Kirika is quite a tall girl, standing at nearly 170cm (or roughly 5'7"), with a stick-thin physique that looks more like a slender boy's body than a girl's. She feels somewhat like it should make her self-conscious, but she's thankful for it; anything to stick out more. Also somewhat helpful in that endeavor is her hair. Smooth and pin-straight, it falls in a violent silver-white curtain to more or less the small of her back. It matches her eyes, the pale gray of morning fog. The way she walks helps her grab attention as well: a smooth, crisp, snapping stride, moving perhaps a little bit more quickly than is necessary. It makes her look like she's perpetually hurrying, and it comforts her the way people look at her a little bit strangely when she's going about her business.

When not wearing the dour school uniform that she's entrapped within, she wears things that, while well within acceptable range, tend to stick out a little bit. Her most common example is a tan trench coat that her father gave her when she went off to school ("In case it's raining, sweetie!"). It's a little longer on her than it is on her father, dropping just about to the middle of her shins.

Maki Kirika’s first couple years were completely normal. Her mother and father, an editor and photographer respectively, doted on her. And while of course she doesn’t remember anything of that time, it was almost idyllic until she was about halfway through her second year, when her Quirk manifested and she vanished. Not just from her parents' sight. Not just from their hearing. Not just from their photos and family videos. No, her face even vanished from their memories.

And so, her first memories are of smothering attention. Smothering attention and very seldom being left alone. And she didn't understand why, until one day she realized that her parents didn't notice her.

The next years of her life would be characterized by a feeling of suffocation. When she was at home, it was that feeling of suffocation that worried parents give. She had very little privacy; even being alone in her room was a rarity, even up through middle school. Personal space was a thing that belonged to other people, and her mom was never too far away to reach out and touch her hand. When she was at school, that suffocation was the feeling of choking fear that comes with being forgotten. Her Quirk was unstable for a long time—still is, to some extent—and there were times when she would simply vanish, and times when she couldn't reappear. Though she always told people that touch would break it, every time it happened, she would tense up when peoples' eyes skated over her. Even worse were those rare moments when touching people wouldn't break it, at least not for a few seconds. She thought. She never could tell on her own, after all.

About this time was when her attention-hogging personality began to come to the fore. She couldn't tell when her Quirk was active, it was true. At least not on her own. But if she was up in everyone's faces, when the whole room was looking at her, then she would always know. She would know. And, she convinced herself—in defiance of the facts—that the closer she was to everyone, the less likely it was to not break on touch. And with that personality came the start of a seething resentment. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she always needed to make sure people could see and hear her before she did anything. It wasn't fair that she was terrified of fading away, being un-personed so thoroughly nobody would ever remember her. It wasn't fair.

But as she aged and gained some control over her Quirk, she began to experience another side of it. Yes, it was unpredictable, and when it went off without her knowing, it was genuinely terrifying. But, as she discovered when she was cornered on a city street at night before fading both her and her friend away, it could also be exceptionally useful. And that got her to thinking. Using her Quirk in public would certainly be frowned upon—if anybody could really tell, that was. But it would be difficult to learn how to keep it from activating on its own without any kind of instruction.

Somewhere to learn how to properly use her Quirk, to peel back the anger that she had towards it, and to harness its burgeoning power as a force for good? Well, she'd lived in Sapporo her whole life. Ishin academy was just down the road, right?

Kirika's character arc is founded deeply in her fear. How her fear is created, how her fear is handled, and how her fear is eventually resolved. She has a remarkably powerful utility Quirk, something that could be genuinely terrifying if she were to embrace it all immediately. But she can't properly use it, because she fears it desperately. She grew up being terrified of being un-personed and forgotten since she can remember, and it's going to take her a long, long time to move past that.

That moving on is going to form the crux of her character development. As she gains better control over her Quirk, her fear will slowly begin to abate. And though of course there will be moments of relapse where her Quirk activates all on its own and she returns to that instinctual fear, she will move past them, and eventually past that bone-deep fear to truly take advantage of the Quirk that she's been cursed or—she will eventually realize—blessed with.

Kirika's Quirk, and the great object of her fear, is Null Field. At a thought, she can project an invisible bubble around her, more or less five feet across. She, and anybody within that bubble, becomes imperceptible. They'll still trigger motion detectors, infrared lasers; they're still there. But living things struggle with the same. They're not made invisible. More like...they're rendered so unbelievably unremarkable that people don't notice them, no matter where they are. The same goes for pictures of them, video recordings, and even memories; though the memory itself stays intact, there's no face to the person.

Other than the somewhat restrictive size limit that requires people to stay close to Kirika, there aren't a lot of inherent factors that limit its use. Though it does constantly drain her energy when it's active, it's more of a passive drain than anything else. She may become tired and hungry a little bit more quickly and easily, but it's nothing she really notices. So duration isn't an issue. The main restriction placed upon its use is when anybody within the bubble does anything that would get them noticed for sure. Touching someone, throwing an object with an easily traceable flight path, having their footprints followed back to them; when one member of the bubble is noticed, then it immediately pops and reveals everybody. And while there's no set duration on the Null Field, once it's brought down it can't be thrown up again for at least a couple minutes. No do-overs.

In addition, the field will break whenever Kirika falls asleep or is knocked unconscious—for the most part. Though unlikely, it can stay up through sleep. And this is when Kirika is the most afraid. Because if it won't break, even when she's not conscious...will it ever break at all?

At 155cm (about 5'1"), Kayo stands at a height just slightly shorter than usual (which only helps her, really). Her most noticeable physical trait at first glance is her long curtain of pale green hair, which she takes very, very good care of (it takes her nearly an hour to brush it out in the morning, it's a nightmare). Her skin is smooth and fine due to an equal amount of care. She has a narrow face and a sharply pointed chin. Finally we reach her brilliant green eyes, which are slightly off-putting to some people: they glow dimly in low light, and her pupils are narrow and slitted, like a snakes. She's almost always wearing a smile; it's just unclear which kind of smile it is.

Nigata Kayo did not have an exceptionally good childhood.

It was alright for the first couple years. Her mother—Nigata Kagami, an excellent doctor loved by all—had always been a touch strange, but she was too young to really understand anything about it. Until very early in elementary school, everything was fine. Everything was fine. And then her Quirk manifested itself just slightly later than normal. And it manifested itself while she was playing with her mother.

She doesn't remember a whole lot of this time, but she does remember her mother grunting in surprise and pain and then looking at her with sudden malice. And from then on, her childhood grew harder.

Her mother dropped the act, revealing herself as the raging narcissist that she was. Someone who only became a doctor for the accolades and praise. Someone who only acted nice because it made people love her. And somebody who had a minor and pedestrian Quirk to adjust her own pain tolerance. Because of her Quirk, Kayo's did very little to her. But now she knew that her daughter's Quirk was more powerful than her own. And she took offense. She became a monster to her daughter, alternately ignoring her, psychologically tormenting her, and forcing her to look in a mirror and use her own Quirk on herself until she was a screaming, crying wreck (mirrors still terrify her to this day). So it's not a stretch to imagine that Kayo began to pull inwards, and give herself the ego that her mother no longer did.

This was only aggravated in school, where she would occasionally accidentally use her Quirk on other kids. And though she apologized profusely, they began to avoid her, all but one. And so, the only way for her to rationalize it and preserve the ego that she was beginning to build up for herself was to assert: they're all dumb. Everybody but Kaoru, they're all dumb idiots. And to make it worse, as her Quirk began to build in power more and more, pain stopped repulsing her. Instead, causing pain began to...intrigue her.

All of these factors conspired to forge her into an obsessive narcissist who, additionally, was very fascinated by pain. And when she was a little way into middle school, these all combined to give her a horrible fixation on a classmate who she grew absolutely obsessed with. And when she fixed him with her eyes, when she caused that terrible pain, she felt a thrill like nothing else. Though she—with Kaoru's help—managed to escape her obsession, it still bubbled just under the surface, waiting for a new target. Crushing it down as best she could, she decided something then and there.

If her mom was that jealous of her Quirk, then what would insult her more than becoming a hero?

As a character, Kayo is an exploration on inversions.

She initially goes to IA out of spite for her mother, but eventually really, truly wants to become a hero. She starts her character arc with manipulation and obsession, and ends it with contrition and redemption. Rather than the character course of someone who wants to become a hero, aims straight for that goal and then perhaps dips down onto a dark place and becomes a villain, she is a character who starts on that dark path towards villainy, but manages to pull herself out of that doom spiral and become somebody that she can legitimately be proud of.

And so, her character development over time is just that. The obsessive pit that she digs herself down into is not only a low point for everyone else around her, but a low point for her own health, safety, and sanity. The way that she crawls out of that pit—the challenges she faces in order to get there, the people that she's hurt that she needs to hopefully make amends to—is where the great majority of her character will be, and I'm very excited to see it.

Kayo is so toxic that even looking at her can be dangerous.

Her Quirk Venom Eyes can be activated any time she makes direct eye contact with somebody, directly tapping into the target's nervous system—specifically the pain receptors. With a pulse of a sickly yellow glow from her snakelike eyes, she can dial them up or down, causing either a searing, full-body pain or a deadening numbness, though she's significantly better at using the pain than she is the numbness.

There are a few limits on this power. Since it requires direct eye contact, it has a limited range, and is almost completely useless, at least at the start, on people who either hide their eyes, don't have eyes to hide, can't use their eyes, or have no nerves to aggravate. Each pulse from her Venom Eyes additionally accrues a brief cooldown period where her optic nerves need to rest from the sudden stimulation.

Gendou is a small boy, standing at 157cm (5'2") with a thin frame. Physically, he is quite weak and it shows. Bruises and scratches cover his body from being excessively bullied. The skin under his eyes is dark and baggy, the bagginess being a product of his quirk, which allows the eyes he spawns to exit their sockets. His black pupils are unnaturally large, some would say 'creepy', and paired with his short, messy black hair, Gendou gives off a gloomy aura. Gendou is often too emotionally drained to put much thought into his appearance, and only the school dress code prevents him from appearing too slovenly and unkempt. His left wrist is often bandaged, and though he generally tries to cover it with long sleeves, the summer uniform prevents this.

Gendou's father, Mr. Akisuji, was a man with a curse. With the quirk, Death Glare, he could, upon activation of his quirk, instill dread in anyone he gazed upon. His large, intimidating frame also added to his ability to cause fear. However, Mr. Akisuji was a normal man with normal ambitions, and he strove his whole life never to use his quirk due to its tendency to forcefully coerce people. He would not allow himself to become a villain, but he had no desire to become a hero. But this didn't mean that he was a pushover, and if he needed to, he could stand up for himself, his size usually being enough of a deterrent. However, a few times in his life, the nature of his quirk was leaked, and those who had been intimidated by him would use this fact to accuse him of illegal quirk use. Since there was no way to prove one way or another whether or not they were intimidated by his size alone or by his quirk, such accusations usually ended up in favor of the accuser, and Mr. Akisuji had, as a result, lost many jobs and opportunities due to these false accusations, making life difficult for him and his new family. From then on, Mr. Akisuji did his best be as non-confrontational and as non-threatening as possible and to not to let anyone feel intimidated by him, being reduced to a sycophant and yes-man in the office.

As Mr. Akisuji's son, Gendou was instilled with his father's ideals. Realizing that Gendou's ability to shoot lasers from his eyes was far more dangerous than just instilling fear, his father forbade him from using his quirk, yet he still wanted his son to stand up for himself. In a sense, Mr. Akisuji's frustrations at not being able to express himself in his workplace made him want all the more for his son to have a spine. But Gendou was gentle, like his mother, and his ability to make numerous eyes come floating out of his head was seen as gross and creepy by his classmates, ostracizing him. Things started to get out of hand when bullies discovered that smacking the back of Gendou's head would cause eyeballs to come popping out. The bullies would then throw the eyes against walls, hit them with baseball bats, or grind them into the pavement with their heels, causing Gendou tremendous pain. The bullies literally had Gendou by the (eye)balls and could order him around as they pleased, threatening his eyes should he disobey. Gendou would return home everyday, beaten and bruised. His father would tell him to fight back, but without using his quirk, which seemed like an impossible task since he was physically rather weak. Unfortunately, Mr. Akisuji was always busy with work and didn't have much time to spend with Gendou to really coach him on how to defend himself, and their relationship became estranged.

On the other hand, Gendou's mother was a gentle soul with fragile health who had attended Isshin Academy's support class, and worked as a hero support item engineer. However, due to Isshin's high standards, even the support class had to learn about heroic ethical standards. Because Gendou's mother soothed him by telling him that his quirk wasn't creepy and that it was, in fact, an amazing quirk, Gendou would ask if he could use his quirk in retaliation of his bullies, to which his mother would sit him down with a heroic ethics textbook and explain why he shouldn't do that. As a result, Gendou's tormented mind was exposed at an early age to moral philosophy. Though she didn't really push for it, Gendou's mother recommended isshin, should her son ever decide t ogo into the hero business, and unbeknownst to Gendou, she had even called in a favor to the staff at Isshin to 'take care of her son' should he apply. This favor eventually became a final request, as Gendou's mother passed away due to her poor health.

After Gendou's mother passed, Mr. Akisuji sat Gendou down and they had a heart to heart. Mr. Akisuji acknowledged that life wasn't fair, and that it often sucked. They were both cursed with their quirks. Mr. Akisuji surmised that perhaps Gendou should try to become a hero. It would allow him to finally use his quirk and hopefully allow him to climb his way out of this spiral of bullying that he found himself trapped in. Mr. Akisuji apologized for not confronting Gendou's bullies' parents or the school about it, but he knew that if he tried, he could get in trouble again for 'illegal quirk use'. If Gendou could be famous, if he could be popular, he would be able to change the negative perception surrounding his quirk. At the very least, Mr. Akisuji hoped that Gendou would be surrounded by peers with heroic personalities who would be too civilized to bully him, even though he knew his son did not have the stomach for competition, nor the strength to endure the hardships of a hero curriculum. Mr. Akisuji wanted Gendou to prove himself, for both of their sakes, and to honor his mother. Finally, Mr. Akisuji said something that would stick with Gendou, "A curse is just a gift that's been squandered," and for once in his life, Gendou felt the motivation to actually do something turn his life around.

In the short time before the entrance exam, Gendou tried to toughen up, with minimal results, but he reviewed everything his mother had taught him about ethics. He trained his quirk in secret with his father, though he still had a long way to go. So with nothing but a prayer, and a mother's dying wish, Gendou applied to Isshin, floundered, but was ultimately accepted.

- Improve Self-Esteem
- Quirk Discovery and Mastery
- MAKE FRIENDS
- Reveal and learn to manage bottled up resentment

Eye-craft Carrier, is a hybrid Mutation and Emitter-type quirk (though it is classified as an emitter due to it acting primarily at range) that allows Gendou to launch an indeterminate number of floating eyeballs from his eye sockets. The eyes fly and emit laser beams via telepathic command, and Gendou can see and feel what the eyeballs see and feel. Each eyeball will dissolve into gelatin after an hour. The eyeballs feel significantly less pain than a normal eyeball, but still hurt nonetheless. They are, however, not sensitive to drying like a normal eyeball would be.

In the beginning, a single beam has the heat intensity of sunlight focused by a magnifying glass on a summer day, as well as a slight pushing force. However, and this is an oversimplification, power is proportional to the square of intensity, so multiple beams being focused on the same spot increases the power exponentially. Three beams is 9 times hotter, and 9 times more pushing force than a single beam. His ultimate attack would most likely be focusing all his eyes on a single point, like a Death Star attack. The eyes are also capable of lifting more than their own weight, up to ten kilograms each for now, though the more weight they carry, the slower they are.

The more eyeballs Gendou commands simultaneously, the more he suffers from various brain-related conditions such as nausea, vertigo, and migraines. For now, controlling more than six eyeballs at once (not including the two in his head) is the limit of what Gendou can tolerate.

She is short. She is skinny. Her hair and clothes are unkempt. Her personal style is made up of whatever she thinks looks cool when worn by celebrities and anime characters. Her skin is pallid and the dark bags under her eyes are always present. She looks less like a hero hopeful and more like a hikikomori. At least her glasses are always shiny and clean.

Touko's backstory isn't very exciting. She grew up in the heart of Tokyo, surrounded by people and color and lights. Her mother passed away before she even got a chance to know her, but her father tried to make up for it by spoiling his daughter with anything she could ever want. He worked long hours, and while at home Touko was alone most of the time. She turned to media and the internet to fill the void of loneliness. Her quirk manifested early, and so she had always felt connected to her little blue screens. School was bearable until the start of junior high when childhood friendships became strained. Top of her classes, Touko was the victim of many a rumor stated she cheated her way there with her quirk. They were wrong of course, but Touko wasn't above getting the most out of her quirk anyway so she didn't bother to refute it. She became more of a loner during this time, but kept up her studies until she was accepted to Ishin Academy.

Touko doesn't know why she wants to be a hero. Hell I don't even know why she would want to be. Her main motivation was proving she could do what no one thought she could. Now that she's a part of Ishin's student body, she will have to really discover her heroic side. I'd also like for her to make some emotional connections with other characters, the kind where you would leap before looking in order to help them.

Prepare to be amazed as Touko demonstrates her quirk: TECHNOVORE.
This quirk allows Touko to "consume" pieces of technology and manifest their uses as though they were inherent parts of her body. She does not literally eat the tech, instead they are be pushed into her through her skin where they stay until she ejects them or they are forced out. At the moment she can only hold one piece of tech at a time - eating another will make the first one pop out.

She can use any piece of technology, primitive or modern, though not all are useful. If she consumes a lightbulb, she will be able to emit light. If she consumes a magnet, she can change or charge her own magnetic field. If she consumes a USB drive, she will be able to know it's contents even if encrypted as it will be part of herself. Technology like computers and cellphones that have too many functions cause her to become dizzy and nauseous, she won't be able to use them at her current level. Likewise if she eats something malfunctioning or infected with a computer virus, she will become ill with flu-like symptoms.

Average height, with broad shoulders, tan skin, and bright eyes. If he were to grow his hair out it would be wavy, but he usually keeps it cut and styled. Riona has a few extra traits inherited from his father, but unfortunately they are aesthetic only and not related to his quirk. When not in school uniform he prefers traditional Japanese clothing or comfy, baggy clothes otherwise.

Riona comes from a hardy family. The Fuwari clan has lived in Hokkaidō for many generations now, far North on a little ranch that was just as tenacious as the people that tended it. His quirk runs in the family too, it's one that he shares with his two little sisters, his mother, grandmother, great-grandmother... and so on. It's true that the quirk tended to manifest in the female side of his family, but his great-great-great-grandfather had it too, and he was the one that founded their home! Still, it was a bit of a blow to the ego when his own dad had a much cooler quirk that wasn't inherited, and the local kids relentlessly teased him about it. After years, he's gotten over it... well, for the most part.

Riona knew he wanted to be a hero since his early childhood. Though no one in his family had anything to do with the pro-hero world, his mother and father set an excellent example of being protectors and Riona admired them both. Life was simple enough, but it wasn't uncommon that the Fuwari clan had to deal with their fair share of problems - from monsters rising from the ocean or coming from forests in the North, to hooligans that rode out of their little town looking for fun but ended up on their ranch and making trouble, to capitalists always looking to sabotage their property, and of course the natural force of nature. Through it all his parents remained stalwart, and when he was old enough Riona helped out eagerly. The family wasn't always successful a defending their little slice of life. Failure resulted in ruined crop, injured livestock; and once, the loss of the third Fuwari sister, though none of them talk about that. Ultimately it was these mounting failures that pushed Riona to his path of applying to Ishin. If he could save people, help out the little guys in the world, then he'd be happy.

Originally he was built with the disconnect between rough personality and cutesy quirk in mind. Really I just think I'd have fun playing a character like this. My goal is to have him eventually chill out, open up, and make some deep friendships. A lot of things about him were left vague with the intention to flesh them out through writing. I'd also like for Riona to be the kind of characters that others can bounce off of in the same way, and be a person for other students to lean on and confide in.

The name of Riona's very cool and amazing Quirk is: Fluffy. He didn't name it. He'd change it if he could. His quirk allows Riona to grow extremely thick and soft fur anywhere on his body. Not just a layer of fur like your common animal, but a large amount - and quickly. He can localize the growth, say just to his hand and make the world's most comfortable bludgeon. Or he can rapidly become one giant fluff ball by growing it everywhere. His control over his quirk is fairly good, and he can easily 'pop off' chunks of the fluff so he has more options... though he can only do a little bit at a time for now, so it's extra uses are fairly limited. Plus any fluff not connected to Riona ends up dissipating after a minute or two.

The quirk has it's pros and cons. Because if it's density it is extremely effective at defending against blunt impacts. It can stop a moving object's momentum pretty handily too. On the flip side, anything sharp enough can slice through it. The fluff is an excellent conductor for static electricity, but also easily flammable. The fluff is not completely waterproof, but it is water resistant - too much water will make it soggy and heavy, stopping Riona from moving if he's grown a lot of it. Naturally it's an amazing help against the cold. It also makes Riona the best hug-giver in class.

Standing at 183cm (about 6'0") in height, Harukami is relatively tall - standing a good few inches above most of his peers. Aside from his height though, one of the first things that would draw one's eyes about him are the golden-beige canid ears that sit atop his head, as well as the similarly-colored, and rather "floofy", tail that he possesses. These light beige tones, when combined with his mostly-dark-brown head of hair, which he is content to leave semi-unkempt, create a mottled contrast that persists regardless of his attire.

Despite his height and actual lean athleticism, he carries himself with an odd caution of sorts. He seems as though he takes careful note to not touch anything he doesn't specifically mean to, and always appears ready to spare a glance over his shoulder. Most of the time, however, he doesn't seem to possess a particular sense of nervousness - he just usually seems.. ready. For.. something.

Harukami's young life was unusual, but not entirely alien to some citizens of Japan. This was due to the simple fact that he was borne to a loving mother who was, unfortunately, partnered with a.. less-than-genial member of the local Yakuza. This led to a less-than-pleasant life, in turn. Sure, they wouldn't go hungry, but Haru's father wasn't as nurturing as he or his mother really needed him to be - he was very much the opposite. Nevertheless, they stayed strong for one another.

Violence and manipulation was a way of life for the young lad -- especially since his father seemed keen to involve him in his felonious activities. It is well known, however, that the night is darkest before the dawn. While it may seem heartless to think, it truly was a windfallen stroke of luck that the Yakuzaman was struck down at the hands of a hero around the time Harukami turned thirteen. His father's arrogance had allowed Haru and his mother to escape this life. And while things were financially rough, they would at least have freedom now.

The two were barely able to make it by for almost a year and a half, until lady luck seemed to finally smile upon them once again. Harukami's mother met a man who was, predictably, much more amicable than the last. He was kind - more humble than one would expect. To Haru he seemed.. nice.
Perhaps too nice. Like an angel. Not to be trusted.

However, he stayed. He wasn't like his birth father - he was respectable, and he turned their life around. Haru still had his cautions - just like he had with anyone else, but now, after almost two years, he was at least comfortable around him. Afterall, he made his mom happy and had changed their lives for the better.

But their past wasn't just that - it had shaped who Haru and his mother were. Haru would never forget that, or wish it upon anybody. Abusive, horrible people like his birth father were wandering the streets and threatening people every day - and it made him feel sick to his stomach to think that villains could run amok unopposed.

Haru is a bit of a weird one. In terms of development, he would largely grow through abstract means or development of personality, rather than hard facets of his quirk or anything else. He has no friends, though he does truly want them somewhere inside - he's just too distracted by what most would consider a very negative, overshadowing personality aspect - his paranoia, of course. Something which.. I'm honestly not sure can be fixed, but we will see.

This also, in an odd way, extends to his quirk. Eventually growing to become more of a teammate to his quirk itself would be a good development piece for him, since his quirk manifests as a sentient entity that isn't really forced to cooperate with him. This bond is the only way his quirk can really strengthen in any way - as more of the Tome Beast's power is locked behind the strength of their link.

Tome Beast is a quirk that manifests in the form of a sentient, canid-like monster that resides within Harukami himself. While there are many caveats to the quirk, the crux of it is that this beast, which Harukami has dubbed Akifusa (Autumn Tuft), is capable of summoning a book in which it can inscribe contingency plans, which alter predicted events in limited fashion.

There are several limits to these contingency plans - the foremost being that Akifusa must sacrifice one of its black claws to create one. These black claws - of which there are currently three - regenerate at midnight, at which point all un-triggered contingencies fade, or regenerate individually whenever a contingency is triggered. Notably, creating contingency plans takes several minutes, making it impossible to configure them mid-combat.

Aside from being unable to retroactively alter events or their results, these contingencies plans are largely limited to being responsive in nature, and as such require a good deal of foresight and particular planning to be useful. Also, while the triggering event has to be inscribed rather specifically, the effect Akifusa creates in retaliation can draw from a very wide pool of possible effects limited mostly by Harukami's imagination - though there is notable limits to the raw power of the effects that can be produced.

While paling in comparison to the Contingency Beast's true power, Harukami does inherit some lesser physical features of the creature residing within him. Aside from some visible canid attributes, Haru possesses slightly increased strength and endurance, and markedly enhanced speed and bodily senses.

Minuscule. Diminutive. Lilliputian. Pint-sized. Basically, she's really, really small. Standing at the meager height of 147 cm (approx. 4'10"), she's dwarfed by... pretty much all of her classmates, honestly. Her minute stature is only compounded by her figure, which is tremendously thin and wiry, with dainty little hands and feet, and the narrowness of her shoulders dwarfed only by the narrowness of her waist. One gets the impression that by putting their hands together just below her hips, their thumbs and forefingers together could probably encircle the entire width of her body; and most of her more physically-oriented classmates could probably effortlessly lift her with a single hand. If one could convince her to dress up and sit perfectly still, she could probably easily be mistaken for a particularly large doll rather than a particularly small young woman.

Her notably petite stature aside, however, she... doesn't really have many particularly remarkable physical traits to speak of. Her face is particularly round and childish, with full cheeks that might show dimples if she smiled, and a rather less cute high brow and prominent forehead. She's neither dazzlingly adorable nor is she disgustingly ugly, but rather looks simply... normal? Her large, thick-framed glasses that serve to frame her face in the process only obfuscate her unusual emerald green eyes, covering up one of the few truly unique "charm points" she might otherwise brag of. Her hair, too, is soft and silky -- but is often bunched and somewhat clumsily braided up on either side to keep it from flapping around too much.

Well, at the very utmost, she could at least be said to be passably cute -- but not enough to draw much attention to her when she seems to have made a conscious effort to look as plain as possible. And that, perhaps, is just the way she likes it.

Manaka Kokone was born an ordinary child to an ordinary couple in Kyoto. Her father was a salaryman, and her mother an office clerk at the same company. A casual fling became a marriage, and that marriage just as quickly bore fruit -- and then fell apart shortly after. Kokone doesn't know the "why," just that the last memory her mother has of her father is an argument. After that, he disappeared into the night, and neither she nor her mother have ever seen him since.

Supporting a child alone is no easy task, but her mother Ayumu took to it with herculean perseverance. Despite their tenuous financial situation, she ran herself ragged working enough hours to keep their small apartment and pay for Kokone's needs. When her job fired her, she found another job, and with it, their tiny family moved again and again -- to Okinawa. To Tokyo. Back to Kyoto. Then back to Tokyo again. She changed schools twice in her first year, and in the second she hardly lasted a month. All her classmates had Quirks, while she was not only a transfer student and an outsider, still gloomy from the loss of her friends from her old school -- but also apparently Quirkless. She wasn't bullied particularly harshly, but she did quickly find herself ostracized at her second school, and was surprised to find herself relieved rather than heartbroken when she moved again.

Her situation only worsened when her Quirk manifested. It was, perhaps, a cruel sort of mercy that Kokone was a tremendous late-bloomer. Her nascent abilities of telepathy and mind reading only reared their ugly head at age 7, right before she transferred into a new second grade classroom. She was packing her things and getting ready to leave for her first day, only to suddenly hear her mother's voice apparently talking to someone in the next room. She overheard several unsettling things, like "What if they make fun of her?" or "What if I get stuck late at work and can't take her home?" But when she entered the room, there was only her mother there.

Still young and not understanding what was going on, she innocently asked... "Mama. Who are you talking to?" The look of confusion that greeted her only unsettled her more. "I didn't say anything, did I?" came her mother's voice -- but her lips never moved. "Yes you did!" Kokone insisted, and what followed in response was not so much words as an overwhelming, crushing sense of dread.

Was I thinking out loud? No, I'm sure I didn't say anything. But then how did she know what I was thinking? Am I losing my mind? Why is she looking at me like that? I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything so what did she hear?!

She didn't know what to do or say, so before she knew it, she found herself crying and apologizing, not even knowing why. Somehow, this defused the situation as her mother tried desperately to console her -- but all that time, Kokone could hear her thoughts still, and could still hear the worries that took months of feigning ignorance to go away.

"What if she can hear what I'm thinking?"

A lot of things happened after that. School became a nightmare where the voices of her classmates drowned out everything around her. She got used to hearing herself called weird or creepy in people's heads, when those same people would act nice and fake smiles when she spoke to them. So it was that she learned that people were fundamentally two-faced -- and she herself, of course, was no different. She covered up the truth, passing off her earlier slip-ups as the rough awakening of a telepathic Quirk. It wasn't entirely a lie, after all -- it was just a way of sweeping the more unpleasant side of her powers under the rug. Since she could hear people's thoughts, she got used to telling others what they wanted to hear. Feeling their support and gratitude almost made up for the weight of all her lies -- and so, as her sole relief from her own guilt, she grew almost addicted to it.

This didn't help mend her relationship with her mother, however -- which only grew more and more distant as, in a misguided attempt to reduce her beloved parent's stress, she forced herself to become self-reliant from a very young age. She cooked her own meals, managed her own schedule, and did everything she could to take care of herself and their home so that her tired mother could focus all her energy on her work. Kokone didn't even realize until it was already too late that this eliminated the few points of contact they even had to begin with -- and by then, it wasn't uncommon for them to not speak to each other for entire weeks at a time. Ayumu came home late, and left early; that is, when she even came home at all. That was just the way things were, so Kokone had accepted it without complaint. But every now and again, she'd overhear a guilty thought. "What if my daughter hates me? I'm never there for her. I'm just as bad as her father." And no matter how hard she tried to assuage those doubts with little gestures of kindness and understanding, she never truly could.

...Eventually, it was easier to just get away. She justified her decision to enroll in a hero school on the opposite side of the country in a lot of ways. Ishin was prestigious, and all her living needs would be covered. She wouldn't be imposing on her mother anymore, and if she could graduate with a good record, it'd guarantee a path to a good job working as field support or a logistics clerk for a hero agency. She wouldn't end up an exhausted wage slave in a dead-end job like her mom, and could finally start repaying her for all the sacrifices she had made so Kokone herself could get this far. Putting it like that, she almost didn't feel guilty. But really, deep down, she knew that the real reason was just that she couldn't bear to hear her mother's thoughts in the dead of night anymore -- and so she told herself it was for the best, and set out on her journey...

Due to the fear of those around her when her powers first began to show themselves, Kokone has developed a crippling dread of what would happen should her peers ever discover her Quirk's true nature. As such, she begins the story disguising her Quirk as "Engage," the ability to psychically link one or more people. She also claims that, in addition to its hearing limits, her Quirk only works on those who volunteer to enter the link, and that the only thoughts that get transferred to anyone are ones prefaced with the specific name of the recipient -- both lies of convenience to make people feel more comfortable around her power, and to tell her which thoughts they actually want carried over, and to whom, so she can make sure to only send the information people want to be heard.

But no lie can last forever, and as danger begins to stir around the young students of Ishin High, can Kokone really afford not to use her true power? Of course, the possibility she might be outed has always hung over her head ever since she was a child, but it has always seemed to her like a distant eventuality, and one that will hardly affect her anymore. With no friends or loved ones beyond her own mother, would she really lose all that much if people knew and feared the truth? Nothing would change, and she would remain the solitary observer she always has been.

...But what if she were to grow fond of her classmates for the first time since her Quirk awakened? What if she were to make fast friends and staunch allies? What if she were to fall in love? And then, what if all that happiness came crashing down in an instant when those friends realized the monster they'd welcomed into their midst -- an unseen phantom constantly watching their every thought, cataloguing every unconscious sin and judging them for it?

As of now, none can say. But one thing, and one thing alone is certain; when the truth is revealed, everything will change.

Known by the name of Absolute Telepathy, Kokone's Quirk is an anomaly tied to the sense of hearing. Provided she's close enough to someone that she could hear them speaking at the corresponding volume, she can also hear their foremost surface-level thoughts in her head at all times. Particularly emotional thoughts are like shouting -- easy to hear -- while the listless, unfocused daydreams of those not thinking about any one thing in particular are more like whispers -- barely perceptible unless she's particularly close by. But most of the time, people's thoughts just sound like normal spoken conversations -- and unless blocked by distance, earplugs, or some other form of obstruction, she always hears them, all the time.

Likewise, she herself can also project her own thoughts into the "hearing" of others -- though this, unlike reading thoughts, requires conscious effort on her part. She can use it on one target or many, and depending on how close she is to the target(s), can also send more complex information over the link. From far away, she might only be able to send basic verbal instructions -- but from close by, she could transmit emotions or complex mental images. Also, like her mind-reading, her telepathy only works if the target could hear her. If they're deafened, removed from hearing distance, or blocked off by a sufficiently thick barrier, her telepathy won't reach them. And, since telepathy requires actively focusing on sending specific thoughts and information, while it can't easily "misfire" and send something she doesn't want, frequent use puts her under a corresponding amount of mental stress, and can often lead to feelings of nausea, fatigue, and anxiety that render it difficult or impossible to focus on continuing to use the power.

As a final addendum, her Quirk has on some occasions shown the ability to perceive things other than just surface-thoughts, in forms other than sound. Colored haloes and auras representing emotions have sometimes appeared when she touches someone while reading their mind -- particularly when that person is someone close to her who she knows well -- or in moments of intense anxiety where her control over her powers is reduced. With this in mind, it's possible that her abilities will grow to encompass alternative forms of psychic analysis in the future, potentially including empathetic perception or psychometry. But, for the time being, these abilities remain beyond her ability to use consciously.

A cool beauty standing at a height of 169 cm (5'7"), with luminous silver hair and eyes like pale gold that, despite their brilliance, hide a deep darkness within, that few mortals will ever see, and none can truly understand... Something like that sounds cool, right?

...Well, to call her a "cool beauty" is definitely false advertising, but at least the "beauty" part has some basis in reality. Izuna is tall, with long legs and an athletic build, honed through a tomboyish childhood spent swimming in the sea and romping through the hills in search of rare insects. Her facial features are sharp, but not overly so -- with rounded, dimpled cheeks below to balance out her high cheekbones. Though, sharp doesn't even begin to describe her ears, which are long and pointed, and extremely expressive, perking up when she's excited or drooping when she's sad -- probably a relic of some of the many mutants in her family tree.

And this is precisely where the line between "beauty" and "weirdo" starts getting muddied, as although Izuna has many features of an orthodox beauty, she also has a lot of unusual mutant features as well. When she smiles, dimples appear in her cheeks, yes -- but she also displays some very pointed teeth that definitely don't look human. What's more, despite her outdoorsy lifestyle, her skin is extremely pale, refusing completely to tan or discolor... not to mention that on her back, hips, shoulders, the underside of her chin, and the outside of her arms and legs, that seemingly smooth, pale skin is actually mixed with an almost invisible layer of translucent scales that often retain at least some degree of water from her Quirk. This perpetual dampness makes her body seem to shimmer and sparkle under the light, but also, coupled with the occasional sharpness of her scales, makes it rather uncomfortable to touch. Her hair, too, is a silvery white-blonde that is almost devoid of color, and her eyes have very large, sensitive pupils of an eerie pale yellow hue, which can make it difficult from a distance to tell where her pupils end and her sclera begin. And, like those of a flashlight fish, they also seem to glow in extreme darkness, creating an imperceptibly thin beam of light wherever she's looking to allow her to see.

Strangest of all, however, are her barbels. Emerging from just below her cheeks along the curvature of her jawline are four long, thin tendrils with transparent blueish coloration, marked periodically by lines of glowing photophores that flicker unconsciously between pale blue, warm orange, and dark, vibrant red depending on Izuna's mood. These fine tendrils are also fully prehensile and quite keen to the feelings of air and water currents around them. Furthermore, they also end in bristling, whisker-like tufts that are covered in incredibly sensitive taste receptors, like those of a catfish, or like the tongue of a snake, allowing her to "taste" her surroundings even in open air -- though they're much more effective underwater. She can extend or retract them to a limited degree, pulling them back into a hollow cavity along the side of her jawbone -- but they always remain extruded at least partially, making it impossible for her to fully conceal them -- a fact she's rather self-conscious about. Thankfully, they at least draw attention away from the small, frill-like gill slits in the sides of her neck directly below them, but, well... she isn't exactly happy about how creepy those look, either.

Her wardrobe tends to be... rather bizarre, to say the least. Due to her tendency to randomly emit water from her body, she can't wear most fabrics commonly used in clothing. Cotton shrinks, wool stinks, rayon stains and mildews, and generally, most of the clothes she'd like to wear end up ruined. So, instead, her casual clothes generally consist entirely of waterproof items. For summer, she wears swimsuits, while in winter, she wears full-body insulated wetsuits instead. She accentuates these core items with waterproof windbreakers and bomber jackets for fashion and modesty, or full-length raincoats as a sort of pseudo-dress -- though during the daytime, she tends to keep her hood up whenever possible, as her eyes are extremely sensitive to bright lights and colors.

Ishin Academy's uniform, unfortunately, is non-negotiable. Though she's been given a custom waterproof version, it's very bulky and stiff thanks to its plastic coating, and doesn't have any means of covering her face to hide her barbels and protect her eyes, either. Overall, she rather dislikes it, but isn't quite so rebellious that she'd violate school regulations just for the sake of her own comfort, so she usually just bears with it, even if it looks really stupid and chafes her scales like you wouldn't believe.

Thankfully, it seems like the combat department was a little more lenient with her requests, and she's been allowed to personalize her standard-issue combat jumpsuit to a significantly greater degree under the excuse that unnecessary fabric would create drag underwater and inhibit her mobility. Rather than a full-body suit, it's more like a sleeveless, backless romper or leotard, with the arms and legs removed and the main body of it fitting her significantly more snugly -- a sleek second skin fit for a fishy heroine. Her arms and legs she leaves bare so as not to agitate her scales, and her feet are covered with oddly flipper-like sandals. Over the top, she sometimes drapes a hooded black cape and mantle, meant to cover her eyes when out of combat -- though its real purpose is mostly just because she thinks it looks cool. As of yet, she has no particular special gear or equipment, though maybe that'll change once she gets a budget.

Izuna's past is something she'd rather not talk about. Not because it's dark and heavy, mind you -- but simply because just thinking back on her elementary and middle school days makes her cringe.

She was born into a loving family that consisted mostly of mutant-type Quirk bearers, with a loving mother and father, and three younger siblings -- a brother and twin sisters. As the big sister of the family, she felt from a young age that she had to be responsible for protecting those who came after her, which probably sparked the start of her whole need to appear cool and collected. Unfortunately, in practice, that wasn't so easy, as her Quirk and physical appearance didn't exactly make that easy. As a kid, she got in trouble a lot for causing accidental floods due to not understanding her Quirk's passive absorption, much less being able to control when and where she released the water she'd gathered.

Looking like a fish only made things worse, and she got made fun of a lot for her creepy "whiskers" and big "dead fish eyes." In hindsight, she probably could have gone to her parents for help -- but they already had their hands full with raising her younger siblings, and, at any rate, she was the big sister; she wasn't supposed to be a crybaby who couldn't even stand up for herself. So, rather than lashing out or seeking help, she just kind of tried her best to pretend it wasn't happening, and endured it. She learned to print out individual page copies for all her textbooks, and got them all laminated so they wouldn't be ruined by her Quirk. She stopped wearing normal clothes and switched to swimsuits -- at least then she wouldn't get called stinky or get made fun of for the state they ended up in. When people didn't want to do things, they'd push things off on the stupid fish -- but that was fine. Her teachers liked it when she took care of little chores, and they'd give her the praise her classmates never did. She became a lifelong class rep despite her mediocre grades, always shouldering the burdens nobody else wanted to bother with.

In hindsight, even if she didn't really enjoy the job, it wasn't so bad -- since it was through her duties as class rep that she ended up staying behind late enough one day to meet another girl who was bullied for her Quirk -- a bright and angry child named Saika. The two of them ended up becoming a rather unlikely pair of friends, and it was, perhaps, Saika's "scary" demeanor that ended up inspiring Izuna's half-baked plan for a middle school image change. Maybe, if she could change how people saw her, they'd leave her alone, too! But a fish wasn't exactly scary... so, then, instead of a fish, what if she was a dragon?

...The less said about this period of dark history, the better. Suffice to say, she made a complete ass of herself, the teachers who had always thought of her as a good, studious girl were extremely disappointed in her, and her parents and siblings ended up hearing about the whole thing, causing her to quickly bury the persona of "Mizuchi, the Darkwater Dragon and Bearer of the Boundless Sea" and do her best to pretend the whole thing had never happened. The world just wasn't ready to understand her vision, or to appreciate her aesthetic. That, or maybe, she was just never really cut out for being cool, or confident, or a worthwhile big sister, or... or anything, really. After all, she was just a big dumb fish. What could she do?

As it turned out, that question got answered in a way she never expected. Her island home was struck by a typhoon, and flooding rapidly forced everyone to seek higher ground. Pro heroes rushed to the scene, but aside from the local Speedster Hero, Macha, they weren't able to do much -- and even he was hard-pressed to accomplish anything more than rushing people to safety one at a time. At least, until he was approached by a small child who offered him a plan that sounded just crazy enough to work.

"My Quirk can store up a bunch of water inside me! If you carry me to the other side of the island, I can release it into the air there as rainclouds, and it'll all blow back out to sea!"

It was a stupid plan, to be honest. Using an unlicensed child as a bucket to stop a flood could only bring trouble -- but Macha was a native of Sado, and something was better than just watching the whole city flood. Still, he objected. What if she couldn't handle the water and drowned?

"It's fine! I'm basically a fish anyway, so there's no way I could drown!"

With this concern out of the way, the plan began. The speedster hero dashed back and forth across the entire width of the island over a dozen times that day, braving the howling wind and the driving rain while carrying a small, dripping child on his back, who, for the first time in her life, was able to protect her family, like a real big sister.

The incident was resolved with only minor damage to the city, and the other heroes helped to cover up Izuna's involvement. However, in private, they praised her for her ingenuity and bravery, calling her all manner of things she had never expected to hear. These people were heroes. They fought bad guys, and stopped natural disasters, and saved people's lives. And they were thanking her and saying she was cool.

Maybe that's why, when she applied for high school the very next year, she found herself standing outside of Ishin Academy, bearing letters of recommendation from a local hero and from her teachers, and carrying on her back the weight of a big, big dream she'd never have dared to dream before...

Izuna's character arc is a fairly straightforward underdog story, coupled with a secondary plot as she tries to define her own identity and decide who she really is. She's a nobody with a big dream and a lot to prove, but has some big hurdles to overcome to do it -- her lack of confidence, her sense that she needs to be something she's not to succeed, and the like. She's taken her big first step -- but if she wants to keep following this path, she's going to have to face herself in the mirror, and decide that she can accept the person she sees there. It's nothing fancy, but hopefully it'll be a fun, wholesome romp with lots of cool moments as she gets to make all sorts of friends, find her footing, come out of her shell, and really shine.

With enough determination, even a lowly carp can become a magnificent dragon.

Known by the name of Rainbringer, Izuna's Quirk is a rather odd one. Whenever she comes close to water, she can passively or actively pull that water towards herself and, by touching it, store it within her body utilizing some form of pocket dimension, similar to a teleporter Quirk. She is then subsequently capable of altering that stored water's properties -- temperature, physical state, velocity, and even more esoteric aspects such as its surface tension -- and releasing it from any part of her body. Though it's a strange Quirk, it does have a tremendously wide range of potential applications, limited only by three crippling factors.

Firstly, though there doesn't seem to be a hard "upper limit" to how much water she can store with Rainbringer, the more water she has, the harder she has to focus on keeping it all contained within her, or on emitting it from precisely one part of herself instead of just her entire body in general. Should her concentration lapse, she'll spring a leak, and water will begin steadily trickling out of her storage from all over her until she gets it under control again. The more agitated or flustered she gets, the harder it becomes to concentrate, and thus the more likely she is to lose control and cause a small flood around her. Even if she doesn't fully lose focus, it takes a lot of mental energy to make sure she just releases the water from the part of her body she wants to emit it from. Eventually, she may be able to master her Quirk enough to fire ultra-precise streams of pressurized water from a single finger, but right now she's basically limited to just blasting it from her whole arm at once over a wide area, limiting the amount of concentrated force she can bring to bear.

Secondly, her Quirk only works on things she recognizes as "water." This means that, for example, water vapor in the air works, since the only way she can directly see or perceive it is by observing steam undergoing condensation, which turns it into a liquid form -- therefore allowing her to recognize it as "water." However, even though she consciously knows that ice is just frozen water, it's not something she perceives the same way as liquid water, and therefore can't be stored.

And thirdly, she's obviously limited in how much water she can employ by how much water is in her surroundings, and how much she has stored up. Even in a desert, she could still use her Quirk well if she'd prepared by storing gallons upon gallons of water in advance -- but if she hadn't, she'd be effectively Quirkless. Conversely, when fighting underwater, near the ocean, or in a rainstorm, her effectiveness skyrockets due to the near-limitless amount of water at her disposal.

For his age, Kaoru is fairly tall. At 174 cm, he sticks out as looking almost like an older student, matched by a shock of pale blue hair grown out into luscious locks below his shoulders, and a fairly lean and well-built figure. Contrariwise, his casual outfits tend to be nondescript - simple dark tees and trousers, albeit accented with a bomber jacket in colder climates. Lastly, his eyes have a habit of flipping between purple and amber seemingly based on his body temperature, with lower temperatures leading to yellower eyes; this is purely a holdover from an ancestor's Quirk, with no effect on his current Quirk so far as he can tell.

A great deal of Kaoru's life has been spent training.

This was not necessarily intentional, mind you. As most children do, he idolised the Pro Heroes of the world, making a certain number of friends based on mutual appreciation of heroes like Big Booster and Hawks. Naturally, when at last Kaoru's own bubble-making Quirk arose (a holdover of his father's air-blowing Quirk and his mother's skin film Quirk), he was delighted! Not so much, however, as he quickly realised that aside from maybe getting soap in somebody's eyes, it was kind of useless for actually being a hero.

Thus began an extremely unusual way of thinking for a child his age. A hyperfocus on what he could do, and what he could do to make it be more useful. To that end, he asked his mother Karin if he could take up martial arts! Surely that'd let him pull it off, and maybe even become a Pro Hero!

"Oh... I'm sorry, honey, but I don't think your Quirk will be very good for being a hero..."

Not that that stopped him from trying his five year old heart out. More friends were made at his new jujutsu and aikido classes, and after a special request was made, he also received extra training from a private tutor in karate, who went even further as to teach him more about his Quirk through internalising the lessons of kokoro, rei, and aiki - contextually attitude, courtesy, and will, and more specifically the will to combine one's energy with an opponent's not to ensure a mutual kill, but to overcome and redirect their energy to guarantee victory without injury.

Each victory in this respect was subtly denigrated. An effort to keep him humble - but in practice, moulding him unerringly toward the way of will rather than truly benefiting from a positive attitude. He started to grow snide, proceeding in his education moreso for his physical betterment than anything else. He began driving away his friends as he started to put himself above them. In private, he even made the claim to his mother that he'd be a Pro Hero with or without a Quirk!

"That's quite enough, dear! You need to stop pressing toward this nonsense; how do you expect to save people with your power when you can't even keep yourself safe with it?"

Again she put him down by trying to keep his ideals realistic. And as for his father, Kuuya?

"Son, sometimes there are things people just can't do- and that's okay. You can't judge a turtle for not leaping up a waterfall and turning into a dragon, after all."

To hell with his defeatist parents, then! If he had to leap up a waterfall and become a dragon to become a hero, he'd damn well do it! But that necessitated being able to make that leap to begin with - and they were right: bubbles alone did not a Hero make.

Another bout of highly unusual behaviour spawned from this. To solve a seemingly-intractable problem, he had to think around the problem's individual components. He could make bubbles. They had air in them, of course, but that seemed kind of incidental. So what about the bubble itself, the "film" part of the Quirk? How could he weaponise that? What could he do to make what was basically just soap into a weapon?

Eventually, at the age of eleven, that notion clicked in his mind. It wasn't just soap - it was soaps.

Once that realisation had come, developing his powers became a hell of a lot easier. He had something to work with; soaps to research, ways to produce soap that wasn't bubbles, and eventually the production of other fluids to clean with: shampoo! Lye! Bleach!

"Oh my God! Kaoru, what happened to your hands?!"

As it turns out, both lye and bleach are rather corrosive substances, and his first try at making them demanded rather serious medical attention to keep the skin of his hands from completely dissolving. Best to avoid them unless he couldn't help it, then.

All this time, he'd been steadily degrading in other areas. By the time he got out of hospital after that incident, he'd grown to realise his last "friend" really didn't see fit to associate with him anymore, and whilst he'd attained black belts in his martial arts, the group teachers eventually saw fit to bar him from further education, on the basis that he was upsetting his fellows and, in the end, didn't really understand what they were teaching him. Then bah; they could rot for all he cared. He'd spent all this time making his Quirk into something he could use, ensuring his martial arts and physique were finely tuned, then so what if they didn't want the same for him or themselves? He'd join an academy, show off his skills, and then he'd meet people who agreed with the way he saw things, and perhaps even educate some of them on what they needed to do to become as great as him. It'd be tough, sure, but if he could turn bubbles into a useful ability, what couldn't he do?

Kaoru's character development will likely be similar to that of Mirio's from canon - or rather, his power development will likely follow a similar pattern. Initially, his Quirk was ineffective in a fight, and whilst he has made progress toward its improvement, it still has a very long way to go to reach its maximum potential.
Furthermore, Kaoru himself is rather the embodiment of an arrogant kung fu guy: whilst not trained in kung fu, he has received education in various other Japanese martial arts, and he's very well aware of how far he's come from when he first started, all hidden by a veneer of civility that may make it hard to see the smugness beneath it. Most likely, he'll wind up receiving lessons on notions such as "being kind to one's peers instead of nice", "not thinking oneself the most capable person around even in areas one has no experience in", and "no, you cannot beat anybody and everybody with skill alone, there genuinely are people who are better than you in every way, and by a wide margin at that". Though depending on how the plot progresses, these lessons may take some time to internalise... to that end, genuine friendships not based on his being subtly pushy about how they act and how they use their Quirk will probably help him a great deal.

Once upon a time, Kaoru's Quirk might have been easily mistaken as merely the generation of bubbles. But with time, practice, and a great deal of consideration, Super Soaper proves to be far more effective than just this: its nature is the generation out of his skin of soaps, shampoos, and other such cleaning products, a disproportionately-broad spectrum of substances with the general properties of being slippery and germ-washing-away assisted largely by a strong knowledge of the associated materials and chemicals present.
In practice, the actual versatility comes with how he uses it: one of the most obvious uses is to cover an opponent in soap and reduce their friction, making it much harder for them to move around. He is not nearly so hindered by this issue thanks to a great deal of practice, allowing him to slide around on his own soap trail with immense speed compared to the average person. Additionally, one would be surprised how hard it is to concentrate or, well, see clearly with soap in one's eyes, not to mention the effects it can have on sensitive equipment such as firearms or electronics. At its most extreme, he can even produce rather more dangerous substances to inflict direct damage - lye or bleach come to mind, though as he lacks direct resistance to their effects, even producing them could cause him just as much harm as his target. More subtly, he could also damage his skin or hair follicles over time by producing too much of the wrong type of soap or shampoo; to wit, the stuff he uses to wash his hair every morning is a particular formulation designed to avoid precisely this.
Whilst lack of specific resistance is merely a limitation, his true weakness comes with the fact that all of his substances work best at a rather specific moisture level: if it is too dry, say due to an extreme rise or fall of temperature, his soap will film up and stop being slippery or pop any bubbles he makes before they can perform their function properly; and whilst some additional wetness could make the soap even more slippery, too much extra liquidity will dilute it beyond usefulness, if it isn't simply washed away outright.