Kᴀɴᴀᴍᴇ
“Tch. You’re pathetic. ”
Kaname Shibazaki
I.D. Number
08061892
Rank
C1
Year
Sophomore
Nationality
Japanese
Age
15
Sex
Female
Appearance
Kaname Shibazaki stands at 160 centimeters (approximately 5’2” and a ½), bearing the height of an average person of her ethnicity and gender. Her green-colored hair is cut long, running to her shoulders with unkempt bangs that are restrained by a hair band. When prepared to compete in a bout or duel of sorts she restrains it into a messy ponytail to keep her hair from getting in the way of the fight at hand, though she does obviously prefer it to run freely.
Fighting Style
Jūjutsu, Blue
Powers
Kaname has tapped into her internal ki and unlocked her potential. The ability that has manifest through this awakening of sorts is what she has called the
After Image technique.
After Image is a technique that is an activated power rather than a passive one. Kaname needs to
focus and divert her spiritual energy evenly throughout a very specific spiritual wavelength in her body to utilize its effects. Once activated, Kaname’s eyes slightly dilate and Kaname projects her body in several directions. This gives the impression of Kaname duplicating herself, though these astral duplicates bear no shadow or weight. Kaname tends to use this ability in “clutch” situations, as she knows when she is outgunned in a bout. She can use this ability with maximum spiritual energy up to three times and can make up to two (one to her left and one to her right) “astral Kaname” projections. Kaname has the ability to push herself past her
limits and multiply this by double, though she has never done such a thing in a bout before. In theory, pushing herself beyond her limit would create four astral projected duplicates in total.
The downside of the ability is pretty clear from the onset: not only does it use a great deal of spiritual energy, After Image also puts a taxing strain on Kaname’s ability to see after used beyond the threshold her body can withstand. Examples of the strain it puts on her body include muscle inflation, blurry vision, seeing double, and at worst, collapse from overexertion. Kaname has yet to push herself to the point where she loses consciousness, but it is very much a possible outcome.
Personality
Kaname Shibazaki is cold and outspoken, often uttering blunt observations on her peers and what they mean to her with little regard for feelings. This, of course, can make Kaname seem like a very difficult young woman, but Kaname isn’t a student at New Peaks Academy to make friends, she’s at New Peaks Academy to prove herself and show that she is no longer the weak little girl from the streets of Fukuoka, Japan. However, Kaname’s brash and self-centered perception isn’t the entire truth. Those who observe Kaname in a more forgiving and rational light will see a girl who is scared of making friends and “making it” at the academy; scared of letting down her adopted father and only surviving family. She just is too stubborn and proud to admit it.
As a student who is in the academy merely on scholarship and nepotistic merits, Kaname dedicates herself to the academy. When she’s not studying how to become a better combatant, she is studying how to become a better academic. She has few hobbies as she personally believes she has little time for what she would call distractions. Though sometimes her pride does relent in favor of her anxieties and she breaks down to one of her hobbies before she became a full-time student of the martial arts: singing. The “old” Kaname can be seen when Kaname tries to not hum an old folk song or mutter a lyric of a hymn or two. When this happens Kaname’s scowl is replaced with a quiet and kind smile, though she has sworn to never let anyone in the academy see this side of her. After all, everyone in the academy is a potential opponent and rival and they would seek to use anything to their advantage. Happiness is a weakness.
But perhaps with the right partner or friend this perception could change.
Background
Kaname Shibazaki was born fifteen years ago to a forgettable low income family in Fukuoka, Japan. She was an only child, with her mother bearing no other children.
The first nine years of Kaname’s life were the happiest, but also the most unremarkable of her entire life. The Shibazaki Family didn’t have much in the way of expensive things or luxuries. Kaname’s grandparents were long since deceased and Kaname’s father had no siblings or cousins to speak of. But neither of these things mattered because Kaname and her parents had each other and were wholly content of that fact. But this happiness was temporary. To this day, Kaname tries to push out the pain she feels when she reflects on her childhood before the great storm of 2007. The year as she was nearing her tenth birthday everything was taken from her and never given back.
A tsunami had struck the city of Fukuoka, and in the poor district where Kaname’s parents worked and lived it was much worse than anywhere else. Typhoon Usagi had descended on Japan and in Kaname’s mind it was the worst storm that Japan had seen in its entire history. Perhaps in another world it was a meek tropical storm that did little damage. Kaname still has nightmares wishing that she was living in that fantasy as the reality refused to let her forget.
Fukuoka was devastated. Two hundred kilometer-per-hour winds tore through the streets as water began to fill every corner and crevice it could find, tearing through Fukuoka with little resistance. Kaname remembers very clearly the look on her parents faces before she blacked out as the storm went through the city. She remembers the sensation of nearly drowning to death as the waves pushed against her with the fury of a thousand men. When she came to the world was reborn to her. She would never see or hear her parents ever again. Usagi had stolen them from her. Usagi refused to let her die with them. Usagi had taken her home and more importantly, her innocence. The waves of the ocean still unnerve Kaname to this very day.
After surviving in the streets for the remainder of the storm alone, an older man found Kaname scavenging; an old man by the name of Toshinori Akanishi. The man who would adopt her and raise her as his own for the remainder of Kaname’s childhood. A man who would teach her jujitsu to ease her away from her pain, give her new focus, and to drive her away from the lingering nightmares that plagued her. In time, Kaname took to Toshinori and his jujitsu.
Several years later, when Kaname was thirteen years old a travelling talent scout for New Peaks Academy visited Fukuoka in observation of a jujitsu competition. It would change Kaname's life once again. Of all of the prospects at the competition, it was Kaname that showed the most genuine potential for advanced development under NPA-led direction. It was here that the Japanese talent scout put out an offer to Kaname’s sōke and sole parental figure to discuss the option of a scholarship to New Peaks Academy. The resulting discussion took the talent scout several visits, but his experience with Japanese prospects in the past eventually paid off and Kaname soon found herself packing what little things she had for a new life far from her native Japan; though she really didn’t want to leave the only family she had left in the world, she knew that this was good for the art and was what the man she cared for most in the world wanted for her. She bore no tears when she boarded the transport provided to her for the beginning of the next chapter in her life.
One principle echoed in her mind as she hoped to look forward.
First Rule of Fight School, don't fail Fight School.
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