"Ugh...what an existence..."

Miku sighs out loudly, her back pressed up against a torii gate as she stares out into nothingness.

She's been a spirit guide for as long as she could remember. It was a pretty straightforward job description. Someone dies, they get assigned to a guide, and they help the newly-dead get used to their new life as a spirit. The only problem was, she couldn't do her job if she wasn't ever assigned a person.

And she hadn't been assigned a person for 400 years.

The number would be mind-boggling to any normal human, as short as their lifespans are. Even to fresh spirit guides, that number was nothing to scoff at. But for Miku, it was all she knew. She just sat here. Day after day. Doing absolutely nothing but thinking. It was a miracle she hadn't lost her mind yet.

She began to get this weird feeling, though. Like her life-force itself was being slowly sapped, or maybe...linked. The feeling was familiar, but it was quite...nostalgic, too. Like something she hadn't felt in...400 years.

Wait.

Miku's head snaps to attention, her red eyes widening in disbelief. Now, of all times? Was it really happening? Was she getting a spirit?

She practically zooms off of the gate, stumbling over herself into the courtyard as she struggles to prepare everything.

"Ah, uhm...fan, check...salts, check...weapon? Weapon? Ah, forget it..."

Just then, a blinding white light flashes across the courtyard, the blast itself knocking Miku back a few meters, in which she flips with an old, practiced grace, landing on her sandalled feet.

As the light fades away, her arm lowers from its defensive position over her eyes, her gaze tracing up to the figure that now stood in the aftermath.

A new, fresh, soul.

Her soul.

Miku clears her throat, and begins her usual welcome, one she hadn't uttered in centuries.

"Greetings, mortal. Seems the string of your life hath been cut short."