Sheet:Ikiko Hisakata
Ikiko Hisakata's Sheet
Background
The Hisakata family is known among Curse Hunter circles for their skills in fighting lycanthropy, a talent they became famous for about three generations ago. Ironically, the item that was most pivotal in the incident that earned the family renown was rendered unusable by the same incident. That item, unnamed at the time, is now known as the Lycan Locket.
The Lycan Locket, despite its name, does not cause lycanthropy -- or at least, not in the traditional sense. Instead, it augments and amplifies the essence of the one wearing it, allowing them to assume a more idealized version of themselves. The Curse Hunter who first used the locket, Yuuki Hisakata (a great-grandfather of Ikiko) wore it when he faced down a werewolf, trusting it to protect him against lycanthropy. The gambit worked, albeit imperfectly: after being bitten by the werewolf, the Curse Hunter's form became more wolflike, but he retained enough humanity to defeat the werewolf and break the curse. The wolf-like features vanished when the Curse Hunter removed the locket, but reappeared when he donned it again; it appeared that the werewolf's bite left a lingering curse on the locket.
Yuuki Hisakata tried to remove the curse from the locket, but at best was only able to suppress all of the powers of the locket, rendering it inert. Without the amplification the locket provided, the lycanthropy caused by the werewolf was so faint as to not be readily noticeable -- at most, existing hair grows 5% longer during a full moon. While a casual scan for magic won't reveal the traces of lycanthropy, a thorough examination will pick up on its mystical signature. The presence of this "curse" turned out to be somewhat beneficial, however, as it gave the Hisakata family a slight edge when dealing with curses based on lycanthropy or other transformations of similar nature.
As for the Lycan Locket itself, it was placed in a box to keep safe. For many years, the box was kept in visible storage by Yuuki; the better to keep an eye on it. In recent years, however, old age has been catching up with the elderly Curse Hunter, and the box was placed in the family's storeroom with other items from his youthful days.
This brings us to Ikiko. Great-granddaughter of Yuuki Hisakata and part of a family active in the Curse Hunter tradition, she grew up listening to tales of her family's experiences as Curse Hunters. While she was well-versed in the basics of Curse Hunter lore, Ikiko had never actually seen the Lycan Locket. One day, her parents told her to clean the storeroom as part of spring cleaning. Ikiko liked cleaning the storeroom, because she had permission to carefully look through any box that was not sealed while she cleaned. Sometimes she found old things that were still usable, like yukatas from a few decades ago, or an enjoyable book a few years old. This time, a locket on a neckband caught Ikiko's eye. It looked pretty in an elegant way, and the locket itself felt good in her hand, so Ikiko put it on and took it with her when she had finished cleaning the storeroom.
That night, after Ikiko had gone to sleep, she woke up with a sense of restlessness. Opening the window to her room, the moonlight of the full moon seemed to call out to her. As if in a dream, she leapt out of her window (on the second floor!), landing gracefully before darting off to frolic in the moonlight. Ikiko danced and sang with stray dogs in the neighborhood, and at one point even chased off a shadowy figure that was lurking near the house of a classmate. Satisfied with what she thought was a fun dream, Ikiko headed back home, leaping into her window (from the ground to the second floor!) and heading back into bed, fully intent on spending the rest of her sleep in bed.
However, when Ikiko glanced at the mirror in her room before heading back to bed, she got a shock: staring back at her was a wolfgirl! With a start, she realized that she wasn't dreaming, and the tales of her great-grandfather's fight against the werewolf came to her mind. Realizing that this was the same locket as from the stories, she quickly took it off and dove into bed, afraid of what her family would do if they found out that she had used this cursed artifact.
The next day, Ikiko brought the Lycan Locket with her to the public school she attended, trying to keep her family from finding it in her room. She was less cheerful than her friends were used to, but she tried to wave it off like it was nothing. Still, the fact that the Lycan Locket had apparently awoken the faint lycanthropy in her family's blood was weighing heavy on her. That changed when she overheard a conversation between some of her classmates: one of them had been having unusual nightmares recently, but they had suddenly ended last night. The classmate couldn't recall much, but he did remember hearing a dog howl, and after that the nightmares didn't return. Ikiko recognized the classmate as the one whose house Ikiko had fought the shadowy figure outside of, and that it was her howl that the classmate had heard. This made her realize that she could do good things with the Lycan Locket, and that she was in charge of the wolf within her, not the other way around. During a break, she put the locket back on, confident in her goal to help others.
A couple of days after the incident where Ikiko had re-awoken the power of the Lycan Locket, a letter came to her family, inviting her to join RHA. It was a surprise to her and her entire family, but Ikiko leapt at the opportunity: for one, it would be a point of honor for her family for her to attend Radiant Heart Academy (which might make her family's reaction to her inadvertently reactivating the Lycan Locket less harsh), and living in the dorms would undoubtedly give her more space than the traditional-mansion-turned-apartments that her extended family lived in (making it less likely that her family would *discover* that she had inadvertently reactivated the Lycan Locket).
By now, Ikiko has mostly settled into RHA, taking advantage of the summer break to move in without missing classes. She still hasn't told her family that she's wearing the Lycan Locket, however -- she's still afraid of what they might do, and she's especially afraid of disappointing great-grandfather Yuuki.
Personality
The three things that best describe Ikiko are Friendly, Out-going, and Helpful. She's usually one of the first people to ask others "what's wrong?" when they're feeling down, and she's generally willing to lend a hand to those that need it. If the pride of someone in need of help doesn't let them accept it, she'll still do her best to assist them while respecting their pride -- for example, "accidentally" packing too much food when she's going to have lunch with someone who's having to skimp on meals due to money trouble. As a person with secrets of her own, she respects the secrecy of others, although she will seek ways of offering discreet help if she thinks the person needs it. Beyond those aspects, Ikiko is a bit on the rough-and-tumble side, enjoying sports for the casual fun of it and not being afraid to get her hands dirty. Her favorite class in school is P.E., although she also likes music, fine arts, and home ec, albeit to a more limited extent. The common thread? Getting up and *doing* something, especially if it's freeform! Yes, precision and care can be important, but when they aren't? Go have fun!
Ikiko is one of the driving forces behind the Animal Care club, both previously at her old school and now at RHA, helping to take care of animals in the neighborhood. On a related note, she also gives occasional meals to strays across Tokyo; if asked, she says it's part of a club project, but it's just her way of keeping in touch with her animal friends. If an athletics club needs to borrow a member or two for something, Ikiko is usually willing to help out, but they have to ask her; generally, she won't volunteer ahead of time.
As Cute Wolf Tsukiko, she focuses on protecting those who cannot protect themselves against Darkness (especially animals in general and strays in particular), but her biggest desire is to eventually prove to her family -- *especially* great-grandfather Yuuki -- that the Lycan Locket can still be used for good, even with the sliver of (now-domesticated) wolf-spirit still in the family bloodline.
How that is going to work, she doesn't know yet.
But in the meantime, she'll patrol the night, looking for trouble to avert and people to help -- the former because her Curse Hunter training emphasizes dealing with problems before they get too big, and the latter because having comrades-in-arms is a good thing... especially if they become friends as well (and she does love making friends!).
The biggest impact on how Ikiko's Curse Hunter upbringing affects her personality is that she is very much in favor of redemption and therapeudic purification. There are countless tales, both in folklore and in the tales of various Curse Hunter families, of people who suffered from curses that they wish they could get out of, and how trying to protect others sometimes results in getting cursed in their stead. Rescuing them, as long as there's a sliver of goodness that can be salvaged from the darkness, means that you can recover friends and family that otherwise would have been lost if you simply destroy all manifestations of Darkness.
But those whose souls are pitch black, who are unrepentent in their villany and have zero capability of redemption? *Those* she strikes down fiercely.
Focus
Wherever there is good fortune and misfortune, there will be blessings and curses; such is the nature of fortune. And wherever there are blessings and curses, there will be people seeking to influence them; such is the nature of people.
There are four general categories of those who fit the Accursed origin: * Those that are cursed themselves, whether it be due to bloodline, location, or even just annoying the wrong entity of power. * Those that have acquired a cursed item of some form or another -- it might even count as a person! * Those that sling curses at their foes (*usually* antagonists, and may or may not be Dark Energy-focused). * Those that have been empowered for the purpose of breaking a curse that is affecting someone else.
Note that these can overlap at times; more importantly, sometimes a curse can actually be a blessing that doesn't *quiiite* work right.
No matter what category they might fit into, an Accursed generally uses an item of some variety or another in order to access their powers: trinkets that invoke compromised blessings, tomes of hexes, and haunted doodads are simply three of the countless possibilities of power-access items. Mascots are not unheard of, but aren't a requirement -- that said, sometimes the curse does come with its own mentor, particularly in cases where the *mentor* is the one that's cursed.
Style
Accursed henshins and combat styles are roughly as varied as the curses themselves, and naming traditions are likewise scattershot. Those that work more closely together tend to adopt similar naming formats, but this is by no means guaranteed. Henshin outfits generally reflect the nature of the related curse, as does the particulars of how a given Accursed fights; calling out named attacks tends to be more common with those where the curse is external to them, but it's not guaranteed in either direction.
Purification tends to be limited to those whose curse is a malfunctioning blessing, although other utility effects tend to not be as restricted. Healing of any sort is not common, and usually just first aid or "second wind" in nature; buffs run the gamut from uncomplicated to "power, at a cost", and in scale from personal boosts to widespread team assists. You might not know *what* you're getting when you meet a new Accursed at a fight, but you're bound to discover it quickly enough.
Powers
Cute Wolf Tsukiko is, to put it simply, a brawler and a skirmisher. In a straight-up fight, she strongly favors kicks over punches, and using her incredible speed to outmaneuver foes to get past their defenses. While she can withstand moderate hits and recover from injuries faster than most magical girls, her primary defense is to dodge the attacks; getting slowed down *severely* limits her combat capability.
In a pinch, especially in a crowded scrum or a close grapple, she can bite, her fanglies briefly getting an extension of silvery energy that, while not a full-fledged purification attack, definitely leaves a bit of a burn on Dark Energy foes. Note that this bite does NOT transmit lycanthropy, as Tsukiko's soul, despite being amplified by a factor of 10-20, is not overpressured as a standard werewolf's is.
At this point, Cute Wolf Tsukiko is lacking anything that could really be defined as utility powers. She can run fast, although her primary cross-town travel power is jumping: clearing a major arterial is simple enough from a standing start, for example, and she can maintain "jump on landing" momentum.
When working with others, Tsukiko uses her speed in a support role, harrying foes to either keep them from evading the attacks of her allies or preventing them from reaching her back-line allies. That said, if the fight is tactically simple enough, Tsukiko will gladly go on the offensive, taking down opponents while staying out of the blast radii of her allies.
The only named powers in Tsukiko's arsenal -- and they're not even "call out the attack name" powers -- are her finishers: Silver Wolf Tackle and Soulful Howl.
Silver Wolf Tackle is a straightforward dash attack: Tsukiko accelerates beyond her usual impressive speed, still maintaining her cornering, until she reaches critical velocity. At that point, she launches forward in a silvery blur of mostly-energy, striking sort of like a cross between a railgun and an iajitsu strike before decelerating back down to humanoid form. Note that this attack is movement-based, so limiting her ability to get up to speed can hinder (or even prevent) this attack. Also, this attack uses up most of her speed, limiting how fast she can go afterwards; most of the time, this can only be used once in a fight. Side note: speed buffs from allies mostly help with spool-up (less acceleration needed) and recovery (the higher her current max speed, the faster her max speed recovers)... but if she gets a speed buff *right* at the time of launch, the damage MASSIVELY increases... as does the amount of distance needed to decelerate afterwards, usually removing her from the fight.
Soulful Howl is a purification attack, particularly useful against manifestations of dark emotions, but mostly ineffective in purely physical combat. It soothes broken hearts, reminds people of the good things in life, and lets them know that Things Will Get Better. The howl is always wordless, and the specifics of the feelings it invokes vary depending on the circumstances, but it's soothing to both ear and heart, especially for magical girls/boys (think 'first aid for morale/spirit'). Those powered by Dark Energy, however, hear it differently: manifestations of dark emotions are pacified and purified (especially if their emotion is directly countered), while other wielders of Dark Energy hear the Soulful Howl as being *painfully* dissonant as the purification clashes with their soul. Speed is not as important as it is for Silver Wolf Tackle, and thus the howl can be used even if immobilized; however, converting speed *does* boost effective range and area.
