TSUKINO, Chidori

18 ✦ Female ✦ Runaway Orphan ✦ Human ✦ Tourist

Having once been an outgoing, curious, and perpetually-in-motion young girl, Chidori's past has warped her into the near opposite - a reclusive young woman, constantly in hiding, guilt-ridden and depressed, and whilst she might still be a little curious, it is now tinged with suspicion more than anything else. However, there are some things that have never changed at the core of her, and underneath everything else, Chidori is still kind, almost to a fault, as well as being imaginative enough that she has plenty of inspiration for her art and for her runes. 


Warning; some moderately graphic violence involved in paragraphs 4-6


Chidori Tsukino, born to Amoretta and Yuu Tsukino, was a cheerful, vibrant, and perpetually curious child, prone to wandering off and inspecting whatever took her fancy. Her parents doted on her, and tried to keep her safe, but she had an uncanny luck, it seemed, for avoiding serious trouble. Instead, much of her time was devoted to exploring, and then drawing the places and things she explored - plus every other thing she conjured up thanks to a rather overactive imagination as well. Perhaps in an effort placate her, control her impulsive behaviour, or just distract her, Chidori's parents went out of their way to give her the supplies she needed for her art, and the brunette was more than happy to make use of them. She even won a few competitions, earning a neat little bonus for alias - despite her usually outgoing nature, Chidori was hesitant to attach her real name to her art, and instead opted to use a handle known as Caeyrelia.



Growing up in the bustling metropolis that was Tokyo also meant that the young girl was very much used to a busy, constantly-in-motion lifestyle, along with a fastidious education, and the entertaining night life that minors could enjoy in the heart of Japan. It was all too fitting for her to dive into the anime and cosplay culture as well, and beyond just her drawing, Chidori found that she had both a knack and a love for sewing; she began to make her own costumes, in addition to doing fanart of all the wonderful characters that she encountered. For all intents and purposes, she seemed happy, content, and felt like she was loved by her family. She had friends as well, though she had a tendency to rely more upon her parents and her own capabilities, rather than burdening her friends.



Then life took a sharp turn, and as if she were a car racing towards that corner without an inkling of warning, Chidori raced straight over it and crashed into the depths of tragedy. Unbeknown to her, Chidori's parents fascination with the occult had become far darker than she would have ever dreamed - whilst they had made it no secret that they believed in the supernatural, telling her all about strange and wonderful creatures, and the unusual Hawaiian haven known as Kinau, she would never have thought for a moment that her parents were so desperate for power, wealth, and fame, that they were willing to sacrifice their own daughter to get it.



So that was how she found herself waking up, naked and bound to an altar, the room lit only by candles, and the sound of a language she didn't understand being chanted from either side of her by the two people she had trusted the most. Before she could cry out, or even ask her parents why or what was going on, a sharp pain lanced across her throat, a flash of silver glinting in the candlelight the only indication she had of her father slicing open skin so deep that she could do little more than gurgle, the blood trickling from the wound. He'd placed the cut well; it would bleed, but with a few touches of an open flame to cauterise the wound (in a manner so agonising that Chidori nearly fainted outright), it began to seal closed again. It wasn't enough to make her drown in her own blood either, so she was able to watch through the haze of pain as her mother took the blood that had been spilled, and used it to draw strange symbols around the altar, and over Chidori's bound form.



Then things became a crimson-tinged blur; the chanting grew louder, and she swore she could hear her parents talking with... something. It was hard to see at first, but it didn't take long for her to recognise the inhuman being for what it was - a demon. Her parents were bartering with a demon, using her as a sacrifice and offering. Anger rippled through her at the betrayal, followed by despair, hurt, and then desperation - she wanted to live! Was it so much to ask to have a nice, happy life, where you enjoyed your hobbies, made friends, had the occasional argument with your parents but no bad blood between anyone involved? And yet here she was, bound to an altar, unable to speak thanks to the injury her own father had dealt her, in order to bargain with a demon for their own gain. The bitterness laced her thoughts then, and for a single moment, Chidori sincerely wished for her parents to suffer, to have a taste of their own medicine, and for them to die while she lived, gaining the power they sought after so wantonly. The sharp contrast of her malice against her normally innocent and bright soul was perhaps what garnered the demon's attention, but to the present day, Chidori could never quite work out why or how the demon had known what she was thinking and had given it to her.



Instead of being sacrificed for her parents gain, Chidori's brief, grief-born wish was fulfilled, and her parents were sacrificed in a manner so brutal and cruel that merely thinking about it is still enough to make her lose the contents of her stomach. Mutilation barely began to cover the depth of what that demon did to her parents, but it made good on the deal nonetheless, granting Chidori powers that no human should likely have - magic. Magic powerful enough to be a threat to herself and those around her, limited only by her creativity with only one drawback beyond the price she had paid for it; abysmal control. Tied to her drawings in such a way that it could be easily described as runic magic, Chidori's power was forevermore tied to her emotions and her energy - the stronger the emotion she experienced as she drew a rune, the stronger the effect, and the greater the drain on her. Then there was the sheer enormity of trying to control the effect - tied only to the concept in her mind and the drawing she concocted, any vagueness in her concept or depiction could lead to an entirely different effect than desired.



And despite every attempt to do so, and the warning from the demon that it would never work anyway, the runic magic could not heal the injury to her throat, rendering her unable to speak, and barely able to make sounds whatsoever - the effort alone was incredibly painful. It was part of the ritual binding, or so the demon had told her - nothing would heal it, not medicine, not her magic, not even the tales of supernatural healing such as a vampire's blood. She was to be forever plagued by the guilt of knowing she had sacrificed her own parents for a disastrously random power along with her muteness. What a lovely gift for her 16th birthday, right?



Through sheer willpower alone, Chidori managed the next few weeks as a numb shell of a person; maintaining some fabrication of her parents being bedridden with illness, selling off as much of her artwork as possible, along with every possession in the house that she could, and organising her journey to the only place that might be strange enough for her to hide - the supernaturally-laden town of Kinau. Only 16, and knowing her parents' deaths would come back to bite her if she didn't disappear somehow, it was not a pleasant affair, but somehow, perhaps through her uncanny luck for avoiding serious trouble (though it had failed her miserably as far as her parents and the demon were concerned) Chidori smuggled herself out of Japan, and into Hawaii.



Ever since, she has lived a life of secrecy, guilt, experimentation, and depression - every day is a struggle, and Chidori is constantly hiding; from the network of friends she left behind in Japan, other family, the authorities in Japan and in Hawaii, and even herself. Feeling more or less like a fugitive, she has tried to stay under the radar as much as possible, moving whenever she has to to avoid being found out - with no desire to deal with authority figures, she has not become a citizen, and is little more than a vagrant with money.



Yet she still tries - she tries to build up some level of control and understanding of her powers, she tries to establish a home, some surface-level friendships, she tries to continue her art. It's touch and go every day; having recently endured her 18th birthday -unable to stop herself reliving the awful day 2 years prior - she is still alive, even if she sometimes feels like death would be a release. Who knows, perhaps one day, she might be able to come to terms with what was done to her, what she did, what she is, and what she could still become - if it could happen anywhere, it was going to be in a town that was full of people with strange powers or origins, just like her.



Currently living from day-to-day, experimenting with the strange powers she's been given at the cost of just about every shred of naivety and innocence she once had, and trying to return to some semblance of happiness - if that's at all possible for her again.

played by Aphyria ✦ Rise Kujikawa of Persona 4