[Esper] Himura Kyouka

FULL NAME: Given name: Kyouka
Family name: Himura

OTHER ALIAS: Light Decay/Lughes/Kyo

CURRENT AGE: 17 years old

GENDER: Female

OCCUPATION: Active high school student

SCHOOL: Kirigaoka Girls School

APPEARANCE: Her long flowing hair, the colour of an aged whisky, contrasts with her turquoise eyes and pale complexion.
She wears the usual white shirt and blue skirt that the students of Kirigaoka wear, though the length of her skirt may have slipped just short of the required length. Over her white shirt, she wears a black button-up cardigan and sling over her shoulder she carries a denim backpack. Round her neck is a checked scarf in all different shades of blue, which conceals the infra red goggles that she nests inside there for when she needs quick access and use them.

HEIGHT: 167 cm

WEIGHT: 57 kg

PERSONALITY Minx - she can sometimes show a rather salacious side to her, a contrast to her initial front of innocence, and often plays her assets to her advantage to get what she needs, perhaps too often.

Ambitious - her goals are often quite far off of her current abilities, but this happens to have been what allowed her to get so far as she has worked so hard to achieve these goals. This determination and her stubbornness make her quite a formidable woman, as once she has her mind on something, she will do anything to reach that goal. Even if it means spending days on end researching a topic or doing hours of hard training for her ability, once her mind is set on doing so, she will not give up.

Intelligent - not only are her academic achievements quite something to behold, but her extraordinary wit and sharp tongue has given her quite a reputation across the booth school and district as quite difficult to manage due to a combination of the above.

Quarrelsome - her strong views and stubborn personality invite arguments, not helped by her tendency to actively seek out potential rows with other people. Kyoka won't admit is but her stubbornness has landed her in some very tricky situations.

Independent - she doesn't like to follow trends of others, nor orders from people she deems to be less clever. This trait tends to clash with her Judgement work, as she always tries to do jobs in her own way which isn't taken to very well. In fact, this is usually the primary drive for her actions. If she is told she can't do something, she'll take up the challenge and face it with a snarky grin and a confident stride. However, this also goes the other way round, as if she isn't told to do something, she will not even try. In fact, she will find any loophole in the wording of an order so she doesn't have to do it. Some would call her lazy, and they would be right.

LIKES:
Winning Arguments
Cute Items
Chocolate Confectionary
Interesting Gossip

DISLIKES:
Spicy Dishes
Idiots and their stupid comments
Negatively exploiting others
Complaining about not having something, even if they have so much of other things

STRENGTHS:
Fast Learner
Sarcasm and Dry Humour
Persuasive Arguments  
Brewery and Mixing

WEAKNESSES:
Nervous around good-looking boys she fancies
Chocolates (which are used as payment in exchange for her help)
Stubborn Attitude
Sometimes Uncooperative

HISTORY:
Kyouka was born as the only child of a school teacher and a theoretical physicist. Her father, who worked together with other researchers from all across the globe, had formed a thesis on a certain controversial topic within his sphere of work which he submitted to the rest of the scientific community. However, what he expected to be a paper which would elevate his status and reputation invited the opposite. It divided the community in two as it challenged the established laws of the current structure, but unfortunately the negative views of his paper prevailed with some going as far as openly ridiculing it, even with all his further attempts to justify his thesis. To make up for this ‘error’, he tried to formulate more acceptable papers but the fear of being made a mockery of as had happened last time prevented him from submitting them. The end result of this was that he withdrew from the scientific community as a whole, which put pressure on his wife whose job didn't pay too well and struggled to pay the fees for her daughter’s education.
   
    It was during these hard times that they were approached by one of her father’s colleagues who offered them some advice. He worked in Academy City and, unlike much of the scientific community, his group had perceived a unique idea in his paper and knew how much effort and thought had been taken on devising the particular thesis. As such, he sympathised with him and gave them another option: Send Kyouka to Academy City. While her mother was against this as she wanted to be there for her daughter, her father said that it would be the best place to cultivate Kyouka’s growing intellect and to prevent any false expectations of her she would take her mother’s family name so she would not have to live under the shadow of her father’s mistakes. Her mother finally relented and reluctantly saw her off to Academy City where she attended primary school.

    Once she finished middle school, she was accepted into the prestigious Kirigaoka Girls’ Academy due to her rare and unique ability ‘Light Decay’ which she had developed over the course of middle school. She found it quite comfortable, forming her own social circle, even if she had a tendency to start arguments, and quickly became known throughout the school as someone not to try to oust in a debate. However, she made up for this seeming flaw which caused so much trouble for teaching staff by performing well in her academic studies, passing all examinations with flying colours.
 
  Her reasoning for joining Judgement was quite simple. In her first year at Kirigaoka, while shopping with some of her school friends, she became separated with them and started to wander about the mall. As she was browsing in a nearby fashion boutique for a cute outfit, a women behind her let out a scream of horror. A delinquent was attempting to steal money from the bank next door, using his Pyrokinetic powers to start melting through the corrugated steel barriers that the employees tried to deploy to keep him away from their customers. One such customer managed to call for Judgement or Anti-Skill to deal with the situation, but the delinquent was burning through the barriers too quick and was getting close to breaching it. Kyouka, determining it to be best that she took action before anything else happened, used her ability to blind the delinquent before kicking him with all her power right in his solar plexus. He didn't last a second longer, and collapsed at the feet of a Judgement member who had answered the call for help. She was more than impressed with how Kyouka had dealt with the situation and suggested she join Judgement to put her skills and initiation to good use, which Kyouka decided to do.

LEVEL: 2

ESPER ABILITY: Light Decay creates regions where photons spontaneously decay into two photons, each with twice the wavelength.
   This allows the user to create regions where visible light spontaneously decays into infrared light. Because humans cannot see through infrared light, this has the effect of making the region a purely black curtain. As this ability allows the user to direct this infrared light, the deviance of the resulting photons’ trajectories from the original photon can be controlled to produce an area devoid of visible light, but full of infrared. The shape and size variate with the amount of visible light available, the maximum distance this ability can be applied away from the user being fifteen metres. Her usage of the ability within this changes depending on the distance between her and the point of breakdown, meaning the closer the point of breakdown is to her, the larger the area the ability can cover. To activate this ability, she must have way of focus on the intended area, either with her eyes or with her hands, and must target the desired area for around 1-3 seconds depending on her state of mind.
A side effect of this is the radiation emitted by infrared light, is that it can also heat up the air and other object trapped within the affected region. This heat radiates out from the source of the infrared light, with the temperature produced being equivalent to the density of the infrared light. An example would be applying her ability to an object the size of a tennis ball would increase its temperature to around 70oC. This means that as the area of breakdown becomes larger, the heat produced decreases.

OTHER ABILITIES:
Laser Pointer (LuGH):
A small metal tube that fits in her hand perfectly, no bigger than a pencil, which can be switched between active and inactive both manually, via an in built function on her infrared goggles, or by her voice. The red light that is produced from the base of LuGH allows her to use her ability without fail, as the longer wavelength doubles to produce a wavelength equal to infrared. This enables her to produce a perfectly straight line of infrared, lasting around 25 km, that can accurately target the area which she points it towards. Of course, it does suffers the some downsides, that if the laser cannot be seen by Kyouka she cannot convert it into infrared. As for the ability's functions on the laser, while it is within her ability's range the laser has the ability to cut through steel, its output growing ever weaker as the distance past her initial range grows.

Modified Laser Rifle (Blazer)
This weapon is a modified non-lethal laser dazzler developed by researchers based in Acedemy City (the results of its application are sent back there for modification and further development, and perhaps more shady reasons) and authorised for use by Kirigaoka Academy, to be utilised by Kyouka in tandem with her ability. It acts with same rules as her laser pointer, producing a similar red light, but with an inbuilt safety function to prevent her from using her ability to cause any lasting focal damage or the such. This is done through the usage of a powerful camera attached to the scope, which can identify optical matter, and reduce the wavelength of the light produced, in order to stop the breakdown of visible light to infrared by Light Decay. This camera also helps with her aim, and can actively track targets for her. Judgement has also given her a pass so she is able to use it in particular situations involving delinquents that are too difficult for a normal member of Judgement, but not so serious as to be dealt with by Anti-Skill.

Academic Prowess
Her advanced intellect and quick thinking make for a quite formidable library of knowledge, as she usually passes exams with flying colours due to her better than average memory and her love of new facts and ideas, as well as curiosity for them.

Targeting/Aim
As Kirigaoka provides supplementary lessons for their students to foster the growth of their abilities and develop new usages of them, she received lessons in steadying her aim and sharpening her mind, to better target an area, to help with properly utilising her laser pointer (LuGH) as well as her specialised laser rifle.

Persuasive Arguments
Years of arguments has caused her to hone her delivery and technique in such a way that she can present a debate in a thoroughly convincing way.

Close Combat Training
She is also quite competent at close quarters, hand-to-hand fighting, as her basic Judgement training requires her to have a specific level of this in order to take down thugs and delinquents in situations where her power would be unavailable, either unusable or would cause danger to surrounding bystanders.

Curvaceous Body:
Some things don't need to be explained.

CHARACTER THEME: Idle/Casual theme - Itsumono Bushitsu de from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
Melancholic theme - Ichiban no Takaramono from Angel beats!
Afterwards/Pensive theme - Kaze no Toorimichi
Battle Theme No.1 - Abikyoukan no Kurutta Butai from Baccano!
Battle Theme No.2 - Nagai Nagai no Yuke no Naka no Utage from BACCANO!

PLAYER'S NAME: Versare712

CHATANGO NAME: Versare712

RATING: Posts could potentially be R-rated, but whether that will happen, I suspect it won't.

FACE CLAIM: Rin Shibuya/Idolmaster

OTHER CHARACTERS: None

MISC. INFORMATION: None

TEST POST:

How short is that skirt actually~?

I. The General Stuff – Common issues

For reasons of a common standard in profiles please give the measurement for her height in cm. I already figured that the current numbers would make her out to be rather tall, is she quite many centimetres above the standard for your average Japanese girl. If you still wanna stick with it, fine, if not, research the actual standard and do some adjustments.

Furthermore I do see another case of a short personality in this profile. People aren’t as simple as to be explained in just a few sentences, therefore I would kindly ask you to expand greatly in regard to this point, mainly by extending the explanation on the various traits or adding further ones. The primary being more pressing, however.


II. The History – Nitpicking commence!

I see mention of Himura coming across Kazakiri in terms of academic ranking. However it is necessary to point out that, as mentioned in Volume 6, Kirigaoka’s rankings are entirely based on the rarity of the students’ abilities. Obviously that’s somewhere, where competing with Counter Stop itself is absoluty impossible. Not just because it is the most rare thing out there, but because we can’t assign a player character’s power with a top class level of rarity comparable to Deep Blood, Move Point or the aforementioned Counter Stop.


III. The Ability – Mass

This ability description is short, probably among the shortest I have ever seen. Is it on point, though?

For how long it is there’s actually a fair bit of explanation, yet not enough of it. Can you go a bit more into depth about it? Add a few sentence to explain the effects in more detail, of course for simpleton idiots to understand it, while not dropping out on the science aspect.
Besides that I am missing the presence of numbers. For example you should define her range or the size of the affected area.

Here I definitely expect to see more than what you currently have to offer. You could check other profiles for inspiration on what exactly to cover.


IV. The Other Abilities – Something’s missing?

There’s mention of a specialised laser rifle, however I do see no other trace of it in the profile. You might wanna add a description of that if this is still considered a thing, otherwise it won’t be a thing.

As implied before, anything that isn’t mentioned in the profile will be ignored for the future, meaning that all missing aspects were basically never approved and are thus not to be considered allowed in the RP. This entails the currently missing scale of the ability, the laser gun above and close combat skills, for which I have also seen an implication. If feel this is worth mentioning, since she also should have gone through Judgement training etc.

Thus when making the edits, consider with care whether or not you left anything out.

I've updated the app, now! I hope it's enough, those laser pointer calculations took quite a while. The pics also in it now.

At last I have gotten some free-time to deal with this~!


I. The General Stuff – Only the Balance

Going over her the second time I am seeing a certain kind of imbalance on her strengths and weaknesses. The number on the positive end is six, the one on the negative four. That’s not good. Please make it even.


III. The Ability – Decaying Nerfs

Looking back on it, I’m not entirely convinced of the idea that she could technically produce her ability’s effect within the entire 20 metres circle around her. That way she could technically create an entire black box zone all around her many metres square, while also triggering the other implied effect of heating things up.
With the range being as high as it is (I just checked the distance IRL) it’s too heavy a thing.

My request right now would be as follows:

The maximum distance should be 15.47m and the ability should be way harder to control towards the outer perimeter, while close range in return will be way easier. This will mostly impact her capacity of creation, meaning she would be able to cover a larger area with her ability if used close to her compared to distance use. However no matter where it is being used, she will have to focus on the point in a rather visible way, by either targeting the area with her eyes or hands.

Besides that I need inquire more information on the heat creation side effect. Up to how many degrees celsius would this reach? Also, why exactly a distance of 5 metres for the heat effect? As far as I am concerned, I would say it should entirely depend on how hot the source is go begin with.


IV. The Other Abilities – A or B

OK, I’m going to be very honest here: I don’t have any idea what the correct interpretation of the laser pointer’s description is. From my perspective there are two readings for this: Either it is capable of producing a beam that can slice through steel naturally or it just is a normal laser pointer which, by the support of her ability gains the capability of cutting steel. Confirm the right one please, whilst also making it clear in the actual description.

Whichever it is, though, I’ll have issues to bring up.

Once we’ve reached clarity here I will say something about the rifle as well, but that’ll depend entirely on the turn of events.

Thanks for the reply and, to clear things up about the laser pointer, it produces a normal beam of visible red light that when used in conjunction with her ability, breaks down into infrared. Due to the rule of her ability, as the beam of now infrared light is extremely dense, the heat produced has a higher temperature than when she uses her ability on her own. So, to sum that up, by using her ability in the beam, she is able to cut through steel with the newly produced infrared.

Whew, it took some time for me to get back here, but enjoying a vacation in the Caribbean was the obvious best choice. I mean, I was crushed by the vicious businesses of IRL, clearly.  


III. The Ability – Something’s missing!

With everything else having been fixed, my only current complaint to be taken over from the past edition, is the lack of a proper temperature limitation to assess the strength of the black box heating quirk. Please provide that.


IV. The Other Abilities – Dem Laserz

Let’s pick up where we left off: The Laser Pointer (LuGH) is just a normal one that can melt through steel if supported by her ability’s support. Stuff that is actually fine, even though I’d love for it to remain in a way that’d truly demand the light to hit the targeted steel (5cm) for a longer period of time (like 5-10 seconds), before it is entirely molten through.

Secondarily for that very item, I need to admit, I don’t quite understand half of what you’ve described. Is the mentioned range the maximum or what is it? Basically, rewrite the entire part, actually taking into account the idea of making it easier to understand and adjusting it to the ability’s limits. Scientific talk is fine, but this time it really didn’t appear helpful.

This request for example entails that you explain that the pointer will gain the steel melting effect within the range of her ability (the aforementioned 15 metres) and ever weaker growing output for the rest of the distance.

God, I am so sorry it took that long to update such small changes, but I've finally got round to doing it. So how did that vacation go, are you sufficiently relaxed now? Also, what's the name if that Fate RP you were talking about before, it sounded interesting.

I pray that I am. But we’ll see~

For now let’s get back to this little specimen.

I don’t see much of an issue with the character in general. The laser only having a cutting effect within the ability’s range sounds kind of satisfying, as well as the laser gun does. The only thing that’s really troubling me right now is the main application, giving me the slight fear of people being covered by the no-light-zones only to be boiled to death.

Quite frankly, I’ll make two things clear here: The ability will demand constant focus on the target area, limiting it to a single one at a time and the area focus should be heavily accentuated, meaning it should be harder to actually keep targeting moving targets due to the application time necessary for causing the effect. It should take about 1 to 3 seconds to trigger the ability sufficiently, depending on her own state of mind and the area she desires to cover.

Lastly, however, I will extend my hand towards you, raising the maximum range to an exact value of 19.7 metres for the sake of increasing the pointer’s targeting range.

So, you highlighted the possibility of frying characters with her pitch blanket function of her ability in your response. To that, I just want to clear up what I said about the temperature increase function of her ability. My example took an object at room temperature, and using the ability to cloak it, increased the temperature to around 70oC. I initially stated that the temperature change is dependant on how dense the blanket ability is, and I think that is the best way to go about it:
First Function/Pitch Blanket - this works by creating a pitch black space that can extend from her to 19.7 metres around her (normal ability). The temperature change to do with this one is minor, ranging from ten degrees for the smaller coverages, to five degrees or less when she is using the absolute limit of her range, that is, the full 19.7 metres.
Second Function/Searing Orbs - by condensing the space that her ability works on to a sphere the size of a tennis ball, she can create a black orb that radiates infrared. She is limited to three at a time, they can only work within a two metre distance from her, and require a great deal of mental concentration to keep them up. As such, they act as a last resort when Kyouka needs to fight close quarters. These balls, while not as hot as her ability powered laser, are about 100oC.
Of course, these are all just suggestions which I am using to clear up my really unclear comments earlier.

To be fair, though, the calculation time and requirement for focus on the matter will always be a necessity with all abilities. Therefore that will have to enter the description either way.

Beyond that, however I’d still say that focussing the black curtain/space creation should be limited to one focus point at a time, so that she could for example either create a curtain or form the laser, which in my eyes is a vicious thing and should remain the strongest combat application, yet not the other at the same time.

I’m not enjoying the idea of the pitch blanket covering the entire area of her range, since that’s pretty much too OP for what I can take, even ignoring the low temperatures caused by the side effect. Besides, I added the increase in range, so that the laser beam would have more effect, not for you to darken an entire area.
Now what should it cover? A portion of the area she can see, large enough to maybe cover a door, envelope a human being or create a black screen on a hallway. The idea would be to use the black area more as a curtain that’s impossible to see through, than an entire area no-see-zone like Kaname Tousen's Bankai from Bleach, since that would be way too out there. The cubic measurements should always be enough to surround a person, however, not more than that. Robbing someone of their sense of vision can be a powerful asset, do not ever forget this.

As for the secondary function…I do not see any need for that, if I’m honest. This place isn’t about fighting, nor should combat really matter as much as it seems to do in this application. Espers are not fighters, hell, in the main series there has even been that reoccurring conflict over them learning that they are technically weapons, attaining a feeling of fear of their own abilities and capabilities, something which quite well accentuates how normal they are as people. And now here we stand, discussing combat applications to fill holes in the character’s defence.
Besides that, however, I’d say she has enough. A laser that can melt through steel and a black curtain to hide certain things from vision from the ability side, and a bit of close combat training from the other side. That’s more than enough for a normal person to have and more than should be necessary. Adding anything else on top, for the sake of balancing out her fighting capabilities, feels wrong and would tip the balance too much. The regular Science Side is about normal people who haven’t experienced a world of violence after all.


Also just for the sake of pointing it out, since I noticed it on the last reads:

Himura Kyouka wrote:Independent - she doesn't like to follow trends of others, nor orders from people she deems to be less clever. This trait tends to clash with her Judgement work, as she always tries to do jobs in her own way which isn't taken to very well. In fact, this is usually the primary drive for her actions. If she is told she can't do something, she'll take up the challenge and face it with a snarky grin and a confident stride. However, this also goes the other way round, as if she isn't told to do something, she will not even try. In fact, she will find any loophole in the wording of an order so she doesn't have to do it. Some would call her lazy, and they would be right.

vs

Himura Kyouka wrote:IDISLIKES:
Spicy Dishes
Negatively exploiting others
Reasoning for doing nothing, rather than doing something
Complaining about not having something, even if they have so much of other things

Spot the contradiction.

Yeah, didn't see that before... so I changed that up, as well as the ability like you asked.

I would call this sufficient. Just bear in mind that the ability shouldn't cover too great an area, more or less maxing it at the cubic measurements of your average spiky haired idiot. That’s all then.

Good to see the pages of this finally close for good.


I’m thinking while it may have been possible to place this as Level 3 ability, it still has a lot of drawbacks coming with it. In the end it’s just an ability that makes things disappear rom vision by creating a black curtain instead of blending them in with their surroundings, heavily relying on the support of tools and the like to awaken its true potential.
Yet, qualifying for Kirigaoka it is still a rare type, making it somewhat special in terms of the universe.

So I guess this might mark the top of what I’d imagine for Level 2.