Kimie/Profile

Kimie

Story

Profile

Quotes

Career

The S55-HMK model Doll known as "Kimie" was a priestess Doll custom-made by Universal Anything Services for Kurenoyume Shrine. The S55-HMK's primary duties were performing daily chores within the shrine, hosting large-scale festivals, and so on. In addition, Kimie was equipped with the most cutting-edge emotional experience modules and a comprehensive domestic function suite in order to care for the commissioner in her twilight years. After considering the risk of censure the S55-HMK might receive from the public, the model was not widely marketed and its development process was highly classified.

After the minor scandal sparked by Kimie's identity as a Doll, Madam Kaede, her owner, requested that she take part in Project Neural Cloud in the hopes that Kimie would find a home after her own passing. Kimie passed the entrance examination shortly after that.

Doll Profile 1

"From the frozen rivers of Karelia to the arctic tundra of Northern Asia, ever since the dawn of civilization, to sense the power of the gods, the mediums, priests, and shrine maidens of old have employed mystic wisdom and ancient rites, using them to heal sickness, grant blessings, and guide the deceased to the afterlife."

With the development of science and technology, many ancient faiths and beliefs found themselves with no inheritors and were in danger of disappearing. Even certain religions that were traditionally passed down through familial lines were in danger of being rejected by the very heirs who should have been the ones to carry them on. The outbreak of war only intensified this situation, and with labor pools for regular jobs drying up, picking suitable candidates to hold religious office was even more difficult. As a result, many religions ended up fading from the world entirely.

In these tumultuous times, Kurenoyume Shrine found itself struggling to stay afloat. Its owner, Madam Kaede, was an aged shrine maiden who commissioned Universal Anything Services to custom-build the S55-HMK—also known as Kimie—to keep Shinto traditions from dying out. As a custom-built Doll, Kimie was furnished with the necessary knowledge to perform her tasks as well as fulfill the role of a personal companion.

"This is our first time developing a Doll like this. Her outstanding specs are little more than icing on the cake; what really matters is her understanding of her emotions and those of others, her sensitivity to interpersonal relationships, and her spiritual beliefs," a researcher who worked on the S55-HMK was quoted.

Doll Profile 2

After bringing Kimie back to Kurenoyume Shrine, Madam Kaede quickly had her take over the daily duties at the shrine. She never once treated Kimie as a Doll, but after considering the effects of public opinion, she chose to conceal Kimie's origins. The worshippers who came to Kurenoyume Shrine found that there was suddenly a fresh young face there, a quiet miko with a gentle smile, but they simply assumed the elderly Madam Kaede had found a successor from some distant parts.

Typically speaking, a shrine's miko are distinct from professional religious officials. The former generally serve as assistants to the latter, as well as taking care of the day-to-day tasks at the shrine, in addition to performing the kagura and taking important roles in various festivals. However, there have also been cases where fully-ordained clerics have taken the role of a miko, such as Kimie, who was elevated to a member of the clergy not long after reaching her position. As the central figure of Kurenoyume Shrine, she was responsible for both mundane and spiritual tasks, which she handled in an orderly manner. However, what sparked the most debate was her performance during the kagura dance.

According to a participant: "Rather than being a purely artistic performance or a complex rite in keeping with tradition, she managed to combine the two while adding an indescribable layer of nuance to the whole thing€\148 as though she was truly bridging the gap between mankind and the gods, with Kimie-sama serving as the gatekeeper and messenger."

Doll Profile 3

The first impression most people have of Kimie is that she is refined and courteous and that her speech patterns could have come from the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, the Kokin Wakashu, or The Pillow Book, being full of femininity and archaic phrasings, perhaps even too much so. After some time together, however, these people end up being swayed by her humble and gentle nature.

In keeping with her "Yamato nadeshiko" image, cooking is Kimie's greatest passion. She was personally tutored in cooking by Madam Kaede, and her education was supplemented by oral feedback from worshippers or nearby residents bringing gifts to the shrine. Her general wisdom and comprehension are enough to reproduce just about any dish she is told about in appearance and taste, even without a sample of the original for reference.

Still, Kimie could not handle everything just by staying in the shrine. She knew very little about advances in technology, as well as the media and entertainment in general. During her three years spent traveling with Madam Kaede, most of the people she came into contact with were from old villages who still kept the faith, which gave her little opportunity to come into contact with the outside world. Her understanding of new phenomena largely ended with her regarding them as "the blessings and punishments of the gods". On the other hand, this way of thinking helped her discard her flighty nature and helped her find inner calm and peace.

"There's something calming about her that makes one want to get close to her," many worshippers reported. Most people did not know the source of this serenity, but they chose to trust in their instincts.

Doll Profile 4

Due to the special nature of her job, Kimie was often asked to take part in exorcisms, where she would function similarly to an onmyoji. With modern onmyoji being a rare sight nowadays, a miko became the best choice for banishing spirits. This exposed Kimie to quite a few ghost stories and occult tales, as well as various folk stories and beliefs. Thanks to the appeal of her "database of the supernatural\ she became fast friends with Zangyin and Nora, always willing to share new ghost stories on even the hottest summer days. Zangyin's hamming up of the atmosphere and Kuro's terrified reactions to them soon became a unique way of easing the Oasis' summer heat.

Despite being naturally equipped to be the bane of all things supernatural, this does not mean that Kimie fears nothing. An accident that occurred in real life left her with a fear of fire and made it hard for her to work a stove and cook. Her high-performance emotional modules mean that she empathizes easily with others, but this carries a side effect with them—hypersensitivity. For this reason, Madam Kaede performed a full revamp of Kurenoyume Shrine and equipped it with comprehensive fire safety measures. It was when Kimie could once again relax and play with the children with sparklers during the summer festival that Madam Kaede could once again smile in contentment. Thanks to this immaculate care and concern, this trauma did not follow Kimie to the Oasis, and she has always remained a humble, kind, and gentle yet mighty shrine maiden in the eyes of others.

Doll Profile 5

The term "center of attention" was not normally a term that would be applied to Kimie. Still, the search for the "spirited away" Nora ended up putting Kimie live on stream, and soon the Oasis' anonymous message boards were filled with avid fans of her. As a result, Kimie became a common guest on Kuro's occult-focused streams. After joining the cast, a certain rip-off merchant's cyber-talismans saw a huge drop in sales. According to reliable sources, these cyber-talismans have begun spreading in other sectors as a form of pre-battle physical intimidation.

Media exposure soon led to an increase in Kurenoyume Shrine's popularity, and the shrine would fill up with visitors during major festivals, a stark contrast from its quiet, seemingly haunted atmosphere on most days. The visiting agents love to ask Kimie to cast lots for them, and the accuracy of those divinations even won the approval of Luna, the Oasis' premier fortune-teller. Soon, everyone began to wonder, between these two spiritualists, whose divination abilities were superior? As one of the relevant parties, Kimie merely said, "I cannot speculate on matters of the divine\ with an enigmatic look on her face. Since she had said as such, the curious audience had no choice but to rein in their curiosity.

However, there is one thing that they know for sure—after a long period of hanging around Croque, Kimie has started to become engrossed in video games. She enjoys action games and visual novels, with her favorites being the dark fantasy titles with grueling but fair difficulty from Since Software, such as Dork Souls, Mudborne, Golden Ring, and so on. Not long after arriving in the Oasis, Kimie showed off a brand new side of herself, though the other facets of her will require careful and patient excavation by her friends.