Aiko Love
From Inga no Kusari wiki
| Love, Aiko ♀ | |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 7th May, 1965 (47) |
| Place of Birth | Kyoto, Japan |
| Artefact | Nasakebukai Hato |
| Player | Aiko Love |
| Quincy | |
Contents |
Appearance
Aiko is 5ft 2” tall, short in comparison to the women of the UK where she was raised but, of average height in her native home, yet since she was brought up in the south east of England for the majority of her life this was of little comfort to her. She always wanted to look like the models on the front of glamour magazines and things, yet that was never to be the case. That being said she is beautiful, in Japan she would have likely become an Idol of sorts. Her long shimmering black hair that came down to the middle of her back in her teens has since been lobbed back to just above her shoulders which is far more practical. She has a small scar on the side of her neck which is from her first violent brush with the spiritual world. Her eyes are a soulful brown and extremely expressive, in such a way that her patients always feel at ease and can entrust their care to her since they can see just from her eyes the effort she is putting in. Although those same eyes can become hard and sharp, able to pick up small details easily when she is using her concentration to her fullest, whether that be spotting the bleed in the operation site or noticing a hollow and instantly being able to determine the distance, wind speed, direction and all the other variables related to firing an arrow.
Her body is slender, petite with a small bust although no one can say she’s flat chested thanks to them accentuating her rather feminine figure. With long legs, in proportion to her body at least, and a near perfect figure most people simply don’t see this thanks either to her height, or to the fact that you’re more likely to see her in scrubs than a dress. Her fingers are slightly longer in proportion to her body but, they are extremely nimble which is perfect of the surgeries that she has to perform. When outside surgery she tends to where short-sleeved T-shirts and jeans, despite being forty-five and a mother to two children she still looks like she’s in her mid to late thirties. She has recently taken to carrying around a bracelet with a small silver cross outlined cross with blue topaz making up the cross itself.
Personality
There are so many ways to describe a person and each one will only capture a small amount of their true persona. Aiko, often called simply Ai, is a serious and smart woman who has over years been rather obtuse to certain things. She could always see things which weren’t there from a young age but, she learnt to shut them out until she was no longer able to see them. That is simply a measure of how stubborn she truly is, able to convince herself of something to the point where she believes the lie that she has been telling herself. Yet because of that very same tenacity she was able to focus her smarts. She’s fair, intelligent, sympathetic and deeply wounded although she may never show it. This mother of two whose children will never meet since the tragic passing of her eldest daughter was quickly followed by the birth of her second. She wasn’t able to say goodbye and that weighs heavily upon her mind. On the other hand it was thanks to that very same daughter that she was awakened once more to the things around her that she had long forgotten. There is a seething rage within her now since all her grief has been channelled into striking back at what took her daughter, the monster and samurai’s in black. She doesn’t draw much of a distinction between the hollows and shinigami, both take the souls of those that she cares for. To offset this rather mammoth emotion is the protective will of a parent, the wish to be there and keep her younger daughter safe and it is this that has kept her from being crushed by her anger and starting a one woman crusade against all those who walk in the world unseen that she had rejected and her daughter embraced.
To most she seems kind, she cares for the ill and losing patients deeply disturbs her. She feels almost driven to grant the last request of those who she cares for, even if it was given after their passing. She wants to ease the worries of everyone and holds life sacred above all other things and will never try and kill someone still living. If it comes to her personal safety or the health of another she will put the health of the other first. The only time this may differ is when she can see that putting herself in danger will likely leave her younger daughter Nozomi without a mother which is something she could never do. Her maternal instincts overrule everything else, closely followed by her love for her husband. Family is everything to this girl and although she has still to remember why that may be, everything else could crumble away so long as her family was safe. She had changed her life more than once to that goal. Her happiness stems from that of her husband and daughter’s. Caring and understanding she can work with anyone and is extremely non-judgemental and willing to listen to anyone. Calm and discerning when she needs to be she is often asked to go consult in prison infirmaries for that very reason and due to her strong will she can pull through pretty much anything that is thrown at her.
History
Prologue – Memories Long Forgotten
People live and people die, that is the cycle of things and one that is well known to all living beings, however there are a few, a few very special people who know that the grand cycle involves a lot more than life and death, some know that it involves a sense of rebirth, a secondary life one that could be seen only by those with the sight and some of those got tired of watching, running and fearing and took up a weapon, their own spirit and trained themselves and the generations that followed, slowly and surely developing techniques as they continued through the ages. Some died out others stuck and even now they continue to evolve and grow yet as had been shown, change is fast and evolution is constantly trying to catch up. Unfortunately for many they can’t advance fast enough to prevent being over taken, yet on group has managed to survive the centuries, their techniques passed down and their powers homogenising to a certain extent. They had forsaken their adaptability for a technique that in itself seems to be highly effective. This group has become known as the quincy although there are far fewer of them now than there once was, maybe due to their pride, their lack of change or evolution but, now those who have kept an open mind and train for themselves are starting to equal their numbers if not over taking them. Yet it is also because of that pride that they have been able to survive when all the other clans started to fall by the wayside.
Aiko was born in Japan, her parents just like any other as was their family but, they all shared a gift, a gift that her parents were slowly but, surely passing on to their daughter. The power of the quincy and their pride which had sustained them, yet that wasn’t enough in modern times to support their lifestyle. Unlike many of their quincy brothers and sisters who entered the medical profession and other such caring fields they had both trained as lawyers, it wasn’t too great a leap from what they normally did, instead of making sure those who are harmed well they prevented the harm coming to them, they travelled to America, with their daughter for a couple of years but, the heavy handed justice meted out was too much for them to stomach, not to mention the ritualised killing of the death row inmates generally gave birth to another evil that they could do nothing against except sit and watch hoping to catch up with it later so that it couldn’t do too much harm. When Aiko was four they moved to England, a relatively more civilised country in the manner they treated their imprisoned, even a little too lax on some of them but, it was better than creating the new monsters themselves. At least some of those on the path of darkness could repent and walk into the light where a shinigami may find them before the evil which corrupted their souls once could claim them again. This however, was going to lead to their eventual downfall and the loss of their daughter to the clan in which she was raised as her young mind tried to cope with the trauma and shut away the memories of what he parents had once tried to teach her.
The fateful day was the same as any other as it is with every major even in a person’s life, things rarely seem to scream ‘Memorable’ Aiko was only just six, a few days gone since her parents and friends celebrated her birthday with her and she was back at school, reading as best she could, playing and fooling around like any child should. That was until she saw it, the monster was not one that she had seen before, it was far more dangerous, the smaller form, the quirky smile, the ominous lick of its lips and she knew that she was the target, their eyes had met and it was just staring at her. She tried to ignore it but, when it pounced from its hiding place there was little more she could do than run, she sprinted out the playground, a sudden gush of wind knocking down her classmates, she hopped the fence, her naturally athletic body and bounce of childhood made it seem effortless, not that it mattered as it was blown off its hinges moments later. She was too slow, she needed to be faster, faster , she had to be faster, she felt something wet and slimy on her ankle. Turning to look down she noticed the beast licking her ankle, it was just playing with her, it could keep up with her with such little effort it was almost comical. She pushed forward and just as she felt its fetid and putrid smelling breath on the back of her neck she closed her eyes and focused everything on running, the spiritons around her responded as if being called to an extremely strong magnet, covering the soles of her feet and as it bit down trying to claim her life she shot forward at a speed that astonished even her. Blinking she looked back at where she had been and then noticed the flash of green and blue that were her mother and father, they had sensed the beast and then in their haste to get here sensed their own daughter, but the fight that Aiko bared witness too wasn’t one that would end happily she simply closed her eyes and let the world slip away from her, the young spirit unable to cope with the memories of the things that it saw, shutting them out as if they had never existed when she awoke she was no longer the girl she had once been and was no longer haunted by the visions of what she had once saw.
Chapter One – A New Life, A New Name and a New Family
The official report said that the girl’s parents had been the victim of a gang attack, the favoured weapons these days being pit-bulls and other such breeds matched with the shredded remains of her parents’ bodies. The fact that they were lawyers also helped to sell the story, although the only witness to the hideous crime was unable to remember a thing. When she was in the hospital the staff referred to her as little more than an empty shell, little life seemed to remain within the child who had thankfully been spared, although the truth of the matter would only be realised decades later when that seal on her memories finally broke. She was placed with a foster family, the Love’s for the time being, her memories returned in drips and drabs but, only small insignificant things, cooking with her mother, talking with her father and watching television in their small how, there was nothing else and this was due to a mixture of her age and the severe emotional trauma she had suffered. Every now and again she would step aside to avoid something that the others could not see, even she could no longer ‘see’ them as she once had, her powers completely locked away only a sense that she should step where she was going to diverting her path. One other understood her plight, the son of her foster parents and soon to be ‘Brother’ Alexander, he could see, not in the sense that Aiko had once been able to, the ethereal wisps here and there the only things he was able to see, over the years this would become stronger and he and his parents never really spoke of it although they all knew the truth after all they could all see and had recognised the bracelet that she had around her wrist for what it truly was, not just the last memories of her parents but, their last gift to her, however, if she didn’t have that power, that strength of will that had been stripped from her anymore they were not going to force open those doors and allow those horrendous memories to return to haunt the young girl again.
The life that Aiko lived was a strained one, children will take any excuse to pick on another to forget their own worries and she was an easy enough target, until Alex realised what was happening and stepped in to protect her. Over the years the two created a bond and Aiko didn’t want to be the one to break that bond either by being weak or by confronting her true feelings for the man he was quickly becoming. At fourteen she actively tried to break away from him, taking self defence training and different electives when they were choosing for their GCSE’s. However, she couldn’t pull herself away from him completely and even their parents could see what was happening, yes they were raised as brother and sister yet there was no blood tie between them and even if they couldn’t admit it to themselves they were slowly but surely falling in love. Jonathon and Samantha Love could only watch and smile, they had no problems with the two being together, so long as it wasn’t under their roof or coercive, besides even they couldn’t see what was going on between them. They went to different colleges for A-Levels gaining that independence from one another which would become so important later in their relationship. They studied very similar subjects and both ended up applying to medical school. What they didn’t realise was they had applied for the same ones and even ended up getting accepted into and attending the same one, although it was Aiko’s second choice after Oxford, both ended up at Dundee University. It was here where their relationship finally blossomed and with the consent of their parents they married aged twenty three just after graduating from the university years of their training and entering into their rotations. Eventually both ended up joining the army for the chance to travel and do their best in areas and conflicts that needed them most.
They lived a relatively normal life in the two years of training but, once they had entered into the service they were met with a rather welcome surprise, Aiko was pregnant with what would be their first child. Due to her sense of duty and wishing not to burden anyone due to her condition the two of them agreed to keep her pregnancy a secret. Being slight normally she didn’t really show during her pregnancy and when she finally went into labour it was a shock to all her colleagues, certain that any expectant mother would remove themselves from their post before their expected date. The labour was short lived however, since the foetal heartbeat showed it was in distress and a routine ultrasound showed the umbilical cord wrapped around the child’s neck. An immediate caesarean section was performed and once the child was born everything seemed fine. Aiko and Alexander stayed at Portsmouth Naval Base for another nine months before being shipped out to a safe zone in an active warzone. It was two months after this that the problems started. Their perfect little child was far from being perfect. A series of incidents and accidents showed just how plainly dangerous it was for their daughter Chizu to live a normal life, let alone the one that they were living moving from safe zone to safe zone as the British army, naval or air forces dictated and eventually the new family settled in Okumichi city in Japan to be close to the best paediatrician in the world and the only person really capable of helping their daughter.
Life went back to being pretty uneventful for Aiko although she couldn’t help but, notice her daughter’s eccentricities, such as talking to herself as if someone else was there for running hell for leather away from something she couldn’t see. As time went by and she watched her daughter throughout the last year of what was going to be Chizu’s life she started noticing things, slight shimmers here and there, a presence felt but not seen and a voice, faint and intangible but, definitely there. Her husband watched his wife throughout these moments and smiled, their daughter was starting to awaken the memories and power within her mother and his wife. Every now and again he saw the glint and shine come from her bracelet that was something more than light. Over the years he had, had the chain adjusted so that Aiko could always have the link back to her past, to her parents which she could not or would not allow herself to remember. Yet the time for change was fast approaching. Aiko became pregnant once more and she started looking more into her own family history. She had started to have weird dreams that seemed too real to be what she was brushing them off as. She wanted to know more and as she watched Chizu she felt that if she was going to protect her daughter she was going to have to learn more. However, the day came, Aiko dropped the mug in her hands and a cold wave washed over her body and something that had been flickering in the corner of her eye became torn and shredded. She just burst out crying there and then and Alex came home to see Aiko’s face smeared with tears. Just looking up into his face she said two words. “She’s gone” and burst into a flood of tears once more.
By the time that her body was found and the police knocked at their door Aiko and Alexander had already cried a river for the loss of their first daughter. Alexander, spotted Chizu out of the corner of his eye and tried to speak his voice coming out uncharacteristically low due to the sad tone. “We… we never got to tell her” he said wrapping an arm round Aiko’s abdomen, Alex noticed the small smile curl his dead daughter’s lips and felt glad that he had, had a chance to tell her what had been hidden from her so she didn’t have to worry about anything more than usual. Yet he had to look away as he saw the tears start to fall. Aiko on the other hand felt Chizu’s presence, with her mind’s eye closed so to speak she couldn’t confirm that her child was actually there, this feeling haunted her and her husband in different ways and over the next few days the stress grew. Until her body couldn’t withstand it anymore and she went into premature labour. Unlike with Chizu the labour was long and arduous, Aiko didn’t want her child to be born yet but, it was insistent and she was so weak from the combination of stress and guilt. The placenta tore and she started to haemorrhage. Her body was becoming cold, her mind blank and she blinked as he eyes became unfocused and that was when she saw her, Chizu stood by her bed, clasping her hand and talking to her in a soft, relaxed voice as if everything were okay. “Its okay mom, I’ll be fine. However, right now there’s another who needs you more than I do, show our little hope all of the love you gave to me and nothing can go wrong.” Blinking again her eyes closed and Aiko drifted off.
Chapter Two – Rude Awakening
Waking up a few hours later, her child by her bed she already knew the name for her second daughter, Chizu had called her their hope and that was what she would become. Nozomi, a girl for whom all the love she could show would be shown in the hope of a long and fulfilling life. During that time she had been passed out so close to death she had remembered what she had forgotten, the quincy pride, the bow training and about the spiritual world. That night that had stolen her parents and sealed her memory she had watched her parents torn to shreds. Severely injuring the beast but, unable to kill it. It had turned and come to her and she had done as she had been taught. Her raw emotions the catalyst for the activation of her spirit weapon, the crossbow and that one powerful show that had broken her arm but, shattered that god awful mask. She had passed out from the pain and locked away the memories and the power to save her fragile mind the pain of remembering that horrendous night. She fell asleep again only to wake a few hours later feeling refreshed, she was going to pick up where she had left off, Chizu had seen and been powerless she wasn’t going to let her family be haunted by these monsters anymore. Nozomi had been taken to have some tests run and that was where Aiko was going. Pulling the IV stand along with her she hobbled towards the room and heard voices, indistinct and what could have been laughter. Yet what she saw was far from laughing matter. A black robed figure bringing the hilt of a katana down on Chizu’s forehead and her child’s spirit vanishing from the world as if erased. The last chance she had been granted cruelly ripped away from her. It was that day that Aiko’s hatred for all those spiritual beings began to grow, both Hollow and Shinigami.
Aiko started to research her family, the memories once sealed allowed her to dig out names of the past, and her parents old masters had long since retired or died in the struggle but, those that still lived could point her in the right direction. She finally knew what she was and she was going to start training again but, it wasn’t easy. All she had once known had been forgotten and there aren’t many willing to train one who had reached her age. However, she made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t going away and she was willing to learn, enduring any training they wished to put her through and that training was gruelling. They focused on bow practise at first getting her use once more to how to aim, track and fire an arrow, making sure her skills weren’t too rusty. With her nibble fingers, shrewd mind and keen eyesight she was quickly excelling in the most basic of areas. She started to concentrate on seeing, using the gift inherent to her but, long since locked away, it took time, but, the glimmers became faint images and those images became fuller and clearer until they were as solid as the one she had seen in the hospital that night when her daughter’s spirit was torn from this world. Although many tried to dissuade her from her path, explain to her the situation she could never forgive those black robed shinigami from robbing those final few moments with her daughter from her. Like her daughter she started to work on sensing them, making sure she could feel their presence, if only to slaughter them than to keep clear of them as her daughter had. She wasn’t stupid enough to go after them just yet there was one thing she needed to learn first.
The materialisation of her bow was causing her the most problems, she had shown just how capable she was of controlling the spiritons with minor acts and training exercises and her cross had been with her all her life and she had used it, if just that once. Yet she was apparently unable to call forth her bow, she couldn’t really remember what it had looked like as a child either, all she remembered was the light blue glow. So many times she raised her hands trying to form her bow, moving the cross to her left hand so she could use it as she had been taught yet, although the spiritons flickered and sparked, gathering and dying they never formed the bow she was looking for. Her teachers finally getting frustrated and told her to leave and train by herself and not to return until she could summon her weapon, a good student as always she didn’t harass them and she did as they said, she trained solidly. It had taken her three years to get to this point and it took another three of working by herself, with interruptions from work and such before she was finally able to manifest Nasakebukai Hato although she finally summoned it due to giving up on the preconceived notions she had about her bow. One night, ready to give up on calling forth her bow if she couldn’t manage it that night, she kept the bracelet on her right wrist, the silver bordered, blue topaz cross that had been with her as long as she remembered hanging from it as her totem from the past and the focal point for her power. She took a deep breath and simply did what she had been taught drawing the spiritons to her and discarding any other thoughts that may disrupt them forming into what they were destined to.
Aiko just stood there in the woods that surrounded her home town and let the spiritons come to her, raising her arm out of instinct she felt something heavy form, yet she never opened her eyes, she wasn’t going to let what she saw influence her she was just going to let it be. However, as time wound on she started to wonder if she was actually forming a bow, every other quincy she had ever met could call forth their bow in a matter of moments, hers seemed to be taking an age. Maybe it was just something that took practise. Finally she felt the last spiriton settle in place and a spark shot through her mind delivering a single image of a dove flying through the air. Opening her eyes she finally saw the bow and remembered why her arm had broken that night, Nasakebukai Hato wasn’t a bow, it was a massive crossbow, covering her arm from elbow to six inches over her knuckles. Blinking she smiled and turned running back to her masters home only to sense something most unwelcome as she got close. As she arrived on the property she had done all her basic training years ago she spotted her teacher and two others fighting off a single hollow, covered in thick armour, their arrows doing little damage to the beast. She couldn’t waste this opportunity, her first kill. She started to summon the spiritons to her once more, the particles packing so densely together the sky blue turned deep cobalt. Finally she felt it was ready and she let loose. The bolt smashing into the back of the hollows skull and drilling through its head to erupt from the other side, leaving a massive hole in its wake, her compatriots simply blinking and turning to stare at her as she stood, Nasakebukai Hato shimmering on her arm.
From that day forth Aiko has concentrated mainly on the summoning of her bow and the formation of the bolts. However, it was plainly obvious to her and anyone of her fellow quincy who saw the bow that it was never going to match her fellow quincy with speed, either of formation or shot. However, her raw power was beyond anything that someone at her low level should be able to utilise. Where as many quincy relied on speed and number of arrows to overwhelm an opponent she could do neither but, a single bolt could change the flow of any confrontation with any hostile being. Even a near miss was enough to put the fear of god or death into those that she faced. However, now she has the power she also has the restraint. She had promised Chizu in the end to be a good mother to Nozomi and she was going to watch over her second daughter and protect her as best she could. Although she was reluctant to start training her, Nozomi, like Aiko, Alexander and Chizu, had shown that she had the ability to see the spirits at a very young age. Eventually she would learn how to fight but, Aiko was going to make sure her daughter could remain a child unaware of the true peril as long as possible. So right now she splits her time between working part time at the hospital, being a full time mother and a hunter of all spirits, hollow and shinigami.
Combat
Strengths
Reasoning: Despite everything that has happened, her hatred for the shinigami and hollows she hasn’t gotten as far as she has either as a doctor or a quincy by being ruled by her emotions. She has an extremely analytical mind, for the most part, and will debate every action she may take in a calm and decisive manner. This means that getting her to commit any act or agree to any competition that is disadvantages to her is extremely difficult. It also allows her to analyse her opponent and others she has seen fight allowing her to recognise their strengths and weaknesses almost instantly as they present themselves in different situations and try and adapt her strategies accordingly.
Physician Heal Thy Self: At the end of the day Aiko Love is a doctor and although her specialty is surgery she is more than accomplished enough in other areas to give her an advantage in first aid. This couple with her reasoning allows her to make accurate assessments of hers and others injuries and take stock of situations and supplies to come up with the best way to treat wounds, after all life for her is very important, although with those she hunts this same skill may allow her to exacerbate their injuries.
Weaknesses
Family: Her family is her life, any threat made against them that is considered feasible by her will make her extremely compliant to the demands one may make of her or cause her rage to boil over in combat making her far more violent, emotional and self destructive so long as her family is safe. In many ways involving her family will completely negate her reasoning and if they are injured she will drop everything in the current combat to see to their injuries. They are more important to her than her own life.
Physicality: She is a slender woman, although she is use to combat and has field training with the army, air force and navy as does her husband at the end of the day she is a physician and only given the very basic training. She has stamina and speed on her side which are ideal for keeping her distance and trying to maintain that distance but, in close combat she isn’t going to survive so long both due to her form and long ranged nature of her bow. She isn’t designed for long drawn out close combat like most quincy.
