• Age: That age where kissing any of the other characters isn’t considered gross.
• Emblem: A tattoo located just a few inches under her belly button, right over her intestines.
• Devil Arm: Formerly, Suki’s sweet arm was a set of heart shaped IV bags that she could control with her mind. Now she wears a bleeding hair pin. Her hands, legs, and dress are always soaked in blood, effectively making them magical weapons. She rarely fights with her pin directly, but can form the blood into other things like claws, blades, and tendrils. Effective range is just a bit longer than the length of her arms, while her tendrils can reach a meter or so further. The more wounded she is, the more numerous her attacks become.
• Magic: When Suki was a pure magical girl, her magic was based around love. Now it’s based around lust. Instead of enabling her allies as a nurse, she disables her enemies as a vampire or succubus. Though most just take to calling her a blood witch.
Anything she touches is slowly overcome by a “geas” that makes them charmed by her presence. The geas can be resisted for a time, but if Suki holds on long enough, even the most resilient magical girl will fall to her charms. She also has vitality sapping kisses, and kissing someone on the lips or neck greatly accelerates the geas, provided they have those features. Once she lets go of someone, the geas fades and her charms slowly wear off.
Miseria react strangely to Suki's lust magic. It confuses them rather than charms them, and her kisses can cause a backlash that charges up nearby monsters.
• Background:
Some girls should have never been magical to begin with.
Suki was not born into a stable family. Her father was a detective that was never home. When he was around, her parents used that time to argue with one another. It was no secret that her father wasn’t faithful, but they stayed together. Mr. Oyama didn’t want to split his assets with his wife, and Mrs Oyama couldn’t support herself without his lucrative job. This made Suki an undesirable symbol of their unhappy union. Her mother did the bare minimum she needed to keep Suki alive, and otherwise let her fend for herself. This made Suki a very needy girl.
Her parents failed to provide her with any self worth, so she tried to find validation in others. Her desperate behavior was a red flag to most, except to those that weren’t above using her. She fell in with the wrong crowd and became a delinquent. Her parents would scold her, but at least she was getting their attention. She would dye her hair, get piercings, and get into whatever trouble she could. She smoked her first cigarette when she was 11 and had her first beer when she was 13. But the other delinquents didn’t stick around forever. Most of them wised up and started taking school seriously, leaving Suki alone again. She still liked the negative attention she was getting from her parents, and pressed on alone.
Suki would get a reprieve from her mystery when she was greeted by a mascot. Naturally, she wished to be loved. The mascot already had a few magical girls under its wing, and they treated her with respect. What followed were the best years of her life. She was part of a team and was making a change for good. She saved people, even her friends sometimes. They helped her break her alcohol and nicotine addiction. They played arcade games and had sleepovers in place of causing property damage and petty theft.
But Suki wasn’t going to be a girl forever. She was turning into a woman, and her emotional needs were evolving. It wasn’t enough to be loved by a group of friends. They all had boyfriends (or girlfriends) and Suki didn’t want to be left out. She wanted to feel romantic love. The kind of love Suki had never known. She had seen how cruel the real world could be, and knew she had to pick someone from her group.
Suki set her eyes on Lada. She was a foreign transfer student, and a relatively new addition to their group of magical girls. She was kind, confident, and easy on the eyes. A real foreign beauty. When everyone talked about relationships, Lada was silent. Suki talked to the other magical girls and they were all pretty sure she was still available. Suki set out to have Lada join her on a surprise date. She was going to take Lada to a concert and then return to their hangout to ask about their relationship. She spent months saving her money for those tickets. Her other fellow magical girls were in on it, but she insisted on getting the money for the tickets herself.
Lada was surprised that Suki wanted to go to the concert, but it wasn’t hard to convince her to come along. They had a great time, and it seemed like it was all going well. But when Suki asked Lada about being her girlfriend, Lada laughed. She swiftly apologized, then informed Suki she wasn’t into girls. That was devastating on its own, but what was worse was that this all happened in front of her friends, who were hiding around the hangout. Once Lada left for the night, they all came out to cheer her up. But as kind as their words were, they couldn’t cease their snickering. She was just a joke to them.
They had never really been friends..
The following day she relapsed into her old habits as she let her despair fester. It only took a day for her dark emotions to corrupt her, and Nurse Joy became a blood witch: someone that didn’t need to receive love. She could make people love her. With Suki’s new powers, she immediately conspired to get that kiss Lada had denied her. It didn’t take a lot of stalking to find out where she was and jump her. Suki wasn’t good at stealth though, and the ensuing fight was messy. But in the end, Suki got what she wanted.
It didn’t take long for her friends to find out what happened. Suki fled to Hibusa Town where she suspected she would never be discovered, and joined the delinquent club after trying to seduce one of their members.
• Sample Post:
It felt like everything that happened in Suki’s life led up to this moment.
Lada’s room was a mess, but that was bound to happen when two magical girls fought in a small space. The bed had been overturned, the closet doors laid on the floor, and Lada’s dressers were reduced to wood and fabric, scattered to the four winds. In the center of the room sat the victor with their prize.
Lada’s sword had cut Suki deep. The wound ran from the center of her chest down to her right hip. It was a grievous wound, and she wouldn’t had survived it if she wasn’t a magical girl. Lada, comparatively, had no wounds to speak of. But Suki didn’t need to wound her prey to win a fight. She was sitting on Lada’s stomach, with a pair of tendrils reaching out of her wound to pin the girl’s arms over her head. Lada could kick her legs, twist her arms, but she wasn’t getting free. Suki’s hands closed around her face.
”That was a nice fight!” Suki’s voice was sickeningly sweet, but her body lacked any kind of malice. She used her thumbs to follow the curvature of Lada’s cheek bones, then the bridge of her nose. She dragged her index finger down the center of her face, riding over her lips. ”Such beautiful contours, just like the wound you gave me!”
”Don’t.” Was all Lada could manage. Her breathing was becoming ragged. The geas was taking its toll on her mind, but she resisted. That wouldn’t last for long.
”Oh Lada! I couldn’t bring myself to hurt something so pretty! But we’re wasting time, and the anticipation is killing us.” Suki giggled. ”I know your first time is a little scary, but it’s my first time too! So just relax and let it happen.”
Suki closed her eyes and closed the breach between their faces. Lada’s eyes went wide, but if she could have escaped she would have done so already. She opened her mouth to make one last plea, but Suki plunged her tongue inside. Her eyes dilated and her back arched, only for Lada’s eyes to flutter shut. Her entire body relaxed as Suki probed every inch of her mouth. The tendrils released her arms, and she wrapped them around Suki.
Suki pulled her head back with a gasp. ”Oh sweetheart, that was magical!” She wiggled on top of Lada’s stomach. ”Your skin makes me want to cry! You glow like a goddess! You taste like a strawberry! Well, maybe a little more subdued than a strawberry, but-” Suki kissed Lada’s cheek. ”See? You shouldn’t have said no! We could have been having all this fun yesterday!”
”I-” Suki wouldn’t stop laying kisses along Lada’s neck and shoulder. ”I’m sorry, I didn’t, know it, would feel like, this.” Her eyes were half closed. ”But, I’m glad, you-”
Suki placed her finger over Lada’s lips. ”I forgive you. The important part is you came around!” Suki leaned in to give Lada one more kiss, only to notice she fell unconscious in her arms. ”What? We didn’t even get to the spicy part yet!”
But their alone time would be interrupted. The other five members of Suki’s magical girl team piled into the room. They already had their weapons drawn and were ready to fight.
Suki shrugged. ”Yea, she decided to take a nap. I think-”
Penny, the leader of the unit, closed the distance with a swift punch. Powerful enough on its own, more so when you considered the cyborg girl’s fist was powered by its own afterburner. Suki careened into the adjacent wall, and Penny caught Lada in her arms.
”She’s secure!”
Suki didn’t even have time to stand back up before the other four girls stood in front of them. She placed her hand on the window sill to stabilize herself. ”Good evening!”
Penny stepped between the other magical girls and looked at Suki. ”You’ve got ten seconds to tell us what you did to her.”
”Well.” Suki struggled to stand upright. ”I kissed her? A lot? But it kind of tuckered her out? I’m a little new to these powers, so I might have gone overboard. I think she’ll be fine with some rest!” The newly arrived wouldn't notice it, but Suki's wound from earlier had completely healed.
”Not what I meant, but I’m glad that’s the case.” Penny raised her fist and leveled it with Suki’s head. ”Answer this next question very carefully. Were you involved with Nurse Joy’s disappearance?”
Suki tapped her chin. ”Only that we’re the same person.”
Penny’s body tensed up as her allies gave each other confused glances. ”You’re her? Prove it!”
”Let’s see…” Suki looked over her former team. ”Lily’s favorite animal is a wolf, and she still sleeps with stuffed animals. Her boyfriend Alexander got her a plush wolf about a month ago and she wouldn’t shut up about it. Maura likes flowers, but is too shy to tell anyone because she thinks it will ruin her tough girl persona. Samantha wet the bed about a week ago, but she swore me to secrecy. Sorry girl, you understand right? Then there’s-”
”Why?” Penny’s fist was shaking. ”Why did you do this to yourself?”
”I did this?” The corners of Suki’s lips twitched. ”The only reason why I signed up to this outfit was so that I could be around people who loved me. Come on, Penny! You were my friends! I healed you, I helped you out, we did so much stuff together! don’t expect you to get it. Everyone loves you, but me? I can’t get my parents to look at me unless I do something bad. I took Lada to see a concert and the first thing she does is blow me off when we get back. You all laughed at me. A-and I get it, it was sort of funny!” She sniffed, but shed no tears. ”But you’re no different than my parents. You ignore everything I tried to do for you, but the screw ups? The mistakes? the bad behavior? Ohhhh, that’s gotta get corrected right quick! No one’s gunna make you look bad!”
Penny pursed her lips. ”I see.” She closed her eyes. ”Nurse Joy is dead.” When her eyes opened, they were glowing neon blue, and every afterburner on her body fired up. ”The least I can do is avenge her.”
”Oh, uh...” Suki touched the tips of her fingers together. ”Can I have a do over or-”
The speed in which Penny moved could be compared to teleportation. Her metal frame slammed into Suki with enough force to launch her out the window. The shattered glass haloed the blood witch’s form as she was thrown into the darkness. They never found her body, but she was never seen in town again.
• Emblem: A small rainbow colored star tattoo on her left wrist.
• Devil Arm: Originally a simple scalpel, representing the small but effective change she could bring to the world, it has become larger and serrated with her loss of light. Now with a blade the size of a pocketknife's it is no longer an instrument of healing, but rather entirely one of harming.
• Magic: Ironic for a girl who has lost her innate ability to empathize with others, her magic can best be described as "Empathy." Specifically the ESP version, in that she has a grasp on what others are feeling at most times. Despite this being magical in nature, she has picked up some tricks from using it that allow her to notice ticks and subtle changes that broadcast a person's emotional state even without magic. With her magic, stronger emotions are more strongly felt, making surprise attacks against her difficult, but leading to the potential of hiding more dangerous feelings with stronger positive ones, if one were to be skilled enough at manipulating their own emotions.
Much more useful, in her opinion, is the ability to influence the emotions of others. Originally this came from her own, in which she could transfer her own feelings to another person to keep everyone happy and on the same page. With effort, she could enhance them as well, leading to her now infamous "Miracles" water. Now though, she is more of a taker than a giver. Her influence works by stealing the emotions from one entity, storing them, and transferring them to a new target at a later time. Inverse to her original magic of making others feel like she does by pouring out, she now makes them feel like she does by drawing in, leading to apathy and lack of goodwill in her targets in most cases. These stolen emotions fuel her magic further, allowing for her to enter a state similar to adrenaline at the cost of burning through her stores of emotion. This state raises her combat abilities and mental processing speed greatly, but like adrenaline it comes with a drain on her when it stops, though this drain is emotional rather than physical. As such, after rather intense battles with Miseria she will often spend the next day in a state of complete apathy, usually choosing to sleep the day away rather than put effort into anything.
For some reason, Miseria seem only mildly affected by her influence over emotions. Perhaps because they are emotions, rather than a being that produces them...
• Background: Some say that curiosity killed the cat, and fewer still say that satisfaction brought it back. Neither of these held true for young Tsubomi Kana, a girl whose mind is almost as troubled as her past. Yes, some say that curiosity killed the cat, but in fact the cat in question didn't seem to be much of a cat at all...
The strange creature, or perhaps machine, with the body of a housecat and the face of a television lay on its side in a pool of blood that bore the texture of static in the middle of the alleyway. Its head had been broken into pieces and a chunk had been taken out of its right side. Just inside the door that led to the alley were several drunken teenagers, clearly too young to be legally imbibing and without a care for that thought. Further inside were the flashing lights of a party where the youth of the town gathered. There were few rules here, and among them were none that prohibited the use of so-called "party favors." A few drinks of liquid fire, a few drops of illicit compounds, even a few needles were all available. Granted, the only ones that were supposed to be in the party were those old enough to drink, so why should they not be allowed the even finer pleasures of life that altered the mind?
Tsubomi was not the youngest at the event, though at fifteen she was still far too young to be there. Nonetheless she was accepted among the others... Of course, it helped that she was the equivalent of a walking drug, though only a scant few there knew her secret. With a few drinks of colored water from a bottle with "Miracles" written on the side in marker, a person could feel ecstasy without having to take a tab of it. This "drug" was highly sought after by the ravers, and they knew that only one person supplied it, and that its use was heavily regulated by that person. Even so, it tended to be a gateway drug to more dangerous things. Unfortunate, as Tsubomi made it with the genuine desire of getting people off of those more dangerous habits. After all, a magical girl was supposed to help people.
Eventually though, curiosity kicked in. What was so great about the drugs that people turned to when they ran out of their "miracles" allowance? She was bored, had sold all of her supply of her product, and was already high off the emotions of the party. Why shouldn't she do what they all did, and reach for even greater heights of pleasure? So she did. She took a hit of the next best thing to her own magical "drug," and one thing led to another. Soon she was over the moon and barely conscious. Stumbling out of the alley door, she came across the dead Mascot. The smell of blood was overwhelming, and- ...Blood? Did Mascots bleed? Whether or not they did was irrelevant, as it turned out, because the smell came from behind her, towards the nearby dumpster. The drunken teens lay mangled and broken behind it, and the sight almost shocked her back down to earth. Almost. And when the Miseria dropped from the roof above her, she almost managed to dodge. Almost.
Before she could react she was set upon and quickly subdued by the monster. Her life would have flashed before her eyes if she could properly experience the fear that she should have felt. Just before the creature was able to finish her off another Magical Girl who had been passing by slew the Miseria, freeing Tsubomi from the jaws of death. That girl walked away from the night disturbed by the bodies that she had seen but ultimately unharmed. Tsubomi was not so lucky. In her addled state, she had lost her reason and her hope of survival. Later, when she finally processed the events of the night, she came to find that she had lost her empathy. Not in a philosophical sense but in a literal one. She found that she could no longer relate to or care about other people. Soon her social standing at school fell to nothing, followed by her grades, and then her home life. She was eventually kicked out of her home, sent by her loving but unable to coexist parents to live with her less loving but more financially stable aunt and uncle. Doing so broke her parents' hearts but they couldn't manage to raise her alongside her siblings when she was like this.
Now, her new family unit was moving to Hibusa Town, and she was on a path to meet those who were more like her than she would have thought. Curiosity had not killed this cat, but it had tried, and it had irrevocably altered it nonetheless. It's just too bad that satisfaction wasn't there to bring it back.
• Sample Post:
Tsubomi only wanted the world to be peaceful and happy. That, and personal contentment. And to live forever. And to- Well, you get the point. She had a lot of wishes, so when she was confronted by a cat wearing a television on its head, asking what she truly desired, she was unsure how to respond. She spent days thinking it over, until she finally decided that she wanted to wish that people could be happy. If more people were happy, more people would care for others, and more people would help others be happy, right? Her wish wasn't granted in the way she expected, but it was technically granted. In exchange for becoming a magical girl, she would be able to hunt Miseria, the source of much unhappiness and general negativity. She was even granted magic that dealt in emotions directly, so if she worked hard enough, she could make many people very happy with her own power. The fact that she used this power to make money wasn't a bad thing, right? She had a skillset, and just like any skillset it was something that could be capitalized on, so why not get a little back for her efforts? Still, she stayed on the up and up, hunting Miseria and using her magic to put people in better mental states along the way. It really is too bad that she started getting envious of the people she helped...
---
Tsubomi walked down the alleyways she knew and hated from her school towards her home. Winter break was about to start, so it was cold, and the hoodie she was wearing was only helping so much, causing her to have ducked into the alley behind the liquor store to help keep the wind at bay. That was where she saw it. A creature of some sort with a television screen for a head jumped out from behind the garbage can and into her view. But Tsumbomi was more entranced than scared. She stopped in her tracks and the feline, for it appeared to be one on closer inspection, turned its static filled screen towards her. It took some time, but the creature(?) managed to convey its question: What do you wish for most? Whatever it is, the feline(?) was willing to grant it. To be honest with herself, Tsubomi didn't know. She asked if she could spend some time mulling over the question, and the cat(?) acquiesced. So she returned home, throwing off her backpack and hoodie after saying hello to her mother and sat in her room, mulling over the cat(?)'s question.
Eventually she decided that what she wanted most was to make the world a better place. But how could she do that? Would a wish for a better world really be possible? She doubted it. So after days of agonizing over the problem she decided to wish to be able to make people happy. She ventured back to the alleyway through the throngs of students now taking advantage of their break from school and found the television-headed cat once more. She took a deep breath, and gave her answer.
---
Tsubomi needed money. Her father had to take time off work and was out of PTO, so it was, in her mind, up to her as the oldest child to help out the family finances. She knew that there was quite a bit of... unsavory conduct in her town, and being relatively well liked at school had opened doors that wouldn't normally open for someone so young. A friend of a friend's sister's boyfriend's older brother was the chain that she pulled to get to a position where she could meet an honest to goodness drug dealer. And like a good dealer, Tsubomi gave out free samples. Not in her usual form, of course. She wasn't stupid, so once she knew the name and usual hangouts of her target she approached in her magical girl form. Luckily she already looked the part of a druggie, but she was the hunter here. Having approached the young man in a secluded area, she offered him a sample of a new drug she claimed to have developed. In all honesty it was just filtered water with some blue and red food coloring in it, but the lack of significant taste and the bright colors made it perfect. A bit of magic later and she had successfully altered the dealer's mental state enough to convince him that the "drug" worked as advertised. He offered a lot of money for a lot of product but she knew she couldn't do that. No, she had to make sure to regulate the use, not for safety concerns like she claimed, but because it only worked when she knew someone was using it.
She managed to convince the man and went home with an agreement to produce and distribute more in exchange for an up-front payment of more money than she had ever personally held before. She slipped it into her mother's purse unnoticed, and though her mother was an upstanding person who questioned the source of the bills, she also knew that her family needed the money at the moment. So she didn't pry too hard into where it came from, and Tsubomi never came forward to admit to being the one who put it there. She also never admitted to being the reason her siblings stopped fighting as often as they previously had, or why her parents' were so much less worried about the stresses of their day-to-day.
---
Now that Tsubomi has been brought into her extended family, she mostly uses her magic to keep them off her case. This made moving in with them and with them to Hibusa Town much more bearable.
• Other: Tsubomi has only just finished moving to Hibusa Town, and is about to start her first day at Hibusa High. Even though she has been mostly corrupted, she's still in the process of finalizing that corruption, and so there is still a spark of light in her soul.
• Title: Nyxia Torrentia, Neon Tempest of the Ultraviolet Rainbow
• Age: 18
• Emblem: A pendant shaped like a small retro ray gun. It hangs from a necklace kept hidden under her clothes.
• Devil Arm: After transforming, Norika’s innocuous pendant becomes The Omega Obliterator, an enormous technomantic energy cannon.
• Magic: Death Rays! Not only is Nyxia’s weapon a death ray, but she can also shoot them from her hands, her eyes, and even her mouth. In addition, she can pump magic into The Omega Obliterator to supercharge it with extra power (causing it to grow larger and even sprout additional barrels), as well as conjure a pair of hovering, ray gun equipped drones to provide additional firepower or point defense as needed.
• Background: Born into the wealthy and prestigious Tsukishima family alongside her twin brother, Kaito, it soon became clear that Norika was his complete opposite in every respect. Where Kaito was brave and confident, Norika was timid, her self esteem virtually nonexistent. Where he was skilled, she seemed to fail at everything. And where he was healthy and strong, she was sickly and weak, to the point of being almost constantly bedridden for most of her young life. That said, she loved her brother dearly and never cursed his good fortune.
For his part, Kaito was equally caring towards Norika, showing her the affection their parents refused to give to such an “utter disgrace of a child”, and using the gifts they lavished upon him for her benefit, rather than his own. He would play video games with her, read her stories, and even gift her with a VR headset so that she could experience what it felt like to play outside under a sunny sky. Truly, he was the sole bright spot in Norika’s otherwise bleak and hopeless life.
Alas, even this fragile beacon would all-too-quickly be snuffed out…
On their eighteenth birthday, Kaito reluctantly informed Norika that their parents had decided that he would study abroad after graduation, at a prominent foreign university. He would only be able to see her a handful of times each year, but, even so, he promised that their bond would never falter. Even as he spoke these words, he presented his tearful sister with a small toy ray gun, explaining that it would grant her courage and strength, even if he couldn’t be present to provide those things for her himself. It was by far the most cherished gift he had ever given her, and it greatly helped to mend her breaking heart. However, nothing could withstand the soul-destroying horror that came only a week later, when she learned that Kaito had died in a car crash on the way to the airport.
Her grief was so strong, it felt as though she were being suffocated by it, as if it were a palpable force that was literally choking the life out of her. That night, while she was crying in bed, the nebulous force fully revealed itself. It was a nightmarish horror, which seemed to rise up from the floor, a writhing mass of slimy tendrils and segmented limbs with the head of a demonic mosquito. At first Norika was frozen in fear, but then she realized that the monster was frozen as well, and that a strange cat with a tv for a head was now sitting in front of her on the bed. It spoke not a word, but its flickering screen showed exactly what this monster had done the night before, exactly whose head had been impaled upon its spiked proboscis, and upon seeing this, Norika’s fear turned to blazing, glowing, incandescent rage…
In that, the darkest moment of her life, even darker power surged into her, remaking timid, weak Norika into someone altogether more terrifying. In a blast of dark radiance, Norika was reborn, her toy ray gun now a weapon of horrible potency, and she wasted no time in making use of it. Giving voice to a scream of anguished fury, the transformed Norika annihilated her monstrous visitor, the ruinous energies of her death ray violently rending the nightmarish creature asunder.
Although she passed out shortly afterwards, Norika knew that what had occurred the night before had been no mere dream. There may have been no trace of the tv-headed cat or the monster’s myriad goopy remains, but the fact that her toy ray gun had now become a small, slightly glowing pendant was all the proof she needed. She knew what had really happened to her brother, she knew what horrors haunted the night, but most importantly, she knew she now had the power to kill them. To kill ALL of them…
Each subsequent night, she would transform into her psychotic alter-ego and kill as many Miseria as she possibly could. Already enjoying a euphoric high from her nightly slaughters, she soon discovered that each Miseria killed also increased her own power, making her even better at cleansing the streets of them. And then she had a twisted epiphany. If she could become powerful enough, her death rays could do more than tear though Miseria and mundane objects. They could tear trough the very fabric of reality, letting her travel back in time to the night of her brother’s death. They could let her save him! With this deranged video game-inspired goal at the forefront of her mind, Norika, or rather, Nyxia, has made it a personal vow to kill as many Miseria as it takes to achieve it, and pity anyone who dares to stand in her way…
• Sample Post:
In the otherwise silent depths of the night, the sound of muffled sobs filled the opulent bedroom, their source barely visible as a small, shuddering lump underneath the covers, dimly illuminated by the star-shaped nightlight in the corner of the otherwise shadowy chamber. This had been by far the worst day of Norika’s life, and as the night’s darkness threatened to smother her frail body, so too did an even more profound darkness threaten to smother her heart. “K-Kaito… K-Kaito…” she whimpered as she clung to her ray gun with all her meager strength.
It was an incredibly juvenile thing for a young woman of eighteen years to be doing, objectively speaking, yet Norika had always been meek and childish, something not helped by the scrawny, almost emaciated appearance of her illness-ravaged body. Yet, Norika didn’t care. This “toy” was a precious gift from the one person to ever treat her with kindness, and now that he was gone, it was all she had left of him. He had said it would give her strength, and she desperately wanted to believe his words. How often had they practiced using the gun to banish fears and unhappy thoughts. “Pew pew!” she would voice as she pretended to shoot those phantasmal foes, taking courage from the “weapon” her brother had promised would protect her just as well as he had. She tried to do that now, but the words wouldn’t come. Only tears. In the depths of her broken heart, Norika knew the truth. She was utterly, completely powerless and utterly, completely alone.
Yet, as she would soon discover, neither of those things were true…
The sudden flickering of her nightlight was Norika’s first indication that something wasn’t quite right. Peeking out from under her covers, the timid girl gave voice to a frightened gasp as she watched the shadows swirl and coalesce into the menacing form of a nightmarish monstrosity, a chittering, writhing mass of viscus tendrils and segmented, insectoid limbs, all tipped by wickedly curving spines. Eyes wide as she shuddered with indescribable terror, Norika instinctively whipped out her ray gun and pointed it at the monstrous horror’s mosquito-like head. “P-P-Pew, p-p-pew…” she whimpered in a barely-audible voice as she ineffectually squeezed the trigger. Tears continued to stream down her cheeks and her weak heart pounded like a jackhammer, threatening to completely give out at any moment. Yet, even so, she noticed that while her “weapon” might not have managed to harm the monster, the creature had stopped moving forward. In fact, it had completely frozen in place.
A moment later, the terrified girl realized that a cat had sat itself down on her bed. A cat with a static-filled tv screen for a head. Even as Norika’s eyes were drawn to that flickering screen, the static faded, only to be replaced by a scene even more nightmarish than the one she currently found herself in. It showed her brother’s limousine being attacked by the very creature now frozen before her bed. It showed her brother being violently pulled out of the mangled wreckage. It showed the creature’s spiked proboscis extending. It showed…
Norika screamed. It was a scream of anguish, a scream of horror, but also, far more than anything else, it was a scream of rage. In that instant, Norika’s heart shattered completely, only to be reforged an instant later by a dark power of unimaginable potency. Glowing, sickly energy surged from deep within her, remaking the fearful and fragile girl into something, into someone, far stronger and far more terrifying… Like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, Nyxia Torrentia, Neon Tempest of the Ultraviolet Rainbow emerged from the pitiful remains of Norika Tsukishima to utterly annihilate the wretched thing that had dared to kill her beloved brother. The ruinous beam disgorged by her massively enlarged ray gun utterly rent the hapless monster asunder, splattering its smoldering remains all across the once-immaculate chamber.
Her mouth spread wide in a sadistic grin as she gleefully took note of her accomplishment and reveled in the gleeful euphoria it filled her with, Nyxia tossed her head back and unleashed a deafening peal of psychotic laughter.
“YES!!!” she cried in deranged delight. “DIE YOU MOTHER FUCKING SHIT STAIN!!!” she screamed as she fired at the creature’s remains again and again. “DIE, DIE, DIE!!! HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!”
Collapsing back onto her bed in utter exhaustion, Nyxia hugged her enormous energy cannon tight to her heaving chest.
“T-Thank you, baby,” she whispered, before giving the weapon an affectionate kiss. “Y-you really did protect mommy, didn’t you…” she murmured, before slipping off into a deep and contented slumber.
It might have been the worst day of her young life, but it was also unquestionably the best night.
• Other: Due to a combination of her poor health and her family’s vast wealth, Norika was home schooled (when she was even healthy enough to attend lessons), and so is not currently a member of Hibusa High’s Detention Club.
• Devil Arm: An ovoid shield taller then Roche herself, ending in sharp points on either side.
• Emblem: A smoothed obsidian tear dangling from a necklace always hanging under her clothes.
• Magic: Counter! In guarding against an attack or sudden impact with the environment, Earthshaker absorbs the energy into herself and stores it along the white markings across her body. This energy can then be released either through her body or her Devil Arm for a reprisal of greater force than the original as she adds her own force to it. It is not an automatic response and requires her to meet the blow with either her limbs or Devil Arm with conscious effort in order to absorb the hit.
• Background: If you put in the time, do good work, and be diligent in all things, then you will inevitably be rewarded.
There is no path can be barred if one holds these to be true. Or at least, that's what the calligraphy hanging proudly from the cramped walls of the Hananami apartment told. The kanji didn't particularly flow with grace and the lettering wasn't to the exacting standards one would find from a proper traditional household, but it held a place of pride in the small home carved out in the city where a single father and his daughter lived. They were far from comfortable but they two had each other, and an unshakable belief fostered in one another that they could prosper together.
A young Ryoba Hananami looked at her father like he was a giant, his rail thin figure and growing bald spot unseen to the wide, wonderstruck eyes of a youth. He was a salaryman by trade, toiling the long, thankless hours of their lot with a firm resolve that years spent in service would be rewarded so he could give his daughter the happiness all parents wished for their children. He worked holidays, left sickdays unused, and never refused a call even at the bleakest hours of the night.
And young Ryoba watched it all with pride in her heart, and when she entered school quickly found a welcome home in the track team of her schools. Always out at the field long after hours, running under the warm kiss of the sun, her enthusiasm and vigor an inspiration to her team mates. She was a straight laced student and her grades were as sharp as her athletic performance, putting in the work with the hope of securing herself a scholarship and spare her father the burden of paying for her college. The nickname 'Roche' had been coined for her then, as she'd developed a habit of saving up for her favorite hazelnut and chocolate confections, smudges of chocolate seen on the corner of her lips after every victorious track meet.
In these happy days she'd become a Magical Girl, protecting the city as a Miko-themed paragon of light who shielded the people with a smile. Every life saved was a good deed put forward, off setting the balance of the onerous night and lifting burdens from those who struggled ceaselessly.
Yet reality was more than welcome to provide them in her stead, and children were ever blind to the cracks of their parents thin veneers of perfection till it was too late. For all his words and brave smiles, the signs were always there. The heavy slouch that seemed to draw half a foot off his height. Heavy bags and sallow cheeks.
She only saw the unpaid bills waiting at her door because he'd chosen to throw himself from the roof of his workplace rather than his home. From father to a grimly accepted statistic in only an afternoon. Just like that, and the fragile egg of childhood disintegrated around her. The world poured in and she found the deafening silence of solitude eat her in great, sharp toothed gulps.
The day of the funeral was where her light was swallowed to the last, kneeling before a humble, unadorned gravestone in a packed space. Another service was hardly a dozen feet away, and the sky was a cheery blue fringing with fluffy clouds that didn't even offer a token effort to commiserate her suffering. Her emblem, once a pristine opal, dripped color amidst tears silently falling down her sun kissed cheeks, and she found herself stained in the pitch of blackest emotions.
In those first dark days when she found the robes of a holy maiden upholding divine order replaced with the mantel of a shaman, she fed herself on delusions of some malicious conspiracy that tore her family apart, and did things she regrets too much to ever speak of, but ultimately she came to accept a simple, defining truth.
The world is indifferent. It cared no more for her as a shining Light Magical Girl as it did then as a Dark Magical Girl. There was no malice in her father's fate. Just a lack of care.
So the Rock from which the track team was built formed hard edges, a tyrant no longer willing to serve as an example but to take command. The Light Girl who endured for others had been replaced by the Darkness who refused to yield because she wanted to break her enemies. And the Detention Club had found it's Rule Keeper, for Earthshaker wanted nothing more than to make the indifferent world bend to her rules.
Her father was hardly cold in the ground and she had fallen so far...no, to fall implied something was pulling her. She was digging herself down into the fire and the flame, and the weight of everything she had known was pulling at her to stop. She exhaled as a screech of metal and wind pulled at her magical garb, the loose garments and hood leaving her far more exposed then her old robes. Still she found them her only comfort as she stood upon the train station platform, utterly alone in a sea of humanity. A stone cast in the current from which everyone unknowingly poured around as she went unseen and unheard.
Invisibility was good enough to be a super power on its own, but to Magical Girls and the monsters they hunt, it was a given. It made it easy to forget how useful it was for everyday life, but the necessity of her new situation had forced her to experiment. What wonders she could hear, standing in the offices of her father's employer. Listening. Reading over shoulders. Watching what was his world outside their home with hardened eyes, she hoped to find wickedness. The jeers of coworkers gloating over a deadman and his silly ideals, or perhaps someone preening over getting the promotion long due to the man.
Instead she was met with coldness of the grave. She'd never understood the term "Wage Slave" till seeing the bloodshot eyes glued to screens, murmurs barely passed as they worked and worked and worked, yet grew no close to a reprieve of success. Yet Earthshaker's heart still clung to it's resentment, and she turned from those besides her father to the one above.
She blinked to awareness as the train pulled away and she saw a man move to the front, waiting for the next one. She'd grown quite used to his appearance, from his rounded gut and the obvious hair plugs that gave him an air of a man gone out to seed. This had been her father's direct boss. A man who'd passed her father up for advancement in favor of others many times over the years. She could recall hearing nothing but praise for the man from her dad, and just recall those happier days set her fists curling at her side.
It had to be his fault. He was the one who could have opened the door and let her family flourish. The hate in her heart turned it to stone, a flinty thing that cut her as deeply as her foes. Distantly, she knew what she'd planned was abominable. Even to the order of Dark Magical Girls she knew flitted through the city, it was taboo.
Roche's unseen hand hovered between the manager's shoulder blades as she heard the roar of wind and shrieking metal, a moment where she asked herself if this would make anything better. The answer was a clear and resounding negative.
With an unheard grunt she pulled back, hand drifting from her unwitting prey, and alighting upon the man next to him. An utter stranger that then stumbled to the side and cast the target of Roche's enmity right into the tracks while she watched with a cold gleam in her eyes.
And in the coming weeks she learned that the world kept on turning, indifferent to either man's departure. The flame's she'd been digging towards grew cold, the earth hard, and she realized all that was left to her was the cold stone of her nickname. A hole so deep she couldn't see the light that once bathed her, but it didn't matter anymore.
Her taboo went unknown and she settled in among the Dark Magical Girls, a firm presence beside their charismatic leader. The girls around her were right there with her, in the dark and the dirt as they hoarded power like dragon's their gold. A cold world would see them stripped and worn to the bone, so she'd see the world break before her, and made to fit their dreams.
• Age: I’m seriously unsure why age is important in an RP where everyone is supposed to be a high school student.
• Emblem:REDACTED
• Devil Arm: It is difficult to tell where Ashbringer’s Devil Arm ends and where she begins. The two extra cybernetic dragon-like appendages mounted to her back are the most striking part of her Devil Arm. She can channel her magic through them to cast spells, or use them to help rip apart her prey. Her tail may also be a part of her weapon system, and the lower half of her legs terminate into talons. Very few parts of Ashbringer won’t bring significant harm to anyone who touches them.
• Magic: She’s called Ashbringer, what else could it be?
Ashbringer can command flames. Fireballs, fissures, and jets of flame. These abilities are basic in nature, but what makes them deadly is how potent they are. Wood is instantly set ablaze, water boils into nothing, and even stone cracks under the heat of such powerful magic. She’s impossible to engage without risking collateral.
• Background:
Ashbringer burned down a flower shop and single handedly held off half of the detention club. Now the club has a year to train before she returns.
• Sample Post:
I’m gunna say since I’m already accepted this isn’t necessary.
• Other: Maybe I should have just done an info card like the previous GMs.
• Appearance:
REDACTED
REDACTED
• Name:REDACTED
• Title: Sink Queen
• Age: Probably high school age, but she's a brit, so her charm may make her appear slightly older than she really is.
• Emblem:REDACTED
• Devil Arm: No one really knows, but she had a cute squid called Felix, was that it?
• Magic: Sink Queen's magic was not witnessed, or was it?
• Background:
She told the detention club about how to summon greater miseria called "Giga Miseria," and has allegedly joined forces with Ashbringer. Is slightly british.
• Sample Post:
See Ashbringer's sample post
• Other: Nah, I'd rather save my time making cards and make kick ass banners, amiright fellas?
Those out of it
• Appearance:
REDACTED
• Name:REDACTED
• Title: Magnificent Morganite
• Age: Possibly a middleschooler.
• Emblem:REDACTED
• Sweet Arm: Her dual, clover-shaped shields. They can take a shot from nearly anything and keep going.
• Magic: Seems to have the ability to make her shields fly around like nobody's business.
• Background:
No one has any idea what she says because of her weird accent, but she seems to really detest pervy stuff like hand holding.
• Sample Post:
See Ashbringer's sample post
• Other: I wonder if these extra sheets were even worth doing.
• Appearance:
REDACTED
• Name:REDACTED
• Title: Passionate Pearl
• Age: She smol, but she tough!
• Emblem:REDACTED
• Sweet Arm: A wand that shoots beams of light.
• Magic: Light beams, probably.
• Background:
An ally to Morganite. Seems to be more easygoing than her accented shield bearing counterpart.
• Sample Post:
See Ashbringer's sample post
• Other: I bet some of you want to pat her head.
• Appearance:
REDACTED
• Name:REDACTED
• Title:Badass Bodacious Boleite
• Age: She acts and talks more like a young adult than a teenager, but that might just be her attempting to act like a scientist with a big science brain.
• Emblem:REDACTED
• Sweet Arm: Possibly her strange tesla coil(s)
• Magic: It's not clear, but it might be lightning.
• Background:
She had a talk with Kiyo on a tram in Light City.
• Sample Post:
See Ashbringer's sample post
• Other: Look, a mature looking woman who's chesticles are smaller than watermelons! Ya boi is growing up!
Those blind to magic
• Appearance:
• Name: Misoka
• Title: Archery Club President, Humanitarian Club President, Miss President, The Do-gooder, The most popular girl in school
• Age: Probably older than 9
• Emblem: N/A
• Devil Arm: N/A
• Magic: N/A
• Background:
Hibusa Town is a dark and depressing place, like one would expect with the high concentration of dark magical girls. But much like the night sky, that black void has a few twinkling lights in it. Though few of those lights shine as brightly as Misoka
Her father works in the city, and her mother sells flowers out of a local flower shop. Despite not getting to see them as much as she’d like, they love her dearly and only want the best for her. This has caused them to have high expectations for her. They expect perfect scores on all of her tests, for her to be a model student, and to be a central part of the community. Many children in her predicament would be overwhelmed by the challenge, or at least lament their lack of free time. But Misoka leaned into her parent’s expectations and took them head on. Maybe she was always going to have to work hard. As someone with a foreign father, she doesn't really look like any of the native Japanese students. But she has risen above any distrust anyone may have for her with her friendly, well meaning personality.
It’s not clear what gave Misoka this drive. She had a relatively uneventful childhood, and while the detention club messes around with her in secret, nothing truly horrible has ever happened to her. Perhaps it’s just the suffering of everyone around her that’s made her so virtuous.
Perhaps it doesn’t really matter…
• Sample Post:
I’m gunna say since I’m already accepted this isn’t necessary.
• Other: I need to start picking artwork for characters that has normal chest proportions.
• Emblem: A shattered, oval mirror encased in a wooden frame. The mirror is split into four pieces - three of which are of roughly equivalent size, covering about five sixths of its reflective surface. These fragments are irregular and reflect the world in distorted colours. The remaining, triangle-shaped fragment is the only one that can still be used properly.
Her emblem used to be a Japanese-style hand mirror that had been repaired with gold.
• Devil Arm:Hakushu Herculean Gauntlets: A pair of massive gauntlets nearly the size of Shatterscape's torso. They are unwieldy, but their destructive potential is quite impressive.
Before their transformation, they used to be a pair of ornate gloves that could conjure a wave of force by clapping.
• Magic:Kami No Kekkai Hekatonkhiric Argonaut: Where once was one, there is now many. With considerable effort, Shatterscape may create copies of herself. The process takes at least twelve days, one for each step involved. As the last step of the process, she may choose how she wishes to use the copy: as an Oss or as a Khir. Oss are semi-autonomous flesh puppets without the ability to use magic or her Devil Arm. Khir, however, are true copies that are just as capable as the original host.
Up to twelve copies may be created like this, but only three Oss and one Khir may be active at once at any given time. Furthermore, the last step of the creation process may be performed on a copy as many times as desired, which means Shatterscape can gradually shift the ratio of copies to suit her purposes. She can also choose to directly control any Oss and Khir if she wishes, transferring her Emblem along with her consciousness between them in a split second, as long as they are within roughly four hundred metres of each other.
Last but not least, these copies need not be identical to Shatterscape's original body, a possibility which intrigues her immensely. While the process itself is still in its infancy, she can already change the colour of the copies' hair, eyes and make subtle shifts to their body structure.
Before her transformation, Shatterscape used to be able to create barriers of light that protected against attacks and if applied directly on a wound, would fill it with a golden substance that boosted the injured area's performance. For example, if a Magical Girl were to be injured on her arm, then if Kintsugi fixed their injury using her magic, she would be able to make sligthly stronger and faster punches. This effect was cumulative; thus the greater the injury, the greater benefit one got from receiving the healing.
Unfortunately, Kintsugi's magic was limited by two factors: Firstly, she could only use her barriers to fight indirectly. Secondly, her barriers also accelerated the natural healing of Magical Girls, resulting only in short boosts to their power.
• Background: Hiramatsu Sylvia Chiaki's story started before her life as her mother, stifled by her family's expectations, fled. Finding happiness and love in the arms of a foreigner, she distanced herself from her elders... Until her boyfriend abandoned her shortly after she gave birth to their daughter. Much too inexperienced and lacking everything to care for her newborn, she tried going back to her family. They seemed to accept her with open arms.
She died within months. And then Sylvia learned just why it was her mother tried to escape Chiaki discovered that maybe her mother had been wrong after all. Yes, her grandparents were strict, abusing Sylvia for even the smallest of her miatakes but it was for her own good. Whenever she followed their advice, they did not raise their hands against Sylvia her life turned out for the better of it. As such, she soon found herself deep within the world of Shinto, leaning into her role as an apprentice shrine maiden so she could continue on with the family tradition.
Out of all the old practices taught by her family, Chiaki grew to be fascinated with Kintsugi, the art of repairing a precious object with gold. While no longer practiced in its original form, the idea of it lived on in the form of repairing precious things and making them more beautiful in the process. She did not know why she was drawn to it, but Sylvia did and wished Chiaki would become aware of it. After all, she felt lonely and cold. Her skin ached. She could not even stand tall like Chiaki. But maybe that was all right, because Chiaki's smile was precius to her. So much that she could shoulder all of Chiaki's pain.
As the years went by, the abuse became less severe Chiaki turned into a fine young lady. She kept her grades up, because she lived in terror of what would happen if she did not socialized well, or at least as well as she was permitted becoming one of the more popular shrine maidens in the community. She performed prayers daily, swept the grounds and was allowed to even participate in the sacred ceremonies. She felt happier than ever, whole-heartedly opening herself to her precious friends.
As such, when a strange cat appeared in the middle of the night and asked her to become a warrior of justice, she readily agreed. When she saw this, Sylvia felt proud of Chiaki... But she also feared the thing. Somehow, it appeared unnatural to her. Almost as though it had a plan of some sorts. Or maybe she was just seeing things? Either way, she knew they had to be careful; the family could not possibly find out about it. If they did, there would be hell to pay and Sylvia did not know if she could shield Chiaki from all of it.
Chiaki thought this as an extension of her shrine maiden duties. After all, what could be more important than to fight against evil and purify it? Unfortunately for her, not only did her family disagree with her logic, the strain of fighting the Miseria started to wear away at Chiaki.
It started small. An argument here, an argument there. Breaking curfew, but with a good reason. A Miseria that left a nasty bruise on her. A fight that left her so exhausted she could not study for the upcoming test. Shouting. Huddling up in her room, wishing that grandma and grandpa would understand. Waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweat, the warped forms of Miseria seeming as though they were beside her bed.
She could barely take it. Sylvia could not take on this burden either. But fortunately, a good friend called Hotaru could do it. After all, she fought the Miseria hundreds upon hundreds of times. She knew their tricks inside and out, not to mention she was much more athletic than Chiaki. She also knew how to sneak out without being noticed, a skill essential to fighting the monsters at night. She enjoyed it so much she wished she could share the feelings with Chiaki. But unfortunately for Hotaru, the monsters scared Chiaki immensely. She did not want to go near them, never mind fight them.
Sylvia was much more amenable to the suggestion, however, and with the support of Hotaru, she too, started to learn what it was to face danger. And so she decided to not go out as often; it hurt her heart, but Chiaki would do everything for her family. Besides, her friends had the situation well in hand, or at least so she thought until a nasty encounter landed her in the hospital. Her grandparents were furious. They nearly disowned her right then, but Sylvia talked them down somehow. However, it soon became clear that they could not protect Chiaki like this. Not anymore.
As Sylvia and Hotaru tried to figure out what to do, another one of their comrades appeared, seemingly without rhyme or reason. Calling herself Ember, she spoke well as she argued for two things: One, the only way they could protect Chiaki was to restrict her freedom for her own sake. Two, they too, deserved some joy in their lives. Have they not sacrificed enough for Chiaki? No one would begrudge them for enjoying what the world had to offer. Needless to say, it did not take long to convince the other two of her point.
Choosing to take on a new name as the ultimate gesture of distancing themselves from their "families" and the world at large, the three created Takae Shuuko, a gesture which shattered and changed Hiramatsu Chiaki's already strained magic. From then on, the old magical girl was no more. Into her place stepped Shatterscape, who lived more for herself than the nebulous idea of helping others.
• Sample Post: When Chiaki made her wish, it had been the happiest day of Sylvia's life.
After countless years of cowering and hiding, Chiaki had made a decision not influenced by her grandparents. She did not go against their word, however, as suspicious as the cat had been, it gave them an opportunity. Because surely, if it approached them, it had approached others before. There were more like them. There were more like them! Chiaki could finally find friends, enemies, true peers... she could maybe even start wriggling out of the grasp of the old crones. Then perhaps Sylvia could reveal herself. She could make friends with Chiaki.
What a worthless dream.
Sylvia's tears stained Chiaki's bruised hands. They travelled down Chiaki's injured cheeks, touching the busted lips, then falling in front of her injured ribs. And yet the only thing she could think of was how these wounds were nothing compared to what she had suffered at the hands of Chiaki's grandparents. Her supposed family.
Because Chiaki did not do any of what Sylvia hoped Chiaki would do. She tried to bear it all herself. But she could not. No one could and Sylvia knew it. So why had not Chiaki listened? Sylvia tried to talk to her so many, many, many, many times, but Chiaki... Why?!
Without warning, it felt as though a pair of warm hands embraced her from behind. Carefully navigating around her wounds, Hotaru wrapped her arms around Sylvia's stomach, then applied just a little bit of force to let the other girl know of her presence. She remained silent, for there were no words, nor thoughts in either of their heads. They only knew that something had to happen or else they were the ones who would break. Chiaki? She could never take on their burden. Not even one percent of it. She was a precious thing to be protected, but she always, always wandered into danger by herself. And in the end it would be them who paid the price.
Kami, if only Chiaki had found some friends! But she never dared to approach the other girls. Not even when they extended their hands towards her, openly inviting her to join them.
More tears. Sylvia's vision blurred as Chiaki's hands bunched up, but there was so little power in them that they could barely move. She felt little hics escape her throat, a lump building deep inside of her, body becoming heavier by the second, almost as though someone kept attaching weights to her while she swum on top of the ocean. And she was so, so tired of swimming.
"Then why not discard those weights and swim towards the shore?" She flinched at the voice she never heard before. It was a little low for a woman, but it was steady, confident and full of emotion. "I... we... we all deserve better than this, Sylvia." Concern. The woman was actually concerned for her.
"Who are you?" Sylvia asked, trying to get a look at the woman.
"I'm Ember. And... it breaks my heart to see you like this." The woman seemed to step closer, her image becoming clear despite the tears. Tall. Short, red hair. Blue eyes. An adult both in body and soul. "You... I don't even have words. Hotaru, Sylvia... I'm so sorry for you. And I'm sorry for Chiaki, too."
Sylvia let out an anguished cry and sobbed into the already stained sheets even as Hotaru hugged her tight, making soft, cooing noises. But no matter how much the other girl tried, the sobbing would not stop. It flowed relentlessly, almost completely dominating Sylvia. Her face became ugly and swollen with countless tears, so much that the others could not help themselves and joined her. Hotaru cried silent tears as was her custom while Ember tried her best to keep it together - not that she succeeded.
"Sylvi," Hotaru voiced after some time. Her eyes were red and poofed up, just like everyone else's. "I can still fight. But you can't."
"Chiaki can't fight either. And I don't want to." Ember. "And I don't want any of you to fight. Children... they... Fuck this whole thing inside out!" Her voice cracked like a whip when she let her anger out. "I'm the one who should be in this bed! You're barely sixteen; what are you doing getting injured like that? Fuck... I'm sorry for swearing, but fuck. Listen. Both of you. When Chiaki wakes up, it is time to run. I know a place."
"Will we be safe?" asked Hotaru.
"Yeah. Those fu... err... your "family" won't be able to hurt you there. And you won't have to fight those things all the time anymore. You won't be alone either. Just don't let those bastards see you on the way to Hibusa and we'll talk more there, all right?" Ember gave the address to the two as she stood up. "I'll be waiting for you with icecream." She winked her puffed up-eyes before she left Sylvia and Hotaru alone once again, having left the number of a taxi and a place they could visit.
It did not take long for Sylvia to call.
• Author's Notes: As hinted at, Shatterscape houses four distinct personalities: Chiaki, the golden child. Sylvia, the protector. Hotaru, the warrior Ember, the schemer.
Sylvia, Hotaru and Ember can also speak as Shatterscape or Shuuko when they act as one, pooling their awareness and skills together. Chiaki, however, is not aware of their existence, nor that her magic changed.
"BUT IF THINE EYE BE EVIL, THY WHOLE BODY SHALL BE FULL OF DARKNESS—THEREFORE PLUCK IT OUT, AND CAST IT FROM THEE..."
• Name: Kuroki Kiyo • Title: EVIL EYE • Age:Older in spirit than the others. Really, who cares?
• Emblem: An udjat eye-styled tattoo on her back, at the base of her neck. Touching it allows others to see what she sees.
• Devil Arm - HEIMDAL GAZZO: A pair of magical crimson contact lenses. These once gave Kiyo an ability akin to x-ray vision, and a zoom feature which allowed her to be her allies' "eye in the sky." Now, her contact lenses emit a signal which, through eye contact, can cause psychedelic effects in her victims. Untransformed, even ordinary people may find her gaze mesmerizing, but with enough prolonged exposure in a transformed state, even magical girls can be affected. At first, victims will merely see or hear things that aren't there, but given enough time, the senses of taste, smell and touch can also be captured. If eye contact is maintained even longer still, the victim may lose their perception of time, believe things that are not true, or even remember things that didn't happen. After eye contact is broken, they will eventually recover, usually after a maximum of five minutes—but if it isn't? Kiyo claims her gaze alone can cause magical girls to fall to darkness.
• Magic - ABYSSAL TEARS: Her once-innocent wish to see the world was corrupted when she saw too much. Now, whenever EVIL EYE witnesses misfortune, wickedness, or other events that could cause Miseria to spawn, a kind of evil energy called "Saigai" is stored in her eyes. When released, her black ABYSSAL TEARS can form like sludge into monsters called "Sorrows;" most commonly levitating eye creatures called Mogall. These can transmit images of whatever they see directly to HEIMDAL GAZZO, giving Kiyo acute awareness of anything her minions are sent to spy upon. Mogall are weak, and can only use their sticky tendrils to stall Kiyo's enemies for just long enough to possibly allow her to escape danger and reunite with other Kurai Majokko—however, they can quickly become a problem if allowed to multiply unchecked, since they too can cry ABYSSAL TEARS. Stronger monsters capable of combat called "Traumas" can be formed using ABYSSAL TEARS, but using their wicked energies to do this will cause HEIMDALL GAZZO's more severe hypnotic effects to recede into more simple illusions. In theory, even more terrifying beasts called "Calamities" can be summoned, but this has yet to ever happen, so it remains EVIL EYE'S personal hypothesis.
• Background: Kiyo was once a perfect little angel, just like all of her sisters. Like many girls her age, she wanted to make the world a better place, but had no idea where to start. She wanted to be a good person, but wasn't really sure what that meant. She understood that it probably meant helping people, but it turned out that, secretly, she doesn't actually like working with people all that much—working with people who are broken and needy, even less so. She was the kind of person who had her life pretty put together, and didn't have much patience for anyone who wasn't just like her. She needed a clique. She wanted to see the world. Thus, when Kiyo had the opportunity to become part of a troupe of magical girls with ambitions to see all of Japan—and then the world—she accepted without question.
The other girls weren't like her, though. Far from it—they were selfish, and craved the spotlight that their role as heroes afforded them. Kiyo, meanwhile, did thankless work behind the scenes, mostly just scouting for trouble. She thought she was giving the other magical girls what they wanted: the spotlight. However, with her ability to see almost anything, anywhere, she quickly found out that the others did not respect her, at all. That was fine, though; they had a point: she wasn't great at combat. So, whenever she had the chance, she took Judo lessons. It was through those lessons that she got close to a boy her age, and eventually fell head over heels for him. The other girls did not take kindly to that, either. Most of them agreed that, sure, she was cute, but she was a "basic bitch," and he was out of her league.
It all came to a head when, one day, she was doing her scouting routine, and was missing him, and happened to pass over his place. She told herself that she shouldn't, but he had given her a key to his apartment by this point, though she had yet to use it. She figured it would be fine to just take a peek into his room to see how he was doing. She had seen many things in her life, and many evils which slowly challenged her optimism for this job, eroded her purity, and questioned her convictions—but seeing her boyfriend cheating on her with one of her supposed "friends" was the final straw. The innocent Magical Girl of Light, Eagle Eye, was never seen again, vanishing into the night.
Kiyo's blood ran colder than the surrounding night air as she watched, her ex-boyfriend and ex-friend taunting her with the warmth they were sharing behind her back. Both her face and knuckles turned pale as they tightened along with her chest, her heartbeat racing along with her mind as she weighed her options. She was not a fighter. Saya was. So was Nobu, but he couldn't take Saya in a fight if things turned south, and who's to say he was even on her side? Kiyo's face twisted, irate, as tears of anguish and fury silently streamed down her frigid cheeks, providing the only touch of warmth she would receive tonight—or for a long while, she supposed, for it was over.
It was purely and simply over. She had seen enough evil in the world, and had enough of being powerless to change it. All she wanted out of this job, at first, was to see the world, and to help the people in it, and she had given up on her initial dream of traveling when her allies had become addicted to the spotlight and the fame they enjoyed in Japan. Failing that, she had decided that charity should start at home, and resigned herself to help the people of Japan—but the government was corrupt, she saw. She saw everything, and was politely—with a subtle menace—told not to notice. The existence of heroes in this world was not celebrated—it was tolerated—perhaps exploited in some ways. The worst part was—or had been—that she couldn't tell her friends the truth—that everything they did was for nothing, in the end. "This is how Japan is," she longed to tell them, but the world had replied "this is how the world is, you fool."
It didn't matter anymore. Those girls, and especially that whore, didn't deserve to know the Truth. She decided, in this moment, to reclaim her lost wish: to see the world. The tattoo on her back twisted, becoming not an eagle's eye but a Masonic Eye. Her contact lenses receded from the bedroom below, refusing along with Kiyo to continue to witness such debauchery. They sang as they resonated with a subtle glow, showing Kiyo the world that she so wished to see—yet the blackened tears continued to fall, as she knew it to be both an illusion, and a sign of further mutations to come. She was turning, she knew—and could no longer muster the courage to protest the change. She would no longer be Eagle Eye, but EVIL EYE—the name coming to her as naturally as the wind, which chilled her more than the realization that she had become a Kurai Majokko. Her tears, too, grew cold, threatening to freeze to her cheeks. Her final speck of warmth was gone—as was she.
• Other:
Before being corrupted and becoming ABYSSAL TEARS, her magic once condensed "memories" into a magical energy, which could have turned the wonders of the world into powerful weapons—if she had ever had the chance to see them as a light girl. Unfortunately, most of the memories she created with her old light girl friends were lacking in potency, and these weapons lacked strength and luster as a result, breaking easily. The other magical girls made fun of her for it.
The kind of girl to wax poetic while typing in ALL CAPS. Maybe this is why she doesn't have any friends?
A tall, dark-haired girl with the characteristic lanky awkwardness of someone who hit their growth spurt early and still has the rest of their body filling in around it. Her eyes are a striking silvery color with just a hint of blue. She tends to slouch a bit and wear dark, baggy clothing. It's unclear if she wears dark makeup or just doesn't sleep enough.
As a magical girl, her hair becomes the color of her eyes, and her eyes turn brilliant gold. This color scheme extends to the rest of her, a half jumpsuit, half suit of futuristic armor (kinda like a combination of these,) complete with a royal blue cape and a sleek helmet that obscures most of her face behind a tinted visor. A pair of mechanical wings, wrought of steel and light, stretches behind her, somehow never becoming entangled with her hair or the cape. This, of course, is simply her base magical girl form; she possesses a variety of add-on equipment which modifies the form and functionality of her armor. • Name: 真栄田陽月 (Haruna Maeda) • Title: Hizuki the Daybreak • Age: 15 or so • Emblem: A small silver chain bracelet on her left wrist, with eight faint yellow lights giving the appearance of gemstones at a casual glance evenly spaced around it. • Sweet Arm: Hizuki’s Sweet Arm is, by default, a high tech naginata augmented with a short crossguard at the base of the blade. The blade itself appears to be made of solid light and can be used to fire quick, but relatively low-power beams. One could also consider her wings as part of her arm, as they transform alongside the naginata into a variety of configurations using her magic, and are capable of firing auxiliary beams. • Magic:
Fundamentally, the magic granted to Haruna by her wish is the ability to know what others want, and therefore adapt her behavior to it. This comes through in a fairly literal way, manifesting in a sort of telepathic ability, as well as being reflected in her combat magic allowing her to augment and change herself to fit the demands of a given situation.
The telepathic ability is unfocused, but always on, giving vague impressions of the desires of people around her, but shifts naturally with Haruna’s attention. Individuals in conversation or otherwise nearby and on her mind yield clearer wants in exchange for losing some awareness of the environment, and she can actively focus on this ability to refine it further. It is weaker when picking up the wants of other magical girls, even untransformed, but is boosted enough by her own transformation to give her a fairly clear sense of current goals when focused on one or two targets.
At baseline, Hizuki is quite fast and naturally capable of flight, but is generally an unremarkable threat due to relatively low offensive power without large, fairly predictable charges and not being particularly durable. Her true fighting strength comes in her ability to modify her abilities quite literally on the fly, passing through conjured “gates” to equip loadouts of specialized armaments and armors to deal with any situation. These also function as ablative protection, breaking apart before Hizuki does to expend the force of an enemy’s attack. After being damaged, depending on the circumstance and amount, it takes anywhere from fifteen minutes to a week or so before a given module can be used again.
Haruna Maeda could be summed up by many as an unremarkably remarkable girl. A good enough student to be recognized for her talent, but not much further; a good enough athlete to impress classmates, but no more. Good enough to have high expectations, but seemingly not quite good enough to live up to them.
Similarly, her family was nothing too special. A mother, a father, two younger siblings. Parents who wanted the best for her, but weren’t always the greatest at steering her toward it. Her more distant relations were nothing special either, scattered across a couple towns outside the city. The most interesting part was the occasional stories she heard from her cousins in one about the place being haunted, but as fantastical as it sounded, it had little impact on her increasingly dreary life.
Like many unremarkably remarkable girls, the gap between the expectations of Haruna and what she could actually accomplish grew. She was always pushed to do better, go farther, but there was part of her that never seemed to quite meet those requests. There was always something missing, some ineffable factor that lay just beyond her grasp, some small distance between average and genius that she couldn’t quite leap. The disappointment she felt in the eyes and words of her parents cut just a bit deeper every time. A part of her thought she might begin to hate them, or that they’d begun to hate her. She strained to understand what was wrong with her, what she could change to do better, why she felt like she saw her mother’s smile and heard her father’s laugh less every day.
Then, yet another mundane abnormality visited itself upon Haruna’s life. It freed herself from the chains of expectation that wound about her at the most terrible price. Not one asked of her, of course, as she could never quite meet the demands of fate, but of her family. A drink too many, a decision made poorly, a squeal of tires, and they were gone, for no crime but driving down the wrong street at night while their eldest stayed home to study. Suddenly, she was alone, save for a single relative that arrived after a day or two to care for her in the absence of her parents.
It was only three days after that when she met it. Not their household cat, but a similar-looking one, save for the fact that its head seemed to be a TV screen. She had no idea how it had gotten onto their balcony, or that her venting her concerns to an animal as she was wont to do would have an actual effect. Haruna wished that she could understand what other people wanted; maybe then she could have met their expectations. Maybe then, in some karmic way, she could have spared them from this somehow.
This was the birth of Hizuki the Daybreak. The vessel of Haruna had been filled with a purpose: protect and help others from things they couldn’t protect themselves from. Gather strength by being virtuous in word and deed. It was straight out of an anime, or a fantasy novel, ideas that had flitted past in wistful daydreams since she was young suddenly brought to reality. Hizuki would bring light to the darkness as a magical girl.
It wasn’t long before she encountered others like her, and heard the stories of Hibusa Town in an entirely new context. The hauntings and strange happenings she heard from her relatives weren’t ghosts, spirits, or sleep-deprived hallucinations, but rather the cloud of darkness that choked the air in the town. A host of dark magical girls dominated the land, and their light counterparts that challenged them would be chewed up and spat out without fail.
Whether it was charity, foolishness, a self-destructive urge, or all of the above, Haruna felt compelled to act. She would try to succeed where others had failed, and bring light to the town, one way or another.
• Sample Post:
Haruna looked out over the balcony, watching the last wisps of sunlight retreat behind the horizon, the evening breeze providing a small comfort in this trying time for the last heir of the Maeda family. What remained was far from dim; this was the city of light, though right now it wasn’t exactly reaching into the recesses of her mind.
As the final streak of orange vanished, something seemed to almost coalesce out of it, something Haruna wasn’t quite sure she should have been seeing. It looked a bit like their old cat, Tallboy, who in turn looked like a skinnier version of their current cat, Stripes, but she was fairly certain neither of those two had a television screen for a head. Wiping the drying tears from her eyes failed to banish it, as did leaning down and beckoning it closer with a soft murmur.
“I wasn’t really expecting a visitor.” The odd creature responded by lightly headbutting her, then pushing said head into her hand. “Okay, okay.” The cat(?)’s geometry made it hard to offer her usual chin-scritches, but it seemed more than content with having the top of the screen and its back patted. “I guess you must also be feeling lonely.” It looked at her for a moment, as if it could understand, then flopped onto the ground, showing its belly to her.
“I don’t really know what to do right now,” she started. “I didn’t. . . I couldn’t really plan on them all just being gone all of a sudden.” The ache wasn’t as sharp as it had been three days ago, but in its place was a yawning void. “I never really knew what they wanted from me, and now I can’t ask.” She wiped at her eyes again with a spare hand, not acknowledging why. “I wish I could have known.” The unusual cat stopped to look at her again. “Did you know, or something?” No answer, but the stare continued. It gave her an odd feeling. A question, maybe? An offer?
She thought about the feeling more, and something in her heart surged. She understood the question she was being asked, a question she thought was only asked in cartoons and daydreams. “Yeah. Yes, of course I want to. I want what I just said, I want to be able to understand what people want. Then I’ll be able to help them and be useful.” Maybe if she’d been more useful, understood more, that would have somehow stopped this from happening. Maybe this was her chance to make up for that. Whatever this meant in the grand scheme of things, she felt the light surging within her. She would be strong, she would be able to save people, she could help. She would help. It was as if the setting sun had just risen inside her chest.
Hazuki the Daybreak shook her head. She supposed it made some sense that her mind would drift toward that day right now, but she needed to focus. She had a mission, now, and that meant she needed to start as soon as she could. Her transfer would process in a few days, and she’d start the new school year in Hibusa Town’s high school.
The magical girl looked over the evening scene of Hibusa’s downtown bathed in the orange glow of another sunset, watching the shadows slowly ripple and shift from her perch atop a building. The other girls had told her not to come here, told her it was too dangerous, especially for a lone and relatively inexperienced light magical girl. She was determined to come here anyway, despite knowing they had only wanted to help her by telling her so (or, at least, wanted the perks that came from helping.) She knew in her heart that she could make some kind of difference here - and it’s not as if a single newbie would be any great loss if she couldn’t.
She focused, casting out with her power. Almost immediately, she found a fearful soul crying out for someone to save them. Whether it be mugger or Miseria, she would answer the call. It was time to begin.
• Other: I’m not apologizing for my blatant references. Sue me.
