Umiko Kuroda

[Umiko Kuroda]

Tell Us About Yourself

Name: Umiko Kuroda
Gender: Female
Age: 17 and a half
Race: Ryougan
Alliance: Aquila

What Do You Look Like?

Picture/Description:


Eye Color: Pale leaf green with liberal streaks of golden yellow running from the pupil to the edges of the iris.
Hair Color Golden blonde hair, length is down to her hips (usually keeps it in a ponytail/or braid), she has a fringe/bangs as you can see.
Height: 5 ft 4 inches (162 cm)
Weight: 110 lbs ( 50 kg)
Notable Feature: She always wears a special necklace, a fire opal pendant. Her ears are pierced in the lobes and the left ear has a sleeper in the cartilage at the side of her ear.

You Can Do That?!

Powers:

Morphing into mammals and reptiles.

Umiko has a common ability, she can transform into animals. Unfortunately she can only transform into reptiles (snakes etc.) and mammals (bears, lion, dog etc.). She is taking it slowly with this power, as it is her most used one. Umiko is often spotted by Benedicts because when she morphs she is slightly larger than natural and she is she can't change her eye colour. Naturally if you saw a green eyed bear or green eyed wolf you would know it wasn't normal. So far she has nine main form types: Bear, fox, Goanna, Taipan, Lion, any type of dog but her favourite is boarder collie, house cat (for unnoticeable spying etc. by far her second most used form), wolf and a horse.

The larger the body/bone structure of the animal that she is morphing into, the longer it takes. But the average time for morphing/shifting is about 30 seconds for canines, 25 seconds for the house cat, 35 seconds for reptiles and 40-55 seconds for the bear, lion and horse forms. There is some pain when she is changing from human form to animal form and vice versa as she is changing her bone structures and such. Morphing/shifting into an animal takes very little energy nowadays as she has used it so many times that she has mastered her favourite forms. She can obtain certain attributes from the animals that she takes the forms of, for example her wolf form can give her speed, agility and higher jumping ability. With the snake she obtains a venom akin to that of the actual snake if it is venomous, but hers is not as potent (about half as potent as the actual snake's venom). As a house cat she can climb trees and get into places that her larger forms can't access. As a horse she gains the long distance endurance and speed of this animal.

Water manipulation.
Umiko can manipulate water, but only as much as her body weighs. She rarely uses this power as the has not yet fully mastered it and could be dangerous because they could back fire. She can use both fresh water and seawater, but it drains her energy. The shapes that she has practiced the most are: a small wolf, a swallow and a rabbit. The shapes can move, but leave wet footprints...so in this way they slowly loose their body etc.

The wolf cannot bite, but can trip someone up or force them to the ground with its weight (or what is left of its weight). The swallow can fly for about five minutes, so it can be used for carrying messages to places close by. The rabbit is used to distract an opponent while Umiko shifts into an animal. If need be she can use water to trip someone up to let her turn into an animal to escape.

Strength(s):

~ Her ability to morph fast in dangerous situations.
~ Her tai kwon do training and self-defense moves get her out of non-power related trouble.
~ Umiko's strategic mind plans for almost every situation that could possibly arise.
~ Her deceptive personality can confuse probably even the second most smartest person around.
~ Her animalistic cunning is one thing she is rumoured for, she's gotten an unwarranted nickname: Umiko, Silent Shifter.
~ Her slightly cold personality.

Weakness(es):

~ If someone tries to paralyze her it often works.
~ She has to be careful how much energy she wastes or uses to morph or escape as she has sometimes lost so much energy that she has passed out/become unconscious for three days.
~ She sometimes gets a bit angry and uses water to make a person trip even if they have done nothing to her.
~ Using her ability over water drains her energy because she has not gotten used to using it.
~ It takes her longer to shift into larger animals like bears and lions. In general she is very vulnerable while morphing into or out of animal and human form.
~ Some attributes from the animals she shifts into are not liked much, for example as a snake she has to warm up in the sun before she can do anything for a while.

Weapons

Mariposa (means butterfly in Spanish) -
Mariposa is a long thin katana with a purple-blue handle and a black scabbard. The Mariposa reaches to Umiko's mid-calf (lower leg) on her right hip. Mariposa was a family heirloom, the females of the Kuroda family had always had this sword and passed it down through the generations. The blade has pale blue veins running down its length. Surprisingly the blade has been cared for so well that it is double edged and can slice through flesh with both sides. Umiko uses the Mariposa when she is too annoyed to morph into a bear, wolf, lion or goanna.

Mariposa

MoonFlower (that is an actual flower) -
This is Umiko's other sword, it was given to her by an old Japanese temple teacher. She has kept it in beautiful condition too. MoonFlower has a red-brown handle and a chocolate brown scabbard, the hand guard is a mixture of brass, copper and something else that Umiko can't identify. This sword is the heavier of the two swords, but surprisingly Umiko uses it more often than she does Mariposa. Maybe it is to give her opponent a fighting chance?

MoonFlower

She has an assortment of small knives and blow darts that she uses too.

I Wanna Know More!

Personality:

At first Umiko seems like a porcupine, spiny and mean looking on the outside, but occasionally her softer side shows. She prefers to work alone but in a worst case scenario she will team up with someone else, but will expect them to pull their weight. She has an impossible attitude and is a magnet for trouble, either it comes to her or she makes it herself...unintentionally though. When she says things like: "Go away" or "You're annoying" this usually means the opposite of the words. Unless she's really peeved off. Then you stay at least a mile away from her if you know what's good for you. She tries to be a mother figure to young children, but stopped taking on apprentices when she moved to Verada from Australia. She can be harsh, but is more intelligent than people give her credit for. She will protect her siblings no matter what, even if it means killing.

Likes/Dislikes:

Likes:
~ Manga
~ anime
~ swords
~ gunpowder
~ running through places in morphed forms
~ watching the sun rise and set
~ singing
~ dancing
~ rollerblading
~ seeing how many Coke cans she can drink before she goes nuts and hyper
~ hacking into the government servers to check on what the world it up to with an untraceable technique
~ listening to music while writing stories
~ listening to music in general.

Dislikes:
~ Stuck up people (boys in particular)
~ being told to shut up, being denied the cookie jar in anyone's house (she never gets caught breaking in any way)
~ being hunted by poachers etc. when in animal form.

History:

When Umiko was three years old, her mother was abducted and went missing. This left Umiko and her two younger siblings alone, in a world where their father wouldn't explain what happened to their mother. Umiko would sit on the front stoop, waiting patiently with Neko-chan (cat-chan) tucked under one arm for her mother to come home. When she would fall asleep, she would swear to herself that she could hear her mother singing a lullaby to her. Her father would then take her inside and put her to bed. The younger two had given up on this shortly after their mother had disappeared.

When Umiko was ten, she was introduced to her father's fiancè Claire. Umiko immediately knew that Claire wanted her father for his money. Claire soon had to think about her plan with Umiko's father after she came to realise that any money he had, he put into bank accounts for himself, Umiko, Siena and Tristan. Umiko put a virus in Claire's computer to prevent her from trying to access the accounts. Claire was the first person to hit her after Umiko had caught Claire trying to buy another computer. The furious step mother struck the ten year old square across the face, manicured nails and all. Umiko's father had walked in moments after Claire struck, his daughter was standing tall. Her green eyes glittered hauntingly with unshed tears and right then and there, Umiko's father divorced Claire. Claire was sent packing and Umiko's life was somewhat normal.

Umiko's 14th birthday was celebrated poorly, her father had 'too much work and not enough time' as his secretary had put it when she'd called his office. Her apprentice, Yue had died in a freak accident 6 months ago. Umiko had felt like it was her fault, after all...her father didn't know that she had powers. Tristan and Siena were showing signs of it too. But she hadn't thought it necessary to let him know. She heard a knock on the door then one of her father's 'associates' kicked the door down. Tristan and Siena were hiding in the kitchen, she could hear them questioning what was going on.
"She's in here boss! One of the last Ryougan in Australia. What luck! We can catch her and do tests on her." The man smirked at her and Umiko felt his attention waver for one moment. That was all she needed, her form grew to large proportions. She had honey brown hair grow all over her and she thumped down onto all fours. Umiko was now a grizzly bear. Her muzzle parted and wicked looking canines greeted the man.

He stood petrified as she stood on her back legs and balanced carefully. One of her big front paws came into contact with his temple, sending him to the floor. She didn't mean to, but she lost her balance and one of her heavy front paws landed on his head as she came down. She grunted in severe dismay and the dead man's colleagues fled from the bear. Umiko morphed back and packed her bags, called the Sydney airport. They had spare seats in business class for flights from today (Saturday) to Friday in that same week. Her heart squeezed painfully at what she did next. She called her father and told him that she'd been accepted into a private boarding school in Italy. He was overjoyed, but very suspicious.
"I'll come with you then, when does the plane leave?" He seemed so proud of her...she felt tears well up in her eyes as she looked at the dead man on her bedroom floor. Tristan and Siena were coming up the stairs, she'd have to be quick.

"The plane leaves in three hours at Sydney airport." She answered and swallowed thickly, people were bound to come searching for this mystery man...she had to get out of here while she could. Her father told her to help pack Tristan and Siena's things and meet him out the front of the house in an hour. She did so and they were on their way. Customs cleared her swords and the plane took off. The government had tried to get the plane to land again, but the pilots denied the request and kept going.
They arrived in Japan and found a house to live in.

When she was fifteen she had a boyfriend, what she didn't know was that he was about to be an ex-Serpente. He stole her heart and gave it back to her in slightly charred fragments. This is why she dislikes boys, but will tolerate them if she has to go on a mission with them. His name had been Luke, but his powers had gotten uncontrollable and he had been burnt alive by the fire he had wielded only hours beforehand. Umiko had done the only thing she could have done. Buried him and high tailed it out of there before other Serpentes came looking for him...or her. She became a Aquila only a month after Luke's death. She quietly avoided all questions about Luke and where she'd come from. After all, if she had said 'Australia' they would have ran a security check on her, finding nothing on her in the Australian computer systems.

-Present-

Umiko often stays away from her home for days at a time just in case the Serpente take an interest in her. But she usually comes back for food supplies and such. This strange girl, who grew up without a mother made sure that not a trace of her was left in Australia. Either that or her profile and data is classified and not even the government can hack into it. Yue's spirit makes sure of that, Yue's power was to make barriers on computers so strong that they seemed invisible to the government's hackers and other wierdos that decided to be hackers.

Umiko smiled as she reminisced about her mother. Midori had been a beautiful woman, hair darker than the blackest night and emerald green eyes. Umiko stretched lithely and shifted into her cat form, brusquely groomed herself. It was only a quick once over though, she stopped in mid lick as her eyes strayed. Her cat-like smile appeared as she spotted a cornered Ryougan. The Serpente was stupid enough to laugh at the small house cat that stepped in front of his original quarry.
"Go home you mangy cat. I have work to do." He jeered, Umiko licked her maw and shifted back quickly, shoving Mariposa right through his stomach.
"Not entirely mangy, my dear. Hey kid, run. You don't and they'll get ya. I'm just a myth that most know to avoid me even in my best moods." Umiko pulled her katana from the Serpente and transformed into a bear, taking the corpse away into the woods to let another of his friends find him. She placed a paw in his blood then pressed the dark red stained paw to his face, the left cheek.

It was a perfect paw print, her sign. She always left a bear paw print on her victim's left cheek but it was a sign of regret for killing. She walked away as a human, cleaning off Mariposa as she did so. The other Ryougan child was long gone. So if she knew what was good for her she'd be gone within the next five minutes. This was exactly what she did, disappearing through a stream where she washed her right hand. She made a disgusted face as she washed the Serpente's blood off her hand. The cloying red liquid was washed speedily down the stream and she returned to her supply bag. She hoisted it onto her back and set off for her father's house, then to work.

[Giovanna Azzari]

Okay, so I'll be honest with you... I haven't read this yet. But, I have to to tell you from the get go that there are too many Aquila members with Electricty powers already. So, I'm going to have to ask you to either give her a new power or switch her alliance.

[Umiko Kuroda]

updated with a new power ;D

[Giovanna Azzari]

I would like to see a more indepth weakness for both her powers.

Her shapeshifting deal, does it hurt when she transforms? When she does, does she aquire the attributes of the animal she transformed into? Does it take long to morph into other animals?

She has to be careful how much energy she wastes or uses to morph or escape.

Why?

has not yet fully mastered it and could be dangerous

How can it be dangerous?

These shapes she creates with water... what do they do, what can they do?

[Umiko Kuroda]

updated and changes were made!

[Giovanna Azzari]

Accepted!

Have fun! ^^