Death Analysis: The STRONGEST Fairy of all.

It's been a while, but Neosonic97 here, back with another analysis. This time we've got another Touhou character, in this case, Gensokyo's Ice Fairy of the Misty Lake and self-proclaimed strongest of them all, Cirno. So with that out of the way, let's get to it!

BACKSTORY AND PERSONALITY

Cirno as she appears in Touhou Hisoutensoku.

Gensokyo, the fantasy land situated across the boundary of common sense and lack of it, plus the boundary of illusion and reality. Amongst its many inhabitants, there is one who proclaims herself to be the absolute strongest of all its inhabitants. This person makes her home at the Misty Lake, a large lake situated at the foot of the Youkai mountain, and opposite of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. And her name is Cirno. Despite her boasting of being the strongest... Cirno really isn't. Cirno is childish, but extremely confident and has what appears to be a superiority complex towards others. She often proclaims herself to be the absolute strongest there is, (and does so three times in Phantasmagoria of Flower view ALONE), but this rarely comes out as fruitful. She's also, uh... how do I put this...? Ah, I know. She's an idiot. In multiple manuals, ZUN labels her as an idiot (often accompanied by the number 9, giving her the nickname nine-ball), and has shown signs of it. For instance, when, in Oriental Sacred Place, she can't figure out why people did not want to buy her water-flavoured shaved ice. Despite this, however, she is smarter than many of her peers, and does realize when she is in danger, as evidenced when she fought against Yuuka in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, and, unlike most of her peers, can read and count (and has knowledge of rounding and fractions, as shown in Fairy Wars). Despite her child-like appearance, however, Cirno IS at least sixty years old, as evidence when she remembered a similar incident to Phantasmagoria of Flower View's that happened sixty years ago.

ABILITIES

Cirno as she appears in Fairy Wars.

A NOTE ON FAIRIES

Fairies in Touhou Project are, for lack of a better term, primordial aspects of nature given a physical form. They are often very weak (even weaker than humans, normally) and typically have the appearance of a humanoid child. Their lifespans are often considered extremely short due to their carefree and childlike nature combined with their low strength, but this is deceiving for a simple reason: Fairies are typically immortal. Though they can be 'killed', per se, so long as the element they represent still exists, they will continue to revive themselves infinitely. In Cirno's case, her element is Ice.

With that out of the way, let's get to what sets Cirno apart from other fairies. Cirno is actually far more powerful than the rest of her kind, and as such, dangerous too. This is outright stated by Eiki Shiki in Phantasmagoria of Flower View, and you'll see examples of this later. In fact, Eiki states that Cirno is SO powerful that she actually runs the risk of LOSING the immortality of fairies by going beyond the limits of what fairies are capable of. Cirno's unique power (because come on, EVERY named character in Gensokyo has one, even if it is something mundane like "impressive sword skills" or the like) is the ability to manipulate cold, or in other words, she's a cryokinetic. In fact, Cirno's very presence lowers the temperature of the area around her, and she is capable of freezing living beings solid in an instant (She mostly uses this for one of her favourite past-times, freezing frogs).

She's a Touhou character, and that means it's time for Spell Cards! Cirno's first and most used Spell Card is Freeze Sign- "Perfect Freeze", which can manifest itself in multiple ways, although the most used variation causes Cirno to, after a brief delay of scattering ice bullets everywhere, freeze everything around her solid. The Perfect Freeze is so potent that it can even freeze flames solid! Another well-known spell card of hers (albeit for a different reason) is Ice Sign- "Icicle Fall". While it is a reasonably difficult pattern of falling icicles to dodge at first glance, if she's going easy there is a blatant safe-spot that can be abused to freely smack Cirno while she's using this attack... AND IT'S RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER! That spell card is one of the main reasons she's considered an idiot. When she's not dropping icicles, though, she's shooting them directly at the target via Ice Sign- "Icicle Machine Gun", which, as the name suggests, is shooting out rapid-fire icicles. There's also Ice Clump- "Great Crusher", which is well-known for a different reason: She literally makes a giant hammer out of ice and smashes the foe with it. Like here, for instance! "CIRNO CRUSH PUNY SHRINE MAIDEN WITH GLACIER MALLET!" (note: This link is a non-canon webcomic, the main reason it's linked is to demonstrate how Cirno uses Great Crusher) It's not the only weapon she can make out of ice, either. As she can also make swords, like when she uses Ice Sign- "Sword Freezer", or cause giant columns of ice to burst out of the ground with Frost Sign- "Frost Columns". Lastly, there's Cold Sign- "Insta-Freeze Beam" which shoots out three long-lasting lasers.

FEATS AND WEAKNESSES

Cirno, as she appears in Hidden Star in Four Seasons. Note the tan and flowers, it's actually important.

Despite being a member of the weakest race in Gensokyo, Cirno's feats are truly extraordinary. Even under spell card rules, Cirno has canonically defeated some of Gensokyo's heaviest hitters. She's defeated Marisa Kirisame in Hisoutensoku and given her a hard time in Fairy Wars, and ALSO in Hisoutensoku she defeated Utsuho Reiuji. There's also her canonical smashing of Sanae Kochiya, the Shrine Maiden of the Moriya Shrine, who also happens to be Reimu's rival. In the latest game, Hidden Star in Four Seasons, she defeats Okina Matara, a god who happens to be one of the Sages of Gensokyo, alongside Yukari Yakumo and Kasen Ibaraki. However, this last feat isn't quite as impressive as it would seems since the abnormal seasons incident granted Cirno a temporary boost in power which she has since lost (with the tan and flowers in the image being the main indicator, this form is nicknamed 'Tanned Cirno'. In said form she also loses her weakness to heat!). In  Fairy Wars, she defeats all three of the Fairies of Light, Sunny Milk, Luna Child and Star Sapphire at once while they're ganging up on her. This is especially important because Sunny Milk, the leader of the group, has proven on multiple occasions that she can react to light, though most notably here in Strange and Bright Nature Deity, Chapter 24, Page 9:

Sunny Milk deflecting Yukari's light bullets in Strange and Bright Nature Deity

Here, in this scan, Yukari Yakumo (yes, THAT Yukari Yakumo) is seen shooting bullets of light at Sunny Milk, who deflects them in a panic using her power, which is the ability to refract light (Which she most often uses as a form of invisibility). Given that Sunny and Yukari both explicitly link it to her ability, these bullets are most likely moving at the speed of light, 3 million meters per second. This is likely a high-end for Sunny, as she's clearly panicking as she does this. Her two cohorts, Star Sapphire and Luna Child are also capable of reacting to these bullets and attempting to avoid (To no avail, however, they end up getting hit and KOed). While this would normally not mean much, Cirno is capable of defeating all three in a fight at once, meaning that she is fully capable of overcoming their reaction speed meaning that she must be capable of, at bare minimum, moving and fighting at speeds close to, if not at, the speed of light, and thus, anybody who scales to her is too.

Cirno's feat in defeating Utsuho is ESPECIALLY notable, however, due to the fact that Cirno was basically enclosed in her greatest weakness- high temperatures. Cirno grows stronger and more energetic when it is cold, but in turn heat causes her physical pain, to the point that, when she fought Utsuho in Hisoutensoku, literally all the factors were against her- she was facing an incredibly powerful foe, inside of a nuclear fusion reactor (for reference, nuclear fusion is the process which fuels stars like our own sun), while fighting Utsuho, the hell crow responsible for keeping it in check with her ability to manipulate Nuclear Fusion, and yes, that does mean exactly what one would expect it to mean: Cirno survived having miniature suns thrown at her. Given the temperature of the centre of the sun (Considering these suns were flying STRAIGHT AT Cirno) is 15 million degrees Celsius, this means Cirno can survive those kinds of temperatures... and that's hitting her with attacks she's weak to, while in a battlefield that's already harmful to her! Despite all these factors pointing to her getting roasted, Cirno managed to not only fight on par with Utsuho, but win by knocking out Utsuho for long enough to escape.

However, despite all these amazing feats for her kind, Cirno IS still a fairy and prone to childish and sometimes outright idiotic behaviour. She's cocky and overconfident, which oftentimes gets her into a lot of trouble, even if she is immortal. And while Hieda no Akyuu advises people to run from Cirno in a confrontation, she is easily tricked and cannot solve even basic riddles, which serve as a good way to distract Cirno. Her last weakness is that due to being easily distracted (as all fairies are), Cirno has to be motivated to focus herself on any given task, and losing this motivation can cause Cirno to give up, or even forget what she was doing. And as stated earlier, Cirno has a weakness to high temperatures, which can cause her to become weaker, although this also works in reverse: low temperatures make her stronger.

Despite her race canonically being boisterous weaklings, Cirno has gone above and beyond to prove that even fairies can be a threat, and while she's far from the strongest in Gensokyo, she DOES easily claim the title of strongest fairy (Clownpiece only rivalled Cirno through buffs from Junko, the main antagonist of Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom). Don't be fooled by her child-like appearance and demeanor, Cirno is very dangerous and, given the right motivation, she can accomplish things which other fairies can only DREAM of.

OVERVIEW

Cirno, as she appears in Phantasmagoria of Flower View.

+ Surpisingly strong for a Fairy, capable of matching even Utsuho, who literally embodies her greatest weakness and giving Marisa Kirisame trouble on a fairly consistent basis. Truly the strongest fairy.

+Relativistic at bare minimum via scaling to the Fairies of Light.

+ Freezing ability makes for some pretty dangerous hax. I mean, when you can freeze FIRE...

+ She's immortal. That should be an obvious plus.

- She's an idiot. She's not coming up with any genius plans any time soon.

  = Although she's at least smart enough to know when she's in trouble.

- She's weak to heat, and heat-based attacks.

  = Although the temperatures needed to actually threaten her (current) life are absurd, beyond the heat of the centre of the sun, even.

- She's overconfident. Her cockiness often gets her into trouble.

- She needs proper motivation to draw out her real power (although when she does the results are a sight to behold).

-SPELL CARD RULES. They're still a thing and it applies to Cirno as well.

So there you have it. An analysis on the idiotic little popsicle known as Cirno, who goes above and beyond her species to actually become a fairly prominent threat. Problem is, she's STILL a joke to anybody worth their salt in Gensokyo most of the time, due to her very nature as a Fairy. Still, feedback would be appreciated and feel free to comment.