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totallynotanoniPLAYER
YOUR NAME: Draconic
18+?: 18+
CONTACT: Dracoshower92 @ Plurk
CHARACTERS IN GAME: N/A
RESERVATION LINK: here.
YOUR NAME: Draconic
18+?: 18+
CONTACT: Dracoshower92 @ Plurk
CHARACTERS IN GAME: N/A
RESERVATION LINK: here.
CHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: Kasen Ibaraki
AGE: Unknown (Likely in the hundreds, possibly over a thousand. Had to have been born before 1485. If the Oni Theory proves true, she would have to be at least 1000 years old.)
CANON: Touhou
NAME: Kasen Ibaraki
AGE: Unknown (Likely in the hundreds, possibly over a thousand. Had to have been born before 1485. If the Oni Theory proves true, she would have to be at least 1000 years old.)
CANON: Touhou
CANON HISTORY: Wiki page.
For the sake of my own sanity, I'll be going with the "Kasen is an Oni" theory.
There's a lot of stuff left vague in Kasen's backstory, and a lot of other stuff left out completely. Although we have the facts, we don't have the full story. So here are the facts. Also, for the sake of my own sanity, I'll be going with the "Kasen is an Oni" theory.Swear to The Dragon, Zun, if you make her an amanojaku I will have your head!
First off, the setting. Seeing as Kasen's backstory ties in with the very origins of modern day Gensokyo, I'll have to start off there. The Touhou games themselves take place in a land referred to as Gensokyo, a magical realm cut off from the modern world; it serves as a sanctuary for the magical beings that can't exist in a world where humans no longer believe in them. Gensokyo is surrounded by the Great Hakurei Barrier, a boundary of common sense that serves as a means of keeping living beings in and out.
The barrier's creation was originally proposed by a mysterious youkai by the name of Yukari Yakumo. In 1885, Yukari and a group of Youkai Sages, one of them being Kasen Ibaraki, erect the Hakurei Barrier around the (now forgotten) Gensokyo region of Japan. The plan was for the single human village within the barrier to help provide the fear and belief necessary to keep the youkai existing; they would be cut off from the Outside World's growing disbelief and destruction.
Within the confines of Gensokyo is Youkai Mountain, a mountain/volcano dominated by the oni. At the time the oni sat higher in the youkai hierarchy than both the tengu and the kappa, and often tormented the humans outside of them mountain, tempting them into competitions and abducting them, forcing humans to use tricks and other means to survive. They were all lead by four of the most powerful (and hopefully wise and intelligent.) oni, referred to as the Four Devas of the Mountain: Amongst the known Devas are Suika Ibuki, Yuugi Hoshiguma, and possibly Kasen herself if speculations prove true. However, things don't last forever: bored with the recent decline in oni hunters and unhappy with the new laws set for the world within the barrier, the oni opted to move underground alongside a number of other youkai; they all ended up abandoning Youkai Mountain and moving to Hell.
At this point, two things happen to Kasen: 1) She loses her right arm through some incident and replaces it with a magic prosthetic. The right arm is apparently outside the Genokyo Barrier, and is actually still 'alive' and moving due to Kasen's own actions. 2) For unknown reasons Kasen goes into isolation on Youkai Mountain, eventually coming to pose as a taoist hermit. The oni departing along with any information on her past identity helps this, and Kasen is able to spend her days training, meditating, and collecting, raising, and training numerous animals of myth and rarity, a baby dragon eventually amongst her menagerie.
In the absence of the oni, their previous Tengu and kappa subordinates take over the mountain, the tengu moving into the old residences of the oni and building their own society. This eventually brings Kasen into contact with both groups in 1980, when she argued against the use of mist nets on the mountain. During this she ends up being interviewed by tengu reporter Aya Shameimaru, resulting in the first known documentation of her existence.
Kasen stays under the radar until the start of her series, Wild and Horned Hermit, where she comes to the Hakurei Shrine to investigate rumors of the shrine maiden obtaining a kappa's arm. When it becomes clear that - After this the series follows Kasen trying to dispense knowledge to a relatively simple-minded and at times lazy Reimu, and usually failing to do so. Also in the background she is under surveillance by shinigami Komachi Onozuka, who is investigating her actions. Much of the series actually revolves around Kasen trying to keep her hermit front up (This gets really funny whenever bean-throwing festivals come up.), attempting to guide Reimu (Fails abound.), and generally dealing with everyday Gensokyo shenanigans.
At one point in the series, a number of outside world urban legends gained ice in Gensokyo, causing minor annoyances for the residence. This is focused on in Urban Legend in Limbo, where a psychic schoolgirl outside the barrier, Sumireko Usami, is using a group of artifacts called the Occult Balls to pull people from Gensokyo into the Outside World. Realizing that the source lies outside of Gensokyo, she promptly opens a hole in the barrier with an incantation, though is caught in the act by Mamizou. After being sworn to secrecy (via violence), however, Mamizou reveals to Kasen her plan to lure the instigator of the incident into Gensokyo. Agreeing, Kasen takes part in the plan, eventually fighting Sumireko herself.
After the incident Sumireko and Kasen become friend, the two shown interacting in a few chapters during Wild and Horned Hermit.
I feel like I should bring up Chapter 35 in particular here. In Chapter 35, humans within the village begin getting randomly spirited away in their sleep, only to suddenly appear again in the exact same spot as if nothing has happened. Kasen comes to realize that the reason for this is Sumireko constantly coming in and out of Gensokyo. Proeviously she had only swapped places with dreams within the border, yet has slowly begun swapping with items, and eventually people, instead.
Her investigation eventually causes her to encounter Yukari, who states her belief that Sumireko has gotten this far with Kasen's help. When Yukari states that Kasen is on "Their" side, Kasen corrects her, having realigned herself with "The Law of Heaven" (No idea what that is.). Yukari, in a surprisingly emotional flash, feels betrayed, yet quickly recovers, and drops the bomb that Kasen is in fact one of the Youkai Sages on us. Afterwards the two discuss making a possible dream substitute for Sumireko to use instead, before Kasen bolts as Reimu barges in.
CANON PERSONALITY:
When we first meet Kasen, she’s given a fairly straightforwards introduction: She’s a kindly hermit, polite and willing to lend aid to those who need it, carrying great wisdom and knowledge with her wherever she goes. She’s kinda like a spiritual guide, helping to direct people down the right path and help them better themselves. She even offers her assistance and advice to youkai, the enemies of mankind, in hopes that both them and the humans will become better people.
Of course she’s also super quick to point out a person’s flaws, especially when they refuse to change their ways or try to justify them. And while she’s persistent to the point of coming off as preachy, she’s more than often correct. Its hard to argue with that, so the reluctant usually just take it and grumble under their breath.
Throughout the series Kasen plays the straightman, the one who tries to walk the rational and honest path. In a world like Gensokyo, though, this is difficult, especially when the people around her are irrational. For example, at one point when she puts up a warning sign for toxic fumes coming out of a hot spring, warning that humans would die if they got close. However, she soon finds that Marisa and Reimu have started digging there for gold, arguing that since they were all eventually going to die as humans it didn’t really matter. Much frustration followed afterwards.
As a hermit Kasen is a reclusive individual who prefers to keep to herself and take care of issues on her own. While she’s plenty social, she doesn’t really make it a goal to share anything about her private life and actions. When she sees an issue she wants taken care of, she takes care of it on her own, and tends to keep the activity to herself. At one point when a thunder lizard she was raising gets out of control and begins attacking the village, she takes it upon herself to right her wrongs, yet when Reimu asks why she’s getting involved with the “rogue lightning”, she simply passes it off as being concerned, telling only part of the truth. She has her secrets, after all, and she really doesn’t want to give them away.
For example, in the background she maintains an antagonistic relationship with the shinigami Komachi Onnozuka, who has been assigned to observe her for a very interesting reason: She’s not human, and definitely not a true hermit. Its after this point that it becomes clear that Kasen doesn’t fully understand what it means to be a hermit, even admitting to Komachi that she didn’t realize that being a Taoist Hermit meant being some sort of holy woman. No, Kasen’s a bit more than a hermit, and that she’s got secrets and an agenda of her own, one that has attracted the attention of some very powerful people.
Kasen has been heavily implied to be an oni posing as a hermit: she bares the signature wrist shackle typical of oni in touhou, she has an aversion to anti-oni implements and charms, and even shares a name with the legendary oni Ibaraki-douji. When Mamizou attempts to reveal her true nature, the false hermit’s solution is to get competitive, challenging the tanuki to a drinking contest (oni love booze) to prove her superiority. She is even personally familiar with the other two named oni in the series, both of which’s real-life namesakes were affiliates of Ibaraki-douji.
This isn’t to say that her outward personality is some sort of facade, in fact it is very real. She’s a youkai who can’t help but be empathetic towards others, even if their humans and animals. Its why she dislikes Gensokyo’s isolation and how it seems to raise up only youkai: Kasen wants to make a win-win situation where both the humans and youkai are happy. She heavily dislikes how unnatural a world like Gensokyo is, and how evil spirits and the like are able to cross in from Old Hell. She sort of steps to the beat of her own drum, and follows her own judgement before others: even at the protest of the shinigami, she’s more than willing to remove a spirit from the cycle of death and rebirth, especially if they wander to the surface. After all, the surface is only a home for good men, saints, and true villains.
Of course its idealistic, seeing as she wants to make a world she feels is ideal, but she’s very convinced of her rightness, and is willing to do everything she can to bring it to fruition. She’s been living in isolation for a long time, thus meaning she’s had no one but herself to explain her ideals to. Thus, she’s sided against the existence of the Barrier, and basically lives a lie: to the oni, who are honorable by nature, lying is a terrible crime. It goes to show the lengths Kasen’s willing to go, even if it means compromising her moral code.
Make no mistake, Kasen is a kindly person who prefers the peaceful and rational resolution of problems over violent ones. However, not everything can be solved through a heart-to-heart. When Sumireko goes too far with screwing with Gensokyo in ULiL, Kasen is amongst the group that tricks her into coming to Gensokyo to be taught a lesson, and before that physically threatened Mamizou’s life when the tanuki discovered Kasen could make holes in the barrier. The fact that she later partnered with Mamizou to torment the aforementioned Sumireko goes to show that it doesn’t matter how shifty or questionable her actions are: if its for the greater good of the people around her, then she’ll do it.
In Chapter 35, Kasen meets Yukari Yakumo, a Youkai Sage and the architect of the Gensokyo Barrier, who drops this bomb on us when Kasen tells her that she isn’t on her side:
“I see. I suppose it takes all kinds, even among the sages of Gensokyo.”
Yukari is more than likely referring to Kasen as a fellow Youkai Sage, the Sages being a group of youkai who basically founded the Hakurei Barrier. This puts all of Kasen’s dislikes of the Barrier and state of Gensokyo into a completely different light: These are her regrets. She helped make something that became something different than from what she intended. She’s trying to fix things, even if she doesn’t see the full picture yet.
SKILLS/ABILITIES:
Due to the air of secrecy Kasen tends to keep, we can’t really tell how much of her power she’s actually shown and what she still has hidden. She even admits to hiding her true power and holding back after fighting Reimu in ULiL. So what I’m showing is what is already known.
From the fighting game we know she’s a skilled combatant, able to hold her own against some of the strongest fighters in Gensokyo. She’s stronger than the average human, and typical of Gensokyo has the ability to levitate and fly, although she prefers the aid of her pet eagle or dragon for aerial things, implying she’s not nearly as good at it as the others are. She actually tends to call in her animals for many of her attacks, summoning them in and out to strike at her foes.
On that note, Kasen can speak to animals. From what she’s described, its like a two-way translator: the animals understand her as if she were speaking their language, and she understands them as if they were speaking hers. This makes her especially good at raising and training them, whether they be humble dogs or eastern dragons.
At one point Kasen lost her right arm and replaced it with a magical prosthetic made of bandages. The arm seems to have some sort of ability to crush and possibly destroy evil spirits and ghosts, permanently removing them from the cycle of death and reincarnation. Although the exact properties of the arm are unknown, it did break apart temporarily when in contact with the Hakurei Shrine’s Yin-Yang Orb (which is a weapon mainly to be used against youkai) meaning it has some youkai properties.
She can unfurl and extend it, controlling the hand remotely and with enough precision to weave it through a crowd completely unseen and grab a spirit-fox-thingy. The bandages can also be completely unfurled and controlled outside of being an arm, used to grapple and entrap enemies as large as an adult human. They can stretch to the point of making a ball around their target, which she can then throw at will. She’s also displayed enough skill with it to use its shaping ability to reinforce her attacks, like making literally drills at the start of her kicks or creating massive claws to deal heavier damage.
She also has access to the Ibaraki Box of a Hundred Medicines, a specially made 2 liter box that heals the injuries of anyone who drinks from it: however, whoever is healed by the box will be turned into an obi in both personality and body. Someone in perfect health who drinks from it will temporarily gain the personality and strength of an oni.
In regards to magical ability, Kasen seems to have a number of applications for mystic power. She’s possibly able to either teleport or move at incredible speeds, blinking in and out of sight in seconds. She can create mystic balls of light that can be directed without touching them and attached to things like tree branches. She has displayed some understanding of Hermit Arts, using Feng-Shui to hide her home, also changing the path to it on a daily basis.
She also has literal centuries of knowledge regarding magic and related topics crammed into her head, owing to years of experience. If there’s an obscure legend in Japanese history, whether it be derived from culture, religion, folklore, or just plain superstition, she’s more than likely to know it. And she’ll be more than likely to know how to utilize it: like how a tanuki drunk on oil has a hard time physically moving, or how selling rakes on certain festival days is a really bad idea.
Speaking of her knowledge, Kasen knows how to safely open a hole in the Hakurei Barrier. As one of the Youkai Sages, she was more than likely given access to a code or knowledge that allows her to open up impromptu gaps in the barrier. All she seems to need to do is say:
“In the name of the Sage XXXX
I command:
Release the ban of 130 years.”
Although the XXX is still vague, its a very big possibility that she’s reciting her own name.
In the case that Kasen is in fact an Oni, she will more than likely have superhuman strength (able to rip full grown trees out of the ground.), agelessness, high tolerance to alcohol, and a weakness to beans and other anti-oni charms.
For the sake of my own sanity, I'll be going with the "Kasen is an Oni" theory.
There's a lot of stuff left vague in Kasen's backstory, and a lot of other stuff left out completely. Although we have the facts, we don't have the full story. So here are the facts. Also, for the sake of my own sanity, I'll be going with the "Kasen is an Oni" theory.
First off, the setting. Seeing as Kasen's backstory ties in with the very origins of modern day Gensokyo, I'll have to start off there. The Touhou games themselves take place in a land referred to as Gensokyo, a magical realm cut off from the modern world; it serves as a sanctuary for the magical beings that can't exist in a world where humans no longer believe in them. Gensokyo is surrounded by the Great Hakurei Barrier, a boundary of common sense that serves as a means of keeping living beings in and out.
The barrier's creation was originally proposed by a mysterious youkai by the name of Yukari Yakumo. In 1885, Yukari and a group of Youkai Sages, one of them being Kasen Ibaraki, erect the Hakurei Barrier around the (now forgotten) Gensokyo region of Japan. The plan was for the single human village within the barrier to help provide the fear and belief necessary to keep the youkai existing; they would be cut off from the Outside World's growing disbelief and destruction.
Within the confines of Gensokyo is Youkai Mountain, a mountain/volcano dominated by the oni. At the time the oni sat higher in the youkai hierarchy than both the tengu and the kappa, and often tormented the humans outside of them mountain, tempting them into competitions and abducting them, forcing humans to use tricks and other means to survive. They were all lead by four of the most powerful (and hopefully wise and intelligent.) oni, referred to as the Four Devas of the Mountain: Amongst the known Devas are Suika Ibuki, Yuugi Hoshiguma, and possibly Kasen herself if speculations prove true. However, things don't last forever: bored with the recent decline in oni hunters and unhappy with the new laws set for the world within the barrier, the oni opted to move underground alongside a number of other youkai; they all ended up abandoning Youkai Mountain and moving to Hell.
At this point, two things happen to Kasen: 1) She loses her right arm through some incident and replaces it with a magic prosthetic. The right arm is apparently outside the Genokyo Barrier, and is actually still 'alive' and moving due to Kasen's own actions. 2) For unknown reasons Kasen goes into isolation on Youkai Mountain, eventually coming to pose as a taoist hermit. The oni departing along with any information on her past identity helps this, and Kasen is able to spend her days training, meditating, and collecting, raising, and training numerous animals of myth and rarity, a baby dragon eventually amongst her menagerie.
In the absence of the oni, their previous Tengu and kappa subordinates take over the mountain, the tengu moving into the old residences of the oni and building their own society. This eventually brings Kasen into contact with both groups in 1980, when she argued against the use of mist nets on the mountain. During this she ends up being interviewed by tengu reporter Aya Shameimaru, resulting in the first known documentation of her existence.
Kasen stays under the radar until the start of her series, Wild and Horned Hermit, where she comes to the Hakurei Shrine to investigate rumors of the shrine maiden obtaining a kappa's arm. When it becomes clear that - After this the series follows Kasen trying to dispense knowledge to a relatively simple-minded and at times lazy Reimu, and usually failing to do so. Also in the background she is under surveillance by shinigami Komachi Onozuka, who is investigating her actions. Much of the series actually revolves around Kasen trying to keep her hermit front up (This gets really funny whenever bean-throwing festivals come up.), attempting to guide Reimu (Fails abound.), and generally dealing with everyday Gensokyo shenanigans.
At one point in the series, a number of outside world urban legends gained ice in Gensokyo, causing minor annoyances for the residence. This is focused on in Urban Legend in Limbo, where a psychic schoolgirl outside the barrier, Sumireko Usami, is using a group of artifacts called the Occult Balls to pull people from Gensokyo into the Outside World. Realizing that the source lies outside of Gensokyo, she promptly opens a hole in the barrier with an incantation, though is caught in the act by Mamizou. After being sworn to secrecy (via violence), however, Mamizou reveals to Kasen her plan to lure the instigator of the incident into Gensokyo. Agreeing, Kasen takes part in the plan, eventually fighting Sumireko herself.
After the incident Sumireko and Kasen become friend, the two shown interacting in a few chapters during Wild and Horned Hermit.
I feel like I should bring up Chapter 35 in particular here. In Chapter 35, humans within the village begin getting randomly spirited away in their sleep, only to suddenly appear again in the exact same spot as if nothing has happened. Kasen comes to realize that the reason for this is Sumireko constantly coming in and out of Gensokyo. Proeviously she had only swapped places with dreams within the border, yet has slowly begun swapping with items, and eventually people, instead.
Her investigation eventually causes her to encounter Yukari, who states her belief that Sumireko has gotten this far with Kasen's help. When Yukari states that Kasen is on "Their" side, Kasen corrects her, having realigned herself with "The Law of Heaven" (No idea what that is.). Yukari, in a surprisingly emotional flash, feels betrayed, yet quickly recovers, and drops the bomb that Kasen is in fact one of the Youkai Sages on us. Afterwards the two discuss making a possible dream substitute for Sumireko to use instead, before Kasen bolts as Reimu barges in.
CANON PERSONALITY:
When we first meet Kasen, she’s given a fairly straightforwards introduction: She’s a kindly hermit, polite and willing to lend aid to those who need it, carrying great wisdom and knowledge with her wherever she goes. She’s kinda like a spiritual guide, helping to direct people down the right path and help them better themselves. She even offers her assistance and advice to youkai, the enemies of mankind, in hopes that both them and the humans will become better people.
Of course she’s also super quick to point out a person’s flaws, especially when they refuse to change their ways or try to justify them. And while she’s persistent to the point of coming off as preachy, she’s more than often correct. Its hard to argue with that, so the reluctant usually just take it and grumble under their breath.
Throughout the series Kasen plays the straightman, the one who tries to walk the rational and honest path. In a world like Gensokyo, though, this is difficult, especially when the people around her are irrational. For example, at one point when she puts up a warning sign for toxic fumes coming out of a hot spring, warning that humans would die if they got close. However, she soon finds that Marisa and Reimu have started digging there for gold, arguing that since they were all eventually going to die as humans it didn’t really matter. Much frustration followed afterwards.
As a hermit Kasen is a reclusive individual who prefers to keep to herself and take care of issues on her own. While she’s plenty social, she doesn’t really make it a goal to share anything about her private life and actions. When she sees an issue she wants taken care of, she takes care of it on her own, and tends to keep the activity to herself. At one point when a thunder lizard she was raising gets out of control and begins attacking the village, she takes it upon herself to right her wrongs, yet when Reimu asks why she’s getting involved with the “rogue lightning”, she simply passes it off as being concerned, telling only part of the truth. She has her secrets, after all, and she really doesn’t want to give them away.
For example, in the background she maintains an antagonistic relationship with the shinigami Komachi Onnozuka, who has been assigned to observe her for a very interesting reason: She’s not human, and definitely not a true hermit. Its after this point that it becomes clear that Kasen doesn’t fully understand what it means to be a hermit, even admitting to Komachi that she didn’t realize that being a Taoist Hermit meant being some sort of holy woman. No, Kasen’s a bit more than a hermit, and that she’s got secrets and an agenda of her own, one that has attracted the attention of some very powerful people.
Kasen has been heavily implied to be an oni posing as a hermit: she bares the signature wrist shackle typical of oni in touhou, she has an aversion to anti-oni implements and charms, and even shares a name with the legendary oni Ibaraki-douji. When Mamizou attempts to reveal her true nature, the false hermit’s solution is to get competitive, challenging the tanuki to a drinking contest (oni love booze) to prove her superiority. She is even personally familiar with the other two named oni in the series, both of which’s real-life namesakes were affiliates of Ibaraki-douji.
This isn’t to say that her outward personality is some sort of facade, in fact it is very real. She’s a youkai who can’t help but be empathetic towards others, even if their humans and animals. Its why she dislikes Gensokyo’s isolation and how it seems to raise up only youkai: Kasen wants to make a win-win situation where both the humans and youkai are happy. She heavily dislikes how unnatural a world like Gensokyo is, and how evil spirits and the like are able to cross in from Old Hell. She sort of steps to the beat of her own drum, and follows her own judgement before others: even at the protest of the shinigami, she’s more than willing to remove a spirit from the cycle of death and rebirth, especially if they wander to the surface. After all, the surface is only a home for good men, saints, and true villains.
Of course its idealistic, seeing as she wants to make a world she feels is ideal, but she’s very convinced of her rightness, and is willing to do everything she can to bring it to fruition. She’s been living in isolation for a long time, thus meaning she’s had no one but herself to explain her ideals to. Thus, she’s sided against the existence of the Barrier, and basically lives a lie: to the oni, who are honorable by nature, lying is a terrible crime. It goes to show the lengths Kasen’s willing to go, even if it means compromising her moral code.
Make no mistake, Kasen is a kindly person who prefers the peaceful and rational resolution of problems over violent ones. However, not everything can be solved through a heart-to-heart. When Sumireko goes too far with screwing with Gensokyo in ULiL, Kasen is amongst the group that tricks her into coming to Gensokyo to be taught a lesson, and before that physically threatened Mamizou’s life when the tanuki discovered Kasen could make holes in the barrier. The fact that she later partnered with Mamizou to torment the aforementioned Sumireko goes to show that it doesn’t matter how shifty or questionable her actions are: if its for the greater good of the people around her, then she’ll do it.
In Chapter 35, Kasen meets Yukari Yakumo, a Youkai Sage and the architect of the Gensokyo Barrier, who drops this bomb on us when Kasen tells her that she isn’t on her side:
“I see. I suppose it takes all kinds, even among the sages of Gensokyo.”
Yukari is more than likely referring to Kasen as a fellow Youkai Sage, the Sages being a group of youkai who basically founded the Hakurei Barrier. This puts all of Kasen’s dislikes of the Barrier and state of Gensokyo into a completely different light: These are her regrets. She helped make something that became something different than from what she intended. She’s trying to fix things, even if she doesn’t see the full picture yet.
SKILLS/ABILITIES:
Due to the air of secrecy Kasen tends to keep, we can’t really tell how much of her power she’s actually shown and what she still has hidden. She even admits to hiding her true power and holding back after fighting Reimu in ULiL. So what I’m showing is what is already known.
From the fighting game we know she’s a skilled combatant, able to hold her own against some of the strongest fighters in Gensokyo. She’s stronger than the average human, and typical of Gensokyo has the ability to levitate and fly, although she prefers the aid of her pet eagle or dragon for aerial things, implying she’s not nearly as good at it as the others are. She actually tends to call in her animals for many of her attacks, summoning them in and out to strike at her foes.
On that note, Kasen can speak to animals. From what she’s described, its like a two-way translator: the animals understand her as if she were speaking their language, and she understands them as if they were speaking hers. This makes her especially good at raising and training them, whether they be humble dogs or eastern dragons.
At one point Kasen lost her right arm and replaced it with a magical prosthetic made of bandages. The arm seems to have some sort of ability to crush and possibly destroy evil spirits and ghosts, permanently removing them from the cycle of death and reincarnation. Although the exact properties of the arm are unknown, it did break apart temporarily when in contact with the Hakurei Shrine’s Yin-Yang Orb (which is a weapon mainly to be used against youkai) meaning it has some youkai properties.
She can unfurl and extend it, controlling the hand remotely and with enough precision to weave it through a crowd completely unseen and grab a spirit-fox-thingy. The bandages can also be completely unfurled and controlled outside of being an arm, used to grapple and entrap enemies as large as an adult human. They can stretch to the point of making a ball around their target, which she can then throw at will. She’s also displayed enough skill with it to use its shaping ability to reinforce her attacks, like making literally drills at the start of her kicks or creating massive claws to deal heavier damage.
She also has access to the Ibaraki Box of a Hundred Medicines, a specially made 2 liter box that heals the injuries of anyone who drinks from it: however, whoever is healed by the box will be turned into an obi in both personality and body. Someone in perfect health who drinks from it will temporarily gain the personality and strength of an oni.
In regards to magical ability, Kasen seems to have a number of applications for mystic power. She’s possibly able to either teleport or move at incredible speeds, blinking in and out of sight in seconds. She can create mystic balls of light that can be directed without touching them and attached to things like tree branches. She has displayed some understanding of Hermit Arts, using Feng-Shui to hide her home, also changing the path to it on a daily basis.
She also has literal centuries of knowledge regarding magic and related topics crammed into her head, owing to years of experience. If there’s an obscure legend in Japanese history, whether it be derived from culture, religion, folklore, or just plain superstition, she’s more than likely to know it. And she’ll be more than likely to know how to utilize it: like how a tanuki drunk on oil has a hard time physically moving, or how selling rakes on certain festival days is a really bad idea.
Speaking of her knowledge, Kasen knows how to safely open a hole in the Hakurei Barrier. As one of the Youkai Sages, she was more than likely given access to a code or knowledge that allows her to open up impromptu gaps in the barrier. All she seems to need to do is say:
“In the name of the Sage XXXX
I command:
Release the ban of 130 years.”
Although the XXX is still vague, its a very big possibility that she’s reciting her own name.
In the case that Kasen is in fact an Oni, she will more than likely have superhuman strength (able to rip full grown trees out of the ground.), agelessness, high tolerance to alcohol, and a weakness to beans and other anti-oni charms.
CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: Katherine "Kath" Takada
AU AGE: 27
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES:
Dark brown hair in a bob cut and brown eyes. Missing entire right arm with faded scarring around the stump. Small, faded crack scar on the far left of her lower lip. No horns.
Height: 5'6
AU NAME: Katherine "Kath" Takada
AU AGE: 27
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES:
Dark brown hair in a bob cut and brown eyes. Missing entire right arm with faded scarring around the stump. Small, faded crack scar on the far left of her lower lip. No horns.
Height: 5'6
AU HISTORY:
Note: I have permission from Sam to include Lucy in Katherine’s background.
Katherine Takada is born July 24th, 1990, in San Francisco to Japanese-American parents.— Her parents are young and ill-prepared, Katherine’s conception being very unexpected. A poor - Her mother and father tend to argue on occasion, though they try to stay as civil as possible with Katherine around.
When Katherine is nine years-old, everything suddenly goes downhill. After a particularly tense period in their relationship, her father walks out on her and her mother finds herself pregnant again shortly after. The most painful of these, though, is that 7 months into her mothe’rs pregnancy, Katherine is involved in a horrific car accident, losing her right arm in the crash and landing in the hospital.
Under intense pressure and financial duress from having to pay for Katherine’s medical bills without her husband and having to worry about her daughter's future, Katherine’s mother makes the difficult choice of surrendering Lucy, though when she’s reviewed Child Protective Services finds her unfit for taking care of Katherine, removing her from her care until she proves herself to be a capable guardian again.
After recovery and beginning rehab, Katherjne ends up in the same orphanage as Lucy: the orphanage is failing and lacks any good resources or staff. Katherine tries her best to take care of and watch out for her younger sister, leaving enough engraved memory of herself for Lucy to remember her growing up. A year later it is determined that their mother is a capable guardian and Katherine is returned. However since Lucy was officially surrendered, she would not be allowed to return. Their mother fights to get her back, though after be blocked many a time by red tape bullshit, she loses her resolve. Her mother quitting on Lucy shakes Katherine, and she hasn’t seen her sister since.
Shaken by their experiences, both mother and daughter attempt to find coping mechanisms. Although she’s still holding multipel jobs, her mother develops a drinking habit, causing home life to become a little more difficult. At some point, Katherine’s mother starts partially blaming her daughter’s injury for the whole circumstance, though never directly voices this, being emotionally neglectful instead. Its just enough for Katherine to pick up on, though, and she herself starts believing it herself. This comes to a head when, 4 years later, they receive news that the orphanage Lucy was kept in had been shut down due to a horrific accident. Both suffer greatly from this, especially when her mother’s attempts to relocate her daughter come up empty.
Before and after the 4 years, ostracized due to her missing arm and attempting to cope with the growing sense of guilt, Katherine ends up trying to find comfort with the wrong crowd, and seems to become a delinquent overnight. She becomes antagonistic of her mother, putting strain on their already pretty wrecked relationship. She picks up a number of bad habits from her new “friends”, though she manages to steer clear of some of the more extreme things she could do. One particular habit she picks up is drinking, eventually developing a bit of a drinking habit.
Its also at this point that Katherine picks up her nickname, Kath.
By 16 she has had multiple brushes with the law: truancy, weapons possession, vandalism, possession of illegal substances, underage drinking and intoxication (Oh God this one so much.), assault, theft, and a few other things. She’s been incarcerated at least once, though it was a relatively short period of time. Surprisingly she actually did decently in school, although her detention record is pretty bad, and she’s been expelled from several schools for fighting and other behaviors.
Everything changes one night, however, when she’s drunk off her ass in a car with an equally drunken friend at the wheel. Her friend loses control of the car, nearly hitting a young girl if it isn’t for Kath grabbing the wheel and veering them off road into a building. Although the incident only leaves her with a few bruises and a following hangover, once again Katherine’s life is shaken. She takes the time to reflect on herself, and the ugly feelings she’s been trying to ignore for years: she realizes how much of her youth she’s wasted, and is disturbed by how far she’s fallen.
And so, Katherine Takada starts over. She decides to cut her ties with her old friend, even if she’s left feeling if feeling isolated again. She stops dying her hair pink. She gets a job for once. She even tries to stop drinking, and gets some level of success. One of the biggest bridges she has to mend, however, is with her mother: after many apologies and heartfelt conversations, the two manage to build some form of a proper relationship again, although there’s a lot of damage that may never really heal.
Salvaging her grades, she manages to get into college, eventually graduating with a major in psychology and a minor in education. The nicer part of Katherine slowly begins to resurface, though she’s still scarred by her youth. She’s gotten drunk at a few college mixers for sure.
Katherine eventually moves to Recolle, and lands a job as one of the Student Guidance Counsellors at Recolle University. She’s been living in Recolle ever since, trying to make it day by day.
Other:
Lives alone in a one person apartment near Recolle University
At one point she adopted a puppy named Kai. He is adorable, and she’s trying her best to train him.
Calls her mom at least twice a month to check up on her.
Tries to work out on a daily basis, though sometimes fails to do so. Enjoys yoga.
AU PERSONALITY:
Katherine shares much of Kasen’s personality, though much more toned down and less aged. The main changes are as follows:
-Katherine is 27 years old, lacking the centuries of wisdom and experience Kasen has. She’s smart and she’s experienced, yet not nearly as much as her canon self. She can’t come up with immediate solutions to outlandish problems like Kasen can, and needs time to contemplate still. Yet she’s still smart and wise to some extent, and lends expert advice in her specialized areas.
-Still irritable and prone to snapping harshly at others, if under duress, passovers from her rougher years. She tries to hide this side of herself a lot, though she’s still prone to moments of attitude. Especially when drunk or under duress.
-Very much a lion in her own den when dealing with people: she’s sociable and pleasant, but when put into more serious and business-like scenarios she prefers to be in control of the situation or to have prepared. She falls back on the instincts she has a a guidance counsellor, which doesn’t always work. She’s still getting used to being a proper people-person.
- Very emotional and sensitive, though she tries to keep this under wraps at all times. Prone to emotional outbursts under great stress. The type of person who seems to lock up when it all feels like its crashing down.
- Has developed a bit of guilt complex over the years, tracing back to her and her mother silently blaming her for all that happened. If she messes up, and especially if that mess up affected someone else, she’ll freak out. If she really feels like she’s wronged you, it’ll linger with her for quite awhile.
Suffers from depressive episodes. Tends to have days when she feels completely useless and empty, sometimes like she just can’t do anything right. Honestly she’s pretty well-off, having pulled through regardless of the crap she’s been through and what she’s done, yet she always has this sense of “I have to be better than who I was yesterday.” Super dedicated to her work, she sometimes can’t feel happy when she isn’t doing something productive.
- Also developed trust issues due to a less than stellar track records with authority figures (alcoholic mother, father walked out, Child Protective Services, Cops, etc.) along with the questionable guidance of other youths in the past. While she’ll be your friend and take your help and learn from you, she won’t trust you with leading her or guiding her. She won’t tell you her deep dark secrets without really trusting you: its less of a lack of faith and more of scarring left by bad experiences with authority figures and “trusted” sources. Thing is, she also knows she has problems and doesn’t always trust herself, yet at the same time doesn’t really like sharing those problems with other people. Yeah, a really difficult cycle.
- Still has a drinking problem. Although she’s managed to calm down, she’s still tempted by alcohol, especially when she’s super stressed out or emotional.
Drinking became a bit of a habitual response to stress when she was a teen. To put shortly, once she starts, it can sometimes be very hard to stop if she isn’t careful.
- Identifies as pansexual. She tends to have a hard time developing romantic relationships due to her trust-issues, so anyone trying to win her heart is in for the long-and-bumpy haul.
Note: I have permission from Sam to include Lucy in Katherine’s background.
Katherine Takada is born July 24th, 1990, in San Francisco to Japanese-American parents.— Her parents are young and ill-prepared, Katherine’s conception being very unexpected. A poor - Her mother and father tend to argue on occasion, though they try to stay as civil as possible with Katherine around.
When Katherine is nine years-old, everything suddenly goes downhill. After a particularly tense period in their relationship, her father walks out on her and her mother finds herself pregnant again shortly after. The most painful of these, though, is that 7 months into her mothe’rs pregnancy, Katherine is involved in a horrific car accident, losing her right arm in the crash and landing in the hospital.
Under intense pressure and financial duress from having to pay for Katherine’s medical bills without her husband and having to worry about her daughter's future, Katherine’s mother makes the difficult choice of surrendering Lucy, though when she’s reviewed Child Protective Services finds her unfit for taking care of Katherine, removing her from her care until she proves herself to be a capable guardian again.
After recovery and beginning rehab, Katherjne ends up in the same orphanage as Lucy: the orphanage is failing and lacks any good resources or staff. Katherine tries her best to take care of and watch out for her younger sister, leaving enough engraved memory of herself for Lucy to remember her growing up. A year later it is determined that their mother is a capable guardian and Katherine is returned. However since Lucy was officially surrendered, she would not be allowed to return. Their mother fights to get her back, though after be blocked many a time by red tape bullshit, she loses her resolve. Her mother quitting on Lucy shakes Katherine, and she hasn’t seen her sister since.
Shaken by their experiences, both mother and daughter attempt to find coping mechanisms. Although she’s still holding multipel jobs, her mother develops a drinking habit, causing home life to become a little more difficult. At some point, Katherine’s mother starts partially blaming her daughter’s injury for the whole circumstance, though never directly voices this, being emotionally neglectful instead. Its just enough for Katherine to pick up on, though, and she herself starts believing it herself. This comes to a head when, 4 years later, they receive news that the orphanage Lucy was kept in had been shut down due to a horrific accident. Both suffer greatly from this, especially when her mother’s attempts to relocate her daughter come up empty.
Before and after the 4 years, ostracized due to her missing arm and attempting to cope with the growing sense of guilt, Katherine ends up trying to find comfort with the wrong crowd, and seems to become a delinquent overnight. She becomes antagonistic of her mother, putting strain on their already pretty wrecked relationship. She picks up a number of bad habits from her new “friends”, though she manages to steer clear of some of the more extreme things she could do. One particular habit she picks up is drinking, eventually developing a bit of a drinking habit.
Its also at this point that Katherine picks up her nickname, Kath.
By 16 she has had multiple brushes with the law: truancy, weapons possession, vandalism, possession of illegal substances, underage drinking and intoxication (Oh God this one so much.), assault, theft, and a few other things. She’s been incarcerated at least once, though it was a relatively short period of time. Surprisingly she actually did decently in school, although her detention record is pretty bad, and she’s been expelled from several schools for fighting and other behaviors.
Everything changes one night, however, when she’s drunk off her ass in a car with an equally drunken friend at the wheel. Her friend loses control of the car, nearly hitting a young girl if it isn’t for Kath grabbing the wheel and veering them off road into a building. Although the incident only leaves her with a few bruises and a following hangover, once again Katherine’s life is shaken. She takes the time to reflect on herself, and the ugly feelings she’s been trying to ignore for years: she realizes how much of her youth she’s wasted, and is disturbed by how far she’s fallen.
And so, Katherine Takada starts over. She decides to cut her ties with her old friend, even if she’s left feeling if feeling isolated again. She stops dying her hair pink. She gets a job for once. She even tries to stop drinking, and gets some level of success. One of the biggest bridges she has to mend, however, is with her mother: after many apologies and heartfelt conversations, the two manage to build some form of a proper relationship again, although there’s a lot of damage that may never really heal.
Salvaging her grades, she manages to get into college, eventually graduating with a major in psychology and a minor in education. The nicer part of Katherine slowly begins to resurface, though she’s still scarred by her youth. She’s gotten drunk at a few college mixers for sure.
Katherine eventually moves to Recolle, and lands a job as one of the Student Guidance Counsellors at Recolle University. She’s been living in Recolle ever since, trying to make it day by day.
Other:
Lives alone in a one person apartment near Recolle University
At one point she adopted a puppy named Kai. He is adorable, and she’s trying her best to train him.
Calls her mom at least twice a month to check up on her.
Tries to work out on a daily basis, though sometimes fails to do so. Enjoys yoga.
AU PERSONALITY:
Katherine shares much of Kasen’s personality, though much more toned down and less aged. The main changes are as follows:
-Katherine is 27 years old, lacking the centuries of wisdom and experience Kasen has. She’s smart and she’s experienced, yet not nearly as much as her canon self. She can’t come up with immediate solutions to outlandish problems like Kasen can, and needs time to contemplate still. Yet she’s still smart and wise to some extent, and lends expert advice in her specialized areas.
-Still irritable and prone to snapping harshly at others, if under duress, passovers from her rougher years. She tries to hide this side of herself a lot, though she’s still prone to moments of attitude. Especially when drunk or under duress.
-Very much a lion in her own den when dealing with people: she’s sociable and pleasant, but when put into more serious and business-like scenarios she prefers to be in control of the situation or to have prepared. She falls back on the instincts she has a a guidance counsellor, which doesn’t always work. She’s still getting used to being a proper people-person.
- Very emotional and sensitive, though she tries to keep this under wraps at all times. Prone to emotional outbursts under great stress. The type of person who seems to lock up when it all feels like its crashing down.
- Has developed a bit of guilt complex over the years, tracing back to her and her mother silently blaming her for all that happened. If she messes up, and especially if that mess up affected someone else, she’ll freak out. If she really feels like she’s wronged you, it’ll linger with her for quite awhile.
Suffers from depressive episodes. Tends to have days when she feels completely useless and empty, sometimes like she just can’t do anything right. Honestly she’s pretty well-off, having pulled through regardless of the crap she’s been through and what she’s done, yet she always has this sense of “I have to be better than who I was yesterday.” Super dedicated to her work, she sometimes can’t feel happy when she isn’t doing something productive.
- Also developed trust issues due to a less than stellar track records with authority figures (alcoholic mother, father walked out, Child Protective Services, Cops, etc.) along with the questionable guidance of other youths in the past. While she’ll be your friend and take your help and learn from you, she won’t trust you with leading her or guiding her. She won’t tell you her deep dark secrets without really trusting you: its less of a lack of faith and more of scarring left by bad experiences with authority figures and “trusted” sources. Thing is, she also knows she has problems and doesn’t always trust herself, yet at the same time doesn’t really like sharing those problems with other people. Yeah, a really difficult cycle.
- Still has a drinking problem. Although she’s managed to calm down, she’s still tempted by alcohol, especially when she’s super stressed out or emotional.
Drinking became a bit of a habitual response to stress when she was a teen. To put shortly, once she starts, it can sometimes be very hard to stop if she isn’t careful.
- Identifies as pansexual. She tends to have a hard time developing romantic relationships due to her trust-issues, so anyone trying to win her heart is in for the long-and-bumpy haul.
