[hider=Nico Kaneko]
[center][u][b]Name[/b][/u]
Nico Kaneko

[u][b]Age[/b][/u]
13

[u][b]Appearance[/b][/u]
[hider][img]https://i.imgur.com/IWrcOXI.jpg[/img]
[url=https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=54879575](source)[/url][/hider]
[u][b]Personality[/b][/u]
Nico is, for lack of a better term, plain. She's friendly enough, if a bit standoffish to the people around her. She has a healthy amount of friends, diligently attends class, has average grades and feeds stray animals on the weekends. She sounds a little boring, and in truth she might just be a bit too plain for her own good, but most of it is putting on airs.

Truth is, she wants to be a bit more carefree. Break out of the shell she built around herself, feel the breeze through her hair as she darts around and maybe, hopefully, get a boyfriend some time. Luckily for her, she has another persona with which she can act on these repressed urges (not counting the boyfriend): that of her Magical Girl self.

She feels liberated in transformation, and makes this known through her boundless energy. Her act as a transformed girl makes her curious, bubbly, maybe a little bit of an airhead even... but most importantly, she's straightforward. If she wants something, she goes for it. If she has something to say, she says it. When transformed, all the mental roadblocks that prevent her from confessing her feelings just seems to vanish.

The true "Nico" is most likely between these two personas: one not as plain as her untransformed self, but also one not as freewheeling as the pink cat-girl menace. Coming to terms with that is still something she has to figure out for herself in her middle school years.

[u][b]Skills[/b][/u]
Nico knows how to take care of small animals and seems to be a natural empath for them, able to get along easily even with stray cats or dogs.

[u][b]Brief Backstory[/b][/u]
As said, Nico is an ordinary girl most of the time. She's an only child, fawned over by loving parents. They're strict with her when they need to be, and may be a small part of the reason she's not allowed to attend anything other than an all-girls school, but they still love her. As long as Nico's grades are okay, which they usually turn out to be, they wouldn't dare make her life (much) harder than it needs to be. Nico was never allowed a pet while she grew up, even though she loved animals from the bottom of her heart, because the owner of the house they rented had a "no-pets" policy. To make up for it, her parents would often take her to a zoo, or cat café, or any other place with a lot of animal friends. She not only got experience handling small animals, but she's grown to really care for them too.

But Nico knew there was more she could do, still, for her animal friends. She also knew that she didn't like putting on airs toward the people around her, despite having no real reason to do so. Nico never had much of a reason to be shy of others, but she just... [i]was[/i]. She wished she could be less... [i]that[/i]. Less shy, less reclusive, less indecisive. A wish that, in a clumsy manner, would find its way to be indirectly granted.

One night, only three weeks prior to the start of this story, a fairy visited her. It told Nico she had the potential to be so much more than she was now, that she had the power to become a [i]magical girl[/i]. Of course it's not like she believed it right away, no normal person would. But when the fairy gave her time to think, and when it asked again later, Nico felt a swelling in her chest. She knew this was a one-time chance and, just maybe, she could do some good. Naïve, sure, but there was more to it: If she could have an alter-ego as this "magical girl", maybe she could learn to be more open with others. That's why she accepted: in this kind of miraculous double-life, she felt like she might grow as a person.

Though... maybe the cat-like powers she got could've been a little less on-the-nose.

[u][b]Magical Girl Appearance[/b][/u]
[hider][img]https://i.imgur.com/j7yyHGq.jpg[/img]
[url=https://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=28727219](source)[/url]
(Not pictured: Long, pink tail sticking out of her uniform. She can control it freely.)[/hider]
[u][b]Concept[/b][/u]
Cats

[u][b]Archetype[/b][/u]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_s%C3%ACth]Cat Sith[/url]

[u][b]Abilities[/b][/u]
Nico is slippery, just like a cat. She's extremely light on her feet, able to run on all fours with ease and able to scale most walls with finesse and speed. She has no long-ranged capabilities; Nico relies entirely on pink claws that jut out from between her knuckles... or the edge of her fingertips, whichever strikes her fancy at the time. She naturally gravitates to a hit-and-run style of fighting. She can create a small barrier with her hands to ward off tiny projectiles, but it's not particularly resilient as Nico relies more on speed and dodging rather than blocking the enemy's attacks.

One interesting ability of hers, though, is the ability to create [i]clones[/i]. They're not true clones; they're more like a mirage. An animated image, able to move and emote, but which shatters upon the slightest touch. They're also not intelligent; only able to follow simple directives that Nico thinks of at the time, such as running, acting confused or any other manner of things. It's said that a cat has nine lives, and each clone could be counted as one of those- it's probably a coincidence, though, that she can only create nine of them. Any more and it strains her focus far too much, needing too much magic power and concentration to maintain their form.
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