• Appearance:

• Name: Hanako Yamamoto

• Title: Toire no Hanako

• Age: 15 at death, has existed for ~90 years

• Class/Species: Ghost/Rumor

• Abilities: Hanako has basic ghost abilities, such as intangibility, minor flight, precise kinetic manipulation, and the ability to become invisible. Some creatures, such as Hanako, become so ubiquitous that they gain more power based on the belief of Humans. Because Hanako is so widely known and associated with bathrooms, she has gained the ability to teleport instantly to any bathroom that she knows of. That same belief makes it impossible to exorcise her for good. As long as someone believes in Hanako, she must return.

• Personality: You’d think that Hanako was some sort of evil spirit because she’s bound to the earth through a seething hatred of Humanity, but she’s mellowed out a bit since her death. More than anything, Hanako likes having fun. She enjoys scaring people, though her reasons are more for amusement than anything malicious. When she isn’t spooking some middle school girls in the bathroom, she’s usually at her base playing games or watching videos on her phone. Even ghosts need to get with the times! She also has an interest in observing people, especially DHA members, because she inevitably ends up getting into scuffles with them when her pranks go too far. She’s capable of cruelty, especially if she’s being antagonized, but she generally avoids hurting anyone.

• Background: Those bitches locked me in the bathroom. Can you believe that? Just because I was popular with guys. It’s not like I wanted it anyways… they could take all the guys they wanted and I wouldn’t care. It was dad that pushed that stuff on me. I wonder how he felt when he heard the news? I went to my own funeral and watched them. Dad didn’t cry.

All of it was for nothing, is what I’m getting at. The cooking lessons, the knitting lessons, obsessing over my looks, insisting on a beneficial marriage… all of it useless. My entire life futile. My fate was sealed when a bunch of old farts decided something in a room halfway across the world. It had nothing to do with me, nothing to do with them, and we were the ones that got shafted.

The last thing I really remember is the air raid sirens. After a life of submissive servitude, doing everything you were told because that’s how things had to be, being the perfect little princess… and then to come to an end in a middle school bathroom because some jealous bitches thought it was funny to lock you up? What a riot. Who wouldn’t become a grudge-riddled earthbound spirit after something like that?

I’ve been playing this game for over 70 years. You’ve heard of me, right? Toire no Hanako… what a crappy title. Hah. Pardon the pun. It started out just me being angry and wanting people to suffer, and soon enough, I made a name for myself. The rumors became widespread in like… the ‘50s or something? I must’ve worked fast, because I had only just died in ’45. Yeah, I calmed down after that, and it became more about the art of the scare. It’s art, you know? You have to do it juuust right, and if you’re really good, you can even get them to wet themselves. That’s the standard I hold myself to. Eh? Other Youkai? Who cares about them? Most are assholes. Very few of them have been Human before. They don’t understand people like I do. If they did, they’d find a different freaking snack.

• Inventory: Hanako makes her base in a dilapidated old bathroom in an abandoned old school building. She keeps all sorts of trinkets and odds and ends there.

• Name: Mai Ling Huang
• Age: 30
• Division: Japanese Branch
• Class/Species: Devil Bringer
• Weaponry: Chokuto sword and tanto blades

• Personality:
Mai’s personality depends on what kind of day she’s having. On bad days, Mai is a complete drunkard. She’s useless, lazy, and utterly inefficient. On days that she's sober, Mai is kind and even-tempered. She has a tendency to mother anyone younger than her, a leftover of not being able to nurture her own child. Most of the time though, Mai is a functioning alcoholic. She isn’t ever afraid to speak her mind, especially if she thinks a plan will get someone killed. She’s headstrong and analytical. While always itching for a fight, she doesn’t jump into them readily, taking the time to really understand the situation. Mai takes her job seriously and treats everyone in the DHA with respect. Though, considering her past, she tends to keep away from Devil Feeders even if she knows they’re on the same side as her.

• Background:
Mai Ling Huang grew up in a very strict household that never let her do anything outside of school and a few extracurricular activities. This cause her to rebel at a very young age. She did everything and anything she could to piss her parents off, ranging from cutting her hair short to drugs and alcohol. You name it, she’s probably done it once, or twice. When she was 16, Mai met Genji and fell in love. Genji weaved her tales of a better life if she ran away with him to Japan. Naively, Mai agreed. Although life was hard on their own- they struggled to make ends meet, Mai enjoyed it a lot more than living under her parents. She was even happier when she found out she was pregnant three years later.

For a time, things seemed to be working out for Mai and her small family. Both her and Genji found steady jobs and were able to provide for their daughter. However, after coming home one day from work, she found her entire neighborhood decimated by a youkai. Mai rushed over to her house, only to find the bodies of her husband and their daughter. Devastated, Mai vowed to avenge her family. Eventually she was recruited into the DHA.

• Inventory:
Mai carries a satchel with her that contains basic necessities needed for a mission, a flask, and a small stuffed pooh bear.

• Appearance:

• Name: Mizuki Kichiro
• Title: Pyon-pyon
• Age: 28
• Division: Japanese Branch
• Class/Species: Devil Feeder

• Abilities:

• Karate - As a Feeder, it's kind of expected that Kichiro won't benefit from weaponry, so being a skilled unarmed combatant is on top of the list for skills that one needs in the field.
• Demonic Body - Like the vast majority of feeders, Kichiro is blessed/cursed with superhuman strength and speed, balancing more towards strength on his end. He is also abnormally durable, taking a lot more punishment to actually injure than your average person, and continuing to function even across that line.
• Leporidae Manifestation - Involuntary on his part, Kichiro can manifest physical traits of a hare, oftentimes ears, but he's also had whiskers and a tail before. He's never found any benefit from this other than the fact that rabbit ears are significantly better at listening and determining exactly where a sound originates from.
• Perfect onigiri - Kichiro received the ability to make truly divine onigiri from his demon

• Personality: Kichiro is the sort of person that raises eyebrows in a field like this. Insufferably wide-eyed and exuding a happiness that could only come from ignoring the kind of work the devil hunters do.
He's a bit too cheery for the job description.
Being full of joy simply being alive does not stop Kichiro from being a hard worker though. If there is a job to do, Kichiro's smiling face is likely to be found working at it already. "It's not all field work and fighting" he'll happily explain to anyone who will listen. "It's all the little things too."

His relationship with his contracted demon lacks all the normal subtlety one might try to keep with the source of one's power. Conversations are confrontational, antagonistic, and petty victories and snide jabs flow back and forth, in contrast to his typical relationships. But to anyone with any experience with him, it's obvious that there's some kind of actual connection there, though it isn't exactly a human connection. Any sort of competition or challenge directed at Kichiro is just as much a challenge to his demon, and neither one of them really believes in giving anything but 100%, so them suddenly killing an ongoing argument just to do something impressive is not unusual.

• Background: In another world, in another life, Kichiro would likely have been noticed at a young age and shuffled off to a shrine to hone a gift for working with spirits. The greatest irony in his life is that he could never be so lucky.
In this world, Kichiro grew up ignorant of the supernatural, until the age of 11, when it decided to make itself violently well-known. If he had been prepared, things could have gone differently, but he had no way to protect himself from any of the more spiritual yokai; so one night he'll never forget, he found himself possessed by a foul spirit, a gaki, and the hungry ghost used his body to suffocate his parents in their sleep.
The only luck Kichiro got out of that was that the devil hunter that showed up caught on to what was going on and exorcised the spirit from his body before driving it entirely from this world and into the next.

They never found the bodies, and Kichiro claims to not remember too much of what happened in the hours or days in between, but the long, endless time without control clearly broke something in him, because he begged the hunter to do him one single favor after freeing him. Whatever he asked for, the end result was that the hunter took him back to the Agency to figure out what could be done with him. He was too young to go out and fight right then and there of course, but he had no family now, the mundane authorities would only want to know more about what happened, and the child was at risk anyway of being possessed again. Someone needed to train that out of him at least.

Thus began the training of Mizuki Kichiro, halfway across Japan from his one-time home. From sunrise to sunset. First with chores, simple things for a kid his age; back into school under a new name once he had recovered from the trauma he had endured; then meditation in the evenings. He did not see any other path he could take in life from there. He was still a child, after all, and he would not be able to be a proper devil hunter for years, but he was determined to earn that right.
Cleaning floors shifted over the years to learning how to fight directly. There was certainly still plenty of work done around the local branch, but there was that subtle shift of becoming a student and not merely a dependent.

Something nagged in the back of Kichiro's head as he grew from a boy into a young man. He knew he had a choice once he was actually accepted as a devil hunter, and he understood the ramifications of each well, but he had an additional concern. He could close himself off, cut off that peculiarity of his soul that made him just a bit more susceptible to possession, he knew how to do that well enough by the time he really started learning the most basic art of the craft, or he could embrace it despite the past and make it a weapon.
The idea of holding that back sickened him. The idea of willingly bonding himself to another demon evoked only disgust. Eventually, the concept of someone else suffering the same way he had won out.

He became a devil feeder. All he had to do after making that decision was to find the right demon.
And convince it.

It took some legwork, some forestry, mountain climbing, and dedicate searching, but eventually he managed to track down the yokai he was after.

Convincing her, however, was something else entirely. She had a simple stipulation before making the contract. One simple little thing, perfectly reasonable. Just agree to a fight.
He wasn't supposed to agree to anything like that, it was dangerous. Ridiculously dangerous. He'd picked the rabbit-demon in question for a reason, and it wanted something ridiculous before it would even agree to discuss the terms.
Kichiro, filled with all the impetuousness of youth, accepted. And spent the dozen rounds having the stuffing beaten out of him by the fluffiest yokai he had ever met. It took everything he had, but he managed to not die.
And that's all she needed of him.

• Inventory:

• A string of prayer beads, only distinct because of one single large bead that appears to be glass, encased in which is a little, tiny, utterly unimportant shard of a lunar meteoroid. Within which his yokai is kept sealed.

• Other: Not being a rookie anymore does not protect you from being mothered by Miss Yokoi, I'm pretty sure.

• Name: Ilse

• Title: Cursed Child

• Age: By mortal standards, she appears to be in her early 20s.

• Species: The closest identification some demonologist have come to agree with; is the Cursed Child's similarities with other Cambions. Though without proof of lineage or other key markers, it is unknown how accurate this assessment is.

• Abilities: Ilse's powers transition beyond the elemental spectrum. Not one to directly control over the handles that govern flame or earth. Rather most be attributed to the realm of dark, spirit, and shadow. Her powers have no direct physical counterpart with few exceptions. Her shadow familiar, born from her soul. A raven of dark, cursed energy holding onto the malintent hidden in the hearts around her. Her familiar is part of her, but separate from her core existence. It can die and be reborn at Ilse's whims. As well as share its existence with its master as if it was she herself.

Ilse's main set of powers is less that which is seen, and more that which is felt. A paralyzing grasp around one's own tongue or throat; or a sudden weakness in knees. Contact with the witch herself is signing your own mortal soul away on the spot; her touch able to sour the steel of swords in battle. Ilse's power is more potent the more she is able to directly contribute to the application of the hex. Infusing cursed energy into her words, touch, and will to influence the world in her direction.

• Personality: Ilse finds that walking the solitary path is often easier for her than it is to work along side others. A situation that has left her burned and scarred more often than not, sometimes literally, before. She finds it hard to align herself with other's goals, but understands the value in compromise and alignment as a means to an end. Her power is great enough to where she has no fear of her actions. No deliberation between failure or the thoughts of consequences; success or not. Its only a matter of when before her goals are realized.

• Background: As with most paths through life, Ilse's road of solitude had a beginning that didn't take a turn until well into her life. Her tale is one that has been told before. Details twisted or forgotten. Characters, time, place; all variables that change with the season. The only constant being of the tragedy that befell a group of poor lost souls. A ghost story by today's standards; but a haunting memory to the one that remembers. About the one girl who wasn't there. About the field trip where every body was accounted for. About the ashes that remained; disintegrated without sign of struggle or disturbance, quietly in the night without a soul to pray.

Name: Hoshio Kikuchi

Title: /

Age: 28

Division: Japanese branch

Class/Species: Devil Bringer

Weaponry:

• Bow. Enchanted to shoot farther and more accurately. Blessed to repel devils, and can withstand a few hits from them, but isn’t built for defense.
• Arrows. They disintegrate devils, whether they’re corporeal or not. The larger/stronger the devil, the more arrows needed to kill them. However, each hit weakens them, so even non-lethal attacks are effective.
• Quiver. A tool which replenishes arrows when needed from a designated storage room.
• Switchblade. Corrosive to the touch for devils, it also functions as a mild ward, discouraging them from approaching.
• Tattoos. The enchanted ink inscribed into his skin promotes power, endurance, vitality, and regeneration. Does not at all compare to a Devil Feeder’s physicality, but it is better than nothing. It just helps him to shoot more for longer, and makes him a bit less vulnerable.

Personality:
Hoshio usually comes across as tired, exasperated, unenthusiastic, and just about done with life. Feels older than he is, and insists it’s not only the general ‘approaching 30s mentality’, though he’s objectively not drastically different from others in their late twenties. Passionate about very few things (and even that rarely), and killing devils sure isn’t one of them – though it’s the thing he’s best at (and as much as that is obvious, he sometimes finds it to be depressing). He does experience the so-called ‘thrill of the hunt’, but even that is already part of the routine. Hoshio’s purpose is to make things easier, the world a bit more pleasant one, and that so happens to involve hunting devils and making things better for the mundane – he claims his motives to be selfish, any altruistic consequences merely the natural byproduct of his actions.

That said, he loathes devils much more than he does his job, and he has no problem taking it out on them. He does occasionally gripe to his fellow hunters, but since he rarely meets anyone like-minded or sympathetic, he normally keeps it to himself. As for his attitude to his co-workers, he’s generally accepting of a variety of characters and eccentricities, though he doesn’t get along well with any preachy hard-asses who needlessly and constantly spew about duty or honor and the like (he’s had enough of that with his family). Hoshio spends his off-time doing mundane things, often with mundane folks, keeping as far away from anything hunter related as someone in his position can. He does train regularly, though usually by himself, and catches up with other hunters on a need-to basis.

Background:
Hoshio hails from a family of hunters. His father was a Japanese hunter, his mother an English hunter. On his father’s side, there was a long-spanning tradition of working for the DHA. Though his parents lived on their own and tried to raise him normally, it didn’t really work out that way. They were often busy with their jobs, and so Hoshio was delegated to his other relatives, often his grandfather, who felt much more strongly about their family’s traditions and historical knowledge. So, from a young age, it was learning this, practicing that, training this, proper hobbies that, et cetera. His mother resisted the most and for the longest time, but once his father succumbed to the Kikuchi’s head’s will, it was all over.

‘It’ being over referring to the marriage between his parents. As for the chance of a ‘normal’ life, well, that may have been decided before Hoshio’s birth. When his mother was finally fed up with the situation, she moved back to England, and so Hoshio was left with his father’s family…Not much of a change, really. He regretted at the time that he hadn’t been taken alongside his mother, since he’d also come to find the rest of his family stifling, but he eventually (years later, in fact) came to understand her decision. In the meanwhile, Hoshio grew up under the strict and exacting guidance of his grandfather (and some others). When he was 16, a harmless captured yokai was brought to him to slay – under his elders' supervision and with his previous training of martial arts, Hoshio succeeded. He was enlisted into the DHA, working alongside his father until he was of age.

Once Hoshio had the legal ability to become independent, he did so. He moved out with the money he'd saved, and while he continued to work as a hunter, he no longer associated with his father, grandfather, or any other damned Kikuchi maniacs. Soon after, he moved to England, with some vague ideas about finding and confronting his mother. Sadly, it turned out that she’d died a few years back. Nonetheless, Hoshio stayed in her homeland, working as a hunter while finding information about her. He discovered her remaining family, who was entirely mundane, and did not approve of whatever they thought she had been involved in. He caught up with some of her old acquaintances and co-workers, who revealed to him various tidbits about his mother. Even after his self-claimed mission to learn what he could about her, Hoshio stayed in England, mainly because the newly discovered freedom and lack of any undesirable associations was great. However, at 27, he was called back to Japan due to the emerging youkai situation, where he’s been ever since.

Inventory: His mother’s journal. Contains both professional and personal musings (about devils, her colleagues, acquaintances, family, and life).

• Appearance:

• Name: Limen, although he uses aliases liberally when among humans.

• Title: ‘Thought Experiment’, some call him; at times disparagingly.

• Age: 150 years or so, maybe a bit less.

• Species: Daemon, but a non-supernatural one, or so he insists. Prefers this antiquated spelling over the usual ‘demon’.

• Abilities: The creation and manipulation of barriers. Any physical thing which Limen does not allow to pass through his barriers, be it a planet or a particle, will reflect off. Under their aegis, no conventional calamity or cataclysm could cause harm. But this absolute protection does not extend to the spiritual or the supernatural — the slightest touch from a blessed weapon will break any barrier, large or small, and many ghosts and devils will be able to bypass the barriers some way or another.

• Personality: Limen’s purpose and overarching motivation is the decrease of entropy. Unlike a certain cat-like alien mascot, however, the heat death of the universe is of no consequence — he himself does not know why this cause compels him so. It is the way it is. His methods can be indirect, however — irrelevant-looking acts like ‘gaining knowledge’ and ‘encouraging the reproduction of living organisms’ also count as steps toward his goal.

He is aware of and understands human concepts of ethics and morality, at least intellectually, but does not see himself or his ‘research’ as bound to such principles. Eating humans unnecessarily isn’t his style, though cannibalising the occasional demon to strengthen himself is totally reasonable if he predicts that it would decrease entropy more than a potential alliance. Making swathes of land uninhabitable is fair game as well, and if something or someone happens to walk into the wrong barrier, the wrong way — well, they’re on their own. Humanity as a collective whole, however, fascinates him.

• Background: Born from the restless musings of learned men, what would one day become Limen was initially a formless being, more concept than entity. A hypothetical, a what-if that was never meant to be realised. As the wisest among the mortals continued to ponder and discuss his nature, the being became more and more concrete, an individual emerging from the philosophers’ jumbled theories and thoughts. And so was born a daemon.

This daemon did not have a name at first. He meandered around man’s cities and towns, like a mere mindless spirit driven solely by his ultimate duty. Yet over time, exposure to human society would eventually lead Limen to take on some of the mannerisms and habits of humanity; feelings, reasoning, beliefs, identity, names. Desiring to grow more in the likeness of man, he sought a physical body. First, he was a crystal, a lattice of carbon in an endlessly repeating pattern. Then he was an ashen twig, a gravestone lichen, a timid mouse, a proud boar. As he grew closer in stature to the humans who he so wished to imitate, so too did his wisdom and power increase.

By the turn of the century, Limen was ready. From dust and air he began crafting a new body in the image of man. Soil and seawater were passed through innumerable and transient barriers, broken down and remade into human DNA, human proteins, cells, tissues, organs — until at last, after decades of uninterrupted labour, he could rest. When the work was complete, he entered the body, gave it life, and thus took on human flesh. With the blood coursing through his veins as testament, the daemon Limen had become a worldly, finite creature, inseparably bound to his human body.

In this fragile form he would traverse the globe, walking across oceans and continents when no better transportation could be found. When circumnavigating the Earth and spelunking in its nether regions no longer offered much to gain in information, he began experimentation of his own. The methods which had given birth to him were the organs and instruments through which he would learn. This research could grow destructive, and would every now and then draw the Devil Hunters’ attention. That was fine. Even they had difficulties pursuing him up past the ozone layer or down to the abyssal plains. And so the work continued for many decades.

Having recently returned from a sojourn on the Moon, curiosity led Limen to take a gander at the supposed boom in Japan’s devil population and catch up on the latest advancements in demonology first-hand.

• Other: Limen is gradually getting used to the ubiquitous fruits of the digital revolution, which exploded in pace during his extraterrestrial sabbatical. The ever-accelerating rate at which information is being produced pleases him.

• Name: Haruka Ashikaga
• Title: Gaze that stares back.
• Age: Physical appearance is 25, spiritual age is unknown.
• Species: Mirror demon

• Personality: A daughter of the influential businessman, an inheritor of the rich company. Charming, smart, cunning, polite - the impression Haruka usually gives to her business partners of hers during the business meetings. Ever since her father’s mysterious death she stepped into the presidential position and she has shown herself quite capable of leading the international company not only afloat in the aggressive and violent seas of world trading, but also lead it into even more fruitful prosperity than before, and at such a young age! She is seen as a wunderkind of the business world by many, as well as a capable partner and reliable strategist.

That is on the surface glance. Not that many in the world of the money float are very interested in looking at people beyond their everyday appearances. Not that many who desired and managed to see deeper into her were to tell that story to the world, or to anyone for that matter. None of them survived. Some of them were happy to see death as their liberation.

Haruka Ashikaga is not what she seems, due to her not being herself, or not in fact what she was. It is a doppelganger of Haruka Ashikaga, a reflection that came from behind the mirror glass which gazed back onto her and took her place, stripping her of her personality and agency over herself. A demon of no name, no physical shape - just an eye that looks back, a parasitic gaze which stares back from the reflection, from the deeper corners of oneself and shapes up into the reality in the shape of the appearance in which it looked. An appearance which hides a sadistic mind and hunger, a demon with a passionate love of knives and keen to play with her food and her prey. A demon who takes enjoyment in control over humans, whom she sees no more than cattle, with maybe a few notable exceptions.

• Background: Original Haruka Ashikaga is not a specifically good person, if she is to be judged and described by the people surrounding her - that would be people who mainly whoever worked for her and her father. Growing up in a strict authoritative family with a clear access to various luxurious pleasures and entertainments she grew up into being possessive and as an authoritative person with a clear lack of tolerance and patience towards things she could’ve seen as a disturbance to her own existence.

Said emotional disruption attracted the hunger of the Eye - the most basic manifestation of the Mirror Demon. It lurked through the reflective shapes of the city and the various traces of emotion and existence Haruka has left; finding the shape of her existence a fine vessel in order to manifest itself into the physical world. The Eye kept on watching her, appearing in the mirrors, water puddles, surfaces of screens and glasses - a black shaped gaze with a red swirl on the place of the eye pupil, appearing in the most obscure spots of the reflections, on the corner of being seen by an eye, but still noticeable, driving feart into Haruka’s mind. A fear that sprayed over her mind in the opening for the gaze to creep over her, seek out the deeper corners of her mind and her past: everything she was, the demon started to reflect onto itself, starting to construct the doppleganger.

And one day when the girl saw her face reflected in the glass of water, she saw the gaze with the balck on its eyes reflecting back at her, and from there she lost her rights to own her identity to the Mirror Demon. A doppleganger shifted places with her - a better version of herself driven by the malice of the demon with Haruka herself disappearing with no trace to be found. Doppelganger took her identity, her past, present and future; while being smarter, sharper at words and noticing details, and way greater in her hunger to torment the human kin.

Though to the unknown observer one could’ve find the personality of Haruka’s taking a turn for the better - the girl became less impulsive, more charming to the people unknown to her; even though this softer and more polite appearance hid under it a deep mania and bloodlust, as well as cold shaped strive for power. Mysterious accident of Haruka’s father crashing in his car was of course no coincidence as well as some other mysterious disappearances of people whom she considered a threat. Or whom she considered a pretty snack for her desires.

• Inventory: Except for the usual number of items natural to have for somebody in the high echelons of international business - be it a set of expensive hand-made suits, smartphones (plural), diaries and else - she always carries knives with herself. A lot of knives.

• Abilities:
-Mirror walking
Being a creature of reflections and a demon of mirrors, Haruka even in her physical shape can use mirrored reflections to move around. It is not using mirrors themselves, but rather a reflection they provide for Haruka to shift her position towards the point which the mirrored surface reflects. In order to do it, she has to have the wanted angle of the reflection in her sight.

-Mirror piercing
With the same kind of framework Haruka is capable of using her prime weapon - knives - in order to attack from the reflective surfaces: via knife blades appearing from said reflections with a sharp piercing motion.

-Knife wielding
Aside from her more supernatural abilities, Haruka is simply well trained with using knives as a weapon - both in close combat and throwing them at her enemies. She as well can use the reflections knives have on the surface of the blade to use her abilities.

• Appearance:
• Name:
• Age:
• Division:
• Class/Species:
• Abilities:
• Personality:

• Background:
• Inventory: