Born in 1395 A.D. to a young wolf tengu named Hadari Inubashiri and the descendant of a god, she has always been regarded as somewhat of an outsider due to her, albeit very small amount, of divinity, she found herself pushed outside of social groups. Her mother tried to comfort her, thinking it was very unfair of the others to ostracise her daughter merely because of her heritage. Sometimes, after exceptionally troubling days after school, she would find out that her mother had scolded the other young Tengu that had teased her so horribly. She found a sense of pride in that and was comforted by the fact that at the very least, one person on the mountain didn't regard her as some kind of freak.
Still, she was never able to stand up for herself, remaining silent while the others teased her. This often meant Momiji would be up late at night, unable to sleep with the words of the other younglings echoing through her head. She became depressed, moping around both at school and at home. Her mother took note of this and tried to cheer Momiji up when she could, to no avail.
One day, Momiji's mother suggested finding something the young Tengu could dedicate herself to, her calling. Momiji glumly complied, trying to make her mother happy. She tried a multitude of things, art, dancing, you name it. The day came that something happened that would drag her out of her depression. She had never met her father, as he had left before she was born and her mother refused to give any answers regarding him. However, Momiji had taken a walk through the forest out of sheer boredom when she came across a long object wrapped in cloth along with the cracking of branches that instantly drew her attention and she kept watch carefully. The sounds got farther and farther away, soon ceasing entirely. After about ten minutes of waiting and listening, she cautiously approached the object on the ground, picking it up carefully and removing the cloth. What she found puzzled her; a blade and a shield with the crest of the Tengu, a maple leaf.
Surely this must belong to someone, obviously a tengu judging from the crest. She inspected the items further, finding a small note addressed to the daughter of Hadari Inubashiri. This puzzled her greatly, who or what would leave this out in the middle of the forest...why didn't they bring it to her house if they wished to give her a gift...? For that matter, why would someone give her a gift at all? No one in the village was kind enough towards her to do something like this. So why? She threw the items back into the cloth she found it in and ran home as fast as she could. She burst through the door, calling out for her mother who came running, thinking something was wrong.
She got a strange look on her face when Momiji explained what had happened and suggested she accept the gift. Momiji was curious about her mother's suggestion, but decided that she may as well accept the only kind thing that anyone besides Hadari had ever done for her. She looked at the note addressed to her and was surprised to find out that the items were --supposedly-- from her father, who was left unnamed. The note explained that her father was sorry that he hadn't shown himself before and that he wished to give Momiji something to dedicate herself to.
"Wait...how would he know that...?" she paused, uncertain if her guess was right. "Unless..he has been watching?" She mused to herself. A million questions flooded her mind, but of course, her father was not here to answer them. She continued reading the note. It explained that these items were special, but it did not explain why, merely saying that she would have to experiment with them and see. The prospect of actually owning a sword excited her; perhaps fencing would be able to give her life meaning where everything else had failed her. She looked up from the note to announce her intentions to her mother, but discovered that she was no longer in the room.
She looked around everywhere around the house, wondering where she went. When she didn't find her, she looked around the village...nothing. Days passed, her mother was no where to be found, she even talked to the village elder and had him organize a search party to comb the forest. Still nothing. It would figure! Life gives her something good to give her hope, then snatches away more than it gave her to begin with. She mourned for her mother, having no choice but to assume she wasn't coming back. She trained in the forest by herself with her sword, no one would teach her unless she was able to pay them, and all the money she did have was reserved for food. Her awkward, clumsy slashes eventually grew into strong, confident attacks. She developed her own style, using the sword and her shield in unison; be it both for offense, both for defense, or one for each. She begged the village elder to allow her to serve the village, promising to do everything she could to protect the mountain. While the elder was certainly not thrilled with the prospect of a being who was not fully a tengu guarding the mountain, he realized that Momiji didn't have many options left in life, and so, warily agreed, much to Momiji's delight.
So began her days guarding the mountain.
It would be another 50 years or so before she met a crow Tengu named Aya, snapping pictures of people in the forest near the mountain, much to their annoyance. They had even resorted to shooting danmaku at her, but she was much too fast for them. Momiji was greatly confused by this, why would someone do something like that? She decided to investigate, coming to Aya after her photography interest had given up hope of beating Aya. Momiji inquired the reason for doing that and was surprised to hear that her reason was that she was writing a newspaper article on the residents of Gensoukyou and their danmaku. She explained that there wasn't many ways to get people to agree to having their secrets documented like that, so she had to irritate them enough to start shooting danmaku on their own.
While Momiji didn't exactly approve, she didn't say anything negative about it. The older tengu comments on never seeing her before and proceeds to question her about her life. Momiji had nothing to hide and answered every question that Aya asked in a truthful way, ending the session with the confession that even though she loved her job, it didn't pay well enough to maintain her quickly dwindling funds. When she was done, the crow tengu sat in thought for a moment before speaking again "I see, so you've got no choice but this one, eh?" This was acknowledged by a small nod from Momiji. "And," Aya continued "You have no money either... Alright, how about this, I let you stay at my place, and in return you protect the mountain. Does that sound fair?"
That didn't make any sense, Momiji already protected the mountain, but when she went to state this, Aya put a finger to the Wolf Tengu's lips to silence her. "I know what you are gonna say, just tell me whether or not you agree to my terms." Momiji frowned, it seemed...well...wrong to let Aya do this for her. But what choice did she have?
Aya removed her finger from Momiji's lips and motioned for her to continue. She replied with an uncertain, uneven tone "Y-yes, I think I'm okay with that." Aya smiled and took Momiji's hand, leading her back to the village and to her house, much to the embarrassment of the young Wolf Tengu. So began her friendship with Aya, though she had come to like the Crow Tengu in a way she had never felt before. She hid these feelings away, not wanting to ruin her relationship with Aya by presenting feelings that were not mutual. But, she was really, really bad at hiding it. Aya quickly picked up on it and started asking questions in her usual way, but Momiji refused to speak. But Aya could tell, she could read Momiji like an open book. Eventually Momiji managed to say something on the matter, clearly very embarrassed about the whole thing. Aya smiled, but told her that she'd like to simply remain friends for the time being. That was okay, it was a silly admiration crush. So, they both agreed to keep things simple.