Nagamonogatari 3: IiE - Mihariko

Name: Mihariko

Species: Futakuchi-Onna

Abilities: Controlling her Hair, eating everything

Age: 200 years old

Occupation: Gatekeeper

Location: Otogi Palace

Title: “The Agoraphobic Two-Mouthed Sentinel”

Likes: Isolation

Hates: Humans, going outside

Stage 5 B Theme: Castle of Fallen Princesses ~ Grimm Horror

Stage 5 B Boss Theme: Forsaken Tower Maiden Kaminagahime

When Hina and Baron arrive the palace, they have to choose which way they will go. Shall they enter the castle through the hidden entrance in the garden or going through the main entrance? After thinking about it for a while, Hina decides to take the main entrance. Only a burglar would choose the hidden entrance or even an open window. And since she has a job to do, she doesn’t really care how much asses she has to kick to finish it. So she kicks the door open and gets immediately attacked by the gatekeeper.

Mihariko is one of the castle residents and a close friend of Rosalia and Shiroyukihime. She is the only castle resident who is not created by the princess like her friends but was taken in after the death of her adoptive mother. Her real family was very poor and her parents heartless and selfish people. They even let their first baby starve to death because they didn’t have that much to eat. But instead of saving their first child, they ate all the food themselves and didn’t care about their baby. This unforgivable crime awakened the wrath of ancient dark spirits and the horrible parents got cursed. It didn’t take very long until the bad mother got pregnant again. But instead of giving birth a normal human child, the child had long and sentient hair and a second mouth at the back of her head. This mouth was constantly crying for food and if the parents didn’t feed their daughter, the hair attacked them. After a few days it became too much for them and they didn’t have any food. So they sold their monstrous child to get rid of it. The poor child became a member of a freak show and was physically and mentally abused by the owner and the audience. A sorceress felt bad for her and knew what she really was. So she adopted her and gave her the name Mihariko. But because the child was deeply traumatized by the violence of the people who treated her like a monster, she was too scared to live with other people. The sorceress moved into a tower to protect her adoptive daughter and tried to help her to overcome her fear of people. But Mihariko couldn’t forget the memories how she was brutally abused every day and being treated like a monster. She was still afraid of people and never left the tower. So the sorceress always brought her food, taught her everything she knew and treated her like her own child.

When Mihariko grew older and her adoptive mother was in the human village to buy new clothes and food, a young man came to the tower and heard Mihariko singing, he got curious and entered the tower. When he found this beautiful girl, he immediately fell in love with her. But since she was afraid of him and refused to come with him, he raped her and after realizing that she was a Futakuchi-Onna, he was deeply shocked and accused her for manipulating him to fall in love with her. He got enraged that the young beauty fooled him with her appearance and attacked her with his sword. Mihariko tried to protect herself but got badly wounded. She realized that she had to do something, otherwise this man would kill her. But she didn’t want to kill anybody, even if it’s a human. But her hair had an own consciousness and it wanted to protect her. And because Mihariko didn’t have full control over her hair, she couldn’t stop it when the prince got thrown out of the window. The prince didn’t survive this fall and got impaled by the giant rose thorns. When the sorceress returned and found the corpse and her half-dead adoptive daughter, she tried everything to conceal Mihariko’s crime, but the dead man wasn’t just an ordinary human. It was a prince (and the brother of the prince who married Shiroyukihime) and so everybody was searching for the murderer. And if the people found out that Mihariko killed him, she would get executed. The sorceress still wanted to protect her adoptive daughter and took all the blame for the man’s death and erased every evidence of Mihariko’s existence. She asked the princess of Otogi no Kuni if she could take care of her adoptive daughter because the sorceress knew that Mihariko couldn’t survive in this world of violent and ignorant humans. Otogi no Kuni was the only place where she will be accepted as a normal being and not as a monster.

After the sorceress travelled to the kingdom and handed herself in, the princess of Otogi no Kuni came to the tower instead of sending her servants. She told Mihariko that the sorceress was her creation and that she will take care of her now and that her adoptive mother won’t come back. Since most people didn’t know that much about a Futakuchi-Onna and treat her like a monster, it would be hard to find a place where she could live peacefully. But Otogi no Kuni was a place where all sorts of creatures lived together so she offered Mihariko to go with her and stay in the palace.

The Futakuchi-Onna left the tower and moved into the Otogi palace. Though she was still extremely shy and scared of people, she slowly started to befriend the other palace residents. Her closest friend became Shiroyukihime who suffered a similar fate like her. The masked court lady became like a big sister for her and taught her to overcome her fear and gaining more self-confidence. Rosalia taught her how to fight and after finishing her training a few years later, Mihariko became the gatekeeper of the Otogi Palace. Thanks to the support of her two friends, Mihariko learned to overcome her fear, how to control her power and using it as a weapon to protect her home and the princess.

When the princess created a being for her new plans and a dangerous virus was spread, Rosalia and Shiroyukihime tried to save all books and documents from the virus. Of course the gatekeeper wanted to help too and used her power to sense all contaminated objects and destroyed them by eating them with her demon mouth on the back of her head. She hoped that this would help to stop the virus somehow.

PERSONALITY:

Mihariko is a strong-willed girl who tries to prove that she is capable of her role as a gatekeeper. She is training her fighting skills every day together with Rosalia to become even stronger. After training for many years she learned to use almost the same fighting technique as Rosalia but also developed her own style. But she still has a lot of fears and rarely leaves the palace because she is still afraid of the outside world and suffers from agoraphobia and believes that she will get killed if she leaves the palace. As long as she is in a safe place, she is a brave and confident person who will fight everyone who dares to break into the palace. But when she is outside, she gets extremely scared and is unable to do anything and can’t even move. She panics very fast and become an easy prey. Thankfully her friends are watching over her and help her when she is in trouble. Mihariko’s hair is sentient and can move on its own. And because it also has nerve fibers and six different senses, she can’t cut it without suffering from bad pain. Usually she wears braids because it’s more comfortable for her but she undoes her braids during a fight so she can use her hair as a weapon against her enemies.

Hina: “Nice palace. I would like to live in such a place.”

Baron: “Nah, castles and palaces are just symbols of superficiality and pomposity. And they are also way too big for human beings.”

Hina: “You are the leader of the Guédé Loa. Don’t you live in a castle in the voodoo realm?”

Baron: “Our realm is much different from your world, Hina. We don’t need castles and palaces.”

Hina: “Uwaah, what’s that? It looks like… hair. And it’s moving.”

Mihariko: “I give you one single chance to go before I will attack you two!”

Hina: “And who are you, little brat?”

Mihariko: “I am the gatekeeper of this palace and I won’t let you go any further.”

Hina: “Let me guess… you are another cheap fairy tale princess rip-off. Fine, I’ve already beaten up this creepy Snow White abomination so you will just be another small fry.”

Mihariko: “What did you do to Shiroyuki-chan? You humans didn’t change after all. You are still violent and ignorant creatures. But you made a huge mistake. I’m not so weak anymore and I won’t let you hurt my family!!!”

AFTER FIGHT:

Hina: “Did you finally calm down?”

Mihariko: “You bitch… why didn’t you kill me too?”

Hina: “Geez, stop being a drama queen! I didn’t kill anyone. Not this time… And now tell me who manipulated the memories of the people after that masked weirdo stole all books!”

Mihariko: “Huh? Memory manipulation? What the heck are you talking about? Seriously, you are barking up the wrong tree.”

Hina: “Alright, if you don’t want to tell me, I will find the second accomplice soon enough.”

MIHARIKO’S SPELLCARDS:

Blue Rose [Flower Free Dance]

Rapunzel [Garden of Sorceress]

Isolation [Tower without Entrance]

Golden Flower [Rejuvenating Lullaby]

Sentient Hair [Hairy Beast Claws]

Consuming Sign [Two Mouths and one Body]

Demon Gorge [Hungry for Revenge]

Vengeance [Ultimate Flower Justice]