Mai Ashikaga (tbd) [Student]

THE BASICS

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Clocking in at 5'4", Mai Ashikaga is of a small size but with a big personality. Not necessarily by nature of being loud, but it is instead her quiet, cool, and collected nature that makes her presence turn heads in a room. She always stands straight, her shoulders are always back, and her gaze is always half-lidded, staring straight ahead, unwavering. She tends to let a loose, easy smile dominate her face most of the time, and can often be seen walking around with a wad of bubblegum in her mouth. Her bangs are sheared just above her easygoing brown eyes, and her straight brown hair reaches just above the small of her back when not pulled up into a bun. Her eyebrows tend to be neutral but have the capability for intense expression, making them the most expressive part of her face. 

Her entire back is covered in scars from use of her quirk. The wings she grows with each transformation rip through her skin in a bloody mess, thus making sure that every time she transform into a seraph, she always comes out of it looking much worse for wear.

PERSONALITY

Endlessly mature, cool, calm, and confident, Mai Ashikaga seems perfect. She is always friendly and approachable, makes a conscious effort to include everyone around her in her daily activities, and is adept at making friends with just about anyone. This perfection, this faultless nature has defined Mai ever since she was a child. She always had to be the best, she always had to be the nicest, she always had to achieve, survive, and thrive. No less could be expected of her, and Mai knew that well. If she came back with a bad mark on her report card, she knew what would happen, so she avoided it. But Mai isn't perfect. No one can be perfect, but Mai is even less so than others. She's just much better at hiding it.

In fact, no one knows her for real. They know the cool Mai, the Mai who always says the right thing or leads the pack, but they don't know that she is enamored with baking, or that she loves pressing flowers in her notebooks. They don't know that she has no family to go back to for holidays, nor that she doesn't even want to be a hero at all. She feels suffocated in the box she drew herself in from a young age, and although she wishes she could break free from the chains she made for herself, fear constantly and consistently grips her. She put on a mask her entire life, what if when she took it off no one liked what they saw? In the end, Mai doesn't want to be someone people know. She just wants to be a normal person, someone who goes to the store in pajamas and gets their clothes ruined in the rain. Heroism has been ruined for her, but she sees no option for her future. If she weren't a hero, what could she possibly be? Her entire childhood led to U.A., and there were no other paths she could take. Mai is trapped with no way to get out.

The real Mai is awkward, reserved, and insecure. She likes ignoring her problems and playing unaware to what is going on around her. She thinks she could always be better, and is constantly comparing herself to an impossible standard she set up for herself. She is of the opinion that everyone around her is going places while she remains stuck in place, forever in sinking quicksand of loathing. She's also a complete dork. She could ramble about anything for days that she is interested in, and although she plays off every single interest like she isn't too involved, her interests take up her head-space every minutes of every day. But if anyone were to ever ask her a personal question, she'll always diver the question and place the interest somewhere else. It's always best that no one knows her for who she truly is, so it's incredibly hard for Mai to make true friends who know everything about her. In fact, she is certain not one person has ever been close enough to her to be considered a true friend. Perhaps she can change that soon.

Nonetheless, Mai is incredibly loyal, brave, and competent. She would do anything for anyone she cares about, and although she has trouble expressing her feelings, she is full of love and compassion for nearly everyone around her. She would never say so out loud, but she acts on this emotion frequently, and that's all that matters.

BACKGROUND HISTORY

Michael Gray and Miyuki Gray were a pair of high-level heroes, well-respected and well-lauded within the hero circuit for their strong sense of justice and peaceful ways of settling conflict. When it was announced that they would be having a child together, it was automatically assumed that such child would be raised to be a hero from a young age. Both Michael and Miyuki decided on this personally as well. They believed strongly in the principles and ideals of heroism, and in their wills (which they drafted early on due to the dangerous life of heroes), they gave custody to a man named Yuichi Ashikaga should both of them perish. A specific instruction given was that Mai would be raised and groomed to be a hero to carry on the family legacy. Yuichi Ashikaga was a trusted family friend who graduated from U.A. in the same class as Michael and Miyuki, and though he planned to enter the hero circuit with them, an early injury rendered his career impossible. Although embittered and angry, Yuichi maintained close contact with Michael and Miyuki, and was thrilled to be mentioned in their wills.

Unfortunately, disaster struck soon after. Both Michael and Miyuki were murdered in cold blood in a hero assassination sting, and with nowhere else to go, Mai was quickly given up into Yuichi Ashikaga's cold arms. Seeing Mai only as a memory of his beloved companions and their untimely death, Yuichi severely neglected Mai out of grief, loathing, and jealousy. Even then, he wished to honor Michael and Miyuki's last wishes, so Yuichi dedicated himself to training Mai into heroism. But Yuichi did not take on the role of a kind yet firm teacher, but rather he subjected Mai to training exercises that were more like torture rather than teaching moments. He frequently surprised her with sudden duels and sparring sessions, and never went easy on her, often leaving her battered, beaten, and broken in the name of "training [her] reflexes". His form of 'heroism' left a bad taste in her mouth. He ruined the idea of heroism for her, making her see it only as pain and suffering rather than any amount of good. She hated blood, hated swords, and she hated the dreams she had at night. Yuichi only trained her—he never taught her how to cook, do her own laundry, or otherwise take care of herself. Mai had to raise herself from a young age, and her childhood was nearly nonexistent.

Yuichi's treatment of her only grew worse when Mai developed her quirk. A mixture of her mother's bird physiology and her father's photon bending, Yuichi found her quirk to be too similar to the people he had lost in the past and hated seeing her quirk in use. Although he still forced her to train with it, he went harder and faster everytime Mai became a seraph, and whenever she got out of her transformation she always looked worse for wear. He frequently berated her quirk, calling it weak, non-hero material, insisting that she would have to train harder than anyone else to make it of any use. Mai did so, but she soon grew to hate what she had to achieve to. Yuichi always demanded perfection from her, and a lack of perfection was a sin to him. Although Mai did her best to mold into his idea of a hero, all she wanted was to be herself. All she wanted was to sit in her room and watch the stars roll over the city at night, or bake cakes, or pick flowers on the trails outside of her house.

Nonetheless, eventually Mai was forced into enrolling in the hero academy course at U.A. Although excited to finally leave the awful conditions with Yuichi, she detested the idea of training for heroism. She headed off with a sullen face and tired eyes, and behind her Yuchi's voice echoed. He told her to come back home when she was a hero.

Mai resolved to never return again. He would have to see her on television if he was to ever see her again.

THE ARMORY

Hero Suit: A white robe that drapes around her body like a Greek toga. Airy, light, and easy to move in, not to mention elegant!
Bandages: For when seraph form is deactivated and Mai is left with multiple deep, grievous wounds littering her back from where her wings broke past the skin.
Starfire Blade: A decked-out blade that is covered in holy fire when Mai is in seraph form. Without Seraph form, the sword is just a regular blade that Mai can muscle around to her will. When in seraph form, the blade is given the added bonus of burning any wounds inflicted with the blade, making each slash more painful.

QUIRK & SKILLS

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DIVINE JUDGEMENT

TYPE: Transformation
RANK/LEVEL: D
SUMMARY:
The user is capable of transforming into a seraph, an angelic being armed with holy fire and the power of flight. The user's seraph form is incredibly frightening. She has three pairs of wings, all of which erupt from the same spot on her back—one pair covers her face, one pair covers each foot, and the last pair is used for actual flight. Each wing has multiple fiery eyes dotted all over it, and while these fully functional eyes offer incredible vision of the battlefield, blind spots are frequent and incredibly common, and the visual detail is incredibly fuzzy. The wings are large in order to support the weight of the user, and have a wingspan of five meters. This makes the user an incredibly easy target while flying due to the sheer size of the wings.

At this level, the user can only actively fly for three posts total out of the five posts seraph form is allowed to be activated, and cannot make complex or form-intensive maneuvers without spiraling out of control.

The user can make holy fire spout from her fingertips and can cover objects as large as a broadsword in this burning fire. While incredibly effective against shadows and darkness, the fire is less effective than normal fire and burns up much faster than regular fire. It burns hotter and more radiantly based on the user's level of righteous fury, but is inherently tied to her emotions, making her headspace incredibly important while using the quirk. 

The user has enhanced durability while in seraph form. The user can withstand a little more dire wounds than the human body can and continue fighting. While a sword might cut deep into the arm of a human, the sword might cut a little more shallow in seraph form. Nonetheless, wounds in sensitive areas—namely the torso and the head—are still incredibly serious, and this enhanced durability does not apply to these areas.

WEAKNESSES/LIMITATIONS:
Physical State: Seraph form is incredibly taxing on the user. The user can only be transformed for five posts before she is forcibly shunted out and left in her human form. After being torn from seraph form, the user is in an incredibly weakened state. Her muscles are torn, her reflexes are shot, and she is suffering from intense blood-loss due to the wings ripping through the skin and muscles on her back. Thus, seraph mode can only be used once per thread.
Endurance: The abilities that can be used during seraph form make the transformation even more taxing. The holy fire that can be used feeds directly on the user's energy, and 3 posts in which holy fire is active lowers the amount of posts in which seraph mode can be active is reduced by one. Flight is also taxing, and the wings are not strong enough to hold the user's weight up for more than three posts. Once three posts have been reached, the wings collapse from exhaustion and the user cannot use them in any way for the rest of the transformation.
Justice Obsession: When in seraph form, the user's mind-state and morals are replaced by a chaotic good mentality. In seraph form, the user does not see allies and enemies, but rather good and evil. If the user sees an ally engaging in an action the user doesn't directly approve of, the user will always go out of their way to attack that ally and force divine punishment upon them. This same concept can apply to civilians, friends, family, and other such innocent bystanders.
Darkness: When bathed in darkness, the eyes on the user's wings are rendered completely useless and the user is left blind. The holy fire burns much slower and colder, and barely sheds light at all. This severely impairs the user's accuracy, and makes it incredibly difficult to land a hit with her blade.
Hollow Bones: In order to make her body light enough to lift off during flight, the user's bones are hollow and incredibly prone to breaking. Any fall or hit that might severely bruise a human with normal bones can potentially shatter the user's bones.

RANK/LEVEL: D
SUMMARY:
Yuichi taught the user well in the art of swordplay. The user is capable of parries, dodges, and other such basic techniques using her signature sword. She is, however, not fully trained, and can only truly beat someone untrained in swordplay or around the same skill as her in combat. She also finds that swords are often too heavy for her, and she is working on training her arms so that she can get a better swing. 

BIRDERCROW

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