[APP - MERIDIAN]
PLAYER INFO
Name: Delphi
Main Journal: delphinova
Contact Info: AIM - IvyMidnighter; plurk - endlessskies
Played Characters: Nope
AC Reminders: No thanks o/
CHARACTER INFO
Name: Haseo
Age: 18
Species: Human [Epitaph User]
Series: .hack//GU
OU/AU: AU
Canon Point: Dead.
History: So. In this AU, Haseo is a young lady from Meridian - a different Meridian, one that's a lot more like The World's Mac Anu. Much like this Meridian, something happened in the past to ruin the world; unlike the Meridian of this RP, the people of this world have gotten a lot further in their recovery. They've gotten back up to steam technology and magitech, aided by the widespread ability to use magic. There are archaeologists everywhere, trying to find out more about their world's past and what exactly happened to destroy their world.
Haseo is the daughter of two of these archaeologists. Her life would have been unremarkable but for a single incident in her childhood: when she was about ten, a ruined temple collapsed while she was still inside. The others were able to get to her, but by the time they had, she should have been dead. They considered her survival to be a miracle.
It was anything but. The deity of the temple, a death goddess named Skeith, had taken pity on the little one in her temple and had offered a bargain with her: in exchange for her survival, she would be bound to Skeith's service irrevocably - a Chosen One with great power, but also great responsibility, and if she failed in her duty, she would die. Haseo, of course, was not in a position to bargain, and agreed to the pact. For years afterward, though, nothing seemed to happen, and she wondered if perhaps it had all been a dream.
As she grew up, she proved to be highly intelligent (so much so that she dropped out of her classes due to sheer boredom,) but her main talent lay in the use of weapons. As a result, she trained extensively in the use of dual swords, greatswords, and scythes. She also took some lessons in gun use, just in case she ever held one. Shortly after turning 17, she went back into Meridian to explore the city. She proceeded to meet Asta and Iyoten, two older teens who promised to teach her some things about the city and turned out to be a couple of ruthless killers. If it weren't for a strange man named Ovan, she would have died. Ovan and his guild, the Twilight Brigade, took her in, and she became close friends with the second-in-command, Shino.
After a particularly heated battle with another guild (which was, unbeknownst to them, a front for a local police division,) Ovan seemed to have disappeared. He never returned to the guild mansion. Unable to hold together without their magnetic leader, the guild drifted apart, although Haseo stood by Shino's side in her friend's time of need.
One day, Shino failed to meet up with Haseo at a time they'd both agreed on. A former guild member, a beast-woman named Tabby, tipped Haseo off as to where she had gone - the Hulle Granz Cathedral, a ruin outside of town - and why - she had heard that Ovan had returned. Fearing the worst, Haseo raced to the ruin, but arrived too late - Shino literally disappeared before her eyes, and a mysterious mute figure wreathed in blue flame stood nearby. Haseo was unable to even get her revenge on the figure that seemed to be at fault.
There's only so much a person can take before they snap, and that's just what happened to Haseo. Unable to handle what had happened, she started on a path of revenge, forsaking even sleep in order to become strong enough to take the creature down. She became feared in the city of Meridian, given the whispered epithet "Terror of Death" - for though she never actually killed anyone, she certainly made them fear for their lives. One day, she received a letter from Ovan, asking her to meet him at the ill-fated cathedral. She went, as expected, and ran into the azure flame demon. Her attempt to defeat him ended badly, and she woke up in the hospital, injured and stripped of her (black-market) armor and weaponry.
Barely alive and unrecognizable without her armor, Haseo was taken in by a guild called Canard. Despite her misgivings, the guild's unofficial leader Silabus made her Canard's official guildmaster. During this recovery from her near-death experience, she ran into a healer named Atoli, who bore a haunting physical resemblance to Shino. Atoli was a member of Moon Tree, an anti-violence group. Atoli tried to convince Haseo to join her guild, but she just ended up annoying Haseo. Haseo also befriended a young mage-in-training named Bo during this time. When Bordeaux, one of the gang members Haseo had once sent to the hospital, tried to attack her, an undercover cop named Pi rescued her. Pi had been tracking her for some time, and introduced her to a group of undercover police known as Project G.U., which hid itself as a guild named Raven. They were attempting to quarantine and eliminate a strange, semi-sentient virus/disease called AIDA. It infected people and either made them disappear into the spiritual level or drove them mad. Even the normal police could not destroy it, and the town's doctors, scientists, and mage-healers were unable to find a cure. The only known way of eliminating AIDA were the eight Great Gods of Meridian, who had the power to destroy them. However, the Eight Gods did not just intervene; they needed chosen humans compatible with their powers, known either as Chosen Ones or Epitaph Users, for some strange unknown reason. As a result of the accident when she was a child, Haseo just so happened to be one of these people; as a result, Pi had tracked her for some time. With AIDA's destruction, the group believed it would be possible to save the ones who had been knocked into the spiritual level, also known as 'the missing' or 'the Lost Ones.' Haseo was initially hesitant, but upon learning that the guild's leader Yata could give her info on Tri-Edge, she joined up with them.
She found out very quickly that simply wanting to summon a deity wasn't enough to make it happen; despite this, she was assigned to fight in a tournament in the local arena, the Demon Palace, in order to investigate a suspicious swordfighter named Endrance, the current 'Emperor' of the Demon Palace (that is, its best fighter and champion.) The G.U. people believed him to be a potential Chosen One. Haseo rose through the ranks quickly, using the prize money to purchase a new broadsword in order to make up for her stolen one. When she went up against a tough group of fighters and nearly fell in combat, she finally was able to summon Skeith, the dread death goddess who she had formed a pact with ages ago. Unsurprisingly, she got a bit reckless with power, using Skeith's strength to win no matter what - whenever someone came close to defeating her, she called out Skeith in order to turn the tables. Kuhn, one of the Epitaph Users in Raven and a close ally of Haseo's, challenged her to a fight in the Arena in order to make her stop. This resulted in an battle of the summoned gods between the two, where Haseo completely lost control of Skeith and could only watch in horror as Skeith pummeled Kuhn's deity, Magus, into oblivion - and with the sympathetic bond between deity and Chosen, that meant Kuhn would not make it out either. Luckily, Magus was able to make illusory copies of itself, and that was what Skeith had destroyed. Haseo had learned her lesson though. On a routine AIDA-cleansing mission inbetween arena fights, Pi was infected and summoned her deity Tarvos in a blind rage, forcing Haseo to use Skeith to cleanse it; luckily, no harm was done to Pi, and Haseo made it to the final battle in time. As it turned out, Endrance really was an Epitaph User - and also one of the infected. Haseo won both the physical fight and the summon fight against Endrance, cleansing him of his infection in the process.
During the party where Haseo was recognized as the new Emperor of the Demon Palace, Ovan reappeared in order to tell Atoli about Shino. This ended in Atoli going off to investigate an AIDA outbreak at the cliff known as Morrigu Barrow Wall, and running afoul of Tri-Edge. Haseo, Pi, and Kuhn followed her, but Haseo's attempts to get an answer out of or defeat Tri-Edge did not work. All Tri-Edge did after being defeated was disappear, either teleporting somewhere else or dissolving into the spiritual level. The infected ones in the area took that opportunity to attack Atoli, knocking her unconscious before fleeing, too fast for the others to catch them. The trio brought her back to Raven, where they found out that Atoli had lost her voice due to the attack. Upon further analysis, they found out that Atoli was, in fact, a Chosen herself. Her connection to her currently dormant deity had been forcibly terminated by the infected. The shock of losing such a powerful connection caused her to lose her voice as well and was slowly killing her. Despite everything, Atoli was both an important ally and something of a friend, so Haseo decided to find a way to re-establish Atoli's connection. Around the same time, G.U.'s leader Yata discovered that the number of insane infected ones and missing ones had increased - meaning that G.U. needed to pick up the pace and gather the Epitaph Users together as quickly as possibly so they could all annihilate AIDA. Haseo, Pi, and Kuhn attempted an emergency quarantine measure on the digital level in order to keep the damage under control, and when they were on their way out of the area, Haseo caught a glimpse of a heavily bandaged Tri-Edge and two strange people beside him, who ran off before she could confront them. Tri-Edge lived; this fact angered Haseo, but her main problem right now was that she needed to save Atoli.
There were no clues on anything, but soon the G.U. group found out that Sirius, the Emperor of the Holy Palace (a second arena,) had recently become infected with AIDA and needed to be investigated. Haseo was, not surprisingly, assigned to take it on. Along the way, she befriended Alkaid, former Demon Palace Emperor and close friend of Sirius, who was concerned about his current state of mind. They decided to become allies because their goals were the same, and became friends in the process. The duo, as well as the still-wounded Atoli (who refused to stay behind no matter what,) took on the Holy Palace and rose through the ranks. Haseo also gained a fighting mentor in the form of the drunk former Emperor, Antares, during this time. Antares was responsible for helping her obtain a strange weapon aligned with Skeith's power, the powerful scythe Shadowy Death, and also responsible for teaching her the value of power as a means of protecting others.
Tragedy struck before the trio could get to the semi-finals though, as Alkaid was called out alone, at night, by someone who claimed to know something about Sirius's condition. Haseo raced to the meeting place in order to try and save her friend, but all she saw were Alkaid's weapons and her slowly-disappearing, barely conscious and brutally injured form. Fearing the worst, Haseo ran to her friend's side and tried to keep her from disappearing, but all for naught. Right before disappearing completely, Alkaid encouraged her friend to stay strong and told her to go get Endrance to stand in for her at the next fight. She had previously seen him at his lowest and believed that he might listen to Haseo - if only because Haseo had dethroned him. Haseo decided to fulfill her friend's last request and sought out the strange Chosen. She found him near the lake of Indieglut Lugh, barely conscious and covered in black chains. It turned out that Endrance's devoted 'fan', Bo's twin sister Saku, was trying to protect him from everything - but she had gotten infected with AIDA, so her desire to protect him had been warped into something more sinister. To make matters worse, Saku was revealed as controlling one half of the trickster deity Gorre, which manifested itself as two beings - Bo controlled the other half, which showed up a few times during the ensuing Avatar battle between Saku and Haseo. Curiously enough, Bo himself never physically appeared during the fight... Haseo won and managed to cleanse Saku of her infection, which knocked her out. She talked with the now-freed and still depressed Endrance for a while, and during this talk, she both attempted to bring him back to his senses and asked for his help at the semi-final of the tournament.
Surprisingly, she actually did manage to convince him, although Endrance showed up late - just as Haseo was getting beaten up by an infected Bordeaux, who was responsible for Alkaid being knocked into the spiritual level. Haseo turned the tide and defeated Bordeaux using Skeith's power, knocking Bordeaux unconscious and cleansing her of her infection. Endrance became an ally of Haseo's, and Saku, disgruntled and suspicious, became an ally as well in order to stay with Endrance. With these two allies of questionable sanity and/or loyalty, as well as the ones from G.U. (she refused to let Canard get involved in order to protect them,) she reached the final ranking battle against Sirius. The fight commenced, and the AIDA infecting Sirius was revealed to be the same one that had severed Atoli's connection to a deity; his two allies were mere illusions made by its power. Using Skeith's power, she was able to heal Sirius and free the deity Innis from within his grasp; Innis promptly re-establihed her connection to Atoli, saving the girl's life. Haseo became the Emperor of the Holy Palace Arena, but the celebrations were cut short when Atoli went missing, the leader of Moon Tree (a boy named Zelkova) was knocked into the spiritual level, and Moon Tree's normally peaceful headquarters became a den of madness. Moon Tree's second in command, Kaede, rushed to the coronation party in order to ask for Haseo's help, which she gave freely in order to save her friend.
After cleaning up Moon Tree, Haseo found out that Atoli's boss, Sakaki, had been responsible for manipulating Atoli, infecting her in order to use her as a weapon. It was all part of his plan to take over the city and become its supreme dictator by infecting everyone in the city and then turning himself into the 'center' of the resulting hive mind. A brainwashed and mind-controlled Atoli summoned Innis at Sakaki's bidding, and Haseo fought her using Skeith's power. She managed to free Atoli, and Sakaki fled. Haseo, Pi, and Atoli chased him down for answers; rather than surrender, Sakaki deliberately used a syringe loaded with AIDA on himself, which caused him to become an infected. The trio fought him and he fell off a nearby cliff. Ovan, who had been watching nearby and unnoticed by the others, showed up and revealed himself as the true Tri-Edge - the person who had really murdered Shino - and also the one who had manipulated everything, including Sakaki, from the shadows. The youth that Haseo had been hunting, and his two allies, were just three people who had almost died at Tri-Edge's hands. They had survived, but their vocal cords never recovered. They had sought all along to save the city from what was threatening it - their goals and Haseo's goal had been the same all along. In addition, there was an AIDA growth on Ovan's arm which acted as a third weapon. He knocked Pi and Atoli unconscious using this 'third arm', carving the Tri-Edge symbol into the ground in the process, and fled before anyone could fight back. As Pi and Atoli had not disappeared into the spiritual level, Haseo quickly dragged her friends to the hospital. While they recovered and the rest of her allies tried to figure out how to deal with it, she stormed off alone in order to locate and fight Ovan, enraged and hurt by his betrayal. Ovan once again revealed a truth that Haseo had not wanted to learn - that he was allied with Corbenik, one of the Eight Great Gods - and attempted to make her kill him. It did not go as planned, and he was merely knocked unconscious. Haseo's power, both her own and that of Skeith, had ultimately failed.
In the following weeks, while Haseo and her allies recuperated from their physical and psychological wounds, the Moon Tree guild was disbanded and Tri-Edge was not heard from. Matsu, a former Moon Tree guild member and also one-time enemy in the Demon Palace Arena, chose to become one of Haseo's allies during this time. When the Chosen, sans Ovan of course, returned to Raven/G.U.'s headquarters, they received a nasty and unwelcome shock: Sakaki had not only survived his fall from the cliff, but had also been instated as G.U.'s new leader by order of the police. Yata, who was supposed to be their leader, had gone MIA and even Pi was unable to contact him. Sakaki's attempts to make everyone bow down to him met with resistance, and the group left the headquarters. A few days later, they received word of a new tournament run by Sakaki, the Sage Palace Tournament; suspicious, Haseo went into it without having to be ordered to. During the meeting where the G.U. group planned who would fight along with Haseo in the arena (for there was a limit of three people per group,) Endrance and Saku suddenly decided to go off on their own and left. Atoli revealed herself as able to call on Innis's power at will now, and no longer needed to stay on the sidelines. Despite her concern for two now-missing allies, Haseo decided to go into the arena just the same, with Kuhn and Atoli as her teammates. Sakaki did not make it easy for her group at all: he rigged the fights, taunted Haseo and her allies, and made them look like the 'bad guys' to the spectators. Upon reaching the finals, and her final opponent Taihaku (who was also an infected one), Haseo learned that Endrance and Saku had gone over to Sakaki's side. Refusing to break down because of this betrayal, Haseo fought Taihaku and cleansed him of his AIDA - which promptly attempted to infect her. She almost gave in, but remembering that her friends were counting on her, she successfully resisted AIDA's attempt at intruding into her mind. This took a lot out of her, though, and as she attempted to recuperate, Sakaki tried to stab her.
It was at this point that Endrance revealed his true colors and stabbed Sakaki in the back, preventing him from killing Haseo. Haseo promptly attempted to summon her Avatar and eliminate Sakaki's infection...this attempt failed, as she was exhausted by fighting off the infection earlier. Kuhn, Atoli, and Endrance supported her with their own power once they realized what was going on, allowing her to summon Skeith with their help. She promptly defeated and cleansed Sakaki, who ran off before she could annihilate him...however, Azure Kite (the false 'Tri-Edge' that Haseo had been hunting) and his two friends finished the job for her, slashing his throat open outside the Arena. After the group exited the arena, Haseo learned the reason why the twins Saku and Bo had never appeared in the same place at the same time: they were not twins, but two sides of a single person. Haseo was unable to do anything for them, because at that point Pi contacted her, stating that she had located Yata via the citywide surveillance system, but that something seemed a little wrong with him. Haseo ran off again with Pi in tow in order to find out what was wrong, and arrived just as Yata called forth a strange god. Yata himself was the final Chosen, the one allied with Fidchell. The process of awakening his Avatar had apparently been very painful, because he lashed out in a blind rage. Haseo and Skeith managed to subdue Fidchell, but before going back to sleep, Fidchell made a prophecy regarding Ovan. Pi managed to calm Yata down and took him back to Raven's headquarters, where he was reinstated as the guildmaster.
Yata discovered where Ovan/Tri-Edge was hiding - the Creator's Room, a place in the city that normal people didn't even know existed. The seven fighters stormed the room and found Ovan with an unconscious infected girl, who he revealed was his younger sister Aina, the very first victim of Tri-Edge. They fought him, and upon realizing that he was near death, he used his power as Tri-Edge to kick everyone out of the Creator's Room, creating a barrier that prevented their re-entry. Once again, Haseo fought him with both using their powers as Chosen Ones, and this time she won. This resulted in something unexpected - it triggered Corbenik's greatest power: the Rebirth, a wave of destruction that would sweep over all levels of Meridian. It would be able to rescue the ones trapped on the spiritual level and annihilate AIDA completely, cleansing the infected. The city itself would remain unaffected...hopefully. It was and always had been Ovan's last gamble in case he ran out of time against his own infection - his last gamble to annihilate AIDA and save his sister. All but broken by these revelations, Haseo could only watch as the wave of the Rebirth spread from the Creator's Room throughout Meridian. It did what it was expected to do, and the city and the uninvolved residents remained unaffected...Aina was rescued as well. The two at ground zero of the Rebirth did not fare so well, though. Ovan disappeared, and Haseo suffered serious wounds that would leave her with scars later on. Just barely conscious, she watched as her friends returned to her side with Zelkova, former guildmaster of Moon Tree, in their company.
Unable to remain conscious any longer, she fainted. When she awoke, she was floating in a featureless white area. Zelkova's voice, which seemed to come from everywhere at once, told her that she was in a virtual reality zone on the second layer. Zelkova had brought her back to his secret hideout in the Meridian slums and had her physical injuries healed, but her psychological wounds weren't healed - and if she remained like that for too long, she would certainly die. In order to live, she had to speak with Skeith and figure out just who she was, and just why she had to remain alive. Hence the virtual reality that Zelkova had created - Skeith could only speak to people on that level, unlike Fidchell. Haseo spoke to Skeith (who, eerily enough, appeared as a color-inverted version of herself) and, having reasserted her identity and recovered her bond with the dread goddess, awoke in the physical realm, in a room within Zelkova's hideout. She found out that her outfit had been heavily damaged along with the rest of her, and that a new one was lying on a chair nearby; she accepted it gratefully. However, something strange had happened when she recovered the bond with Skeith - a series of tattoos had appeared on the sides of her face and on her shoulders. They had not been there previously. When she went to Zelkova (and the others, who had arrived safely at the hideout) to ask what had happened, Zelkova answered that it was a mark of the strong bond between her and Skeith. Zelkova presented her with a set of dual guns with energy blades attached, a weapon that she quickly learned how to use as she recuperated.
Mere hours later, though, the group found out that they were not out of the woods yet. The Rebirth had cleansed out AIDA, yes, but it had created something even worse in its wake. A being known as Cubia came into existence, formed by the destructive and regenerative power of the Rebirth, and was intent on Meridian's utter annihilation. It also began to spawn miniature versions of itself that flooded the streets, destroying whatever they came into contact with. After a brief strategy session in Zelkova's headquarters, the group pinpointed the places where the mini-Cubia floods were strongest and decided to concentrate on clearing out those areas first, before taking on Cubia's main body. Furthermore, Zelkova jacked the TV and radio stations in order to make a citywide announcement asking all fighters to go to those places in order to help combat the city's foe. When Haseo and friends arrived in each of the heavily infested zones, they found allies waiting for them in the form of former Moon Tree members, fighters from the Arena, and those who had returned from the spiritual level - including Alkaid. Aina, Ovan's younger sister, was initially their foe, but came around after Haseo and Bo spoke with her. After clearing out the infested zones, they finally went up against Cubia itself - it had hidden within what was once the place called the Creator's Room, the place of AIDA's destruction and of its own birth.
Cubia put up quite the fight. It initially forced Haseo to fight it with Skeith summoned (during which she discovered that Skeith's appearance had changed and it had grown a lot stronger.) As the group raced for the core, it created shadow clones of several people, and they chose to stay behind to fight them, allowing Haseo and the others to reach the core. After a long and grueling fight, they weakened Cubia, but it still refused to die. After a brief discussion, the seven remaining Chosen agreed that Haseo should channel all of her power into a single attack....all of her power, and the power of the other gods. As it turned out, whenever Skeith had fought and defeated the other Avatars, it had absorbed some of their power. There were only eight Great Gods in existence, and absorbing power from all of them had strengthened Skeith considerably, turning it into something more than just Skeith and also allowing Haseo to physically act as a medium to unify the others' into a single great force. After the Rebirth had occurred, Skeith's newfound power was what had changed its appearance, and Haseo's strengthened bond with the dread goddess was what had created her tattoos. This strength from all of the Eight was also what had triggered the Rebirth - the whole time, Ovan had been counting on Haseo to do exactly what she had done. With six of the other Avatar users present and loaning her their power, Haseo attacked Cubia, sticking the blade of one of the bladed guns into its body, channeling all of their power into it...but it was not enough. Just like with the Rebirth, the power of the eighth was needed. Realizing that her battle might have been for naught with Ovan gone, Haseo watched in shock as cracks spread up the weapon and her arm, slowly and painfully disintegrating it...until a hand was placed over hers and she, and her weapon, returned to normal. Ovan had returned in time to help Haseo defeat Cubia, the last threat to their world. Together, they struck Cubia again, finally destroying it.
As Cubia died, its body disintegrating, the former Creator's Room began to disappear into the spiritual level - it was dying too. Haseo and Ovan managed to speak one last time before Ovan himself began to disappear as well. Haseo tried to stop him, crying out at how unfair it was that Ovan always disappeared, pleading with him to not disappear this time...but there really was no way to stop it. He told her that every ending was a new beginning and began to walk off, disappearing as Haseo ran for him and tried to reach him. As the Creator's Room blinked out of existence, all those who had fought Cubia were safely returned to the outskirts of Meridian...all but Ovan, who had once again disappeared.
A few days later, Haseo received word that Shino had finally returned, and met her at the Hulle Granz Cathedral. There, Shino asked that Haseo rebuild the Twilight Brigade and search for Ovan along with her, but after some thought, Haseo declined. She had no wish to live in the past with only a potentially-futile search as her reason to continue going; if Ovan returned, he would return on his own time. Haseo exited the cathedral, leaving her past behind.
With the war over, the time came to rebuild and return to normal life. Without its purpose to hold it together anymore, G.U. started to drift apart a bit, no longer staying in contact as much as they did. Haseo joined her parents' guild, Midgards, and aided in its archaeology expeditions, which took her away from Meridian for weeks and even months at a time.
Of course...getting that close to the realm of the gods isn't without consequences. Haseo started to suffer from some health complications a few months after the event (shortness of breath, occasional dizziness, coughing fits, etc.) She knew they couldn't mean anything good, but, well - they weren't interfering with anything. No point in complaining, right? Right.
Not. The night before an information-sharing meeting with another guild, Haseo suffered one final attack of ill health. Skeith appeared before her again, able to speak to her now that her circumstances had brought her to death's door, and confirmed that this had been the price she paid for what she'd done. Yes, the power overload had caused her health to fail; no, she wouldn't be making the meeting. She wouldn't even see tomorrow's sunrise.
She didn't. What, do you think every story has a happy ending?
Personality: This Haseo is slightly...different from her canon counterpart. Yes, she's still a tsundere who doesn't quite know how to deal with people sometimes. Yes, she's still snarky and more than willing to fight when it comes down to it. She still cares for her friends, and it's still in an offhanded sort of way ("just shut up and accept my goodwill" indeed.) She only gives up when a friend tells her to, and even then it might take a little bit to convince her. She's still a bit untrusting of people at first, but once you earn her trust, she's an unshakeable ally - and she doesn't take being betrayed all that well.
Her experiences in this AU have left her changed, though. Her upbringing as the child of two archaeologists has given her a great amount of knowledge regarding her world's history, mythology, and other such subjects. In fact, she enjoys researching these things, although few people outside the Midgards guild know it; she may be slightly more bookish than her canon self, but she's not any more vocal about that fact. Her repeated brushes with death left her with a slightly greater appreciation for living, hence her doing what she truly loved once the battle for Meridian was over. Dying young has left her more than a little shaken. You think you'll have a good long time, up until it happens... She's a lot more quiet now than she was before her death, more introspective and thoughtful. She's not exactly depressed, but she's definitely not taking dying very well.
If the situation calls for it, however, she will still spring into action to save a friend or stop some jerkass from trying world domination. Even death isn't going to stop her from taking action.
Powers: Haseo is an accomplished fighter, capable of using twin swords, a large broadsword, scythes, and dual guns. She's fast on her feet, but also capable of great strength when a situation calls for it.
Her main strength is her bond with her world's deity of death, Skeith. Using this bond, she is capable of summoning a manifestation of Skeith into this world, one that has grown stronger as time goes on. This manifestation is small but agile, capable of devastating long-range and close-range attacks, as well as purifying supernatural taints such as AIDA. Outside of the ability to summon Skeith, Haseo is able to see things normal humans can't because of this bond. These things include other deities manifested into this world and the like.
Weaknesses: Aside from being a mere mortal and capable of being killed, the consequences of using Skeith's power are a major weakness for her. The backlash tends to exhaust her and, when overused, causes physical problems such as the aforementioned coughing fits, and - in extreme cases - can and did cause her death.
Possessions: Shadowy Death - A scythe supposedly blessed by Skeith, it's strong and fast and allows Haseo to replenish her own strength with each wound inflicted on another.
Aaand of course she's got the clothes on her back.
Marking Location: On her back, between her shoulder blades
Miscellaneous:
First Person: Well, I wasn't expecting this. When you hear you're about to die, you expect everything fading out, seeing your loved ones who went on ahead, your life flashing before your eyes - that sort of thing. You expect to stand in the afterlife, which is supposed to...well, either it's heaven or hell.
This doesn't look like it's either, and it sucks, if you ask me. I'm starting to wonder if I'm actually dead. That, or somebody screwed up. Skeith, if you can hear me, you'd better be able to explain this...
Third Person: It was strange, but she didn’t feel at all surprised or angry about the situation - not really. Oh, she could put up a token burst of rage, angry mutterings at the heavens (and at Skeith, she’d said she was about to die,) but… Well, it didn’t seem to be worth it.
After all, she was dead.
She remembered gasping for breath in a lonely tent, the world fading out, and as unreal as it seemed it had happened. It was the truth. She was dead, and there was no going back from that.
The world around her, she noticed, seemed to reflect that. Despite the green trees in the distance, the city itself seemed to have gone through something worse than Cubia at some point in the past. It seemed empty, for lack of a better term. It seemed sad, like the ruins she had been to - majestic, yet sad.
This was home now, probably. Even if this wasn’t the afterlife, she was stuck here. She supposed she may as well get used to it.
She couldn’t help missing home at that moment, though. It may have been useless, but…she missed her family, she missed her friends - she wished she’d gotten one last day with everyone, if only to say a proper goodbye to them. She hadn’t been able to do that when she’d died-
But perhaps that was just how death was. You never get that final goodbye.
Exhaling softly, she started to walk into the city.