Nezumi

Nezumi is the name of a shard or "hahan" of mezzite currently owned by magi shrine maiden Rumia Hashimoto that was originally part of a much bigger mezzite known as Dōbutsushō, which allowed the user to control all forms of animal and create animal-based apparitions and constructs.

### **History**

The Nezumi shard was last owned by Nezumi's grandmother, Hana, although like all the shards, how and when it was split, is uncertain, but it is known that Dōbutsushō must have been split over four centuries ago, as tails of the shards being stolen, used, fraught over and returned have been in the family since the 1600's

First thought to have been stolen from the Hashimotos by a dark witch by the name of Saka or Saki, which she used to bring plague to old Tokyo (Then still known as Edo) in 1671, the mezzite stopped working for her halfway through her reign, and she disposed of it, where it was lost for over 150 years, until found by a member of the family in 1824, a man who may have been Hana Hashimoto's grandfather.

### **Personality**

Like many mezzite, the fragment of halfbreed soul-energy retained in the crystal functioned to split Dōbutsushō's original personality in to many aspects, as such the Hahan of Dōbutsushō retain a very basic intelligence and limited personality traits. However if connected enough a user can determine an individualistic trait, in Nezumi's case it represents Dōbutsushō's sense of self-preservation and caution, but also of cunning and quick-thinking. Rumia roughly translated these sensations as a "skittish" personality, quick-witted and sensitive to danger. It is thought that as a spirit Dōbutsushō does still exist as a whole, but with the crystal's split to such a degree (unlike broken mezzite such as Caliga who only split once) the hahan act as an emotional prism for Dōbutsushō's spirit, which in turn as split it's power over animals.

### **Power**

Charged with trying to find every last shard, perhaps in an effort to try to bind and fuse the shards into Dōbutsushō once more, the Nezumi shard has always been one of the most underestimated and misunderstood; as rodents like rats considered vermin and carriers of disease in the past, use of Nezumi to spread plagues was one of the early tactics used by darker magic users.

The predominant use of Nezumi was as a spying tool with information gathering extremely easy for a skilled user of the shard, with Hana using it to keep an eye on wartime movements in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, keeping the shrine safe while her husband went to war, luckily he returned unharmed and Hana believed the little crystal was good luck ever since.

Like all mezzite it still requires someone with the ability to tune to use it, but it takes a timid yet kind heart to control, and mastering it can be difficult and overwhelming and like all the shards of Dōbutsushō it gave the user similar abilities to it's original, only simply focused around one type of creature, in Nezumi's case rodents such as rats, mice and so on; the first ability given to a user is the power to command various rodents by voice, once mastered Nezumi then allows it's master the ability to see, hear and smell what nearby rodents can; this ability grew a greater range with practice and eventually these two abilities can allow a user to "possess" animals or control rodents without speaking to them, in their hundreds of thousands.

It also let a user create what Rumia's grandmother called "spirits", but were in fact magically-created copies composed of pure mana, manifesting as pinkish red energy constructs that could do anything from pass through walls, fly, become invisible, move things many times their own weight, gather information or even detonate.