A woman with long, straight black hair walked into the silent shrine, wearing a sleeveless red-and-white shrine maiden outfit that exposed her shoulders and armpits and made her look nothing like a proper shrine maiden.
The already rather unusual outfit seemed to have undergone even bolder alterations to suit her personal tastes, even exposing the sides of her full breasts.
She looked entirely out of place in the solemn shrine, yet somehow, here in the place called Hakurei Shrine, the two did not clash in the slightest.
"Huh... nobody here?"
The shrine maiden murmured as she looked at the empty room, then raised her voice slightly.
"Yukari, you're here, aren't you? I need to talk to you!"
"..."
After a silence that made it seem as though she were performing a one-woman show, a pitch-black Gap filled with countless eyes quietly opened, and a blonde woman holding a parasol gracefully stepped out.
"What brings you here, Previous Shrine Maiden?"
"What a cold way to address me! Isn't that a bit too different from before I retired?"
The Previous Shrine Maiden grumbled in dissatisfaction.
"Well, you used to be the Hakurei Shrine Maiden. Now, you're at most a friend of mine, and an idiot at that. It's perfectly natural for my attitude to change."
Yukari Yakumo teased her with a smile. "Besides, barging into Hakurei Shrine without announcing yourself is forbidden, you know. That child hasn't grown up yet."
"Hasn't grown up, huh..."
The Previous Shrine Maiden curled her lips. "If that were really the case, I wouldn't have managed to retire. I'd still be guarding this shrine."
Although she had reached the limits of her life through the Yin and Yang Orb's abilities and would soon lose the Hakurei Power's recognition, there was still a margin of time that could