Gensoukyou:Akemi Kitamura

Life Before Magic
Akemi was born and raised in the human village, only child to a single mother living in the commonplace district. Her father had died at the hands of a youkai when he was outside the village, and that's all Akemi knows about him. Her mother never wanted to touch on the subject very often, so she doesn't know very much about him or any details surrounding his death, but Akemi herself hasn't put very much thought into it either, since all of it happened before she was born, so she figures there isn't much use in worrying about it now.

Akemi was a little bit eccentric growing up. She was one of the children who attended school, and did so from age five to fifteen. Throughout her time there, she was nearly uncontested for the title of "most frequent question asker in the class" and seemed to always like being surrounded by her peers. She'd do little harmless stunts to impress them outside of class-time and put on little shows to make them laugh, but at the same time, she never really got to know many of them personally.

Outside of class, Akemi didn't really have many close friends growing up. Most of the time, she'd just head straight home and spend time with her mother. If one of her classmates were to catch her before she bolted off to her house, she'd just wind up confusing them with random tangents away from whatever they wanted to talk about. None of them wound up being terribly persistent about trying to know her better, and she just eventually settled into the role of "weird, but fun to watch when she's putting on a show."

For a few years after she stopped attending school, Akemi was a bit confused as to what she really wanted to do with her life. For a time, she worked alongside her mother cleaning the barracks, but she wasn't enjoying the work at all. Over that period of time, she bore witness to a few danmaku battles and other displays of magic around and inside the village. Any day that she bore witness to some magical event, she'd have vivid fantasy-like dreams of herself using a bright array of magic to amaze others and provide enjoyment, as well as being able to hold her own in a fight or two. One day, she awoke with the resolve to make those dreams reality, and she told her mother that she wants to be one of the best magicians the village has ever seen. Her mother thought it was a lofty goal, and one that would be incredibly difficult, possibly even dangerous. Regardless, she ended the conversation by giving Akemi some money, and instructing her to go and see if she can buy some basic tomes or something to help her get started. The absolute joy Akemi felt when she heard that can be somewhat difficult to express in words.

Since that conversation, Akemi has only gotten started on her trip through the world of magic. On her own, there's only so much she can do; her mother does not know the first thing about magic and doesn't have any connections to anyone who does, but she managed to pull a string to allow for Akemi to go to the Forest of Magic on rare occasions with a small escort, since she figures it's a logical place to be for a new magic user. Akemi hasn't actually utilized that resource more than once, but she plans to use it again in the near-ish future. She's also hoping to get advice from people who also know about magic, and she's pretty eager to learn about whatever they might have to say.

Personality
Akemi is almost never seen without a smile on her face. She's energetic, a positive thinker, and quite whimsical, enjoying every moment of her own performances as long as she's entertaining someone. On the other hand, she can be awkward when it comes to normal conversation, usually by going off on completely unrelated tangents to whatever it was originally being discussed. Additionally, she tends not to tell very much about herself beyond what she does for performances. Partially because of this, she doesn't have much in the way of close friends.

Curiosity is another notable trait of hers, though it's a bit less pronounced. She is very eager to learn more about magic, or anything else that happens to catch her interest, which is part of the reason why she stuck in school as long as she did. If she starts getting into a particular subject that piques her interest, it might take a while before she's satisfied with the information she's been told.

While she recognizes the danger of the various youkai and other folks surrounding the village, she isn't one to show fear near them...well, maybe a little, if you look a bit more closely than just a glance. It's more of a case that her words do not reflect her actions; she says she isn't afraid of a possibly hostile youkai, her knees are shaking and there's a quiver in her voice, for example. She's pretty aware of her lack of strength, and once she feels it's time to run, she'll utterly crack and show complete cowardice as she'll try to blind a potential attacker and buy time to draw out a trap door. Her attitude will more than likely change once she's improved, but for now, she's more interested in keeping herself alive than being some youkai's lunch. Okay, so she does show fear, a lot of it, but only when she realizes she's in actual danger.

Power/Combat
Being a performer at heart, Akemi uses what magical skills she has to create dazzling sparkles, beautiful fireworks, and mesmirizing light shows rather than anything that can be used for actual harm. At least, that's what she aims to do. In practice, she's had a misfire with almost all of her tricks at least once, mostly due to needing a more firm grasp on magic than what she already has. She's still learning, and outside of her parlor tricks, only has the ability to create simple danmaku patterns. She once tried to use a spellcard near the Forest of Magic, but wound up temporarily blinding herself with it and has decided not to touch spellcards for a while as a result. She doesn't really have a clear aim for what school of magic she wants to focus on, just that she wants whatever it might be to be colorful. As of right now, most of her tricks seem to be light-based.

The one trick she has that she's considered herself to have perfected is her "magic trapdoor." It requires a flat surface and a second to draw the shape, be it a square, circle, ellipse, or what-have-you, and allows her to instantly travel up to 50 feet away as long as there's another flat surface of equal or greater size of the initial "trap door" for her to emerge from. Additionally, she can use it to bring things from far away to her, either by reaching into it and grabbing what she needs, pulling it through the door, or by opening the "exit" door underneath the object she wants to bring to her. She can also bring other people through the trap door both ways, though it can be disorienting for those people at times.

Whenever she uses any sort of magic, the first thing she'll do is grab a small wand she keeps under her hat and use it as an implement. It doesn't actually do anything and is mostly just for show, but she likes it and she claims it helps her successfully cast her spells and whatnot without too many mishaps.

Spellcards
N/A

Major

 * Her mother: Akemi's mother works as one of the cleaning staff for the militia's barracks. She's made a promise to Akemi to support her in any way she can no matter what she decides to do, since she is the only family she has left. Akemi's positive resolve was very clearly inherited from her mother, as even after losing her husband, she'd always put on a strong, positive face for her child's sake.

Minor

 * Keine Kamishirasawa: Having attended school as a student, Akemi obviously had Keine teach her a few things about history. She hasn't really sought out the were-hakutaku outside of classes, but has considered it once or twice.

Trivia

 * Due to her magical mishaps, Akemi's vision is slowly deteriorating. Currently, she's mildly nearsighted, but for some reason seems to have an aversion to getting glasses to help remedy the problem.
 * The idea of going through the process of changing herself from a human to a full blown magician has not crossed her mind yet. She probably would not have an immediate answer if she was asked if she wanted to do that.