empatheias App

[tea_rs]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Dani
Contact: danidanidanica
Age: 23
Current Characters: Shun Aonuma, Hizumi Mizushiro


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Hibiki and Shirotsuki
Age: Hibiki: 11-ish; Shirotsuki: late 20s-ish.
Canon: Hibiki’s Magic
Canon Point: Chapter 13

Background: The story begins with Shirotsuki.

As a child, he befriended a girl named Yui, who admired magicians and wanted to create a huge field of flowers that could be maintained with magic. As they grew older, they fell in love, and Shirotsuki became determined to grant her wish to live together and grow those flowers. He threw himself into his studies of magic, and eventually was accepted at a school in another country where he could continue to improve his magic ability. Although they would be parted for some time, he promised that one day, he would grant that wish for her.

What he didn’t realize at the time was the weight of the sacrifice he had to make for his magic.

Each spell takes something from the user, and exactly what depends on the person who casts the spell: some lose a little more sound, or a little more soul, or even their ability to slumber, bit by bit. In Shirotsuki’s case, it was his memories. He soon forgot all about the promise he made, and even of the girl who waited for him. Eventually she found him again and, horrified at what had happened to him, dragged him to a home which they kept together even through his constant memory loss. Each time he forgot her, she would just remind him, continuing to give him all the love she possibly could.

But it couldn’t last. Each time he forgot her, the emotional pain would take its toll. Eventually, he told her to simply walk away the next time he forgot, realizing that he was only hurting her each time. She did exactly that, crying as she left.

Some time later, he came across a young girl who had gone into the shed of the house for shelter. Despite trying to offer her help, she only curled up in the corner and shook, evidently too afraid of him to respond. He eventually coaxed her into eating by using a spell to control some wildlife native to the forest, having them offer the food instead. She seemed to trust them far more than any human, and finally accepted the help.

When she realized it was he who had helped her, she asked to stay with him instead of returning to the city – a place where she would just be terribly alone again. From then on, they began to live together, with the girl Hibiki doing her best to be helpful around the house in gratitude. He eventually made her his apprentice despite her lack of talent for magic (or most things, really) and began to teach her so she could help with his experiment: a spell that allowed one to swap souls between bodies, as he wished to find a way to preserve everything in the world.

Unfortunately, it was in the middle of performing this spell that they were attacked by robbers. Shirotsuki had been caught in the body of a gusk at the time, and his human body was destroyed when he set the house aflame to not only catch the robbers, but also obliterate his research and prevent it from making it into the wrong hands. He and Hibiki made it out safely, if homeless, and from there it became her tale.

Once again homeless, but reunited with Shirotsuki in the form of a gusk, Hibiki set out for the nearby city – the country capital Kamigusk. There, she hoped to use what money he had saved to keep the two of them going until she was able to find a job, but as it turned out the job found her. Misaki, assistant to the director of the Kamisaid Magic Academy had shown up to recruit her as a researcher due to her status as the renowned Shirotsuki’s apprentice.

Of course, Hibiki was still only but a young girl, and the studies she had with Shirotsuki had hardly amounted to much. She was not able to perform up to standards, and was quickly shunted into the position of teacher for one of the most troublesome classes in the school. Still, the school provided her with room and board as long as she worked there, so she kept at it even when one of those students challenged her to a battle between his gun and her magic. She would end up befriending this boy, Ahito, whose past involved a very painful magic experiment. Indeed, she would go on to befriend a core number of the faculty and students through her empathetic nature, and even ended up with a homunculus child in her care after trying to help one of those faculty members replace her daughter. Later, she even went so far as to (accidentally!) befriend the granddaughter of the king, and the greatest swordswoman in the world. It was later after a birthday celebration for one of these friends that had, also accidentally, become one for herself as well, that she found herself overcome with love for her friends’ kindness and wound up right in Empatheias.

Personality:

Hibiki is a sweet, kindhearted girl. She tries her best to be friendly and open and helpful to everyone she encounters. However, much of that sweetness comes from a past filled with pain, and every so often it shows in the ways she speaks, as well as her ingrained mannerisms.

She is terribly self-depreciating, and will in fact be the first to say that she is completely useless. She’s stupid and clumsy, and now matter how hard she works and tries, she always makes mistakes. Her opinion of herself is dreadfully low, and she is constantly saying things that reinforce that. Even when praised, she is quick to follow it up with excuses: it wasn’t that great, anyone could have done such a thing.

She isn’t anyone special. She isn’t anyone talented. It was just a fluke.

But in spite of that, she really is a hard worker. Her life has thrown all kinds of hardships at her, and although she is convinced she is a failure at all that she does, she still tries her best. She realizes that she isn’t much of a teacher, but she still carefully reads the materials and explains things as well as she can. When her friends are in need of help, she will volunteer to do what she is able, even if it doesn’t amount to much. For all her self-doubt, she never stops trying, and that kind of determination and resilience are what define her. When shot at with rubber bullets by a troublemaking student, she continues picking up her charcoal stick over and over again to continue drawing the circle her teacher once taught her for self defense. When told she can send one of her two good friends to their deaths in order for herself and the remaining one to survive, she instead insists on finding an alternate solution.

When faced with the possibility of a friend being struck and killed by rocks, she would instead throw herself into the path of danger to save them.

For all her timidity, she always manages to summon a surprising amount of courage when it comes to the safety of her loved ones. She will do any amount of begging and pleading and, yes, self-sacrifice if it means keeping them safe. Similarly, even though she can’t ever seem to believe in herself, she believes wholeheartedly in her loved ones, and continues to have faith that people are good – perhaps even more than they themselves know. She is highly idealistic, to the point of being dangerously so at times. But so far, it’s turned out well for her, and she continues to keep faith in this way.

Still, scars don’t fade so easily, and she carries many of those with her even now. It is heavily implied that she comes from a home that was negligent at best and abusive at worst. When she was first found by Shirotsuki, she couldn’t even trust other humans to mean her well, and refused any kind of help. Even now her feelings of worthlessness stem from her past, and she associates things like crying or failing as traits of a “bad kid.” She’s too old to cry anymore. Crying was what made her unwanted. She wasn’t needed, so it was better if she simply disappeared. It is only thanks to the efforts of Shirotsuki that she has even started to move past that, though she still has quite a ways to go. But perhaps in the end, it’s because of these very scars that she is able to empathize so readily with others: she knows what pain is like, and she wants nothing more for her friends to be able to overcome their own scars as well.

Although she retains much of her childish innocence, she is also surprisingly mature in some ways. More specifically, she’s very good at taking care of herself for being only around ten or eleven. She knows how to budget her money, even while taking care of an even younger child. She can cook alright, and she keeps her room relatively clean and cozy. She gets her chores done (even if she trips along the way) and she does her best to balance her work as a teacher with the playtime that younger child requires. Her world is one where children seem to be expected to pull their own weight, particularly as many of those children are war orphans and there likely aren’t enough resources to care for them all. Thus, Hibiki does what she must to survive.

Although he is limited in what he can do, it helps that her master, Shirotsuki is constantly by her side during these times. He is just as kindhearted as his apprentice, and does whatever it takes to protect her. When they were attacked by robbers during an experiment, he allowed his own body to burn along with his home in order to protect both his research and Hibiki – he waited until she was outside and safe before setting it all off. Even when trapped in the body of a gusk, he is almost never seen away from her, and prefers to stay on her shoulders or her head where he can keep an eye on what she’s doing, as well as the people who she interacts with.

Although he is later shown to have lost almost all of his memories including his own name, he says himself that Hibiki remains important to him. Though he does not know who she is, he feels that she is his true blood family, and wants only for her to be safe and happy. When she feels down, he will comfort her with his presence, reminding her that he is with her and continues to support her. When she needs help with magic that is beyond her skill level, he will often provide, secretly scrawling his own magic circles to aid her. When she is in danger, he will protect her with his own spells, even if that means only sacrificing more of his memories. For in their world, magic comes with a price, and his payment is in the form of his recollections of people, places, or even objects. And yet, despite that, he will gladly pay this price for Hibiki’s sake.

Abilities: Hibiki brews a really amazing cup of tea that warms the heart. That’s basically it; she doesn’t even have a talent for magic.

Shirotsuki on the other hand has ample magic ability and a vast knowledge of magic circles. He doesn’t use these too often because it’s difficult to draw magic circles when one is a small squirrel creature, but he will jump in if Hibiki desperately needs help. He is shown to know spells including one for switching souls between bodies, one for igniting surfaces, one for trapping a victim in their worst fears for a set amount of time, one for aiding the creation of a homunculus along with the proper materials, one for allowing a person to see, hear, and understand spirits, and one for powerful healing. However, each time he casts one of these spells, he loses more and more of his memories as per his sacrifice.

Alignment: Thras. She is frequently terrified of many things; other people, failure, and so on. But she can also display a reckless amount of courage if her friends are in danger.

Other: She will be coming in with Shirotsuki trapped in his gusk form. However, if someone miraculously wants to app him from an earlier point, I would be happy to have him disappear so he could be canon… downgraded to an earlier canon point. Given this is a terribly obscure series I doubt it will come up, but just tossing it out there!

⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉
Sample: If this is not sufficient I can add more!

Questions: None!