cerealia app;;

Applicant Info

◎ Name: Britt
◎ Journal: sugarrushing
◎ Contact: sugarrushing

Character Info

◎ Character's Name: Chizuru Yukimura
◎ Character's Canon: Hakuouki
◎ Character's Age: Around 23ish, thanks to her canon point and her time in Zelien
◎ Canon Point: After Inoue is killed trying to get reinforcements from Yodo and Kazama finds her, but before Hijikata shows up to take the ochimizu.
◎ Background/History: The wiki is really crappy so here, take a look at the history I wrote when I played her in Ariel. The only real difference is that instead of waking up surrounded by rubble while trying to get reinforcements, Inoue is killed and she is found by Kazama, who is about to take her away - Hijikata would have literally shown up to defend her if the jamjar gods had waited five minutes before whisking her away to Zelien, but there you go..!
◎ Is the character a hacker and/or do they have a sixth-sense? No

◎ Personality:
he term "demon" has a tendency to bring some very specific characteristics to mind: bloodthirsty, murderous, and wicked, for example. Well, forget all of that, because even though Chizuru is one of the few remaining pure-blooded demons in Japan, you could not be further from the truth if you tried to describe her that way.

It isn't quite enough to call Chizuru entirely pacifistic, as she can and will take up a blade when truly necessary - to defend herself, or to defend those who are precious to her, or (depending on how emotionally drained she is) to take revenge for someone who is killed while defending her (this is an option for her in the game when Kazama kills Inoue, and in the anime, Hijikata says he knew the enemy soldiers were the ones to have killed him because she wouldn't have left her kodachi unraised against Inoue's killers). Still, these are extreme examples, and most of the time Chizuru is a kind and gentle soul. She doesn't like bloodshed and violence - in fact, she even admits that she is "rather afraid" of blades shortly after meeting the Shinsengumi - and finds herself much more at ease when she is in - or can create - a homey environment. That isn't to say she can't function while she's in dangerous situations (because she can, and she even chooses to put herself in dangerous situations for the sake of people she cares about), but she much prefers to be able to remind people of the comforts of home and country which they fight to protect. She generally has kind words and gentle (or not-so-gentle, when they need a more potent reminder) encouragement for the people she surrounds herself with, urging them to do their best and to take care of themselves while reminding them that they have people supporting them. It makes her happy to make others happy and to know that she is helping to create a world where people can live peacefully.

Having been raised in 1800s Japan, Chizuru is outwardly modest, sometimes to a fault. Things like "I know it isn't my place to say..." and "If it isn't presuming too much..." are common to hear from her, and it isn't just because those are the polite things to say. She often feels like she is very much a burden, especially because of how exceptional the people she spends most of her time around are, and when she says that she isn't sure what she has to contribute she's not being self-depreciating for the sake of modesty or politeness, but because she honestly isn't sure what she has to give. She desperately wants to be able to find her place and find something she can do to help those she cares about, but she is very unsure about whether or not she has the ability to do so. She doubts and second-guesses herself very often, and her opinion of herself is generally much lower than others' opinions of her. This sometimes leads her to push herself to and past her limits in an attempt to live up to the people around her, to the point that it has been said that if she keeps it up she'll "use herself up" until there is nothing left.

In spite of how unsure she can be about herself and the way she relates to others, Chizuru is a sociable person. She is the type of girl that manages to make friends in the strangest of places, befriending humans and demons alike (though some might argue that the Shinsengumi, with all of their skill and intensity, hardly count as humans). Even when her first impression of someone is far from stellar, spending time around them usually leads her to find one or two things she likes about them. (In Kazama's route, for example, she is able to find things about him that she admires, despite spending the first three or four chapters of the game pretty much hating his guts, or as close to hating as she can really manage.) She is also the type of girl that believes in the best parts of the people around her - the Shinsengumi is the best example of this, because in spite of their reputation as ruthless killers (which she admits that she is aware of at the onset of her time with them), she finds things to admire in all of them and comes to care for them greatly. She believes in Sen and Kimigiku, as well, in spite of limited interactions with them; she firmly believes in her father and is unwilling to believe that he betrayed the shogunate until she sees it with her own eyes; she wants to believe that if she can make Kaoru understand what her feelings are, the two of them will be able to live as brother and sister. At times her idealism is taken to almost foolish levels.

She can also be incredibly stubborn in her own way. What this means is that she makes decisions and sticks to them - she isn't the type to constantly change her mind about what it is that she wants to do. When she decided that she wanted to see her father again after a long absence, she journeyed to Kyoto all on her own - not the safest course of action, really. She can also be rash when she is worried about someone (as we see in how she goes all the way to Kyoto without waiting for a reply from the person she contacted to help her). It can sometimes take extreme situations for her to make a decision - such as having no word from her father for a month, or seeing people she cares about bearing burdens that are too great to bear alone - but once she commits to it, she won't stray from her path for anything, not even if that means she puts herself at great personal risk. She absolutely will not abandon her friends, especially when they have not abandoned her; she is the type of person who views being safe but not knowing how her friends are faring as a fate worse than death. When she has decided to be there for someone, she also will not abandon them even if they say that she ought to stay away from them for her own good - we see this strongly in Hijikata's route, when she makes arrangements behind Hijikata's back to come to Ezo and then refuses to leave once there, and in other routes as well - Okita's, where she refuses to leave him even after he says he's no good for her, Heisuke's, where she refuses to leave him even after he becomes a rasetsu, and so on and so forth.

Part of the reason Chizuru refuses to leave people alone is also because she honestly wants to be helpful. She tries hard to make herself as light a burden as possible on the people who help her - and because they have done so many things for her, she wants to be able to do things for them in return. She is the type to take mundane tasks on for herself, just so that the others won't have to pull their attention away from "more important" things they have to do. The way she sees it, there isn't a whole lot she can do to help them on the battlefield (save for acting as a shield, which is apparently out of the question), so she has taken it upon herself to make life off the battlefield as easy and as comfortable for them as possible. The times she does accompany them to battle, she is motivated to work hard in whatever limited capacity she can - by using her knowledge as a doctor's daughter, for example, or by serving as a messenger, because since she doesn't wear the Shinsengumi blues she's a lot less noticeable. In spite of how hard she works to be useful, she often feels as if she falls short of it - which leads her to ask for more and more ways to be able to help her friends, even when they feel that just her very presence has been helpful.

She is the type of person who is at her best when the people who are most precious to her are at their best. She highly values the bonds between herself and her friends and would be completely lost without them, and her mood will often mirror the moods of those she surrounds herself with. She picks up on how people are feeling very easily. If her friends are in good spirits, that is good enough for her - if her friends are feeling down, she will most likely agonize over what she can do to make it better. She spends more time thinking of her friends than she does thinking about herself, sometimes to the point of completely overlooking things that should be obvious - ("I'm so glad you found a reason to keep on living..." "My reason to live is you, Chizuru." "E-eh?!") - and would quite honestly journey to Hell and back if it would mean that her friends were safe. There have been many times when she has contemplated turning herself over to the other demons to keep the Shinsengumi safe, though ultimately she chooses to stay with them. That is because she feels that it is better to face danger together and be able to keep your precious people in your sight than it is to be separated and have to spend your days praying that they will be safe. So while she is at her best when her friends are at their best, she is at her worst when she is alone and isolated.

It would have been very easy for her to end up embittered and alone, or for her to turn out like Kaoru. But her time being raised as a normal human girl has taught her that there are things that are gentle and kind within humanity, and her adoptive father taught her the value of a life. Her time in Edo taught her that there are precious moments in everyday life that she can treasure. Her time with the Shinsengumi - in Kyoto and beyond - taught her that there is something bigger than just herself in the world, an ideal for which to strive. They taught her of loyalty and devotion and she doesn't think that she can ever thank them enough for all the gifts they have given her. The Shinsengumi is arguably one of the most important influences in Chizuru's life, and while she does have the potential to get romantically involved with a number of them (the various branching routes are proof enough of that), even when she is only involved with them on a platonic level it is obvious that, if it were within her power, she would do anything for them. Their influence on her is made most obvious in the monologue that plays at the end of Kazama's route:

"The bright summer sky stretched out above me. Gazing up at it, I thought I could almost see the backs of the men I'd known so well, if only for a short time.

The Shinsengumi had faced many challenges, but always with their heads high and their hearts strong.

Kind and gentle Kondou. Stern but sincere Hijikata. Okita, who was brave even in sickness. Earnest and faithful Saitou. Harada, the man who always had a kind word for his friends. Cheerful Heisuke, who'd always given me courage. Nagakura, a man of indomitable spirit. And Sannan, who risked everything to continue the fight.

This was it. This was farewell.

A gentle wind caressed my cheek. Somewhere far away, I could hear their voices..."

◎ Powers/Abilities: Chizuru, being a "demon of a pure lineage," recovers from most injuries very quickly - to the point that she at one point proposes that she act as a shield for Kondou, because a wound that would kill him would essentially be nothing to her so long as her head isn't lopped off or her heart isn't pierced. This is the ability that is most prevalent for her within her canon - when her arm is badly wounded when she's attacked by a Rasetsu in the middle of the night, it is healed the next morning, despite arm injuries leading to loss of use of the arm in other characters.

Unfortunately, this ability has led her to ignore and outright suppress the other abilities she could have that come as second nature to other demons, because she was worried about seeming to be different from humans when she was growing up - she avoids fights whenever she can in an attempt to keep her healing abilities a secret, and as such she displays none of the superhuman strength and speed possessed by others of her kind. And while she was taught the basics of swordplay in order to defend herself, her skills are not at all on par with those of the people she surrounds herself with - Saitou, at one point, does say that her skills are good enough for her to accompany the captains on their patrols, but that's about it. Having "passable skills," in the context of the Shinsengumi and demons, simply isn't enough to stand out.

That is not to say that she could never learn to make use of these abilities; they are there, and we see this most clearly in her encounter with Shiranui during chapter four of Harada's route: she recovers from a gunshot wound instantly ("I barely had time to think about it, however, before the wound began to close. In mere moments it was gone, as if it had never been there to begin with.") and is able to use her demonic speed to dodge bullets as they come right at her ("Instead of passing immediately through my head, the bullet slowed almost to a crawl. I could see it move through the air, and I felt my body move instinctively to avoid it.") - though this seems to be an instinctive reaction to danger, rather than something she can use at will at present.
◎ Weapons & Other Special Inventory: Daisho - a set of two swords, one long and one short. The long sword is actually Hijikata's Kanesada, which he gave to her in their final moments together during Exit Void's endgame; the short sword is Shotsuren, an heirloom sword passed on to her by the Yukimura family which was once a possession of Suzuka Gozen's.

Notably, she's missing her hair cord because she gave that away to Hijikata, so ignore any of her icons where she's wearing a ponytail because that's totally not a thing.

CEREALIA-Specific

◎ Element: Water
◎ Sense: Touch - it is important to her because it's how she can prove to others that she is there for them and can have it proven to her that they are there for her. In many the more emotionally intense scenes in any of the routes she can be put through, touch is involved in some way, such as after Kondou's capture where she curls up against Hijikata's back, or any of the scenes where someone holds her, or any of the scenes where she gives blood to a rasetsu.
◎ Seven Character Traits: Loyal, empathetic, supportive | Self-sacrificial, reckless, uncertain | Resolute

Samples

◎ First-Person Sample:
Chizuru and Hijikata are totally embarrassing
Cats don't steal clothing, Chizuru...
Chizuru fails at texting and then ninjas her way in to see Kondou
Chizuru sort of succeeds at crossdressing and learns capslock

◎ Third-Person Sample:
Throwing herself into a fight between two master swordsmen because there's no way that will end badly
What was that about Hijikata's arms making everything better because she's pretty sure she's still fucking terrified
Chizuru's otome game is not strong enough to take on a Sith lord
...but it is strong enough to take on a soul-eating demon in another universe!
Shinpachi is somehow better at the whole comforting thing than Hijikata is. Incredible.

All of the above threads have a heavy amount of introspection and from the question that was asked earlier about linking threads that meet those requirements I figured it was okay to link them but if you need me to do something else let me know and I can write something new!

◎ Is your character retaining any previous game memories? Yes. She's retaining memories of her time at exitvoid, up to and including endgame. During her time at EV she did a whole host of reckless fun things, including conning Heisuke into helping her steal a ruby (and getting the pair of them skinned alive and a bunch of others executed), learning more swordplay from Saitou, getting powers swapped and learning what it was like to be a rasetsu, somewhat successfully wooing Hijikata, finding out she had a twin (but thinking Kaoru was her sister because he let her borrow girls' clothing, sorry Kaoru), meeting people such as Lavi, Ivan Karelin, and Barnaby Brooks Jr., going to a creepy-ass carnival, disappearing from Zelien, returning and fighting her way back to campus, having a dinner party with the Shinsengumi, stitching up some of Sano's wounds... and then completing endgame and finding a way back home safely except that totally didn't happen. Curse you, jamjar gods.

In spite of the way COMPASS terrorized basically everyone who was there, Chizuru has grown to be a little more confident and sure of herself. She is more attached to the Shinsengumi than ever, having reaffirmed that she isn't a complete burden on them, and has resolved to do everything within her power to keep them together. She is also interested in getting to know her "sister" better, which of course isn't going to go terribly wrong even though Kaoru's a shithead. Of course it isn't...

Her first priority, though, is returning to Hijikata's side and making sure he hasn't isolated himself because god damn it, Vice Commander Hijikata.