Hiroko Izumi

NAME: Hiroko Izumi

ALIAS: Iz, Izzy

AGE: 19

APPEARANCE: Standing in at a relatively average five foot six inches and weighing in at a fairly standard 129 pounds, Izumi would normally not be someone to stick out of a crowd - with somewhat pale skin, black hair and aqua colored eyes, the woman would fit in almost anywhere in the Tokyo area, although in having moved back out to Aogashima such anonymity has all but disappeared again due to the size of the island. Clothing wise the young woman tends to keep it as simple as possible. While she tends to wear far more traditional clothing at home and in the presence of friendly company and relatives both due to familial habits and personal preference, when forced to wear more modern clothing Izumi tends to stick to t shirts, jeans, sneakers..... anything easy and comfortable to both wear and move in, as well as easy to wash in bulk.

PERSONALITY: At first glance, Izumi is everything someone might expect of the stereotypical tomboy - loud, proud and obnoxious beyond belief as a child. Not at all above getting dirty or roughed up in the interest of having a good time, Izumi is not at all concerned with appearances, only allowing one feminine trait to show through in the length that she has allowed her hair to grow to. Generally living by two philosophies - first, that life is far too short to be wasted on regrets, and second, that there is no fate but what you make for yourself - she was generally the troublemaker as a child, almost always the mastermind behind group schenanigans or at the center of schoolyard brawls. That being said, however, her family's influence had changed that a great deal over the course of her teenage years.

With them well aware or Izumi's ability to see spirits as well as well as the fact that many such beings tended to be attracted to the few individuals aware of them, for both reasons good and ill, much of the focus during those years was on improving Izumi's ability to hide herself from such beings, and by extension there was much emphasis placed on controlling her more potent emotions such as anger. Now 17 years old, the woman is far less likely to engage in heated arguments than before, and it is a very rare occasion where she is made angry enough to strike someone as she might once have in the past. Rather than allowing such outbursts to endanger both herself and those around her through loss of self control, Izumi has long since resorted to snark, sarcasm and sardonic remarks as her weapons of choice - for example, while more often that not remembering to use the usual honorifics when speaking to most people, Izumi is not above changing them to subtly insult or otherwise mess with those who have angered or annoyed her.

Concerning spirits and ghosts in general, despite being able to see them clear as day Izumi has largely taken the path of apathy in regards to them. Refusing to speak to or even acknowledge them in public where the vast majority of those who are still alive can see them, Izumi only elects to do so in private and with those spirits that are largely benign such as the ghosts of the recently deceased. Concerning Hollows and other "evil" beings, however, the woman is extremely careful not to bring any notice to them or herself, well aware of the likely consequences of doing so, more often than not simply willing to let Shinigami and other beings like them do their work while looking the other way - something that has annoyed her greatly due to her unique abilities and what she sees as the potential to make a difference in the lives of those around her, but as she understands well that it would only put those around her in danger Izumi has simply continued on with life as normal.

ALLIANCE: Vagabond

HISTORY: Born on the island of Aogashima, a small settlement of less than a thousand in the Philippine Sea and more than 200 miles from the Japanese mainland, Izumi's upbringing was fairly rustic in comparison to most. The second sibling of three and the daughter of one of the island's oldest families that had resided there since the earliest recorded days of civilization there in the 1600s, the Hiroko family had long been regarded as one of the most spiritually attuned during past times - in the modern era, however, they were simply one family among many, with no real use or want for such abilities or the belief that they existed. What science could not prove the existence of, however, was clearly visible to those within the household, and nearly from the moment that she was able to remember Izumi had held the ability to observe beings on the spiritual plane, the same as her parents and siblings, although such awareness did not manifest in them until much later.

To Izumi, though, such things were merely another part of the natural order of the world, and they were not seen as out of place or unusual - having been able to see spirits from her earliest of memories, there was no reason to mark them as abnormal in her mind, and it wouldn't be until her comments regarding that unseen world began to set her apart from others her age that Izumi began to realize that most people could not see what she and her family saw. That, combined with her unusual strength for her age even began to go so far as to separate Izumi from her siblings thanks to the fairly frequent school yard fights that she had gotten into with other children over her claims that most had written off as lies and attempts to attract attention. It wasn't until things finally got out of hand to the point of requiring her parents to remove her from school property on suspension that the girl's parents would begin to dedicate their time to trying to teach her self control, a nagging seed of suspicion having been planted in the back of their minds concerning their daughter.

Only eleven years old at the time, Izumi's parents were largely at a loss concerning how to teach and impart the information that they needed to, eventually settling on a course of action with their own parents' help. Rather than explaining at length a concept that they barely understood themselves, Izumi was simply told that she was different from her siblings - different from her parents and grandparents, with her great grandfather being the last like her in the family after a number of others, and that while stronger than them in a number of ways it also meant that she needed to learn what they had to teach to avoid problems like the one that had occurred at school that day.

While not completely sold on what she saw as her parents trying to push their beliefs on her, Izumi went along with their train of thought and the following lessons if only for one reason - she was getting more than a little annoyed at being singled out from everyone else, and she saw it as a way towards something a little more normal, a chance to interact with other people that didn't involve the things she saw. The next three years of Izumi's life after that point would steadily see improvement as fewer and fewer ghosts and spirits began to show up in Izumi's life, although either as a direct result of subconsciously turning her "sight" off or thanks to something else was left completely open to debate at the time.

With the completion of elementary school, however, Izumi would soon be forced to leave Aogashima for the first time in her life - due to the island's small size and community it lacked anything resembling an actual high school, which meant that she would need to join her brother on the mainland to stay with family friends while attending one. In leaving the island at the age of fourteen, Izumi found herself overwhelmed by the sudden urban shift that came with living in Tokyo proper - although along with that realization also came the fact that while she had supposedly learned to hide her presence well, it did nothing to impact her ability to see. Aside from delivering a blow to Izumi's hopes regarding the idea of simply learning to shut her "sight" off, it also began to make life increasingly stressful. Unlike Aogashima, there were far more people in the city, and as a result there were just as many more ghosts to contend with - along with other, far less pleasant things.

Having only been on the mainland for a grand total of roughly half a year, Izumi hadn't even turned fifteen when she saw her first Hollow - creatures that her parents and grandparents had warned her about, the latter in great detail to the point that Izumi came to realize that they were likely the last ones in the family to have seen them in person thanks to her great grandfather. Izumi herself, however, had merely thought them to be stories at the time - tools meant to motivate her towards mastering the techniques she was being taught for fear of encountering one, and she was completely unprepared. The only thing that had saved her was the fact that the beast was not hunting her, but rather another - a normal ghost that had drawn its attention, Izumi's ability to safeguard her presence preventing the creature from noticing her while she was out of its sight. Needless to say, Izumi did not remain to see the chase to its conclusion, fleeing the scene as fast as she could - the end result, however, only being worse than before.

Having already been on edge before, the new found knowledge - or rather, confirmation - of the existence of Hollows as well as the fact that it was only her ability to hide her presence that kept her safe from them only further added to the stress that had been piling up during the previous months. One thing led to another, and smaller problems began to snowball into larger ones as Izumi began to find herself increasingly irritable, creating increasing friction between her and the people she knew and interacted with. Things would finally come to a head towards the end of that year a handful of months later with what had started as a small argument with her brother that eventually escalated to a full blown shouting match, and having finally lost her temper for the first time in years to the point of punching a hole in the apartment's drywall it would end with Izumi angrily storming out of the building to cool her head off and calm down.

As her elders had warned her before, emotional extremes came with a price, and it was one that Izumi had forgotten about in the heat of the moment - and in wandering through the city, the high school student had all but advertised her presence to what Hollows where still roaming the city that night, and it did not take long for them to find her. Having traveled only a handful of blocks away from where she had been living, the first Hollow's appearance came as an incredibly unwelcome surprise and a very rude awakening - due to being the first one that she had seen in the five months since the last one, however, Izumi had attempted to reason it up to a chance encounter when she saw it scanning the street she was on from a nearby rooftop. That short lived hope was completely dashed with the appearance of the second creature, which unlike the first was actively looking over the crowds for the one unique individual it had been made aware of.

Having already been less than attentive at keeping herself hidden and more than a little unnerved by the appearance of not one but two Hollows at once, virtually all pretense at attempting to keep herself hidden may as well have been thrown out the window with what it took to keep herself from panicking on the spot, allowing both creatures to identify her from the crowd as what little control Izumi had left slipped away. While her first inclination was to head back to the apartment that she had come from, it was her grandparents' words that stopped her. Like her great grandfather, once they knew she existed whichever Hollows had managed to discover her would likely follow wherever she went, and like Izumi herself her older brother also possessed the capability to see the creatures - by going back she would not only paint herself as even more of an inviting target than she already had, but she would also bring their attention to her brother and caretakers as well. The same went for any law enforcement - unable to see the Hollows they would be easy pickings and useless as the protectors that they were supposed to be.

With few options to pick from and the hunters slowly closing in on their prey, the first in the street casually beginning to approach her and the second having disappeared from the rooftop, Izumi decided to try and take the smart approach - attempt to slip away and out of their sight, take a moment to reestablish enough control to suppress her presence again and then make her way home before they could find her or reestablish a trail. Breaking away from the crowd that was still blissfully unaware of the monsters, Izumi did what she could to minimize herself as a target by slipping into an alley far too small for the things to follow, attempting to use her months' worth of acquired knowledge about the area to her advantage. What might have worked for animals or people, however, somewhat failed when it came to beings that could phase through walls, especially when they likely knew the area just as well as you did, if not better.

Having made the mistake of treating the Hollows as mindless beasts that were likely easily outsmarted, Izumi had failed to account for the idea that the creatures may have been hunting as a pair, a mistake that very nearly cost her everything. Continuing to follow the teenager from the rooftops in an attempt to drive her onwards, the Hollows would systematically block all of the possible exits from the alleys to areas where Izumi might have been able to escape them - densely crowded shopping centers, tightly packed residential areas, even going to far as to cut her off from a nearby construction site that the student knew of where she may had been able to lose them. In the end, however, the Hollow pair eventually managed to herd her out of the alleys after nearly an hour of cat and mouse, finally attacking the moment she was in the open to throw her into one of the city's storm channels.

Finally trapped and with nowhere to go except towards the Hollows or the other direction down the concrete trench, things would only further degenerate as the Hollows finally began to go for Izumi in earnest, the student only surviving by using her enhanced physical abilities in haphazard attempts to dodge the incoming attacks in what would become a downward spiral - while she may have been faster and stronger than any normal human, she was still no more durable than they were and the small injuries quickly began to add up. Despite her efforts, Izumi would only managed to continue evading them for a minute or two before finally being blindsided by one of the Hollow's blows, and with her injuries making her too slow to properly dodge it would result in Izumi being forcibly thrown into the channel's wall hard enough to not only stun her but break a number of bones as well.

No longer able to run or fight due to the sheer number of injuries her body had sustained, it was only through a act of sheer willpower that Izumi managed to remain conscious as her attackers started to advance on their prey. Having been unable to properly suppress her abilities ever since the start of the chase, however, the beacon effect worked both ways - just as it had attracted the attention of the two Hollows it was also unusual enough to draw the metaphorical eyes of the Shinigami assigned to the area, especially with the increased activity on the Hollows' part. It was through that fact alone that Izumi managed to survive as the first Hollow to reach for her would be killed nearly instantly by an attack from behind, with the Shinigami then engaging the second Hollow in an attempt to draw it away from her.

Unable to move in any meaningful fashion thanks to what she would later discover to be multiple rib fractures, a broken arm and shattered femur, Izumi would be forced to remain in place and simply watch as the fight unfolded. While the Shinigami had initially possessed the advantage, unknown to Izumi he was a simple grunt, one among many assigned to the world of the living, and as a result fighting a strong Hollow possessing at least a degree of intelligence would prove to be more than a challenge. With the Hollow pressing the advantage that his bulk and superior strength afforded him and continuously denying the Shinigami any chance to go for a kill strike while being worn down, Izumi would drift between the hazy realm between awareness and darkness, the only things keeping her conscious being the pain she physically felt.

What had started as panic, shock and disbelief over her mistake had slowly begun to give way to denial during the course of the chase before, and had spiraled downwards into equal parts despair and acceptance of her imminent death minutes before when it had become clear that she was done. All of that had shifted to hope with the Shinigami's appearance, however - the idea that it was not over, and that there was a way out, and as the Hollow began to clearly gain the upper hand against her would-be savior that hope she had felt would begin to transform into anger. Anger the likes of which Izumi had not felt before - at the feeling of being so utterly powerless and unable to do anything, at having been given a light in the dark only to have it torn away from her a moment later.

It was in that one moment that Izumi's anger grew into pure, unadulterated outrage over her complete inability to influence the outcome of her own life that the girl's first true ability would manifest as all of her rage found a target, the water in the storm channel suddenly freezing around one of the Hollow's feet to lock the limb in place, if only for a moment. While it didn't last long, the creature breaking free of the thin sheet of ice a moment later, it created more than enough of an opening for the Shinigami to finally circle around and deliver the final blow, ending the fight. Izumi, having expended what energy she had left with the unintentional display of her new ability, would finally succumb to the exhaustion that her broken body felt and fall unconscious.

When Izumi finally woke again, the girl would find herself not in the place she had last remembered, but in a hospital bed dealing with what would be best described as a vaguely uncomfortable feeling throughout most of her body thanks to the painkillers being delivered through the IV in her arm dulling the worst of that her injuries had to offer. Even stranger than that and far from helpful to Izumi's attempts to acclimate to the new environment was the fact that when the hospital staff noticed her finally waking up, nearly all attempts at communication only led to further confusion. While Izumi's own memories of what had happened were far from reliable due to the state of her mind and body at the time, there were things that she could very clearly remember from the incident - none of which matched what she was told when Izumi asked how she had gotten there. While she very clearly remembered how she had obtained her injuries, the full list of which only able to make her cringe, when questioned about what had happened the people working in the hospital all would tell Izumi that she had been hit by a car after leaving an alley she had been apparently using as a shortcut through the neighborhood. While the person who had brought her in matched the physical description of the Shinigami that had saved her, nothing beyond that seemed to have remained of that night save for her own injuries.

The next several months, while vaguely infuriating for Izumi due to her natural inclination to move around, would be far quieter than her first year. Largely confined to a wheelchair during that time and unable to use one arm for most of it, school would become the main focus of her life as she found herself unable or unwilling to go many places other than there or home. The silver lining to the situation, however, would be that Izumi would notice a distinct lack of the spirits she normally saw on a daily basis, and she would not see another Hollow again for years. It would also be during this time that the student, now fifteen years of age, would begin to experiment with what was only a vague suspicion at the time. What had happened to the Hollow's leg had been no accident, but it hadn't been the creature's doing or that of the man fighting it - he had looked more than surprised by the sudden turn of events, and Izumi could swear that the sudden wave of fatigue that had finally knocked her unconscious had come directly after that.

And, predictably, nearly all attempts to trace her steps back to the power she believed herself to had used ended in little aside from frustration, and after nearly two months of repeated failures Izumi would begin devoting her attention back to the skills that she already knew and had neglected before, the consequences of which were the source of much of her frustration at the time. Having been cut off from her parents and grandparents on Aogashima for nearly a year, Izumi's eventual return that summer was not what she had expected.

While they had been officially informed of her injury and been told the same story that the hospital had given Izumi herself when asked, her own version of what had happened was received relatively well. While her parents had never seen or encountered Hollows themselves, having only heard of them through old family stories, Izumi's grandparents were particularly interested in how the fight had ended - more so than any other aspect of the encounter, in fact, and when Izumi questioned them on their focus the answer she got in return was both unexpected and vaguely unsettling. Rather than attempting to explain the freak occurrence away, they did not doubt for a moment that Izumi had been responsible for the sudden freezing of the water during the conflict. Instead, Izumi was told that her great grandfather had possessed a similar abilities - like with her far from normal physical strength and stamina, the man had also possessed an affinity for substances of the material world, in his case the ground beneath his feet as well as the heat and flames that his grandfather had wielded before him.

With most of that night spent delving deep into family history that both Izumi and her parents alike had been previously unaware of, the student found herself oddly accepting of much of the information, things that she would have taken as lies or exaggeration only a year or two before - it was only the particularly outlandish claim that one of the ancestors that she was directly descended from had supposedly been partly responsible for Aogashima's eruptions eight generations previous that finally became a story too big for Izumi to swallow. In the end, however, it was merely the reaffirmation that she was not losing her mind that mattered, and it was at this time that she would finally learn who and what had saved her life before - as well as the fact that she was not to involve herself in their affairs for a multitude of reasons.

By the end of that night Izumi would know far more than she had asked for concerning her family history, but there would be a silver lining to the otherwise mind numbing discussion and history lesson - aside from gaining at least some context with which to view the abilities that she and her forefathers possessed, things that the family itself barely understood, Izumi would be given a number of mental exercises that she could do while still wheelchair bound, all aimed at nurturing her abilities and improving those she already had. With the next two weeks spent on the island learning from her grandparents and picking up exercises and other techniques she could do on her own, Izumi's trip back to the mainland would force her to once again immerse herself into the world of normalcy, or at least as close to it as she could get.

With another three months passing before Izumi could finally exit the confines of her wheelchair and begin discarding the casts that had bound her legs and arm, the next two years of her life would pass by relatively peacefully. While the student would catch a glimpse of the black clad forms throughout the city every now and then as well as the occasional normal ghost here and there, her life would remain thankfully monotonous save for the steady improvements she made to her abilities in that time. While her ability to manipulate water never progressed beyond freezing and melting it at a whim with most of the progress made during her sporadic trips back home during the summer and holidays, Izumi finally managed to reach the point where she could hide her presence through second nature along, requiring no real conscious effort on her part to do so. With her sixteenth and seventeenth birthdays slowly passing her by Izumi would finally graduate high school, and return to Aogashima to stay.

While Izumi, by this point a young woman, had every intention of eventually enrolling in a university to continue her education, she did want to finish one thing before leaving home for several years at a time. Nearly all of her progress concerning her ability to manipulate the physical world around her had come from her time home, and Izumi recognized that - and with her grandparents beginning to show signs of failing health, she wanted to remain both to learn what she could from them as well as to be there to say goodbye when their times finally came. The next year and a half of Izumi's life would be largely spent working for one of the island's few local businessmen, saving up what money she could for her goal and spending the time her grandparents had left with them. Without the need to leave home every two weeks she would make great leaps and strides forward, accomplishing far more than she had believed possible before they finally passed on - ironically enough with the strength of the resulting emotions awakening one of the abilities her great grandfather had possessed, the power to generate and control flames at a whim.

With her nineteenth birthday just a little under half a year away, Izumi would finally break out of her grieving period a handful of weeks later to return to her "normal" life, resuming her normal work hours to continue saving up the money needed to apply to a decent university while also devoting her time to at least being able to safely control her second new ability. With the date coming and passing, Izumi would continue to devote another small handful of weeks to the task, stopping only when she was certain that she wouldn't accidentally set fire to some random object before applying to several schools on the mainland. Receiving one or two letters of acceptance nearly another month afterwards, Izumi would finally begin packing once more for the far more permanent move to the mainland and arriving in Tokyo and on campus another week after that.


DIFFICULTY: Hard

OOC NAME: Murder Cat

FACE CLAIM: Amatsuki, Kuchiha