[ application ; megumi ]
DATA
name; (Yamamura) Megumi
age; 19 (Original) 23 (in-City)
birthday; March 18th
blood type; O
height; 5'5
race; Japanese (born and raised in England, though)
risk rating; C
status; alive
series; guilty gear x, x-plus, accent core plus
canonly linked to; Axl Low [officially mentioned as his lover], Zappa [as S-Ko]
skill; white magic user - healing and water/light, non-offensive
likes; Axl, friends, playing the guitar, music, a good cup of tea
dislikes; cruel people, her grandmother.
ABILITIES/STRENGTHS [ Canon abilities are all related to healing and water in opposition to S-Ko's possession and damaging abilities (Regeneration, DNA reconstruction etc.) The elaborations are ICly developed in polychromatic, and are marked in blue, strikeouts are things she's toyed with in the city ]
- Simple magic involving psychokinesis, white healing magic, shields and barriers (this means she can probably save someone from a fall or levitate objects/herself/someone if needed). A natural witch through a magical bloodline of Japanese, utilising ki energy. Can warp time to travel through it, but this skill is still very risky and better unused. She can also use wind/light summons, but they drain on her stamina and she can't summon repeatedly without it backlashing on her.
- Heightened sensitivity to elements and energy. Sensing ki and danger, as well as being able to sense non-human/supernatural signatures, and shielding against them.
- Healing magic usually consists of treating injuries, sealing severe wounds, returning a body to a state of normalcy before damage, and resurrection at the cost of her own lifespan shortening. The latter is very risky and can result in death for her if she's not careful, or if the process is interrupted. (Developed in part with the abilities of Yamamura Sadako)
- Her healing magic consists of Regeneration, Restoration, Reconstruction and Resurrection. Effectiveness varies on the intensity of the wounds/problems being treated. She can do a deep scan dive with her magic to point out the source of a body's ailment, and focus her powers on attempting to fix it. The greater the problem, the longer and more draining it might be on her.
- Teleportation and Animation are also abilities she can perform, the latter which is mostly light in its power usage and is only used for household help. Think Disney and you get the idea. When she says she 'asked' the cookbook to help the eggs and flour make up and bake a cake with the oven, she means it! She does this mostly for amusement though, and can only command the things she has claimed ownership to.
- Currently studying more different kinds of magic from her friends and will be happy to learn things if they can enhance her abilities, or make her stronger stamina-wise.
- To regenerate, she can dive into natural bodies of water to recover lost strength. Water also acts as an amplifier to her abilities.
WEAKNESSES
- She cannot perform any dark magic without it backlashing on her negatively, therefore she avoids it at all costs. These include death magic, intentionally harmful magic, anything that requires the element of darkness to be present-- an ability that is prevalent in her S-Ko incarnation.
- Her hair, if stolen by the root, can be used as a communicating wire to only her, to give marionetting commands to keep her in control, a method used by her grandmother to make sure she did not accidentally reveal her powers to common folk. Until or unless the hair is damaged in any way, the owner of the strand can make sure she doesn't use her powers, or monitor the amount of power used. As long as people remain unaware, they can't use this against her.
- Severe physical damage on her body can cause her magic to weaken tremendously while her body attempts to restore itself. Broken limbs and repeated stabs or anything that makes pain the prime focus of her body can make her magic react negatively and shut down, technically going into a sort of 'read-only' mode that won't allow it to release until she's in a physically safe state. She can die, however, if direct hits to vital points of the body are made. spoilers, highlight to read;→ With her body's genetic code as it is and her reproductive abilities, she's able to recreate herself from her own DNA in the way a virus does. Unlike her counterpart in the Ringverse, she has no intention to spread this virus among anyone else, choosing instead to shift her consciousness to a new host. Megumi isn't aware of this skill of her genetic infrastructure, continuing to believe her existence after her last extreme injurious state is the same as the original she was born with, though in the end it doesn't make much of a difference since it's her mind in a body replicated by herself, so long as her new consciousness doesn't attempt to lay claim to the old body (at this time, the parasite consciousness being S-Ko).←/end spoilers
- If her hair is tied up in a braid or knot by someone other than her, she'll end up having her magic locked until and unless that very person undoes her hair. Cutting her hair off in that state will result in an extreme amount of agony while her hair attempts to re-grow, an act that might put her out of commission for hours, at worse, for a few days. If she's attacked physically in this state, she'll be paralyzed while her body attempts to heal itself for about a week and at worse, she could even die permanently with only an extremely minor chance of resurrection.
PERSONALITY
general;
who's that girl?; her & everyone else
Kind, affectionate, feminine, motherly are only the beginning words to help describe this woman. A rather warm soul, she's always got a smile for her companions and a kind word for those who need it. The all-around good girl, in a way. Though she has a tendency to be a little straightforward, she will never be offensive without thinking things through. She always means well for those around her, and sincerely intends to make sure her friends have no complaints with her.
Keeping her own attitude as friendly as possible, Megumi strives to be someone people can look up to and enjoy being around.
don't really care for a bad reputation; her & conflict
Living where she has for so long, she's picked up a sense of street smarts and is not at all as helpless as people would probably make her out to be. While not a professional fighter, she can hold her own in self-defense and with some skills learned from her devoted boyfriend, though she does tend to let herself get intimidated almost by reflex. It's a leftover trait from when she was younger, and she's worked on overcoming it. No messing with the lady, those heels hurt when they meet those crown jewels!
She's capable of making sure she isn't messed with... either through defiance or the plain old feminine way, snark-- because violence is something she'd rather stop than encourage. Of course, she'll leave the physical fighting to Axl if it becomes necessary which he'd end up doing anyway, hot-headed for battle as he is, but when he's not around, she can still manage to cause some damage, just with a touch of magic-- enough to distract while she makes her escape.
In a conflict of thoughts and misunderstandings though, she will attempt to act as the voice of reason, and try and reason out a way to make peace where it can be allowed.
girls just wanna have fun; her & herself
She has a bit of a playful side, a very girlish and feminine personality that is made obvious by a lot of the things she does. Very rarely will she be seen dressed in trousers, preferring dresses and skirts and always keeping her appearance in top shape (she wouldn't want to be a mess if Axl ever appeared!) as well cute. She's proud of being a girl, after all, and all the fun that comes with it.
She loves shopping for clothes, fashion, sewing-- a bit of this and that, and simply being a girl in general. While she doesn't consider herself amazingly attractive, she attempts to keep herself looking good, because she wants her boyfriend to be proud of being seen with her and to want to keep his eyes on her without being blatantly sexy the way the girls Axl flirts with usually are-- there needs to be a distinction between them after all! But as long as it's making them both happy, she's going to be more than willing to make sure she's nice on the eyes, even for her friends to a certain degree.
talk to me girl; her & communication
She speaks with a light English accent because of where she was raised, and she avoids using slang as best as she can, though get her in a bad mood and some sailor-shaming insults might make their way past her tongue-- she wasn't deaf to the way the girls spoke back in the East End, after all! She can speak and understand Japanese, and has actually been reading up on supernatural languages while in the City, like Fairy-speak, Orcish and others, mostly to just be aware of them. A witch has to be familiar with others of her kind and lore after all!
she's just all that; her & romance;
Responsive to the people who make the effort to talk with her, she will return good-natured flirting with friendly affection if people make it clear that they don't intend to get serious about it. She's devotedly in love with Axl Low, and perhaps in her own mind, it's something akin to a princess waiting for her hero, because oddly enough, that's what Axl has been to her, and she's always found it ironic with their social standing as it has been.
That's not to say that she hasn't gone out on platonic friendly dates before with both men and women-- the keyword being platonic. She's confident enough in her affection for her lover to not be ashamed of going out with her friends, the same way Axl easily flirts with other women. While not insecure about her own feelings, sometimes she worries about Axl tiring of her, which shows in the mildly tsundere manner in which she'll scold him for flirting in front of her. It's all good fun, and what would a relationship be without some healthy dose of laughs, right?
Without Axl, of course, she doesn't mind a little more attention than she would allow otherwise, but for the most part, she keeps herself away from any form of romantic emotional intimacy, preferring to stick to light flirtation if necessary in response and being careful about not leading anyone on-- that would be something she'd never be able to forgive herself for, if she did. She'll go as far as embraces, chaste kisses on the mouth and cheek, but nothing that ventures into anything resembling what she feels and would do for Axl for the most part.
While loneliness does urge temptation, she'd never give herself that way to anyone until and unless she sincerely and utterly trusted them and if they didn't ignore her love for Axl. That on its own is something that she hasn't ever allowed any encouragement for, thereby making it quite impossible for anyone to think she's doing this to hurt him for leaving her. However, she's human about needs if she has them, and so far she's had none-- no one gets that close after all. In her eyes, it's probably enough discouragement for anyone who's just looking to her for one thing and disrespecting her emotions for the one who allowed them to blossom at all.
She's a romantic, a fool in love to herself, and she's content with that-- she still believes in her love, and she will continue to do so-- as they promised-- "until the end of time".
I love rock n'roll; her & music;
Her wildest side shows when she's performing with her rock guitar-- thanks to Axl's devoted training, Megumi is proficient in playing lead and bass, and nothing is spared to make sure she gives her best performances ever. That is probably the only time Megumi will ever seem her happiest, music is precious in her eyes (and to her ears!) as the one thing that brought Axl and her together. While she isn't exactly the best, she has the passion to play from the heart. It might not be everyone's cup of tea and she's not exactly a pro-- but she has fun while performing and she has a good amount of skill to back herself up (even if she did play along a lot to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts...) She can also sing reasonably well and keep in tune, having had vocal training, but she prefers to sing backup more than leads if she does. She's shy about her singing voice and won't willingly perform solo, preferring to play an instrument instead.
CANON BACKGROUND SETTING/INFLUENCES
[ This portion contains the effects of the magic-inclusive environment of the game suggested in Axl's story paths and drama CDs. ]
Megumi originally comes from the real world, the real world in the 20th Century, a world however, touched with elements of magic. People with supernatural inclinations, such as vampires, witches, monsters etc, live in a different dimension of sorts, able to create 'pocket dimensions' similar to their own to hide themselves in if necessary. As S-Ko and a witch, she is presumed to be capable of accessing the same.
As Axl grew up in East End London of the time, Megumi is also located in London due to it being unlikely for them to have fallen in love outside of there (and which would otherwise make Megumi a resident of Japan that would make having them meeting impossible, due to the fact that Axl isn't exactly capable of any sort of travel before his timewarping abilities kick in.)
Her original age is 19, and it is known that she was raised around the late 1980's-early 1990s, a time of great turmoil and revolutionary changes within the world. She was born in England, in the West End London area, exposed to a multitude of cultures and styles. Because of this, she exhibits a tendency to be more English than Japanese.
HISTORY
[disclaimer: the first part is just filling in the blanks for personal reasons, canon information is included further on.
Also, to keep the connection to S-Ko, there are heavy influences from the Ringu series, with offered justification! ]
"Don't play in the water or the darkness will come for you, child."
Raised in the booming musical 80's, Megumi was raised in a well-off environment- though what the household consisted of was far from normal. Her grandmother, a witch and scientist working on discovering the beginning uses of magic and chi energy, was a strict and orderly woman, who didn't take any sort of nonsense from anyone. For a majority of Megumi's growing years, her grandmother made sure to control most of her actions to make sure she didn't step out of bounds. To do so would end up in some rather strict disciplining.
Eventually becoming accustomed to it, Megumi merely kept a silent fear of her grandmother and never disobeyed her. Shy and nearly timid by the time she hit her teenage years, she had very few friends who didn't consider her odd.
She was disallowed from wasting her time with her friends, instead made sure to learn the ways of healing and the magical lineage that she was supposed to inherit, as well as honing her abilities. She had very little time to herself and even lesser time to have an identity that wasn't the one her grandmother forced on her.
Things changed for her in a surprising way when she found herself ambushed by a couple of delinquents one day when she was walking alone from school, only to be rescued by a chirpy and friendly young man named Axl. Not a fighter, and terrified out of her wits, she made to escape, but Axl pretty much protected her without a single moment's hesitation. Surprised and impressed that someone could have done something for her without expecting anything in return, she aided the boy, and a blossoming friendship developed from then on.
Where Megumi was shy, Axl was bold, where she would stop in doing something because her grandmother had strictly forbidden her, Axl would show her it was safe to do. Within time, she began to trust Axl and eventually the two entered a relationship that progressed into romance and they became lovers. Axl always supported everything Megumi did and Megumi hoped she could always help Axl-- of course, they needed this without the knowledge of Megumi's grandmother who was strictly against having Megumi 'tainted' by the outside world (it's safe to assume, Megumi might as well have been her own experiment in a way).
Megumi, in her search for normalcy not only grew out of the restricted shell her grandmother had formed around her, but began to grow into an individual of her own. She and Axl had some fun adventures, especially after Megumi ran away from home and spent a good three years of her life outside of the forced norm of her home, and with the young man she grew to love. During this time, she also discovered her love for music and her passion for playing a Fender Stratocaster electric guitar which she still has and plays.
canon;
As they became lovers, and lived happily together, it was during this time that they also honed their magical skills, with Axl's fire ability being enhanced and his discipline raised. The two of them remained very loyal and devoted to each other (with the occasional teasing and flirting), but as always, such idyllic days were not meant to last forever.
It happened all too fast. Megumi's bad luck coincided with strange events in the future of their history one day, when Axl's time warping powers got activated. It resulted in him being thrown into time portals, and sent to the future-- much to Megumi's bad luck. She hunted for him wherever she could think of looking, but his presence had long since left. She'd been abandoned, she believed, and suddenly she was frightened and alone with no one to trust or turn to.
She missed her lover extremely, to the point that she became bitter against the world which she had wished to protect and for the magics that had taken him away. This bitterness festered in her, making her angry and hateful, though she tried her best to keep it under control, yet try as she might have, the temptation to commit suicide was strong.
However, her grandmother, on seeing this chance to punish her for her insolence and to make sure she could never give her powers to anyone again, had her battered half to death and then shoved her into the well-- and Megumi was left to be nearly drowned in the darkness. She tried to escape without much luck, begging to be let out, only to be met with no show of mercy and no hope of freedom. She was terrified, injured and most of all, alone. She spent seven days inside the well, alive thanks to her healing abilities as well as the presence of water, as impure as it was, and suffering, unable to help herself at all.
Aching for death to put her out of her misery and having no means to complete her suicide, while in the middle of her suffering, the hateful entity that had built up inside her made a promise- it would save her and take revenge on her grandmother for taking Axl away, but in return, Megumi would give it a life of it's own and she would look for Axl. Agreeing, Megumi was released from the well and the bitter entity that was the personification of all that was wicked in her, her envy and jealousy, became S-Ko, the "Sadistic Child".
S-Ko moved on ahead, killing Megumi's treacherous grandmother, while Megumi herself remained trapped in her own time, and realised what she had done and allowed to be done, regretting her actions instantly. S-Ko however, was incomplete, becoming a parasitic entity who needed the life force of someone else to survive, and becoming the embodiment of everything opposite of Megumi, travelled forth into the future to find her a host. If Megumi were to join with her again, she would be destroyed.
Megumi then resumed her search, both for the cure to Axl's curse and her own- and hoping to learn of an element that would draw her back to her nemesis S-Ko, she set out on a search again, hoping to find it before it's too late...
Welcome to the Jungle; Polychromatic City;
[ story so far ]
Megumi entered the City then, two years after these incidents, and found Axl pulled in by the same magic that drew her in. Rekindling their relationship, for a while, she was content.
She ended up discovering her nemesis had possessed a young man named Zappa, but before she could rid him of it, he was sent back into his world. Frightened as to his state, she did return to her world and spent months trying to seek him out.
Unfortunately, this turn of events caused her to weaken in her powers tremendously, leaving her incapable of seeking out her nemesis. But she continued to train, also attempting to seek out S-Ko's whereabouts at the same time, without much luck.
Finally, after recovering some of her powers, she spent her time travelling through different time periods, until she realized she could probably find more answers here. Trying her best, she began to reach out to find the City she had left.
She has been living here for a while now, and though there have been times of extreme darkness, she continues to live on, hoping to find the answers she needs before she can leave again.
Information for Psychics/Mind-Readers/Telepaths ( POLYCHROMATIC ONLY )
To elaborate on what I said here, she's a magic-user, and thanks to certain charms on her as well as safeguards, only her immediate memories can be accessed. A powerful psychic could break in and go further, but there's stuff that even she can't reach herself. This is the dirt that can be accessed when looked into, otherwise only the things she's thinking of at that time will be readable:
1) Between her first visit to poly and her stay now, there's a space of nine months that are a blank for her and she has no recollection of what happened in that time before she came back here. Since this is a vital plot point for her to discover in-game, that period of time is off-limits, but images can be drawn from them will include images of drowning, dark water and the interior of a well as well as bloodied limbs dragging her down. She has no recollection of why these memories are most prominent.
2) When she came to the City for the second time, she claimed that three years had passed and she'd had a daughter. This was soon revealed to be a false memory, in connection to the time period she doesn't remember, but she has no idea why she thought that. She is still trying to figure out what caused that, because she did go through a pregnancy. She just has no idea what and is scared of what the answer is going to be-- and that memory too, is blocked off during the space of those nine months she can't remember.
3) During her current stay in the City, around last year, she was forced to work for Alexis Hargreaves' organisation DELILAH and had a high-ranking Arcana position as The Empress. What no one knows is that despite being blackmailed with her lover Axl's life, she joined to learn and steal their secrets for herself, helping Cain and Axl came much later. She still feels guilty about this.
4) She was abused during this time, mentally and physically, and was sort of an unwilling lover for Alexis Hargreaves, who she hated. This is a fact she has not told a single person about due to how humiliating it was despite the fact that it was him who would seduce her, but she has her own guilt about letting it happen.
5) She's possessive about Vivio (dclx), enough to not want her to go back to her world with her real 'mama' Nanoha (gonnabefriendu), and feels guilty about this and will do anything to protect her. Similarly, Cain (misterblackbird) is like both a son and lover to her and the inheritor of her magic in the City. She also gets slightly jealous when either of them don't talk to her, but she catches herself pretty quickly.
6) Anger and fear can turn her into a violent, terrifying creature, a side that's come out in the City only once after she was in Delilah. She's terrified of this side emerging again, and she's killed once in her own world because of it. She's vowed never to let it control her again but she's not letting anyone know that the destructive spirit was her.
7) Her hair works as a marionetting wire that can control her actions and powers if taken by the root. This is another humiliating secret for her that she's only let Cain know, and while she claims Alexis had that on her as blackmail (he did), he never used it to coerce her into joining Delilah. Gulp.
And if you read through all that, I applaud you. o/
Links;
- Five Memories, elaborating her life and thoughts (writing)
- Image Gallery, memories of her life before entering the City and after it. (art)
- Memories; of her only pet/running away/Axl's departure (Contains OC bandmates for discussed headcanon- art)