[hider=Iron Maiden][center][h1][color=crimson]K[/color] [i]a n a [/i][/h1]

[img]https://safebooru.org//images/2331/76d235464aaecb30b5bffa0b3412f4e8da95f437.jpg[/img][/CENTER]
[h3]Personal Dossier[/h3][hr][sub][color=crimson][b]Name[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent]Mutsuki, Kana[/indent]
[sub][color=crimson][b]Age[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent]15[/indent]
[sub][color=crimson][b]Origin[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent]Goshogawara, Aomori Prefecture, Japan[/indent]
[sub][color=crimson][b]Physical Description[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent]
Kana is an unimposing presence. She stands just short of average, with the meager build of someone nourished on cheap food and scrap meals. Her sense of fashion is a flawless marriage between “punk” and “homeless,” complete with the high-necked, needlessly-belted boots and the I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-garbage leather jacket. The things she can control though, like her hair and hygiene, she keeps in line. It’s hard enough for her to make friends without smelling like someone who only occasionally has hot water.

She has been told, often and unkindly, that she resembles her mother. She inherited her mirror-bright eyes and severe countenance, but the mannerisms—the unbowed stature, the habitual brow-cocking and cracking of finger-bones—these were learned, and to the people affected by her mother's terrible crimes, they evoke chilling, uncanny memories.[/indent]
[sub][color=crimson][b]Characterization[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent]-Quiet
-Curt
-Altruistic
-Sincere
-Sympathetic
-Anxious
-Self-Deprecating
-Fatalistic
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[sub][color=crimson][b]Personal History[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent]Kana loved her mother. 

She was a kind, gentle woman. She had sharp, severe eyes, she gave warm hugs, she spoke softly even when she was upset. The people in their neighborhood liked her, people at her work liked her; she went out of her way for strangers that she’d never see again, because it was the right thing to do. She taught Kana that good people put others before themselves, that sacrifice was the foundation of heroism.

She was eleven when she learned that her mother was not a hero. 

The months after she disappeared were blurry. Her father was brought in for questioning so many times that they practically lived at the police station for weeks. Reporters dogged them at their house, at the store, they even came to Kana’s school before she was pulled out. The few times that Kana was able to watch TV, she saw their names on the news. They were talking about her mother, and they were saying terrible things, calling her names, telling lies. They said she was a villain.

They left Goshogawara in a panic. People had begun coming to their house, people who claimed her mother had hurt them, or someone they loved. They came during the day, sometimes they came at night; Kana would see them through her window, pacing in their driveway or coming up to their door. They wanted answers, but Kana didn’t understand the questions. They’d knock for hours. When she and her father finally left, their was graffiti on the house, and the mailbox was smashed over. 

It didn’t matter where they went. The news was fresh, the names were publicized. For a while there was no true anonymity, only the brief silence of temporary homes, and the confused sense of humiliation that followed them like a bad odor. They wound up across the country, living in a seedy span of Kagoshima before they found respite, and it had been over a year by then.

Things were almost worse once everything had settled down. They were practically out of money, and ostracized by a community of strangers who wanted nothing to do with them. Kana’s father found work stevedoring in the port at night, and while it was enough to put food on the table, they lived meagerly. 

Against her father’s insistence, Kana began experimenting with her Quirk again, as she had once done under the caring, cautious tutelage of her mother. It was a fearful thing, and painful, but it was also all she had left of her. In the dead of night, muted beneath the monolith groans of the ships moored in the nearby harbor, she would grit her teeth and let the aching burn of her Quirk flood through her. Mother had always told her not to be afraid of pain, but it was hard. It [i]hurt.[/i] She kept on though, in secret, because she would have wanted her to, and even if honoring the would-be wishes of a villain seemed wrong, and guilty, Kana felt compelled. She wouldn’t deny the things her mother had done, but a part of her couldn’t let the kind memories go.

She made her desire to be a hero known, and her father fought tooth and nail to quell it. The reasons were plenty, and strong, but they were all things that Kana had already faced herself, and though they scared her, they didn’t scare her enough. When it became clear she wouldn’t be deterred, her father tried to get her to look elsewhere, perhaps overseas, where the family’s shame was unknown, and where it wouldn’t resurface again. Kana wouldn’t consider it. The shame was grave, and demoralizing, but it wasn’t what scared her either. [i]She[/i] was what scared her.

Ishin Academy’s reputation was universally brutal, the students it accepted became heroes without exception, not villains. There she could be forged into something good, something people didn’t fear or revile, something she could be proud of. 

Something the mother she remembered could be proud of.[/indent]
[sub][color=crimson][b]Character Development & Conceptualization[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent]Kana is a walking identity crisis, and an embodiment of the phrase [i]“the sins of the father.”[/i] An inability to reconcile her mother’s gruesome villainy with the fond and gentle memories she has of her, has left Kana perpetually anxious about her own fate. The optimist in her is sure that she can make something good out of herself despite, but the pessimist is convinced that she’s doomed to follow in her mother's footsteps. Can she be a hero? Is it even right for her to try? In a world full of people trying to live up to the legacies of their parents, Kana is desperate to leave her's behind.

I wanted Kana’s struggle with heroism to be something she can’t avoid, something that’s constantly looking her in the face and asking her [i]“is this really what you want?”[/i] So I baked it into her Quirk. [color=crimson]“No Pain, No Gain”[/color] has and is still molding Kana’s perception of what it means to be a hero. To her, being a hero is all about sacrifice; the hero suffers so that others don’t, period. At the same time, she has to live with a Quirk that will eventually evolve into something horrific, something that would reward selfishness and sadism. Every time she activates it, she has to choose between taking the easy path to power, or the hard one. She has to choose to suffer for people who don’t want her, who hate her, even, and that’s not an easy choice to make on a hero’s constant and demanding schedule. 

Excitedly, I don’t know where I want Kana to end up. Does she maintain her ideals of heroism, and put the well-being of others—even those who despise her—ahead of herself, or does she follow the path of her mother, and give in to her Quirk’s sadistic temptations of power? Ultimately this depends on her time at Ishin Academy with her fellow students, and their shared growth as would-be heroes.[/indent]
[h3]Abilities & Talents[/h3][hr][sub][color=crimson][b]Quirk Type[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent]Emitter[/indent]
[sub][color=crimson][b]Quirk Description[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent] Dubbed [color=crimson]No Pain, No Gain[/color], Kana’s Quirk, inherited from her mother, allows her to enhance her physical attributes in correlation with her own pain. Activation inflicts her with a dull yet constant ache, which gradually worsens with prolonged use, raising her strength, speed, and even durability to potentially drastic degrees as a fight carries on. 

Kana’s minimal conditioning has limited the Quirk’s usefulness. As well, deactivating [color=crimson]No Pain, No Gain[/color] “resets” her heightened abilities, but does not immediately alleviate her, making it extremely difficult to weave in and out of using.

[hider=Potential Development]Her mother’s mastery of the Quirk allowed her to fuel [color=crimson]No Pain, No Gain[/color] with the pain felt by those near her, especially pain that she herself had inflicted. While Kana currently does not possess this ability, she dreads that she one day might, as it conflicts outright with her entire philosophy of heroism.[/hider]
[/indent]
[sub][color=crimson][b]Other Talents & Attributes[/b][/color][/sub]
[indent][b]Minimalist:[/b] When you don’t know whether your next meal is coming today, or the day after tomorrow, you pick up some frugal sensibilities. Living off scraps in Kagoshima’s briny harbor has taught Kana how to pinch pennies like a professional, which could come in handy with Ishin Academy’s “your time, your dime” policies. She doesn’t indulge much, if ever, and may occasionally sneak leftovers home with her.

[b]Scrappy:[/b] Expectedly, school was a nightmare for Kana, and while most of her peers steered clear of her, the braver kids—often ones with Quirks who saw her as an opportunity to play hero—steered right into her. She can play rough, and she can absolutely play unfair, and while she’s much better nowadays at turning the other cheek, there’s still a short, childish temper buried beneath those layers of anxiety.

[b]Academically Lacking:[/b] A strong sense of determination and the gumption to study on weekends aren’t always enough. A combination of a spotty schooling schedule, a lack of funds for tutors, and just not really being all there up in the headspace, have rendered Kana a middling academic, especially compared to the scholarly elites at Ishin Academy.
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