Hina Tachibana

[pepsi]

Hina Tachibana

Generalities

Name: Hina Tachibana
Velvet Underground Username: electroheart
Age: 24
Gender: Female (She/they)
Race: Human
Faction: Orochi
Squad: None
Role: None
Battle Theme: Electroheart by Amaranthe

Rank: D
Red Orbs: 1000
Blue Orbs: 200

Character Description

Physical Appearance(s): Hina is a young woman of average height (173cm) and slender build. While she does show some muscle in the shoulder and abdominal area, she's average for what concerns muscle mass to fat ratio. Her skin is fair, if not slightly on the tanned side.

Hina has silver-white hair, often kept in a horsetail style with the occasional bangs framing the sides of her head. Her eyes are of a bright baby blue colour that makes them almost glow on their own.
Hina has sharp facial features: a straight nose, vixen eye shape and a pointy chin. Her lips are quite full for an Asian woman, and they have never been seen with any lipstick or gloss as she dislikes the feeling.

Clothing-wise, Hina enjoys streetwear and sportswear fashion. She's often seen with jackets, sports pants, crop tops, leggings made out of synthetic materials; plastic belts and straps are also often part of her fashion choices. She also very often wears sunglasses with black, cyan or orange tinted lenses.


Personality: Hina hasn't ever been described as a nice person to have around. She's rude, perpetually bothered by everything and everyone, and generally distrustful of others - especially strangers. This is very apparent in the way she talks or behaves, as her attitude is more or less geared to drive friendly people away from herself.

In reality, she's just the kind of person who's not afraid to speak their mind. She picked up many fights with her peers because of this honesty, especially at school; she firmly believes that anyone should be allowed to just speak truthfully about something, so that they'd never hide their true feelings.

In spite of these ideas, however, there are things she would never tell anybody. The death of her parents scarred her deeply, and she often wallows into the sadness when she's alone and nobody can see her crying. She's scared of her new situation, working for the Orochi, and thinking about the events that forever changed her life gives her a great deal of anxiety. In those moments, she may seem or act weaker; with time, she's learned to build a solid defense mechanism so that she would never give into the weakness - and her naturally rude attitude provided the perfect substance. She became stubborn, very stubborn, to the point of going against evidence and reality itself to prove her point even if it means grasping at straws; trying to push against her is one of the few things that actually makes her angry. Otherwise, Hina is a calm and collected person.

She tries not to act rude and detached all the time, but this turns out to often be exactly the way that people describe her.

Backstory

Hina was born in Tokyo, Japan, from a relatively wealthy family. Her upbringing was similar to most other people from her social caste and general area: she went to a respected public school for education, from which she graduated; her parents were able to provide her with everything a child needs to grow up healthy.
But she never was one to take school seriously, or anything in her life for that matter. She constantly picked fights with other students, and generally misbehaved to the point of being almost expelled from the school a few times. She was a soul of unrest, as her father would say.
Her family loved the outdoors, and Hina would often go camping in wildlife areas with his father and mother. Hina loved those moments, as she felt she could really be in touch with a more genuine life than what she could do in the city; she loved nature, and as she grew up she also picked up an interest in rock climbing.

When Hina was just 12 years old, the Tachibana family was just camping at their usual spot when a terrible storm gathered over their heads.
Hina, who was of course out exploring at the time, found a vast green meadow with a single oak tree growing in the middle. Unbeknownst to her parents, Hina had stolen a weapon from her father's display at home - the "Inazuma", a wakizashi - and went out to pretend play the role of a huntress in the woods.
When the storm finally hit, and the rain became too dense, Hina found shelted under the oak tree. That was when a lightning hit the tree, traveling down the branches; the current found its way through Hina's wakizashi, and consequently her right arm, her heart, her left leg.
Hina was electrocuted on the spot, and her heart stopped beating for a few minutes.

Fortunately for her, the event alerted a nearby Demon. A lightning-cloud Demon, a Raijin to be precise, who took pity for the little girl; the Demon zapped her heart until it could beat on its own again, and Hina was brought back to life.

Ever since then, Hina has seen this Raijin spirit everywhere: the spirit followed her around, talked to her, and even slept in the same room as her. Convinced she had actually gone insane - or, at least, that the lightning strike had rewired her brain somehow - at 16 years old Hina was brought to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist diagnosed her with schizophrenia, and Hina went through a series of therapies without ever seeing an improvement in her conditions.
No matter what she did, the Raijin spirit was always there.

Hina lived an otherwise normal life barring this event and the manifestations of the Raijin, up until her 24th year of life. It was 2025, and Japan had just gone through the Tearing of the Veil; this event set the Raijin on high alert, and the manifestations of this spirit became more and more frequent.
The Demon talked to Hina about their kind, and how the world might have profoundly changed after the Tearing. Of course, she did not believe a thing.

Only a few weeks later, however, someone broke into the house where she and her family lived in the dead of night. The intruder killed her parents in their sleep, and sneaked into Hina's bedroom; the Raijin came to her aid, waking her up. Hina took the first weapon she could find - the Inazuma - and defended herself against the attacker.
When the mysterious intruder fell to the ground, dead, Hina could see that it definitely did not look like anything Human. She passed a sleepless night when she discovered the untimely death of her parents; that night was the worst of her life, and to this day she hasn't recovered.

With this proof in front of her eyes, Hina started believing that the Raijin was not just a figment of her imagination - although, in her mind, the idea that she's living in a dream never really left her.
In the following days she was contacted by what looked like two members of Yakuza. At first, she believed they were there to collect some form of debt; they explained they were actually "Devil Hunters", and they were going to offer her a new home and a stable job.
Although reluctant at first, Hina accepted the offer.

Haruna the Raijin

Physical Appearance(s): Haruna is a Demon of the Raijin kind, a distant relative to the Blitz. She can appear under several different forms, however the primary one is that of a thick, very dark thundercloud crackling with blue electricity. The thundercloud may be as small as half a meter across, but it can expand up to two meters across. The arcs of electricity can coalesce into the shape of a human woman, and the Raijin can choose to appear as a child, a teenager, or an adult woman.
This "personified" form also possesses large round eyes and a mouth, and is characterised by a pair of horns growing out of the woman's forehead.

In the "child" form, Haruna is just shy of 120cm in height. Her horns are very tiny, and her facial features appear much softer with a large forehead and puffy cheeks. The thundercloud wraps around her body and feet, extending outwards below hips height, giving her the appearance that she's wearing a little dress and goofy round shoes.

In the "adult woman" form, Haruna's body takes on features similar to Hina's; moreover, three lightning spheres appear behind her back, joined by an arcing strip of smoke that connects to her shoulder blades. Occasionally, an additional strip of smoke may draw an arc around the back of her neck. In this form, she most resembles a mythological Raijin. Her horns grow much longer, and sometimes they may even take on a zigzag shape instead of the usual, sligtly curved one.

The "teenager" form is a midway point between the other two forms, lacking the adult's three spheres but sporting a more mature "clothing style" than the child.


Personality: Haruna's personality depends heavily on the form she chooses to appear in. In fact, the younger she looks and the more immature she tends to act.

When she's a child, she may get upset really quickly and put on an angry face at the slightest of hurdles. She seems to be more emotional, or rather, less emotionally stable, as she can break down crying with ease after getting scolded. Her empathy in this form seems to be much higher as she can resonate with other demons and humans, and share their feelings.

When Haruna takes on the form of an adult woman, however, she becomes a bit more mature. She becomes more confident in her abilities, even brave at times, and generally tends to hold a much better control over her emotions.

Haruna's "thundercloud" form however doesn't talk nor behave in any particular way, and generally stays far above eyesight or hidden behind large objects. Despite this shift in maturity, Haruna still keeps many personality traits intact regardless of which form she takes: she's an energetic, optimistic person who never seems to run out of vigor. She gets bored really easily, and often has to entertain herself in some way much to Hina's annoyance.


Abilities: Haruna can't do much on her own. She can conjure weak electrical arcs and sparks from her thundercloud body, which may be useful to recharge Hina's phone or zap someone, but she isn't capable of harming anybody even if she wanted to.
However, there's great potential for her to grow and become a powerful thunder goddess.

Traits

Restart Electroheart
The shock of lightning that Hina has suffered as a child not only left a scar inside her body, but fundamentally altered it. Hina's heart has been "overcharged", and it crackles with electricity. For this reason, Hina never seems to get tired or run out of stamina - when her mucles are tired, they can get a jolt of lightning that puts them right back to work.
In the long run, relying on this ability will damage her muscles and wear down her bones, cartilage and tendons.

Flying Raijin
Hina's body has been nearly electrocuted by a magical jolt of lightning, and her heart has accumulated enough energy to become electrified. Through careful dosage of electrical shocks sent to her muscles, Hina can cause them to twitch beyond what her nervous system would allow.
In this way, she can achieve superior speeds compared to her peers; when she uses this ability, she leaves behind a faint trail of blue electrical sparks.

Equipment

Name: Wakizashi "Inazuma"
Description: This small wakizashi is housed in a 35cm long scabbard; the scabbard is made out of lacquered wood and painted white. The ends of the scabbard are decorated with golden-plated metal caps, and the Tachibana family crest is emblazoned on both sides of the far end in gold.
The handle is 13cm long, just enough for the weapon to be used with a single hand, and wrapped in a bright orange cloth. The handle, too, is capped with gold-plated metal, as is the guard.
The blade itself fits snuggly inside the scabbard, it is perfectly straight, unlike a regular wakizashi, and the edge seems to glow on its own with cyan light. Every once in a while, when the weapon is unsheathed, lightning arcs run through the length of the blade from guard to tip.
Upgrade Points: 1
Upgrades:

• Electrified - Trait-like
  The blade of Inazuma has been electrified after a powerful lightning bolt struck it and Hina's body. It is believed that the lightning bolt did not originate from the Human World, as part of its power lingered inside the blade long after it dissipated; the weapon is still electrified to this day, and it can send electric shocks through non-insulating materials.
  

Combat Foci

Name: First Head of the Orochi
Description: Hina is not a trained combatant, and her basic fighting style leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, even if she's armed with a blade - such as her electrified Wakizashi, Inazuma - she still tries to weave in kicks, punches and shoves to try and get the hang of combat.
Hina's superior speed allows her to overwhelm the opponent simply by throwing as many attacks at them at the same time as possible, but none of these have any real technique behind them.
This style has been dynamically evolving since she's been taken in by Orochi, as Hina has been receiving formal training in swordsmanship and magic use.
Rank: D
Aspects: None

Techniques