, I would also describe Marisa as tomboyish. While she maintains a feminine appearance, her personality and mannerisms are somewhat masculine. Many, including myself, have been surprised at how deep Marisa's voice is when she speaks, and how crude some of her language is.
Marisa is an habitual and unabashed liar. She will lie even if it is unnecessary, and even if it is impossible; even if the person she is talking to already knows the truth, she will still attempt to lie. While I found this part of her extremely irritating when I first met her, I have learned to tolerate it, and even find it somewhat amusing.
Despite being a human, Marisa has extremely powerful magical talents that even rival the powers of youkai magicians such as myself. However, rather than her powers being innate like with youkai magicians, she has developed her abilities through years of training. Additionally, much of her powers come not from within but from a magical artifact she refers to as the ?mini-Hakkero?. I presume she had mentoring from a youkai or other supernatural being in order to learn magic when she was younger, but this is difficult to confirm due to a lack of details.
While she has immense magical power, Marisa has developed very few of her own spell cards, instead duplicating the spell cards of others. She has even duplicated one of my own techniques, dubbed the ?non-directional laser?. I bear no ill will towards her for using my magic. Among magicians, using the spells of another is often considered a sign of respect or reverence; in fact, some of my own spells are based on the magic of ancient magicians such as my ancestors and mentors. However, in recent times Marisa has started using more of her magic of her own creation.
Marisa's signature technique is the ?Master Spark?, an intense burst of magical energy. According to records, she duplicated this technique from a powerful youkai named Yuka Kazami. Marisa has modified the spell according to her own abilities, altering it to use the power of the mini-Hakkero rather than the limited magical reserves of her body. However, in spite her considerable efforts, she has failed to fully recreate the power of the original attack.
Due to her magical training, Marisa has skills in several other fields. She is an extremely proficient herbalist, able to identify plants and their uses from a cursory glance. The skills used in processing magical reagents are also used in the culinary arts, making her a skilled cook. To list the full breadth of the talents I have seen Marisa exhibit would overwhelm this article, so I will stop here.
An open secret about Marisa is her penchant for theft; she has stolen property belonging to myself on others numerous times. As a human, she claims to be borrowing the items, and says she will return them when she dies. While this does present an obvious solution to the problem, I do not think murder is the desirable course of action (not to say that I haven't considered it). Rather, by allowing Marisa to continually take items from my library, I extend an unspoken challenge to her. If she can become a full-fledged magician and therefore immortal, I will deem her worthy of anything she has taken from me.
My relationship with Marisa is... difficult to describe. Due to her brash nature and her tendency to invade my personal space and cause problems for me, I have found her a regular thorn in my side. On the other hand, I consider her roughly my equal in magical ability, and respect her for that. Also, she has helped me in the past with research and the investigation of certain incidents.
Would I call Marisa a friend? I would say it very reluctantly, but I would say yes. More than anything else, I consider her a rival, someone to compare my power and skill against.
