World of Origin: Jericho VII, Haloverse
Name: Azumi Tamashī
Age: 21
Gender: Female
Species: Shadowbound Human (Unversed Mutated)
Appearance: A five-foot-eight-inch young woman of apparent Asian descent with fair skin, though noticeably pale from her connection to Vanitas's Unversed. There is a red mark on her face in the shape of a Sinister Stone turned one quarter turn clockwise, the main curve around the right eye, and the smaller one around the left, which changes depending on other forms of hers. Her eyes are a faintly glowing red, glowing when using her powers. She has what appears to be a tattoo of the symbol of the Unversed just between her shoulder blades on her back, but is actually a part of her skin naturally. She also has a relatively sizable bust in contrast to her otherwise toned physique, though it is usually hidden from view if she is wearing her chestplate.
Her hair, auburn with seemingly natural streaks of blue running through it, with white tips to the ends that are as natural as the rest, the entire length reaching about a quarter to a third down her back if loose, with the hair parted on the left side. It is commonly held together in a ponytail behind her back. Otherwise, in formal settings, she holds it in a twist around her head.
Her armor, originally cracked and broken, is fitted around her body with what is left of it, with relatively form-fitted light armor, mainly consisting of a dark gray chestplate, along with elements of armored legs on her knees, shins, and the sides of her calves. Underneath, she wears dark navy pants, and a lighter gray shirt. There is a similarly dark hood over her head connected to a piece that reaches over her shoulders, though being attached to the main suit. She wears a dark gray jacket that reaches just a bit below her bust on the back, and down just below her elbows on her sleeves, leaving a bare space on her forearms before two black gloves on her hands. Attached to a black belt is a collection of blue, shredded strips of cloth in a kind of tail to her knees behind her back, patterned in part after Aqua's own half-skirt. When she uses her powers, the gloves on her armor turn blood red, and shadows or dark green energy may seem to creep up her arms. See her in armor here.
When she is away from her work, she wears a dark baseball cap with a simple UNSC logo in black, her hair typically in a ponytail through the back of it. She wears a tight-fitted blue shirt along with darker blue pants, with a red jacket over it all that hides her gun on the inside, her shadow knife in one of her brown boots. She also has on a tighter support on her chest, making it appear smaller but also helping to lessen attention to her body a bit. See her in her causal outfit (along with without the main elements of her armor in a formal appearance) here.
Personality: In most cases, Azumi can be relatively friendly, if a bit gruff with new people. However, on account of her mutation, she has become a bit irritable, which becomes worse the stronger her powers become at any given time. Despite said irritability, she does her best not to show it, to bottle it in so as to allow for stronger outbursts of power when in combat. As a result, she appears relatively stoic much of the time, despite her occasional smiles or outbursts of rage. As she sees it, anger has no purpose beyond what it can do for her, and she sees herself as fearing almost nothing anymore due to her time in the dark. However, this discrepancy can lead to frighteningly wild outbursts of power when in combat, especially in close range.
On the other hand, her emotions can break down over feelings of guilt. If she believes that she is responsible for something or someone, including if they were endangered by being close to her or she feels she failed to save them, she will take it very badly and work to make up for it any way she can unless she is either able to absolve the debt or is shown how it is not her fault (such as her involvement having had nothing to do with the danger, or her being forced away being unrelated to her inability to save someone). The main exception comes with deaths or events where she believes she could not have done any better, both of which she "files away" internally as being beyond her ability to help.
When it comes to matters of conflict, especially military in nature, she is very serious, up to reprimanding others if they casually use weaponry. Due to her experiences with the military, she is prone to call those in authority by their proper titles and salute at times, though she is prone to rescind that behavior if she sees them as not worth the effort for one reason or another, be it due to rampant incompetence or immorality. In extreme cases such as sending out people who are unprepared into a war zone intentionally, she may even scream and swear at them, though her stoicism usually keeps that in check at least until she is away from them.
Due to living for a while either as a soldier or an assassin, she tends to view any given situation based on its threat level. Further, as a result of her time in the Realm of Darkness, as well as her time in war and the fall of a world, resulted in her having some minor degree of post-traumatic stress, at least enough to freeze up if faced with truly massive amount of Heartless, or even lose herself to her rage in those times. She also has other more minor symptoms, such as nightmares and an exaggerated startle response, barring her increased irritability from her powers. For the startle response, she is prone to perform such acts as throwing a potential assailant to the ground and contemplate how to kill them quickly before noticing others watching her and telling the target off instead.
She is out of practice when it comes to normal hobbies, using them to keep herself occupied rather than for fun in and of itself. For example, she mostly reads in her free time to keep from dwelling on her failures or her actions and other experiences in wartime, not really taking notice if she likes it or not unless asked. Similarly, she works out often out of an intrinsic fear of becoming weaker and unable to either defend herself (even through proactive violence) or protect others.
She does her best to be friendly, joking around with people at times, and has a sarcastic sense of humor. With children, especially those who don't know enough about the worlds to fear her, she is kind and encouraging, especially toward those who show their bravery, though she knows when to tell them to run. In general, she tries to treat the young like they are just other people, basing her opinions on experience over age, taking into account her own underage enlisting and only really modifying her language rather than her message.
While she has experience with people's attraction to her, and she is capable of using that to her advantage, she doesn't particularly care about how she looks outside of how it may be drawing too much (or not enough) attention to her at any given point from a pragmatic point of view.
Due to being conditioned to feel that the dark is something to fear, coupled with the reactions of common people to her powers, she becomes irritated when called out for them or her mark, but not to a serious degree, mostly trying to keep her face hidden to avoid conflict in that regard. However, if people point out her mark and refuse to judge her for it, or like it on her for reasons beyond its power, she is more likely to view them favorably at first.
When it comes to siding with former foes (such as those of the Covenant Empire), she often does not initially believe that such alliances will last and waits for them to collapse. However, she sees the need for victory to be the most important thing, though she is prone to argue with her former enemies due to history and her dark corruption exacerbating her negative feelings.
After her experience with the Realm of Darkness, she has come to view the Heartless and Unversed as part of an extended "family," including seeing Vanitas as a kind of brother, but she still hates all of them and wants nothing to do with them beyond that. However, her time there also taught her to focus in on instilling negative emotions in others, to the point of willingly attempting to increase fear or hate in her targets to empower herself, such as stalking them or intentionally trying to rile them up in combat by making fun of them. This type of behavior has a corrupting influence on her, slowly turning her toward agreeing with one villain or another if she is too close to them for too long, leading her to try to kill them as quickly and efficiently as possible or avoid dealing with them for extended periods of time.
Her fighting style is focused on getting in close, using a combination of unarmed and melee weapon combat, with use of firearms and the like to help close the gap, along with using her powers to augment her strikes. (As a basis, see Cassie Cage in Mortal Kombat 11.)
Powers:
- Dark Empathic Magic: Has a power set derived from the Sinister Shard embedded in her being that mutated her, connected with darkness, shadows, and corruption, with said power's core manifestation being not pure shadow, but rather having the dark power imbued with a red flicker inside. Rather than being able to use her abilities herself, she channels them through equipment of various sorts, from weapons to clothing to tools. While they can operate on their own, they are further empowered in the presence of negative emotions such as rage, fear, envy, and sorrow, among others, though at the expense of her having difficulty controlling them. Using her powers also enhances her own emotions, making whatever she is feeling more passionate and intense, be it positive (such as love) or negative (such as rage). While her powers are on some level reliant upon her equipment, she can use that power to alternative effects (such as powering machinery) by channeling through them, though doing so is difficult and requires training from masters of dark magic. Her abilities with said darkness, which can be augmented with a variety of emotions as well, include, but are not limited to, the following.
-- Dark Sense: Through training with Keyblade Master Riku, Azumi can learn to feel it close to her, further enhancing her ability to hunt it in addition to her conditioning, utilizing a feeling she has had buried inside of her ever since her mutation. The best she can describe it as is a feeling worse than a thousand needles poking through every pore or feeling a fluid run through your body, but distilled down to an "itch" she feels on a daily basis. By tapping into that with practice, she can allow it to sense incoming darkness, though she prefers to rely on her already heightened normal senses and only to use this power as a way to discern the darkness in a being. This is one of the few powers that requires no external technology.
--- Emotion Sensing: Due to the fact that her power is not centered on darkness, but on emotion, she is able to sense, and even "see," the emotional states of those around her, often represented as colors or colored auras, though she has to actively "turn it on" through focus. She uses this skill to hone her fighting skill or navigate conversations, but beyond knowing what an emotion is, she is unable to directly deduce what that emotion is directed toward, and has to figure that out herself without magic.
-- Sinister Metamorphosis: Due to the changes she went through, Azumi is vulnerable to magics that control the likes of Heartless or Unversed, and is especially weak against light-based magic. However, she is also resistant to dark-based magics and, through her intense emotions, highly resilient against the influence of the Realm of Darkness itself. Similarly, as her magic is tied directly to her emotions, something that may remove her powers has a likelihood to calm her down as well, though she may notice the change.
-- Darkness Absorption: Capable of draining darkness from her surroundings to augment her abilities, but must be in contact with the source, such as a darkness-corrupted individual (though this may prove fatal to the target if they are too filled with darkness to survive without it).
-- Blackened Augmentation: The most basic of her skills, she can augment individual strikes with her shadow energy, allowing for individually augmented blows or shots, including ranged and melee combat up to hand-to-hand (if channeled through a glove). Shadow-infused strikes function as magical attacks, and can hit incorporeal beings such as ghosts if the laws of the world allow it. This augmentation also allows her to enhance her physical abilities to above-human ranges, with her speed and strength being especially augmented (with a focus on the former).
-- Empathic Weapon Mutation: By concentrating her skill, she can morph the blade of her knife into other forms as necessary. However, this takes immense amounts of training and skill to pull off, abd so is not possible until she is fully capable.
-- Blinding Strike: When holding a melee weapon, she can infuse it with darkness to cause a target to be blinded for a time by way of the light literally not reaching their eyes, simultaneously causing a confusion effect.[LOCKED]
-- Obscured Assault: Channeling her emotions through her strike, Azumi can seemingly phase her weapon through concealment such as cover or a barrier (barring those specifically geared against magical strikes), either to shoot through them or stab or slice through them without damaging the cover itself.
-- Draining Shot: Can channel her darkness through a ranged weapon to sap a target's health akin to a poison, though it does not work on those who are attuned to darkness. If drained enough, it may also cause a supernatural fear effect.[LOCKED]
-- Disabling Blast: Can channel her darkness through a ranged thrown weapon (such as a grenade or molotov cocktail) to disable special abilities (magic, psychic, etc, though not divine power) for a short time. Does not work on those whose power comes from darkness or shadows.[LOCKED]
-- Writhing Charge: Can infuse the power of darkness into an item, causing it to unleash an explosion of shadow-based energy and a fear effect upon use, simultaneously dampening light sources in the area for a set time. If used on an explosive, it acts in tandem with the element of the detonation itself.[LOCKED]
-- Gloom Grasp: Channeling her power through a grappling device allows it to stretch out a hand of shadows to yank her toward where she needs to go, or to pull someone or something toward her. This effect can also be used to act as a kind of combat-based tentacle, including having a barbed edge if necessary.[LOCKED]
-- Corrupting Infusion: By channeling her darkness powers into a living being, she can either corrupt them into following the dark, or if too much outright turn them into a dark-based being centered around emotions. This technique is not easily controlled, and the subject is vulnerable to any effects of others who can control Heartless or Unversed. However, the effect also may be temporary, though last several minutes to hours, if minor.
- Link with Kira: When the Convergence hit, Azumi's neural interface was damaged, filled up with darkness and the influence of the Sinister Shard to keep her alive. However, there is still a lingering connection to the artificial intelligence that worked within, Kira. Once they make contact, they have an ability to share thoughts with one another by way of Kira's technomancy and Azumi's neural interface, which were split apart in the Convergence, in addition to being able to better use mystical technomancy together. However, this link also applies to harm. The link is a form of life support on some level, and so if it is severed, Azumi will be severely hampered and find her actions all the harder to perform. This link must be activated by them actively deciding to work together, but is thereafter active as a means of communication.
-- Corruptive Technomancy: By channeling her power through her neural interface Azumi can have limited control over various forms of technology on touch, though not nearly to the degree of specialized technomancers. However, the power in this way can only be used for subversive or offensive means (such as activating a terminal, turning on a turret, or some such), rather than to defend herself directly. The power itself also is most useful when closely connected with high-level technomancers or artificial intelligence. Using this power for high level processes (such as awakening an army) leads to internal damage such as bleeding from the nose, and can cause serious harm if used too much.
- Touch-Based Dark Spellcasting: Through extensive training, Azumi can cast dark and dark emotional spells, but only through implements like her other magical techniques, or on touch from her bare hands.
- Rage: When super-charged with negative energy, she transforms into a shadowy version of herself, her entire body becoming covered in shadow as her eyes glow bright red in their entirety, with the form of a red Unversed symbol on the back of her clothes, as well as the symbol on her face turning to that of a Sinister Crystal around her left eye. In this form, she able to move extremely swiftly and attack ferociously, but lacking any self-control or ability to accurately use her weapons beyond feral striking. If she is without a weapon, her hands manifest dark claws on the fingers. While in this form, she has a possibility of not having any memory of what she did, needing to be told afterwards. She learned about this technique while attempting the Command Style training Aqua put her through.[UNCONTROLLED]
- Umbral Wrath: A somewhat weaker, but more controlled version of the Rage. Instead of becoming completely covered in shadow, instead develops a paler patch of skin over her eyes as well as on her fingertips, and the auburn of her hair pales significantly as well, and her cheeks and forehead that turn into the General shape of a Sinister Gem. This form allowing her to channel her power much more effectively, but remain sentient during the process. As a downside, use of this power is reliant upon a dark state of mind, making her much more likely to be using it when allied with villainous forces than ever being capable of using it for good unless she can be calm while using it. When speaking in this form, her voice sounds distorted, as if she is choking on a dark fluid or blood. Only through this form is she capable of using her melee weapons for longer ranged attacks, such as striking into the ground to create a shockwave, or a slash of negative emotion, along with having a passive form of defense in the form of tendrils of darkness and dark emotion that come up around her when people come in to attack at close range. Through this form, she can also summon weapons to her hand composed of her black-and-red darkness regardless of them being available otherwise, though only for a strike or two each. She can also use a limited form of dark-based teleportation, warping around an arena in an enhanced version of her already superhuman speed when charged with darkness.[LOCKED]
Abilities:
- Conditioning: Through military training, mutations, and her time in the Dark World, Azumi is equipped with peak human levels of speed, agility, reflexes, endurance, and flexibility, along with above average, though not quite as prominent, strength.
- Deception: Though little used, Azumi is capable at deceiving large groups of people, primarily through only giving minimal amounts of information.
- Enhanced Senses: Due to both her extensive training and her year and more in the Realm of Darkness, Azumi has heightened senses, especially in regards to sight and sound, traits she uses to help spot ambushes or other incoming foes. By focusing intently, she can even discern armed or unarmed foes by sound. This includes enhanced ability to see in the dark even without her hood.
- Expert Hand-to-Hand Combat: An excellent close combatant without weapons, using a varied hybrid of techniques, enabling her to keep up with and potentially defeat a variety of martial artists. Her skill comes from her many years of training.
- Improvised Scavenging: Capable of gathering materials to create replacements for lost equipment, though the result is often temporary.
- Dark Occultism: Due to merging her supernatural nature and intellect with her improvisational skills, Azumi is capable of constructing makeshift dark-based items, even occult artifacts, as if inspired by the darkness itself.
- Marksmanship: Very skilled with firearms.
- Moderate Swordsmanship: While she is not quite as skilled as she is with firearms when it comes to swords, her training with Aqua, along with the training in magic, help her to more or less keep up with others until she can get into a better position for herself. She is better with knives than swords, however. While her style with a knife is often having it held in front of her, that with a longer sword defaults to her holding said weapon down at her side, similar to her mentor.
- Stealth: Can keep out of sight in a variety of ways, as well as lose targets tailing her if they aren’t intrinsically trackers.
Weapons:
- Shadow Knife: In actuality, this is the broken hilt of Azumi's combat knife. Due to attuning to it, she has it form a blade composed of solidified shadows when in her grasp, similar to a kind of blackened tendril in the shape of the original blade. This state enables it to not only act as a magic weapon, but also to pass through mundane defenses as if it were nothing. The blade can be extended to a short sword.
- Last Cry: Her handgun, formerly two guns, a M6C/SOCOM handgun and a M7S SMG submachine gun. Was forced to rebuild them into a new form in her exile in the Dark Margin using materials found there, doing so into a form resembling an old western revolver in its basic form (enough to disguise it), albeit with a dark, cursed appearance. In actuality, it is able to shift between single fire, three round bursts, and automatic. Those hit with several rounds in a row are vulnerable to a darkness-based detonation effect. On account of it being made from magical materials of the worlds themselves, it is capable of disguising itself just as much as she is when transporting to different worlds, in order to keep its appearance similar to the technological advancement of the surroundings.
Equipment:
- Shade's Hood: Hood protects her from mystical and mundane effects akin to an armored helmet, with an invisible "force field" of shadowy energy in front of her.
- Umbral Visor: A replacement for the broken "VISR" system in her armor, this version is formed through utilization of various void-based mystical elements into something that is coincidentally not dissimilar from the Artemis Tracking System, able to link with a variety of locations to get maps of an area, point out objects of significance (including weapons or other useful tools, and capable of enabling perfect vision in even magical darkness, even seeing individual people's "magic signatures" through connection to her dark power (the latter does not work on those who have absolutely nothing living about them, such as non-sapient automatons). If focused, she can even potentially see some of their emotional states and fears, though doing so requires a direct line of sight and quickly tires her out.
- Grappling Hook: A handheld grapple that can be used to pull her closer to objects, draw in people or objects, and possibly manipulate the environment. For how her powers work with it, see "Gloom Grasp."
Awareness: Aware of other worlds and creatures, but not of existence as a video game. (Turned to "Yes" as of "Call of Determination" in Olympus.)
History: From a young age, Azumi was often a fan of the United Nations Space Command, rendering her an outsider among her fellows on the world of Jericho VII. Despite having good experiences with a few of them, she went off to join the military at the young age of sixteen after one too many attempts at bullying her (which had ended with her breaking the bully's nose). Faking her age as eighteen, she joined the fight and boarded the UNSC Spirit of Fire. Unfortunately, she was found out in basic training, and though she did advance to the elite Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (which itself took months of training), it was sped ahead by the Office of Naval Intelligence. ONI (as they are typically called) put her ahead of others as an agent and "acquisitions specialist" (a euphemism for retrieval of important objects from the enemy as well as the tracking and assassination of high-value individuals) in exchange for her not being sent to prison, functioning under their "Section 3." The justification for doing so was a need for agents on the travels who could work under the radar, and with her young age coupled with her effectiveness in deception of a large amount of people to work her way in, she fit the bill rather nicely. In that effect, she both fought the Covenant Empire and the separatist "Insurgency" forces of humanity as dictated.
Shortly after the Battle of the Etran Harborage, as crews were readying themselves to lift off, the world was invaded by a swarm of what could only be considered shadow-based monsters of some sort. These creatures, with their red eyes and colorful appearance, were more than capable of taking on the still exhausted and unprepared troops, and despite them taking some losses as the human forces took up plasma-based armaments against them, the last Azumi saw was them swarming upon the group as a whole, having lost their commanding officer, before one of them exploded and lodged a small red sliver of unpleasant thoughts in her heart, resulting in her passing out.
She awoke in the Realm of Darkness, changed significantly. Roaming the area for days, she tried to drink from the water she found, but was found by different beings, this time with black skin and yellow eyes, even more tuned to shadow than the others. In the process of attempting to fight, her combat knife was broken, and her guns ran out of ammunition. She was only saved by a young woman with blue hair who appeared to be just a few years younger than her, passing out from various injuries soon after the rescue.
Her armor was a wreck from the fighting, but she had been healed by this stranger upon waking up. The stranger identified herself as Aqua, and, after significant distrust and anger from the fallen military woman along with her sorrow and fear at what she had become (viewed through a reflection on what was left of Azumi's helmet), explained some of what Azumi had seen based on what she said: the planet, or "world" as she called it, had been attacked by creatures called the "Unversed" on one end to assail the military, while on another, or perhaps even a different planet entirely, there had been a coincidental simultaneous attack by creatures of black skin and yellow eyes called the "Heartless." Her own new nature instinctually filled in the blanks, especially once the injury from her initial attack had been healed. Judging from what had hit her and the fact that her back had the mark of the Unversed, something had happened to her body back there, connecting her with them. While Aqua was wary, she seemed hopeful of her companion's ability to hold back dark impulses.
Over the next year in the realm of light, and several years (less than six, more than two) in that timeless locale which required neither food nor drink nor sleep, as they roamed the eldritch location that was the Realm to keep away from onslaughts of "Demon" Heartless swarms, Azumi was taught about certain elements of magic, once she had been unable to push down the fact that this was what had happened to her any longer. Her equipment, including her armor, gradually was destroyed by the oncoming hordes as she was forced, with little experience, to fight them off, but she managed to rebuild them with elements she knew, on top of the arcane teachings of "Master Aqua," to magical replacements to the best of her ability. During these times, they each faced various trials and tribulations, including having to be separated at times by roaming Heartless swarms or the bizarre nature of certain darkened worlds, including facing their worst fears made real and more. Her master and friend even attempted to Bequeath to her a Keyblade of her own in a quieter moment, but her heart was not strong enough at that point, rendering the effort a failure.
One day, when Master Aqua was searching through something, there was a pain in Azumi's heart, and she passed out from the shock. When she awakened, she was in a world known as Traverse Town, outside of the dark, surrounded by fearful strangers once more in the middle of a street. She had no idea what had happened or why, but in truth, there had been a backlash somewhere in the worlds, and with a return of the Unversed, she had been brought out of the dark an unwanted side effect, as well as, through a reverberation across time due to manipulations beyond the pale, been thrust forward several years in this universe's timeline.
Forced to run from the town due to their fear of her dark powers, in spite of a desire to help against encroaching dwellers in darkness, she left to follow what trails she could find. On the one hand, areas of extreme dark power; on the other, following the trail of Master Aqua through the worlds in order to find a way to bring her back.
She feared for her recent friend, surrogate sister, and mentor in swordplay and magic both, unaware if she was alive, but one thing was overpowering.
She wanted revenge against her new "family."
Hobbies: Reading (a variety of interests), working out (but see personality about hobbies).
Name: Azumi Tamashī
Age: 21
Gender: Female
Species: Shadowbound Human (Unversed Mutated)
Appearance: A five-foot-eight-inch young woman of apparent Asian descent with fair skin, though noticeably pale from her connection to Vanitas's Unversed. There is a red mark on her face in the shape of a Sinister Stone turned one quarter turn clockwise, the main curve around the right eye, and the smaller one around the left, which changes depending on other forms of hers. Her eyes are a faintly glowing red, glowing when using her powers. She has what appears to be a tattoo of the symbol of the Unversed just between her shoulder blades on her back, but is actually a part of her skin naturally. She also has a relatively sizable bust in contrast to her otherwise toned physique, though it is usually hidden from view if she is wearing her chestplate.
Her hair, auburn with seemingly natural streaks of blue running through it, with white tips to the ends that are as natural as the rest, the entire length reaching about a quarter to a third down her back if loose, with the hair parted on the left side. It is commonly held together in a ponytail behind her back. Otherwise, in formal settings, she holds it in a twist around her head.
Her armor, originally cracked and broken, is fitted around her body with what is left of it, with relatively form-fitted light armor, mainly consisting of a dark gray chestplate, along with elements of armored legs on her knees, shins, and the sides of her calves. Underneath, she wears dark navy pants, and a lighter gray shirt. There is a similarly dark hood over her head connected to a piece that reaches over her shoulders, though being attached to the main suit. She wears a dark gray jacket that reaches just a bit below her bust on the back, and down just below her elbows on her sleeves, leaving a bare space on her forearms before two black gloves on her hands. Attached to a black belt is a collection of blue, shredded strips of cloth in a kind of tail to her knees behind her back, patterned in part after Aqua's own half-skirt. When she uses her powers, the gloves on her armor turn blood red, and shadows or dark green energy may seem to creep up her arms. See her in armor here.
When she is away from her work, she wears a dark baseball cap with a simple UNSC logo in black, her hair typically in a ponytail through the back of it. She wears a tight-fitted blue shirt along with darker blue pants, with a red jacket over it all that hides her gun on the inside, her shadow knife in one of her brown boots. She also has on a tighter support on her chest, making it appear smaller but also helping to lessen attention to her body a bit. See her in her causal outfit (along with without the main elements of her armor in a formal appearance) here.
Personality: In most cases, Azumi can be relatively friendly, if a bit gruff with new people. However, on account of her mutation, she has become a bit irritable, which becomes worse the stronger her powers become at any given time. Despite said irritability, she does her best not to show it, to bottle it in so as to allow for stronger outbursts of power when in combat. As a result, she appears relatively stoic much of the time, despite her occasional smiles or outbursts of rage. As she sees it, anger has no purpose beyond what it can do for her, and she sees herself as fearing almost nothing anymore due to her time in the dark. However, this discrepancy can lead to frighteningly wild outbursts of power when in combat, especially in close range.
On the other hand, her emotions can break down over feelings of guilt. If she believes that she is responsible for something or someone, including if they were endangered by being close to her or she feels she failed to save them, she will take it very badly and work to make up for it any way she can unless she is either able to absolve the debt or is shown how it is not her fault (such as her involvement having had nothing to do with the danger, or her being forced away being unrelated to her inability to save someone). The main exception comes with deaths or events where she believes she could not have done any better, both of which she "files away" internally as being beyond her ability to help.
When it comes to matters of conflict, especially military in nature, she is very serious, up to reprimanding others if they casually use weaponry. Due to her experiences with the military, she is prone to call those in authority by their proper titles and salute at times, though she is prone to rescind that behavior if she sees them as not worth the effort for one reason or another, be it due to rampant incompetence or immorality. In extreme cases such as sending out people who are unprepared into a war zone intentionally, she may even scream and swear at them, though her stoicism usually keeps that in check at least until she is away from them.
Due to living for a while either as a soldier or an assassin, she tends to view any given situation based on its threat level. Further, as a result of her time in the Realm of Darkness, as well as her time in war and the fall of a world, resulted in her having some minor degree of post-traumatic stress, at least enough to freeze up if faced with truly massive amount of Heartless, or even lose herself to her rage in those times. She also has other more minor symptoms, such as nightmares and an exaggerated startle response, barring her increased irritability from her powers. For the startle response, she is prone to perform such acts as throwing a potential assailant to the ground and contemplate how to kill them quickly before noticing others watching her and telling the target off instead.
She is out of practice when it comes to normal hobbies, using them to keep herself occupied rather than for fun in and of itself. For example, she mostly reads in her free time to keep from dwelling on her failures or her actions and other experiences in wartime, not really taking notice if she likes it or not unless asked. Similarly, she works out often out of an intrinsic fear of becoming weaker and unable to either defend herself (even through proactive violence) or protect others.
She does her best to be friendly, joking around with people at times, and has a sarcastic sense of humor. With children, especially those who don't know enough about the worlds to fear her, she is kind and encouraging, especially toward those who show their bravery, though she knows when to tell them to run. In general, she tries to treat the young like they are just other people, basing her opinions on experience over age, taking into account her own underage enlisting and only really modifying her language rather than her message.
While she has experience with people's attraction to her, and she is capable of using that to her advantage, she doesn't particularly care about how she looks outside of how it may be drawing too much (or not enough) attention to her at any given point from a pragmatic point of view.
Due to being conditioned to feel that the dark is something to fear, coupled with the reactions of common people to her powers, she becomes irritated when called out for them or her mark, but not to a serious degree, mostly trying to keep her face hidden to avoid conflict in that regard. However, if people point out her mark and refuse to judge her for it, or like it on her for reasons beyond its power, she is more likely to view them favorably at first.
When it comes to siding with former foes (such as those of the Covenant Empire), she often does not initially believe that such alliances will last and waits for them to collapse. However, she sees the need for victory to be the most important thing, though she is prone to argue with her former enemies due to history and her dark corruption exacerbating her negative feelings.
After her experience with the Realm of Darkness, she has come to view the Heartless and Unversed as part of an extended "family," including seeing Vanitas as a kind of brother, but she still hates all of them and wants nothing to do with them beyond that. However, her time there also taught her to focus in on instilling negative emotions in others, to the point of willingly attempting to increase fear or hate in her targets to empower herself, such as stalking them or intentionally trying to rile them up in combat by making fun of them. This type of behavior has a corrupting influence on her, slowly turning her toward agreeing with one villain or another if she is too close to them for too long, leading her to try to kill them as quickly and efficiently as possible or avoid dealing with them for extended periods of time.
Her fighting style is focused on getting in close, using a combination of unarmed and melee weapon combat, with use of firearms and the like to help close the gap, along with using her powers to augment her strikes. (As a basis, see Cassie Cage in Mortal Kombat 11.)
Powers:
- Dark Empathic Magic: Has a power set derived from the Sinister Shard embedded in her being that mutated her, connected with darkness, shadows, and corruption, with said power's core manifestation being not pure shadow, but rather having the dark power imbued with a red flicker inside. Rather than being able to use her abilities herself, she channels them through equipment of various sorts, from weapons to clothing to tools. While they can operate on their own, they are further empowered in the presence of negative emotions such as rage, fear, envy, and sorrow, among others, though at the expense of her having difficulty controlling them. Using her powers also enhances her own emotions, making whatever she is feeling more passionate and intense, be it positive (such as love) or negative (such as rage). While her powers are on some level reliant upon her equipment, she can use that power to alternative effects (such as powering machinery) by channeling through them, though doing so is difficult and requires training from masters of dark magic. Her abilities with said darkness, which can be augmented with a variety of emotions as well, include, but are not limited to, the following.
-- Dark Sense: Through training with Keyblade Master Riku, Azumi can learn to feel it close to her, further enhancing her ability to hunt it in addition to her conditioning, utilizing a feeling she has had buried inside of her ever since her mutation. The best she can describe it as is a feeling worse than a thousand needles poking through every pore or feeling a fluid run through your body, but distilled down to an "itch" she feels on a daily basis. By tapping into that with practice, she can allow it to sense incoming darkness, though she prefers to rely on her already heightened normal senses and only to use this power as a way to discern the darkness in a being. This is one of the few powers that requires no external technology.
--- Emotion Sensing: Due to the fact that her power is not centered on darkness, but on emotion, she is able to sense, and even "see," the emotional states of those around her, often represented as colors or colored auras, though she has to actively "turn it on" through focus. She uses this skill to hone her fighting skill or navigate conversations, but beyond knowing what an emotion is, she is unable to directly deduce what that emotion is directed toward, and has to figure that out herself without magic.
-- Sinister Metamorphosis: Due to the changes she went through, Azumi is vulnerable to magics that control the likes of Heartless or Unversed, and is especially weak against light-based magic. However, she is also resistant to dark-based magics and, through her intense emotions, highly resilient against the influence of the Realm of Darkness itself. Similarly, as her magic is tied directly to her emotions, something that may remove her powers has a likelihood to calm her down as well, though she may notice the change.
-- Darkness Absorption: Capable of draining darkness from her surroundings to augment her abilities, but must be in contact with the source, such as a darkness-corrupted individual (though this may prove fatal to the target if they are too filled with darkness to survive without it).
-- Blackened Augmentation: The most basic of her skills, she can augment individual strikes with her shadow energy, allowing for individually augmented blows or shots, including ranged and melee combat up to hand-to-hand (if channeled through a glove). Shadow-infused strikes function as magical attacks, and can hit incorporeal beings such as ghosts if the laws of the world allow it. This augmentation also allows her to enhance her physical abilities to above-human ranges, with her speed and strength being especially augmented (with a focus on the former).
- Rage: When super-charged with negative energy, she transforms into a shadowy version of herself, her entire body becoming covered in shadow as her eyes glow bright red in their entirety, with the form of a red Unversed symbol on the back of her clothes, as well as the symbol on her face turning to that of a Sinister Crystal around her left eye. In this form, she able to move extremely swiftly and attack ferociously, but lacking any self-control or ability to accurately use her weapons beyond feral striking. If she is without a weapon, her hands manifest dark claws on the fingers. While in this form, she has a possibility of not having any memory of what she did, needing to be told afterwards. She learned about this technique while attempting the Command Style training Aqua put her through.[UNCONTROLLED]
Abilities:
- Conditioning: Through military training, mutations, and her time in the Dark World, Azumi is equipped with peak human levels of speed, agility, reflexes, endurance, and flexibility, along with above average, though not quite as prominent, strength.
- Deception: Though little used, Azumi is capable at deceiving large groups of people, primarily through only giving minimal amounts of information.
- Enhanced Senses: Due to both her extensive training and her year and more in the Realm of Darkness, Azumi has heightened senses, especially in regards to sight and sound, traits she uses to help spot ambushes or other incoming foes. By focusing intently, she can even discern armed or unarmed foes by sound. This includes enhanced ability to see in the dark even without her hood.
- Expert Hand-to-Hand Combat: An excellent close combatant without weapons, using a varied hybrid of techniques, enabling her to keep up with and potentially defeat a variety of martial artists. Her skill comes from her many years of training.
- Improvised Scavenging: Capable of gathering materials to create replacements for lost equipment, though the result is often temporary.
- Dark Occultism: Due to merging her supernatural nature and intellect with her improvisational skills, Azumi is capable of constructing makeshift dark-based items, even occult artifacts, as if inspired by the darkness itself.
- Marksmanship: Very skilled with firearms.
- Moderate Swordsmanship: While she is not quite as skilled as she is with firearms when it comes to swords, her training with Aqua, along with the training in magic, help her to more or less keep up with others until she can get into a better position for herself. She is better with knives than swords, however. While her style with a knife is often having it held in front of her, that with a longer sword defaults to her holding said weapon down at her side, similar to her mentor.
- Stealth: Can keep out of sight in a variety of ways, as well as lose targets tailing her if they aren’t intrinsically trackers.
Weapons:
- Shadow Knife: In actuality, this is the broken hilt of Azumi's combat knife. Due to attuning to it, she has it form a blade composed of solidified shadows when in her grasp, similar to a kind of blackened tendril in the shape of the original blade. This state enables it to not only act as a magic weapon, but also to pass through mundane defenses as if it were nothing. The blade can be extended to a short sword.
- Last Cry: Her handgun, formerly two guns, a M6C/SOCOM handgun and a M7S SMG submachine gun. Was forced to rebuild them into a new form in her exile in the Dark Margin using materials found there, doing so into a form resembling an old western revolver in its basic form (enough to disguise it), albeit with a dark, cursed appearance. In actuality, it is able to shift between single fire, three round bursts, and automatic. Those hit with several rounds in a row are vulnerable to a darkness-based detonation effect. On account of it being made from magical materials of the worlds themselves, it is capable of disguising itself just as much as she is when transporting to different worlds, in order to keep its appearance similar to the technological advancement of the surroundings.
Equipment:
- Shade's Hood: Hood protects her from mystical and mundane effects akin to an armored helmet, with an invisible "force field" of shadowy energy in front of her.
- Umbral Visor: A replacement for the broken "VISR" system in her armor, this version is formed through utilization of various void-based mystical elements into something that is coincidentally not dissimilar from the Artemis Tracking System, able to link with a variety of locations to get maps of an area, point out objects of significance (including weapons or other useful tools, and capable of enabling perfect vision in even magical darkness, even seeing individual people's "magic signatures" through connection to her dark power (the latter does not work on those who have absolutely nothing living about them, such as non-sapient automatons). If focused, she can even potentially see some of their emotional states and fears, though doing so requires a direct line of sight and quickly tires her out.
Awareness: Aware of other worlds and creatures, but not of existence as a video game. (Turned to "Yes" as of "Call of Determination" in Olympus.)
History: From a young age, Azumi was often a fan of the United Nations Space Command, rendering her an outsider among her fellows on the world of Jericho VII. Despite having good experiences with a few of them, she went off to join the military at the young age of sixteen after one too many attempts at bullying her (which had ended with her breaking the bully's nose). Faking her age as eighteen, she joined the fight and boarded the UNSC Spirit of Fire. Unfortunately, she was found out in basic training, and though she did advance to the elite Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (which itself took months of training), it was sped ahead by the Office of Naval Intelligence. ONI (as they are typically called) put her ahead of others as an agent and "acquisitions specialist" (a euphemism for retrieval of important objects from the enemy as well as the tracking and assassination of high-value individuals) in exchange for her not being sent to prison, functioning under their "Section 3." The justification for doing so was a need for agents on the travels who could work under the radar, and with her young age coupled with her effectiveness in deception of a large amount of people to work her way in, she fit the bill rather nicely. In that effect, she both fought the Covenant Empire and the separatist "Insurgency" forces of humanity as dictated.
Shortly after the Battle of the Etran Harborage, as crews were readying themselves to lift off, the world was invaded by a swarm of what could only be considered shadow-based monsters of some sort. These creatures, with their red eyes and colorful appearance, were more than capable of taking on the still exhausted and unprepared troops, and despite them taking some losses as the human forces took up plasma-based armaments against them, the last Azumi saw was them swarming upon the group as a whole, having lost their commanding officer, before one of them exploded and lodged a small red sliver of unpleasant thoughts in her heart, resulting in her passing out.
She awoke in the Realm of Darkness, changed significantly. Roaming the area for days, she tried to drink from the water she found, but was found by different beings, this time with black skin and yellow eyes, even more tuned to shadow than the others. In the process of attempting to fight, her combat knife was broken, and her guns ran out of ammunition. She was only saved by a young woman with blue hair who appeared to be just a few years younger than her, passing out from various injuries soon after the rescue.
Her armor was a wreck from the fighting, but she had been healed by this stranger upon waking up. The stranger identified herself as Aqua, and, after significant distrust and anger from the fallen military woman along with her sorrow and fear at what she had become (viewed through a reflection on what was left of Azumi's helmet), explained some of what Azumi had seen based on what she said: the planet, or "world" as she called it, had been attacked by creatures called the "Unversed" on one end to assail the military, while on another, or perhaps even a different planet entirely, there had been a coincidental simultaneous attack by creatures of black skin and yellow eyes called the "Heartless." Her own new nature instinctually filled in the blanks, especially once the injury from her initial attack had been healed. Judging from what had hit her and the fact that her back had the mark of the Unversed, something had happened to her body back there, connecting her with them. While Aqua was wary, she seemed hopeful of her companion's ability to hold back dark impulses.
Over the next year in the realm of light, and several years (less than six, more than two) in that timeless locale which required neither food nor drink nor sleep, as they roamed the eldritch location that was the Realm to keep away from onslaughts of "Demon" Heartless swarms, Azumi was taught about certain elements of magic, once she had been unable to push down the fact that this was what had happened to her any longer. Her equipment, including her armor, gradually was destroyed by the oncoming hordes as she was forced, with little experience, to fight them off, but she managed to rebuild them with elements she knew, on top of the arcane teachings of "Master Aqua," to magical replacements to the best of her ability. During these times, they each faced various trials and tribulations, including having to be separated at times by roaming Heartless swarms or the bizarre nature of certain darkened worlds, including facing their worst fears made real and more. Her master and friend even attempted to Bequeath to her a Keyblade of her own in a quieter moment, but her heart was not strong enough at that point, rendering the effort a failure.
One day, when Master Aqua was searching through something, there was a pain in Azumi's heart, and she passed out from the shock. When she awakened, she was in a world known as Traverse Town, outside of the dark, surrounded by fearful strangers once more in the middle of a street. She had no idea what had happened or why, but in truth, there had been a backlash somewhere in the worlds, and with a return of the Unversed, she had been brought out of the dark an unwanted side effect, as well as, through a reverberation across time due to manipulations beyond the pale, been thrust forward several years in this universe's timeline.
Forced to run from the town due to their fear of her dark powers, in spite of a desire to help against encroaching dwellers in darkness, she left to follow what trails she could find. On the one hand, areas of extreme dark power; on the other, following the trail of Master Aqua through the worlds in order to find a way to bring her back.
She feared for her recent friend, surrogate sister, and mentor in swordplay and magic both, unaware if she was alive, but one thing was overpowering.
She wanted revenge against her new "family."
Hobbies: Reading (a variety of interests), working out (but see personality about hobbies).
Last edited by Gregzilla on Sun May 09, 2021 10:08 am; edited 67 times in total
