Name: Akari (AH-kah-RHEE) Reid-Hata
Code Name: Kitsune
Age: 20
Power: Induce and Suffer Hallucinations


Personality:
Defiant. That's probably the word most people use to describe Akari. Other words might include rebellious, restless, wild, turbulent, obstinate, incorrigible, and quarrelsome. Her whole life she's felt like something of an outsider, being neither fully white nor Japanese. She's always wanted to be part of the world around her, not a spectacle to be gawked at. She's developed something of a loner mentality, though not by choice. Since her mutant powers began to manifest it's been worse; she's lived her life with people trying to cage her. She resents being put in a cage.

Despite what would seem to be dominant negative personality traits, there's something inherently likable about Akari. It's probably that she isn't a complex person. Or if she is, she deals with this complexity in a simple way. Akari is driven by instinct. She wears her emotions on her sleeves. She's often quite reactionary, and acts before she thinks. People understand her because, despite her ability to trick and misdirect, Akari never really tries to hide who she is. Akari doesn't always trust people, and for good reason, but when she does she opens up completely. If you know her, then you really know her.

Akari can be quite feisty and inquisitive. She's also got something of a sharp tongue, and uses sarcasm and wit to great effect. She's never very reflective about things. She doesn't stop to analyze. She accepts her circumstances without question and reacts, for better for for worse. And yet she's quite witty and clever, and when she's feeling happy or playful you will definitely know it.

When Akari comes out of her shell and trusts you and her surroundings, she is fun loving, playful and happy. She loves music and food, and enjoys sharing them with others. She's also something of a romantic, though she would never admit it. She has a habit of developing crushes, which can develop into much more under the right circumstances.


Physical Description:
Akari has striking dark eyes tinged with equal measures of curiosity, mischief, and defiance. They are highlighted by nearly black-mahogany hair she wears loose over slight shoulders or in a single, tight braid down her slim back. A petite young woman who at 5'4" and 114 lbs is slightly on the shorter and smaller side, she is nevertheless athletic and in excellent physical condition.

Her features are clearly of mixed heritage, showing equal measures of east Asian and Caucasian. People often ask her "what are you?" or take her for something she is not like Native American or Latina. Her face is soft and young, her cheeks full and unblemished, her lips lush and red--her obvious femininity is sometimes an obstacle she feels she must overcome. She comes across as very instinctual. Her eyes dart around like a trapped animal when she is nervous, but her smile is spectacular when she's happy and secure. She has a tendency to smirk with her full lips in an ambiguous way that is often interpreted as either "kiss me" or "fuck off."

Akari tends to dress in a style best described as "street chic." It's a look that somehow says "I don't care" when she clearly does. Stylish military jackets, sleeveless t's, jeans purchased with holes in the knees, cool boots. She's not adverse to wearing jewelry or dressing up when called upon to do so. When carrying out her "tasks" Akari will dress in all black and cover her face with her colorful red, white and black Inari mask.


Background:
Akari is the out-of-wedlock and unplanned daughter of Amelie Reid, an American army specialist formerly stationed at the Torii Communications Station in Okinawa, and Asahi Hata (or Hata Asahi in the Japanese tradition), a Japanese electrician who performed work on the base. Akari spent the first years of her life in Okinawa, where she learned both English and Japanese, before her mother was reassigned to bases in the United States and eventually honorably discharged. They eventually settled in California's Bay Area, where Akari spent most of her life.

Akari is, for all intents and purposes, a military brat raised by a single, formerly enlisted mother. While she knew her father when she was very young, he was never a serious part of her life. However, he did bestow on her several gifts that she came to cherish when she was very young, and that continue to play a major role in Akari's outlook and life.

The first and most important of these gifts is an Inari mask from feudal Japan, which had been part of the Hata family for generations. Akari has owned this beautiful and intricate fox mask since she was born, and she views it as both part of her heritage and a childhood friend. As a little girl she imagined the mask would speak to her while she was trying to sleep, and she would talk back to it long into the night. Her mother viewed this, and the fact that Akari treated the mask as an imaginary friend, as the harmless play of a little girl.

This changed when the voices continued well into pre-adolescence, and Akari started having hallucinations that matched them. She was convinced that the Inari mask spoke to her, telling her to do certain things and complete certain tasks, and from time to time Akari would imagine that Inari would manifest in front of her, either as a multi-tailed fox or a young Japanese woman. The tasks the Inari mask set the young 12-year old Akari on were often strange as well, such as delivering obscure messages to members of San Francisco's Japanese community or leaving them objects that Akari seemed to acquire from nowhere (or stole). Akari would often follow these instructions regardless of hour of day (middle of night or during school), hopping on trains and walking for miles to complete her assigned tasks, wearing the Inari mask over her face as she played the role of messenger and instrument.

It was at this time that her concerned mother brought Akari to see professionals, and the pre-teen was diagnosed with a mild form of schizophrenia. She was given meds to help keep the voices and other hallucinations at bay. They worked, but they had the side effect of suppressing Akari's natural creativity, imagination, and curiosity. In fact Akari's life took a very dark turn while she was on the medicine. At first she hated it, but eventually she ceased to care. She withdrew into herself, becoming something of an empty shell. She stopped caring about school or friends or family.

It was also her mother, one year later, who eventually took Akari off the meds. She just wasn't the same girl on them, and her mother couldn't bear it. But as soon as the medicine was out of her system the hallucinations began again. The Inari mask spoke to her almost immediately, bidding the young teenager visit a particular Japanese fox shrine outside of San Francisco. Akari obeyed as always, and at the shrine she witnessed a beautiful woman dressed in a traditional kimono and surrounded by a pair of three-tailed foxes. The woman told Akari that it was time for the teenager to awaken to her heritage. Then the woman blessed her with a kiss.

Thereafter, Akari's hallucinations began to manifest in a new ways. They began to manifest to others as well as to herself. Akari found she could make other people see and hear and even feel things that weren't there. She could make someone eating rice believe they were eating maggots, or they might believe they heard a voice when no one had spoken, or she might make someone's phone disappear from their view when it was in fact sitting on a table directly in front of them. The Inari mask told Akari that it was her "fox magic" finally manifesting, and that given practice Akari would be able to call up even more intricate illusions. The doctors, who had access to CAT scans and other sophisticated analytical equipment and who could see brain activity in Akari and in others, saw that Akari had some kind of telepathy that could induce hallucinations in others (and in herself, as it turned out), and determined that Akari must be some kind of mutant manifesting her powers in a new way.

Despite the pokings and proddings of the doctors and the fact that she was being almost constantly monitored, Akari attempted to resume her role as Inari's instrument. As she developed her "fox magic," it became increasingly hard to control her. Short of putting her in a cell, how do you keep tabs on a young woman who could make a person think she was in a place where she wasn't and quietly slip away? The now more mature Akari took on increasingly difficult and sometimes dangerous tasks, which were no longer limited to messages and delivery. She was asked to steal, to stop, to intervene in events. She had run ins with various criminal groups in the Bay Area, which were often the subject of her tasks or obstacles she needed to overcome to complete them. To hide her identity she continued to wear her Inari mask, as well as dark clothing that helped to conceal her, and took up martial arts and weapons training.

The people who became aware of her--mostly the Bay Area Asian communities, including the criminal elements among them--began calling her the Kitsune, probably due to her mask and the way she used tricks to accomplish her tasks. The name stuck. She never viewed herself as a hero or even really a good guy, but nevertheless the actions she took seemed to always work out or benefit someone who would otherwise be on the wrong end of oppression or injustice. Somehow, whether it was a hallucination of Akari's own making or truly a goddess from Japan's mythic age, the Inari mask steered Akari in the right direction.

Akari's good fortune would not last forever, however. In the process of carrying out what she saw as her duties, Akari made too many enemies. On top of that, first the local police and later the FBI became aware of her activity. And of course Akari's mother and doctors were still trying to keep the girl, who was now a young adult, safe from her hallucinations. The doctors wanted to lock Akari in an asylum. They said it was for her own good. The authorities supported this idea. The criminals that Akari had made into enemies wanted revenge. All her mother wanted was to protect her daughter. There were too many people after Akari, and eventually she would not be able to hide.

It was at this time that X-Corporation intervened. They, too, had become aware of Akari and her "tasks." They offered to take Akari in, to teach her to control her abilities, and to keep her safe from herself and those who would harm her. Amelie Reid was distraught, but the idea of a school was better than an asylum, and at least Akari would be safe. Akari was less certain; an island in the middle of the ocean seemed a lot like a cage. It wasn't different than an asylum, and she was certain she could escape an asylum if she had to. But eventually Akari agreed to go to the X-Corporation school for the sake of her mother.

Now Akari finds herself in a strange place, surrounded bu strangers and mutants. She is unsure of the X-Corporation's intent, and she doesn't trust the instructors either. The only solace she has is she still has her mask (even if her mother thinks Akari left it behind) and her gear. She'll sneak out if she has to...somehow.


Mutant Powers Detailed:
Akari has several abilities that thematically draw on...

• Induce Hallucinations, aka Fox Magic (Active) - Akari possesses a form of telepathy that allows her to induce hallucinations in others. Most of these illusions are fairly simple, such as making a person think one object is something else. If a person is holding a weapon like a gun, she might make them think it's really a remote control. The easiest illusions for her to accomplish are simple things like this, and she can perform them quite easily. However, if she concentrates hard enough she can conjure up entire rooms, multiple people, solid walls where none exist, etc. This takes a concerted effort, however, as she has to concentrate on the details, and she can quickly become exhausted.
  
  Akari's induced hallucinations are quite versatile. She can affect all of the five senses, from vision to hearing to touch, including inducing pain. She can make an object that is not there feel as solid and heavy as the real thing. She can also make things disappear, including herself, though only for short periods while she is focused.
  
  Akari's power is limited in that she needs to be present and she needs to concentrate to do anything incredibly intricate. She also needs to work harder to induce hallucinations in more than one person. Even two people takes some effort. A crowd is quite difficult for her, and so she limits her illusions to simple things when she is trying to target a group. As she becomes more practiced it is possible that some of these limitations can be overcome (pending story events that support it and GM approval).
  
  
  
• Hallucinations Induced, aka Fox Sight (Passive) - Contrarily, Akari seems to induce hallucinations in herself. She is often unaware of this, and doesn't do it on purpose. Most of the time this takes the form of her mask speaking to her, but it can be anything, really. She often experiences things that aren't really present, such as voices or objects that become strangely fascinating to her. She will see and hear "spirits" of common items, such as the spirit of a door or a fire or an animal. Furthermore, she will at times manifest hallucinations in others accidentally. She has a habit of giving herself a fox tail, for example, or even two or three, when she has exerted herself or when she is emotional. The doctors explain all of this as some form of complex psychosis generated from the imagery and stories of her childhood.
  
  It should be noted that Akari is not really convinced she is the cause of these hallucinations. She understands others think so, but she has another explanation: The things she sees are in fact real and are really there. She believes she may in fact be seeing things as they truly are, or is catching a glimpse of a spirit world beyond our regular sight.

Other Information

Hobbies:

• Music and concerts. Akari has an extensive music collection and loves checking out concerts. She listens to almost anything within a certain range, from industrial techno to punk to j-pop to hip hop and R&B.
  
  
  
• Martial Arts. When Akari was a younger teen she picked up some martial arts, and she continues practicing to this day. She is not a master by any means, but she knows enough to get by when she's in a tight spot. Most of the training she's received come from Japanese traditions such as aikido, jujustu, and kenpo. Part of her is embarrassed about this, as she doesn't like being an Asian stereotype.

Likes:

• Friends/Being a Part of Things. Akari's always felt like a girl on the outside of things. though she would never admit it, she's longed for close friendships and a place to belong. She's definitely not sure this mutant school is it, and they have a long way to go to prove themselves and earn her trust.
  
  
  
• Learning about her heritage (both sides). Speaking to an Innari mask that may in fact be an ancient Japanese goddess all your life tends to make one curious about one's culture, heritage, and spiritual place in the world. Akari loves visiting ancient places or learning more about mythology and the like.
  
  
  
• Strength. Akari respects strong individuals. This doesn't mean physical strength so much as strong personalities who endure hardships. Nothing gets her as wound up as a strong woman who is equal to her.
  
  
  
• Other likes. Hanging out, goofing around and being silly, sex, music.

Dislikes:

• Cages. Akari does not like being tied down or restrained in any way. She is especially suspicious of this X-Corporation school because it's on an island. They say it's to keep the students safe from the world outside, but Akari isn't so sure it's not to keep them trapped inside.
  
  
  
• Being treated as a spectacle. Akari has always felt like an outsider or as something to be gawked at, both because of her heritage and later her mutant powers. She hates that.
  
  
  
• Authority Figures. Akari is wary of people telling her what to do, or of anyone who acts like an authority figure. She distrusts doctors, teachers and others who are in charge, especially if she feels they haven't earned the right to be in charge of her.

Sexual Orientation: Akari is attracted to both sexes, and has been in relationships with both, but tends to crush especially heavily on women.

Relationship With Family: Akari is very close to her mother, who communicates with her regularly. Her father is much more distant, though Akari does email him from time to time.

With Friends: Friends were hard to come by for Akari, who felt apart of the larger community and therefore kept herself distant. There were a few guys and girls she hung out with here and there from school, and she's had on again off again relationships with some of them, but nothing has been substantial enough to note.

Any Other Information: Akari possesses several objects that are important to her (more to come):

• Inari Mask. A childhood relic given to her by her father when she was an infant. It speaks to her when she is hallucinating, assigning her tasks that she takes as instructions from Inari herself. The mask is made of wood and painted beautifully in red, white, and black. It has been in the Hata family for generations.
  
  
  
• Kitsune Gear. This includes dark, flexible clothing, her mask, a hood, and some kind of Japanese short swords or Sai, wielded as a pair.
  
  
  
• iPhone and a Mac Book. On which she communicates with her mother and keeps her music library.

Akari Gallery