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savetheearth
Aug. 14th, 2013 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snakeintallgrassOOC Information:
Name: Kari
Are you over 15? By a long shot.
Contact: derpy angel @ aim OR![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
karijou
IC Information:
Name: Yousha Hida / “Togame, the Strategian.”
Canon and medium: Katanagatari (anime)
Age: Preincarnated, Togame's age is unknown (though it's clarified to be somewhere between twenty and twenty-four). In her new incarnation, Togame will be twenty-four years old.
Preincarnation Species: Human.
Preincarnation Appearance: Image here. Of particular note are her exceedingly diminutive stature (she is just short of 4'10”) and her strategian's eye (an eye that turns blue and snake-like while she schemes).
Any differences: Her eyes are blue, rather than pink, and she wears more contempary clothing. Aside from that, very little has changed.
Preincarnated History: Long ago, long before even the Edo period in which our story takes place, a soothsayer was given a vision. In it, he saw a massive fleet of foreign ships sailing in to destroy Japan. He knew not what to do; nor did his child, or his child's child, or the child of his child's child, and this cycle continued for many generations. However, it came to pass that a child with great prescience, Kiki Shikizaki, was born, and early in his life he was granted a vision of how he might save Japan. He became a swordsmith of great renown, creating a thousand swords and giving them to whomever he saw fit with no sense of house or country, and his mastery was thought so highly of that it was said that the country who owned the most Shikizaki steel could conquer the world if they so chose.
However, of these thousand blades, nine hundred eighty-eight of them were mere practice to refine his skills. For the last twelve, he used techniques and technologies he had stolen from his glimpses into the future, and these twelve were said to be his Perfected Deviant Blades;
Zettou Kanna, the Plane;
Zantou Namakura, the Blunt;
Sentou Tsurugi, the Sword;
Hakutou Hari, the Needle;
Zokutou Yori, the Armor;
Soutou Kanazuchi, the Hammer;
Akutou Bita, the Poor;
Bitou Kanzashi, the Hairpin;
Outou Nokogiri, the Saw;
Seitou Hakari, the Scale;
Dokutou Mekki, the Gilt; and
Entou Jyuu, the Gun.
These swords were considered the strongest of an already masterful creator's work. With just one, it was said that a swordsman could singlehandedly take on an army of hundreds. However, with such great power came the poison of greed – those who wielded the weapons found themselves unable to part with such perfect swordsmanship, and came to kill to preserve their hold on them. And that was to say nothing of his secret and final project, a sword with no sword that would supposedly surpass them all – Kyotouryuu, the swordless school. Kiki Shikizaki distributed these swords, seemingly at random, and in truth according to that future which he and only he could see. One of the swords, Seitou Hakari, came into possession of a wise and holy man; knowing that the poison would cloud his judgment, he buried it deep underground. Hundreds of years passed, and eventually a castle was built atop the earthy foundation. This castle housed a feudal lord by the name of Takahito Hida, and after some years it housed his daughter: the princess Yousha Hida.
Unfortunately, Princess Yousha would not lead a royal's life. Takahito Hida, under the influence of Seitou Hakari so far beneath him, led a rebellion against the Owari Shogunate. Eventually, the head of Kyotouryuu – Mutsue Shichika – was brought in to halt it. Takahito Hida hid his young daughter in a secret room, and she watched through a crack in the wall as Mutsue Shichika killed every last person in the building – including her father. The trauma of her father's decapitation permanently changes Yousha; her hair was shocked white, and she began on that day to plot her revenge on the Owari Shogunate.
From this point, she manages to carve her own way through life, using what resources she is able to salvage from the burning castle and her absurd drive towards vengeance. She grows into a beautiful young woman, and rises in prominence within the Owari Shogunate under the name “Togame.” She gives herself a title: “Strategian,” one who creates schemes instead of plans. She is assisted by many people along the way; without fail, she cuts them out of her life, whether through hired violence or simply lying. She does extensive research to find her path to revenge, and she finds it in history itself: the Perfected Deviant Blades of Kiki Shikizaki, and the swordless sword school Kyotouryuu.
She finds the current head of Kyotouryuu on the island his family was banished to, alone with his sister. From him, she learns many things – his father, the original executioner, died many years ago. He has lived here with his sister for his entire life. He has no interest in gold, or glory, or fame, or even power, as he is a simple man who has trained to be his own sword, and it is this that convinces Togame her strategy will work. She tells Shichika Yasuri of her surface plan – to collect the twelve Perfected Deviant Blades, and present them to the Owari Shogunate to cement their power and prove her worth – but not of her true path, to murder the Shogun when she has been given an audience and then the Kyotouryuu school that killed her father when all is finished. To this end, she demands that Shichika fall in love with her; after all, since one who fights for money or fame or power cannot be trusted, only love remains.
Against all odds, her demand works. Shichika Yasuri agrees to her quest, and they travel Japan for nearly a full year collecting the twelve swords. As they go, Togame herself begins to fall in love with the Kyotouryuu head, and over time begins to regret her planned course of action. She discusses potential lives after the journey with him, and comes to realize that she wants to see Shichika alive and happy.
It is at this point that she is shot by the ninja Emonzaemon Souda. As she lies dying in Shichika's arms, she tries desperately to reconcile two conflicted wishes: to let Shichika know that she loved him as well, and to push him away so that he can move on without her. She does so by telling him just what she originally had planned, down to the final detail - admitting freely that she intended to kill him, and lying that she had never intended otherwise. With her final breaths, she issues him one last command - to live his own life, as he sees fit - and asks Shichika if it was okay that a woman like her fell for him.
And thus, the history of the princess Yousha Hida, on that month and evening, comes to an end.
Reincarnated History: Yousha Hida was born twenty-four years ago to a loving (but frail) mother and a doting (but strict) father on the opposite side of the country. Unfortunately, her mother passed away a few short years after her daughter's birth, leaving the pale young Yousha with her father. He attempted to raise Yousha to the best of his abilities, in turns spoiling her rotten and trying to instill some sense of discipline into her. This turned out to not be an entirely lost cause; while hard labor was beyond her body's capabilities, she was able to almost immediately pick up her father's formality and etiquette.
Within her father's rigor, the precocious young Yousha found the underpinnings of something far larger in scope; all routine was based off some initial cause. Every action had a greater rationale behind it. Her father, sensing a great opportunity, took the time to encourage his daughter's pursuits through the sciences. When combined with the methodical precision her father had drilled into her, her innate talent for seeing a bigger picture led to an almost intimidating affinity for mathematics, and by the young age of twelve her life's pursuit had been decided.
Years passed. High school flew by; she attended a fairly prestigious college, graduating with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and full honors. After a series of applications and personal interviews, she was accepted into a program in one of Locke City's finest universities, and to this day she has lived in the city on her way to a Ph.D .
It is during her first year of graduate school that her first echo arrives, and it is a full year later that she remembers the numbers and their significance.
First Echo: During a phone call with her father, he ends the conversation with the words "Remember, Yousha, I love you very much." These words, directly mirroring her father's dying words in her past life, are enough to Echo her hair back to its shell-shocked white.
Preincarnation Personality: Yousha Hida was a pretty young girl, one who loved her father dearly. She lived a life of luxury and innocence, and had Katanagatari followed her, it would have been a much more peaceful story. But the girl Yousha Hida could have been died in the burning remains of Hida Castle, along with her father Takahito. Togame is what remains.
On the surface, Togame is fairly simple. She is obviously intelligent, more than a bit overconfident in her own abilities, and has a habit of jumping to the wrong conclusion. All of this is easily explained, even self-explanatory; after all, what sort of strategian wouldn't think like that? Rather than dealing with an individual scenario or situation, Togame's mind is entirely focused on the bigger picture, often by several orders of magnitude.
Of course, a mind so keenly attuned often reaches faulty conclusions, and Togame's is no exception. Her schemes are not always successful; sometimes, it is the unforeseeable that thwarts her, and other times it is simply human error leading to a faulty response. She is ever-observant, always on the lookout for more data points, and it is this trait that leads to the most wrong readings of all - a single outlying data point or misunderstanding often forces her to react in a way not at all appropriate to the actual situation. And, of course, being as arrogant as she is, she will place her faith in that first point of data until the mountain of evidence against it has grown so far as to be insurmountable.
But more than stratagems or misunderstandings, what really defines Togame - the single element most key to her existence - is her drive. The holy man Rinne Higaki comments at one point that she lives life itself as if it is a fight - that it feels as if she is fighting for her very existence at all times. She has spent her whole life preparing to avenge her father's death, and more than once it is made explicitly clear that she has little love for any of the pawns needed to make that necessary. It is a drive so strong that it forces her to seek retribution for twenty years, and it is a drive so strong that even when she knows it will lead to her own death she continues to chase it.
So then, if her drive is so strong, what is it that makes her try to set Shichika free in the end rather than continue using him? The answer is simple, and it lies within the question she poses to Shichika: if one cannot be trusted to fight for money, power, or honor, what remains to motivate another? Just as it is with Shichika, the answer remains the same - love.
...and yet the situation is not identical. Whereas the motivation to fight comes from loving someone else wholeheartedly, Togame's final weakness lies instead in being wholeheartedly loved. For someone whose life has been a constant fight for survival, Togame has only had the love her father held for her to look back upon, and it is in part the urge to acknowledge how much this means to her that drives her to fight. In contrast, the people she has interacted with since have been mutually interested parties at best and pawns more often. So when Shichika loves her freely, and freely places his trust in her, Togame is finally forced to realize that there is another human that truly does care about her.
It is this feeling that allows Togame to view Shichika as something more than a pawn; ironically, it is also the feeling that drives her to treat him as one in her final moments. She has selfishly driven away all those that came before Shichika, and felt nothing; now, even though she selfishly wants nothing more than to keep someone by her side for the first time, she is forced to drive him away so that he has a chance to one day live. Just as Takahito Hida sacrificed himself so that his daughter might have a life of her own, Togame tries to sacrifice her own happiness so that her beloved might have happiness of his own.
And just as she ends up wasting her father's wishes, so too are her wishes in vain. Shichika single-handedly storms the Shogunate, defying her last wishes so that he can die as well. In the end, all her drive and strategies only serve to hurt herself and the ones around her. Togame is nothing more than a foolish, stubborn person - one who, unable to fully give up on the vengeance she sought for her father, lives a lie to the very end.
Any differences: Having not witnessed the execution of her father has made a number of differences in the development of young Yousha. Her drive for revenge has vanished entirely, and though she is still a determined young lady she is far from the efficient machine she was in canon. On that note, the way she treats others has changed as well. In canon, Togame could almost be described as cruel; in Locke City, she has merely become cold. One need only grab her interest to keep her attention, and once her curiosity has been piqued she will feel no particular drive to sever the bond that's been made.
Her focus on the field of mathematics has, of all things, narrowed her strategizing powers. She is still intelligent and will no doubt do much scheming of her own in Locke City, but will not have quite the innate understanding of people's inner workings / a given scenario in combat. She is also far more interested in the theoretical aspect of things than the practical; whereas canon Togame would likely use a physical equation to see just what sort of force would need to be applied to break a sword, Locke City Togame would more likely try to generalize the equation to one applicable for all swords altogether (and thus eschew the precise information gained from the equation in the first place).
Abilities: Being a strategian of some renown (the only one, in fact), Yousha frequently comes up with schemes of all sorts. These range from the short-term - beating a trained swordsman by forcing the inferior swordsman to forget everything about the discipline, thus rendering his attempts at the movements unreadable - to the long-term, such as her plotting the fall of the Owari Shogunate through a two-decade quest towards revenge. While she tends to overstate her own abilities, she certainly is responsible for victory on more than one occasion, and her strategies are never overly convoluted.
Unfortunately, that's it. That's literally it. Her only ability is her intellect. She is physically frail beyond belief, going so far as to say she'd likely die if Shichika punched her shoulder, and is simply not cut out for any sort of physical endeavor. The one time she attempts to wield a sword, she immediately trips and knocks herself out.
Her reincarnation is not much better; having been engrossed in books and mathematics since an early age, she knows nothing of "muscle mass" or "lifting things." Still, she is well-educated, and highly intelligent.
Roleplay Sample - Third Person: A chill ran down Yousha's spine.
Somewhere between the registrar's office and the library, the world had shifted. The crowd had grown thicker and thicker, and taller and taller, and she no longer had any way of telling where she was. How tall had the giants around her become by this point? 5'7"? 5'8"? 5'9"? This was absurd! No, the reality was far worse - with an average male height of 5'9.5", and an average female height of 5'4", this had reached into the realms of the statistically improbable!
...so, this is what her life had come to? Forever wandering, lost to the whims of a crowd of brobdingnagian students? Such a cruel fate seemed unwarranted, especially for such a lovely young woman as herself. Ahh, this uncaring world, this pitiful world! Her loss would be mourned, she was sure, by those around her, assuming they ever got their damn heads out of the clouds long enough to notice she was missing-
An opening presented itself in the crowd. There would be time to wax poetic later - survival took top priority. With the battle cry she had co-opted upon her arrival ("pardon me, coming through, please excuse me") Yousha Hida clutched her books tight and made a run for it.
(She would vow, in that moment, to later research which areas of the United States had the lowest average heights. That night, during her frenzied Wikipedia reviewing, she would finally remember to look up the string of numbers which had been bothering her for the past three days - the ones in which she could discern no immediately recognizable sequence or pattern.
And thus, on this light-hearted note, the story comes to an end.)
Roleplay Sample - Network: Excuse me.
[ the video feed is turned on, revealing a pale young woman with long white hair and piercing blue eyes. she speaks in cool, level tones: ]
Before we begin, allow me to make a few things clear. I've reviewed the archives thoroughly, so there's no need for edification. I've given it some thought and come to terms with its existence, so there's no need for explanation. As such, all that remains is an introduction.
[ she sits back, elegantly crossing her legs. her facial expression does not budge in the slightest.
given her bare knee and the angle of the camera, it is entirely indiscernible whether she is wearing pants or not. ]
My name is Yousha Hida. My skillset lies entirely in the perception of the truth behind truths - in detecting the axioms responsible for forming any consistent system, and through inductive logic understanding the universe they create as a result.
[ she uncrosses her legs, then crosses them in the opposite order. it is becoming increasingly unlikely that she is wearing pants. ]
There. That should be sufficient, hmm? So with that settled, I'd like to ask the network's opinion on a matter.
[ she leans forward, her blue-eyed gaze intensifying. ]
What it is that makes something "true?" Suppose a man says his wife will die tomorrow. The next day, she develops a freak cough and passes away. Were his words "the truth?" The statement was true in retrospect, of course, but it seems to have been by chance. Now suppose the same man says the same words - but when the disease does not kill her, he takes matters into his own hands. Are his words now the truth, now that he has ensured their validity? What if he intends to kill her, but dies himself? Perhaps it is best to just consider him on that first day, before his wife's fate has been decided. What is it that decides, in that moment, if he is telling the truth?
[ the beginnings of a smile spread across her face. it is not entirely pleasant. ]
Thank you for your time.
[ and with a single dainty hand, she reaches out and stops the recording. ]
Any Questions?
Judging from what I'm reading, most physical Echoes tend to be "seeing someone with similar eye color" or something along those lines, and that as such Yousha's first Echo trigger is a bit unorthodox. However, given the hair's intrinsic tie to the event, would it be an acceptable trigger? I'd rather the hair than the memory, simply because the memory of such a pivotal event would dramatically alter Yousha's personality (to be closer to her canon counterpart).
If the mod team decides that the current trigger as written is unacceptable, I would be alright with changing it to her finding someone with bleached white hair.
Name: Kari
Are you over 15? By a long shot.
Contact: derpy angel @ aim OR
IC Information:
Name: Yousha Hida / “Togame, the Strategian.”
Canon and medium: Katanagatari (anime)
Age: Preincarnated, Togame's age is unknown (though it's clarified to be somewhere between twenty and twenty-four). In her new incarnation, Togame will be twenty-four years old.
Preincarnation Species: Human.
Preincarnation Appearance: Image here. Of particular note are her exceedingly diminutive stature (she is just short of 4'10”) and her strategian's eye (an eye that turns blue and snake-like while she schemes).
Any differences: Her eyes are blue, rather than pink, and she wears more contempary clothing. Aside from that, very little has changed.
Preincarnated History: Long ago, long before even the Edo period in which our story takes place, a soothsayer was given a vision. In it, he saw a massive fleet of foreign ships sailing in to destroy Japan. He knew not what to do; nor did his child, or his child's child, or the child of his child's child, and this cycle continued for many generations. However, it came to pass that a child with great prescience, Kiki Shikizaki, was born, and early in his life he was granted a vision of how he might save Japan. He became a swordsmith of great renown, creating a thousand swords and giving them to whomever he saw fit with no sense of house or country, and his mastery was thought so highly of that it was said that the country who owned the most Shikizaki steel could conquer the world if they so chose.
However, of these thousand blades, nine hundred eighty-eight of them were mere practice to refine his skills. For the last twelve, he used techniques and technologies he had stolen from his glimpses into the future, and these twelve were said to be his Perfected Deviant Blades;
Zantou Namakura, the Blunt;
Sentou Tsurugi, the Sword;
Hakutou Hari, the Needle;
Zokutou Yori, the Armor;
Soutou Kanazuchi, the Hammer;
Akutou Bita, the Poor;
Bitou Kanzashi, the Hairpin;
Outou Nokogiri, the Saw;
Seitou Hakari, the Scale;
Dokutou Mekki, the Gilt; and
Entou Jyuu, the Gun.
These swords were considered the strongest of an already masterful creator's work. With just one, it was said that a swordsman could singlehandedly take on an army of hundreds. However, with such great power came the poison of greed – those who wielded the weapons found themselves unable to part with such perfect swordsmanship, and came to kill to preserve their hold on them. And that was to say nothing of his secret and final project, a sword with no sword that would supposedly surpass them all – Kyotouryuu, the swordless school. Kiki Shikizaki distributed these swords, seemingly at random, and in truth according to that future which he and only he could see. One of the swords, Seitou Hakari, came into possession of a wise and holy man; knowing that the poison would cloud his judgment, he buried it deep underground. Hundreds of years passed, and eventually a castle was built atop the earthy foundation. This castle housed a feudal lord by the name of Takahito Hida, and after some years it housed his daughter: the princess Yousha Hida.
Unfortunately, Princess Yousha would not lead a royal's life. Takahito Hida, under the influence of Seitou Hakari so far beneath him, led a rebellion against the Owari Shogunate. Eventually, the head of Kyotouryuu – Mutsue Shichika – was brought in to halt it. Takahito Hida hid his young daughter in a secret room, and she watched through a crack in the wall as Mutsue Shichika killed every last person in the building – including her father. The trauma of her father's decapitation permanently changes Yousha; her hair was shocked white, and she began on that day to plot her revenge on the Owari Shogunate.
From this point, she manages to carve her own way through life, using what resources she is able to salvage from the burning castle and her absurd drive towards vengeance. She grows into a beautiful young woman, and rises in prominence within the Owari Shogunate under the name “Togame.” She gives herself a title: “Strategian,” one who creates schemes instead of plans. She is assisted by many people along the way; without fail, she cuts them out of her life, whether through hired violence or simply lying. She does extensive research to find her path to revenge, and she finds it in history itself: the Perfected Deviant Blades of Kiki Shikizaki, and the swordless sword school Kyotouryuu.
She finds the current head of Kyotouryuu on the island his family was banished to, alone with his sister. From him, she learns many things – his father, the original executioner, died many years ago. He has lived here with his sister for his entire life. He has no interest in gold, or glory, or fame, or even power, as he is a simple man who has trained to be his own sword, and it is this that convinces Togame her strategy will work. She tells Shichika Yasuri of her surface plan – to collect the twelve Perfected Deviant Blades, and present them to the Owari Shogunate to cement their power and prove her worth – but not of her true path, to murder the Shogun when she has been given an audience and then the Kyotouryuu school that killed her father when all is finished. To this end, she demands that Shichika fall in love with her; after all, since one who fights for money or fame or power cannot be trusted, only love remains.
Against all odds, her demand works. Shichika Yasuri agrees to her quest, and they travel Japan for nearly a full year collecting the twelve swords. As they go, Togame herself begins to fall in love with the Kyotouryuu head, and over time begins to regret her planned course of action. She discusses potential lives after the journey with him, and comes to realize that she wants to see Shichika alive and happy.
It is at this point that she is shot by the ninja Emonzaemon Souda. As she lies dying in Shichika's arms, she tries desperately to reconcile two conflicted wishes: to let Shichika know that she loved him as well, and to push him away so that he can move on without her. She does so by telling him just what she originally had planned, down to the final detail - admitting freely that she intended to kill him, and lying that she had never intended otherwise. With her final breaths, she issues him one last command - to live his own life, as he sees fit - and asks Shichika if it was okay that a woman like her fell for him.
And thus, the history of the princess Yousha Hida, on that month and evening, comes to an end.
Reincarnated History: Yousha Hida was born twenty-four years ago to a loving (but frail) mother and a doting (but strict) father on the opposite side of the country. Unfortunately, her mother passed away a few short years after her daughter's birth, leaving the pale young Yousha with her father. He attempted to raise Yousha to the best of his abilities, in turns spoiling her rotten and trying to instill some sense of discipline into her. This turned out to not be an entirely lost cause; while hard labor was beyond her body's capabilities, she was able to almost immediately pick up her father's formality and etiquette.
Within her father's rigor, the precocious young Yousha found the underpinnings of something far larger in scope; all routine was based off some initial cause. Every action had a greater rationale behind it. Her father, sensing a great opportunity, took the time to encourage his daughter's pursuits through the sciences. When combined with the methodical precision her father had drilled into her, her innate talent for seeing a bigger picture led to an almost intimidating affinity for mathematics, and by the young age of twelve her life's pursuit had been decided.
Years passed. High school flew by; she attended a fairly prestigious college, graduating with a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and full honors. After a series of applications and personal interviews, she was accepted into a program in one of Locke City's finest universities, and to this day she has lived in the city on her way to a Ph.D .
It is during her first year of graduate school that her first echo arrives, and it is a full year later that she remembers the numbers and their significance.
First Echo: During a phone call with her father, he ends the conversation with the words "Remember, Yousha, I love you very much." These words, directly mirroring her father's dying words in her past life, are enough to Echo her hair back to its shell-shocked white.
Preincarnation Personality: Yousha Hida was a pretty young girl, one who loved her father dearly. She lived a life of luxury and innocence, and had Katanagatari followed her, it would have been a much more peaceful story. But the girl Yousha Hida could have been died in the burning remains of Hida Castle, along with her father Takahito. Togame is what remains.
On the surface, Togame is fairly simple. She is obviously intelligent, more than a bit overconfident in her own abilities, and has a habit of jumping to the wrong conclusion. All of this is easily explained, even self-explanatory; after all, what sort of strategian wouldn't think like that? Rather than dealing with an individual scenario or situation, Togame's mind is entirely focused on the bigger picture, often by several orders of magnitude.
Of course, a mind so keenly attuned often reaches faulty conclusions, and Togame's is no exception. Her schemes are not always successful; sometimes, it is the unforeseeable that thwarts her, and other times it is simply human error leading to a faulty response. She is ever-observant, always on the lookout for more data points, and it is this trait that leads to the most wrong readings of all - a single outlying data point or misunderstanding often forces her to react in a way not at all appropriate to the actual situation. And, of course, being as arrogant as she is, she will place her faith in that first point of data until the mountain of evidence against it has grown so far as to be insurmountable.
But more than stratagems or misunderstandings, what really defines Togame - the single element most key to her existence - is her drive. The holy man Rinne Higaki comments at one point that she lives life itself as if it is a fight - that it feels as if she is fighting for her very existence at all times. She has spent her whole life preparing to avenge her father's death, and more than once it is made explicitly clear that she has little love for any of the pawns needed to make that necessary. It is a drive so strong that it forces her to seek retribution for twenty years, and it is a drive so strong that even when she knows it will lead to her own death she continues to chase it.
So then, if her drive is so strong, what is it that makes her try to set Shichika free in the end rather than continue using him? The answer is simple, and it lies within the question she poses to Shichika: if one cannot be trusted to fight for money, power, or honor, what remains to motivate another? Just as it is with Shichika, the answer remains the same - love.
...and yet the situation is not identical. Whereas the motivation to fight comes from loving someone else wholeheartedly, Togame's final weakness lies instead in being wholeheartedly loved. For someone whose life has been a constant fight for survival, Togame has only had the love her father held for her to look back upon, and it is in part the urge to acknowledge how much this means to her that drives her to fight. In contrast, the people she has interacted with since have been mutually interested parties at best and pawns more often. So when Shichika loves her freely, and freely places his trust in her, Togame is finally forced to realize that there is another human that truly does care about her.
It is this feeling that allows Togame to view Shichika as something more than a pawn; ironically, it is also the feeling that drives her to treat him as one in her final moments. She has selfishly driven away all those that came before Shichika, and felt nothing; now, even though she selfishly wants nothing more than to keep someone by her side for the first time, she is forced to drive him away so that he has a chance to one day live. Just as Takahito Hida sacrificed himself so that his daughter might have a life of her own, Togame tries to sacrifice her own happiness so that her beloved might have happiness of his own.
And just as she ends up wasting her father's wishes, so too are her wishes in vain. Shichika single-handedly storms the Shogunate, defying her last wishes so that he can die as well. In the end, all her drive and strategies only serve to hurt herself and the ones around her. Togame is nothing more than a foolish, stubborn person - one who, unable to fully give up on the vengeance she sought for her father, lives a lie to the very end.
Any differences: Having not witnessed the execution of her father has made a number of differences in the development of young Yousha. Her drive for revenge has vanished entirely, and though she is still a determined young lady she is far from the efficient machine she was in canon. On that note, the way she treats others has changed as well. In canon, Togame could almost be described as cruel; in Locke City, she has merely become cold. One need only grab her interest to keep her attention, and once her curiosity has been piqued she will feel no particular drive to sever the bond that's been made.
Her focus on the field of mathematics has, of all things, narrowed her strategizing powers. She is still intelligent and will no doubt do much scheming of her own in Locke City, but will not have quite the innate understanding of people's inner workings / a given scenario in combat. She is also far more interested in the theoretical aspect of things than the practical; whereas canon Togame would likely use a physical equation to see just what sort of force would need to be applied to break a sword, Locke City Togame would more likely try to generalize the equation to one applicable for all swords altogether (and thus eschew the precise information gained from the equation in the first place).
Abilities: Being a strategian of some renown (the only one, in fact), Yousha frequently comes up with schemes of all sorts. These range from the short-term - beating a trained swordsman by forcing the inferior swordsman to forget everything about the discipline, thus rendering his attempts at the movements unreadable - to the long-term, such as her plotting the fall of the Owari Shogunate through a two-decade quest towards revenge. While she tends to overstate her own abilities, she certainly is responsible for victory on more than one occasion, and her strategies are never overly convoluted.
Unfortunately, that's it. That's literally it. Her only ability is her intellect. She is physically frail beyond belief, going so far as to say she'd likely die if Shichika punched her shoulder, and is simply not cut out for any sort of physical endeavor. The one time she attempts to wield a sword, she immediately trips and knocks herself out.
Her reincarnation is not much better; having been engrossed in books and mathematics since an early age, she knows nothing of "muscle mass" or "lifting things." Still, she is well-educated, and highly intelligent.
Roleplay Sample - Third Person: A chill ran down Yousha's spine.
Somewhere between the registrar's office and the library, the world had shifted. The crowd had grown thicker and thicker, and taller and taller, and she no longer had any way of telling where she was. How tall had the giants around her become by this point? 5'7"? 5'8"? 5'9"? This was absurd! No, the reality was far worse - with an average male height of 5'9.5", and an average female height of 5'4", this had reached into the realms of the statistically improbable!
...so, this is what her life had come to? Forever wandering, lost to the whims of a crowd of brobdingnagian students? Such a cruel fate seemed unwarranted, especially for such a lovely young woman as herself. Ahh, this uncaring world, this pitiful world! Her loss would be mourned, she was sure, by those around her, assuming they ever got their damn heads out of the clouds long enough to notice she was missing-
An opening presented itself in the crowd. There would be time to wax poetic later - survival took top priority. With the battle cry she had co-opted upon her arrival ("pardon me, coming through, please excuse me") Yousha Hida clutched her books tight and made a run for it.
(She would vow, in that moment, to later research which areas of the United States had the lowest average heights. That night, during her frenzied Wikipedia reviewing, she would finally remember to look up the string of numbers which had been bothering her for the past three days - the ones in which she could discern no immediately recognizable sequence or pattern.
And thus, on this light-hearted note, the story comes to an end.)
Roleplay Sample - Network: Excuse me.
[ the video feed is turned on, revealing a pale young woman with long white hair and piercing blue eyes. she speaks in cool, level tones: ]
Before we begin, allow me to make a few things clear. I've reviewed the archives thoroughly, so there's no need for edification. I've given it some thought and come to terms with its existence, so there's no need for explanation. As such, all that remains is an introduction.
[ she sits back, elegantly crossing her legs. her facial expression does not budge in the slightest.
given her bare knee and the angle of the camera, it is entirely indiscernible whether she is wearing pants or not. ]
My name is Yousha Hida. My skillset lies entirely in the perception of the truth behind truths - in detecting the axioms responsible for forming any consistent system, and through inductive logic understanding the universe they create as a result.
[ she uncrosses her legs, then crosses them in the opposite order. it is becoming increasingly unlikely that she is wearing pants. ]
There. That should be sufficient, hmm? So with that settled, I'd like to ask the network's opinion on a matter.
[ she leans forward, her blue-eyed gaze intensifying. ]
What it is that makes something "true?" Suppose a man says his wife will die tomorrow. The next day, she develops a freak cough and passes away. Were his words "the truth?" The statement was true in retrospect, of course, but it seems to have been by chance. Now suppose the same man says the same words - but when the disease does not kill her, he takes matters into his own hands. Are his words now the truth, now that he has ensured their validity? What if he intends to kill her, but dies himself? Perhaps it is best to just consider him on that first day, before his wife's fate has been decided. What is it that decides, in that moment, if he is telling the truth?
[ the beginnings of a smile spread across her face. it is not entirely pleasant. ]
Thank you for your time.
[ and with a single dainty hand, she reaches out and stops the recording. ]
Any Questions?
Judging from what I'm reading, most physical Echoes tend to be "seeing someone with similar eye color" or something along those lines, and that as such Yousha's first Echo trigger is a bit unorthodox. However, given the hair's intrinsic tie to the event, would it be an acceptable trigger? I'd rather the hair than the memory, simply because the memory of such a pivotal event would dramatically alter Yousha's personality (to be closer to her canon counterpart).
If the mod team decides that the current trigger as written is unacceptable, I would be alright with changing it to her finding someone with bleached white hair.
