Name: Makoto Hisakawa

Age: 16

Gender: Female

Race: Human

Appearance: She's about 5'3" and it's extremely rare to see her without her coat.

Personality: Makoto is a kind-hearted, friendly girl who takes joy in helping others. While many alchemists pursue the elixir of life, the transmutation of lead into gold or other such secrets for their own selfish desires, Makoto wishes to use her skills for the greater good. She can sometimes be a bit *too* helpful, offering assistance when it's not wanted or needed, and tends to get depressed when her help is rejected or makes things worse.

She tends to spend most of her free time indoors, either helping out at her family's bakery or experimenting with and researching alchemy.

Abilities: Makoto is an alchemist with an affinity for fire. She is capable of brewing up a variety of alchemical mixtures, based on her own research and her family's archives. While she dreams of using alchemy to help people, her affinity for fire (and through it, destruction) lends itself to the creation of a variety of acids, alchemist's fire and even serves as a shortcut to make Alkahest. Unfortunately, much like her predecessors, she has yet to find a practical container for the universal solvent, rendering its uses extremely niche. She is also capable of creating basic healing salves and elixirs, which accelerate the body’s natural abilities.

In addition to her assorted concoctions, she has created a mechanical familiar in the shape of a small bird, which she refers to as Phoenix. This bird is capable of spying on Makoto's behalf and can carry several vials, at the cost of reduced speed and needing to return to her sooner.

Skills: Makoto is an extremely good cook, specialising in both Japanese and French dishes (especially desserts and pastries). She tends to get good grades in most subjects, with her study groups and tutoring other students helping to reinforce her knowledge, however, she struggles with more physical activities.

Equipment: Makoto carries a small notebook full of nigh-indecipherable notes and diagrams, detailing her alchemic experiments. In addition, she sometimes carries Phoenix and/or a number of vials on her person, though she generally leaves these at home unless there’s a reason she might need them.

Brief Backstory: Makoto lives with her parents and frequently helps them out with the family business, a French bakery which the family has owned since her mother's ancestors moved to Japan. Several years ago, Makoto stumbled across an old book around the house, filled with strange diagrams and notes written in a variety of languages. When asked about the tome, her parents' reaction was simply to laugh the questions off and hide it better. She was very insistent about being told what it was and ultimately, after a great deal of pestering, her mother gave up on trying to hide the truth to preserve a "normal" life for her and Makoto's training in alchemy began.

Name: Yasome-Hime

Age: 500, looks about 10

Gender: Female

Race: Tsuchigumo

Appearance: Like this

Personality: Yaso has spent all of her life being trained by her mother to avoid and slay youkai hunters and oppose human society. She's pretty much been indoctrinated in a similar way to a victim of a cult. She was raised on legends of the Spider Clans that were once foremost among Youkai and ruled sections of Japan before they were defeated by humanity in a series of wars during the Heian Period. Because of this she's extremely sheltered and doesn't know much about the outside world beyond her mother's lair. She's become incredibly curious over time and the modern world and human culture and individual humans fascinate her even as she despises and fears humanity as a whole and is convinced that some day 'evil' human hunters will come kill her. Still, she wants to experience human life and culture for herself after a life shut away.

Abilities: Thanks to her nature as a Tsuchigumo, Yaso has multiple superhuman abilities.
Superhuman Physiology-Even in her baseline human form with the body of a little girl, Yaso is supernaturally strong, fast and agile. She has yet to test the limits of her own strength, but her speed, reflexes and agility are all fast enough that she could likely dodge bullets. She also has superhuman durability and endurance but luckily for her she's never had to test their limits. She can also climb and cling on walls, ceilings and anything else in her environment with no problems and has enhanced senses of eyesight, touch and hearing.

Silk Production- As a spider youkai, Yaso can project spider silk from her fingertips while in human form. The silk can have various qualities depending on what she needs at the time. It can be very sticky, stronger than steel, fire resistant and airtight or water repelling as necessary. She can spin the silk to different shapes and lengths too.

Venom- Yaso has naturally occurring venom that she can poison enemies with by biting them even in human form. She can also secrete the venom whenever she needs to so that it can coat weapons or otherwise poison items. She can choose the potency of her venom whether it just causes pain in the victim, temporarily paralyzes a limb or an entire body, or results in eventual death. Her venom is also oddly flammable and burns both long and hot. Coating lines or gobs of spider silk in venom and then setting it on fire is the cause of many myths about Tsuchigumo abilities to control or produce fire.

Illusions- As a Tsuchigumo, Yaso's most notable ability is producing many complex illusions to trick her enemies or prey. In spider form the illusions can take up the space of a small house and be quite complex although doing anything to that extent is tiring and requires concentration. In human form she can cast illusions in an area around the size of a small room. The illusions are only based on sight and sound and have no physical form, but more experienced Tsuchigumo were known to create and manipulate figures out of webbing, earth or stone to lend weight to their tricks. If Yaso gets injured, her illusions will instantly break and pain or distraction blocks her ability to cast them.

Digging Claws-Tsuchigumo were famous for their ability to construct complex tunnel lairs and even hollow mountain fortresses in ancient times. Yaso is no different and even though she's young, she can temporarily manifest digging claws that allow her to tunnel through earth, stone and concrete at high speed without much difficulty.

Spider Form-Lastly, Yasome can take on her true form, which has the upper body of a human girl and the lower body of a giant spider. In this form all her physical abilities and illusions increase in power and in general she's much stronger and more dangerous. She doesn't like using her spider form much and her mother has conditioned her to only use it in emergencies.

Skills: Yaso lacks a lot of basic skills that even a human girl her age would have. What she does have is an obscene amount of training in guerilla warfare, martial arts, stealth and essentially ninjutsu. In spite of her young appearance, she's had around five hundred years to train in armed and unarmed martial arts and assassination skills and combined with her superhuman abilities she's a very formidable opponent. She's also highly acrobatic and a skilled contortionist, allowing her to squeeze into spaces that seem tight even for her small frame and navigate her environment rapidly and easily combined with her agility, webs and wall-crawling. She has very little formal schooling or knowledge however and even some basics of daily living in the outside world elude her.

Equipment: Yaso has a variety of ninja tools and weaponry including a ninjato, a small girl-sized fumma shuriken, a variety of kunai and throwing needles and smokebombs and flashbang grenades. She also has a few flick-top lighters her mother stole, in order to light her own venom on fire when necessary. Her ninja suit and armor were made by her mother and the main material is actually spider silk, making it lightweight, waterproof, fire resistant and bulletproof, although she'll still take blunt impacts from the bullets.

Brief Backstory: Yasome-Hime is a third generation heir to the once mighty kingdoms of the Tsuchigumo, now reduced to just her mother and her after all of her kind were hunted to extinction or hiding in the mid-Heian era. She's been raised in secrecy by her mother as a weapon against humanity, carrying on their grand tradition of guerrilla warfare against mortal society to try and reclaim their kingdoms from those that have persecuted them across the centuries. She was raised to believe that the humans were still hunting for tsuchigumo and that if she left the lairs before she was ready, she would certainly be killed. Now though, her mother has been away and missing for weeks and curiosity about the human world has gotten the better of her.

For the first time, she plans to venture out into the world of humans to find her mother and discover what the world outside their secret tunnels is like.

Name: Ningirisu Miyako
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Appearance:
With pale skin, natural black hair and a fairly short stature at 5'3", Miyako's appearance is pretty normal for a japanese woman.

Personality:
Miyako is a mild mannered young woman who rarely seems bothered by anything. She's rarely ever seen as anything other than calm, so much that she was known as "the Girl without Fear" in high school. She wasn't some bold, troubleseeker though, rather she was an obedient and diligent student who would usually be found reading. For better or for worse, she has a hard time turning down requests for help, which resulted in many hours spent tutoring classmates in the past. She really doesn't really dislike anything or anyone, other than people who'd hurt others.

Abilities:
Onmyoudo [ Tranquility ]:
As an onmyouji with a particular affinity for Tranquility, Miyako specializes in spells that grant a sense of calm or clarity and those that impede mobility. She's uses two types of spells; direct application spells, referred to as enchantments, which require an ofuda to be applicated to a physical body and area of effect spells, referred to as field spells, which form a field in which their effects apply. Field spells are inherently less potent than enchantments. Because of her affinity, Miyako has rarely had any trouble with subduing her targets and completing her exorcisms. A few examples of her spells include;

• [ Tranquility: True Tranquility ]:
  Miyako's "ultimate" spell; a powerful enchantment that instills the recipient with such a powerful sense of tranquility that any creature without significant magic resistance would lose the will to do just about anything, content to simply lay- or stand still. Because Miyako needs to apply her talisman to the recipient for this spell, it's useless against creatures with no physical form.
• [ Tranquility: Field of Flowers ]:
  A spell that Miyako often uses during her exorcisms. When applied to a surface it generates a field with a radius of five meters and two effects; first it creates a weak barrier that allows entry, but not exit. Additionally, it instills those within the field with a sense of calm, potentially pacifying them. This spell's main boon is its ability to affect even creatures that are intangible or don't have a physical body, however it's not as strong as some of Miyako's other spells. The pacifying effect is rarely strong enough to fully subdue the affected creatures and any powerful creature could blow the barrier apart with relative ease.
• [ Tranquility: Slowness ]:
  Another one of Miyako's favorite spells. It's a relatively simple enchantment meant to instill the recipient with a sense of calm. Unlike most of Miyako's spells, this one applies only a relatively minor sense of calm to counteract any feelings of haste and urgency. While not actually physically impeded, the recipient wouldn't feel the need to run, hurry or otherwise go fast anymore, so long as they remain affected.
• [ Tranquility: Clarity ]:
  One of the few spells that Miyako would voluntarily use on herself. This enchantment nullifies feelings of stress, pain, discomfort and unease. By blocking out these feelings, which hamper cognitive abilities, Miyako reaches a degree of clarity which hones her senses to the point of near-perfection, allowing her to see the world as if in slow-motion. Because it only enhances her senses and doesn't actually make her any faster, Miyako would also feel as if she were moving in slow-motion. Additionally, it takes a few moments to grow accustomed to the sudden change in perception.

Physical Capabilities:
While Miyako still practices judo and does an hour of cardio five days a week, her abilities aren't superhuman. She's got stamina and technique to make up for her inherent lack of strength and some of her spells enhance her senses, but even with those she loses to many youkai in terms of speed and power.

Skills:
Judo:
Having practiced Judo biweekly since she was 8, Miyako is quite experienced in a multitude of techniques. She prefers not to hurt her opponents however, which causes a certain hesitation when it comes to performing throws and holds.
Calligraphy:
Miyako has diligently trained her penmanship to the point of perfection. She's mastered all sorts of pencils, pens and brushes, and there are few with handwriting as clean as hers. Though she does occasionally write letters, she mostly uses her skill at calligraphy for her ofuda talismans.
Research:
Always meant to excel, Miyako has been raised strictly and has been taught that she should make sure she understood whatever it was she was studying. On one hand this had simply cost her a lot of time learning more about certain subjects than she'd ever need to know, but on the other hand it left her a capable student with a structured approach and knowledge on how and where to look for certain things.

Equipment:
Spell Case:
A small rectangular box with a flat metal clamp and a magnetic seal, specially made to contain Miyako's ofuda talismans and to be easily hung from the upper hem of a skirt or a pair of jeans. On occasion, Miyako has also hung it from her bracelet or simply held it in her hand.
Ofuda:
Miyako commonly keeps exactly 21 ofuda handy in her Spell Case, separated with dividers into 3 stacks of 7.
A rectangular box of Hanafuda Cards:
Exactly what it says it is. They're pretty cards with flowers on them and Miyako especially likes to play koi koi with them.
Cellphone:
A smartphone in a soft pink casing with cat ears. It has a pattern lock code and the background of her lock screen is an image of a black cat pressing its paw to the screen.
Wallet:
A small turquoise pouch in which Miyako keeps her money.
Purse:
A rather unimposing, plain white purse in which Miyako keeps all of the above items while she isn't actively using them.

Brief Backstory:
Being the daughter of a shrine caretaker, Miyako has spent most of her life in or around the shrine. Her father knew about magic, of course, but to her mother it had been quite an overwhelming truth. Having promised his wife a normal life, Miyako's father abandoned his duties as onmyouji and focused instead on the mundane part of being a shrine caretaker. Not wanting to rob Miyako of the ability to make this choice for herself, her father sent her to his mother (her grandmother) to learn about magic.

Unlike her mother, Miyako was fascinated. All the wonderful ways to use magic and the marvelous creatures associated with the magical world fueled Miyako to learn more and more, and even the dangerous aspects of it and the responsibilities couldn't deter her. Sadly, Miyako only had limited time throughout high school, with judo, studying and the like going on, but she'd still diligently return to her grandparents' house to learn more.

Once she graduated from high school, Miyako started studying under her father to become a proper shrine maiden and redoubled her efforts to learn onmyoudo from her grandmother. Since then, Miyako's study into the onmyoudo arts have evolved from purely theoretical into mixed theoretical and practical studies, subduing evil spirits and chasing off malicious youkai her grandmother sent her to exorcise. Over time, Miyako developed what she likes to call "her ultimate spell;" a powerful spell that drains the target of their will to do anything.