Hmm, I think I under-did myself, and have come up with a rewrite:
- Name: Shiro, Vessel of the Great Serpent
- Age: Although currently looking to be a girl of only about 14, Shiro has lived from before the writing of the Kojiki to the Taishō era.
- Gender: Female
- Race: Human (Sacrifice)
- Appearance: Youthful and short. That isn't to say that her appearance is normal aside from the colouration; when agitated her eyes become distinctly less than human and her teeth are always slightly... too sharp and odd. Her torso is quite extensively tattooed, originally a clear and unmissable marking of her sacrificial status, but now a better indication of what she carries.
- Personality: Although seeming quite polite, Shiro can be quite vengeful if spited--denying "sacrifices" in the past was certainly one way to make her extremely irritable. But time has done a lot to mellow her and the serpent out, which has really brought the other things they've always had in common to the forefront... a love of drinking, and a love of girls. Cute girls, sexy girls, elegant ladies, shy ones with nice bodies... Shiro is very open with her affection for all of them. And that's even before she starts working through her prodigious alcohol resistance.
- Abilities: Shiro is, ultimately, the physical vessel of all the spiritual power of perhaps the mightiest serpent to have ever existed in her world--one could dispute whether the World-Serpent exists, or if Ryūjin would qualify, but otherwise there is little competition. This has a number of effects even when she seems almost completely human: she can talk to snakes, conjure smaller snakes, and call out to any larger or more mystical ones that may exist. But ultimately, people are aware of this discrepancy, that she isn't really that human, even before she sheds her skin to reduce her age or heal some injury, or displays more strength than her body should actually be capable of.
She can freely transform herself towards or away from that full serpent form, growing venemous fangs, scales, or stopping halfway as some form of naga far more able to demonstrate inhuman physical abilities. Or, where size allows, she can become a truly giant snake... and then an even more giant snake... and then an even more giant snake. All the way up to a serpent capable of filling eight valleys and wrapping around eight hills, with eight heads and eight tails.
Atop her snakelike abilities is the possession of the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, usable either by manifesting the sword itself, or simply embedding it in one limb or another. It can direct the wind, augment her strikes with a mighty gale, or just go the fun razor-wind route as the sword gets swung with manic abandon. - Skills: Although (literally) monstrously strong and good at surviving, Shiro is not particularly knowledgeable on the specifics of how to fight, or good fighting technique, instead being all about brute force and animalistic instinct. Her use of the Kusanagi epitomises this, treating it more like a sharp club than a sword in any sense. Of course, when you can become a serpent of uncontested size, it tends to work out fairly well.
Her basic survival skills are good, as is her ability to care for her own clothing. - Backstory: In Shiro's youth, a mighty serpent terrorised the region, and nobody hoped to oppose it. But the serpent was somewhat intelligent and could be appeased: if families would sacrifice their daughters, then they would be spared its wrath. Indeed, in most regards, could the serpent not be considered no different from the other kami? Perhaps this is how Shiro was lucky to survive, even though already marked for sacrifice, approaching it without fear and displaying a somewhat... unwholesome interest in the serpent's choice of sacrifices. She gained a reprieve and was tasked with being the mighty reptile's messenger, the one to acquire and find further sacrifices, the priestess of such a great monstrosity.
In the end, they over-reached, moving beyond the mere humans to the earthly kami; noteworthy enough that a certain more well known deity was able to trick the serpent and decapitate it, extracting from the body a fine sword... and leaving, of course, the carcass. Dead and harmless were it not for all the fear and reverence it had been accorded and the strength of its spirit. But it wasn't something attached to a place of nature or a concept, and eagerly sought out a proper vessel for itself: the one marked sacrifice it hadn't eaten. Over the many long years, it couldn't be said that a distinction could continue to be drawn between Shiro and the serpent, her similarities were what earned her survival in the first place and after so long... it would not be incorrect to say that Shiro is the Yamata-no-Orochi.
During the many centuries since, Shiro did little that she hadn't been done before, albeit with less human sacrifice involved. She sought out drink and attractive maidens before moving on, bringing ruin to those that would reject or assault her in any way. After the Battle of Dan-no-ura, she took the time to retrieve the stolen sword, and then disappeared into the background of history once again, watching with boredom as the world became less... fantastic, with less supernatural intervention. More organised, with less families remotely on their own to terrorise and court... and trains. Such hazardous things, trains.
Of course she leapt at the opportunity to move to a world where all the fantastic creatures and more were still active; where there were more cute girls to approach directly that wouldn't be so terrified of her appearance. - Origin: Isekai
- Other: Low body temperature, and essentially an alcoholic obligate carnivore who prefers meat raw.