Maki Kuronami

Maki Kuronami is a student of Beacon Academy and a former resident of Yamato Village. She's the first member of Team MAID. Living by the sword, she's the fastest and deadliest member of her team, both to her own teammates and the enemy. Though skilled, her status as a loose cannon has caught the ire of many teachers.
Current Revision: 1.07
==Appearance==
Maki has a very slim body, bordering on skinny. She's also remarkably short. Her hair's short, but has been kept uncut for a few years now, which is beginning to grow past her neck.
She wears a one-piece dark brown dress, which only reaches up to her thighs. She wears a pair of belts where she holsters both of her weapons. She wears a pair of blue shoes. Notably, she wears a pair of glasses with red trimmings. It has mystical properties.
She has a gray ribbon tied to her left wrist. It's mostly decorative, but it means a lot to her.
Her emblem is the Kuronami family crest. It was suppose to represent a three-winged bird, but due to the lack of skill of whoever designed it, it almost looked nonsensical. It's tattooed on her left shoulder.
==Personality==
Despite how nice she looks, don't judge a book by it's cover. Maki is not the nicest person you'll ever meet.
To elaborate, she's self-centered, arrogant and incredibly proud of how skilled she is, ambitious to the point that she could care less about others and quite insane once in battle. She never talks nicely, always being blunt in how she speaks, sometimes being rude, and sometimes outright aggressive. If you get in her way, you may get hurt.
She also has a condescending sense of humor, peppering snarky remarks with colorful swearing. Additionally her temper is ridiculously short and she doesn't like losing an argument.
While hard to befriend, she can become the closest friend you'll ever get. She has a strong dislike for losing anything valuable to her. If any of her friends are in danger, she can be counted on. That doesn't mean she'll be nice once you're friends though.
Of course, the main problem is befriending her... She hates being in contact with most people, preferring to do her own thing. Further emphasizing how self-centered she is. An easy way of befriending her is beating her in battle or proving you're a competent fighter. But her standards are quite high.
However, one thing she has that's actually positive is her soft spot for children. She hates anyone willing to hurt children.
She's not very smart, being book dumb in many fields of education, except combat. However, she has shown some simple understanding of physics, often incorporating it in her fighting style.
In battle, she outright goes nuts and can be mistaken for clinically insane due to how crazy she acts. She clearly enjoys any kind of fight. Especially those with incredibly high stakes raised, like a life or death situation.
A notable trait she has is her tendency to give everyone she knows nicknames.
==Weapons and Abilities==
She wields two weapons, a cutlass by the name of Lost Wing, and a family heirloom, a flintlock pistol called Anastasia.
She can't afford a tech-heavy weapon, so her sword has no special properties, other than being forged to be serrated on the back portion of the blade. Maki calls it Lost Wing due to how it's hilt almost resembles a skeletal wing.
Anastasia is a flintlock pistol designed to fire Dust crystals. However, due to it's old design, it can only hold one shot at a time, but it's powerful enough to be considered as a portable grenade launcher. Maki only has 20 Red Dust crystals refined to work with the pistol. Considering she doesn't know how to refine Dust crystals, she only uses this weapon as a last resort.
Ability-wise, Maki is incredibly agile, almost ridiculously so. She's also a skilled swordswoman, to compensate for her lack of a proper ranged weaponry. Despite being mostly below average in almost any field of knowledge, her proficiency in combat is to be respected.
Additionally, her fighting style is quite chaotic, making her rather unpredictable. While she doesn't have any direct strategy in battle, she's quick-thinking, and adaptable. She just needs to lose her arrogance and she'll be a great Huntress.
One thing to note, her glasses. Through some unknown manipulation of Dust done by her mother, it has gained the properties to see through illusions, allowing her to perceive the line between truth and lies and divide them.
In Layman's terms, her glasses are portable spirit and lie detectors.
As a side effect, due to constant exposure to the Dust in the glasses, Maki's eyes have turned pale blue.
She has a gray Aura, but due to her lack of training, she can only use it in desperate situations. It represents her amoral nature, being neither good nor evil.
The nature of her Semblance is tied on her state of mind. The more unhinged she is, the more effective it is. It allows her to create a black mist around the battlefield, making her difficult to see against non-Aura users.
==Backstory==
Maki originated from the village of Yamato, a rural town constantly tormented by the Grimm for almost five centuries. Maki is borne from a cursed family. Her mother died giving birth to her. Her father was a retired Hunter, who taught her how to defend herself, but didn't earn enough income to have her go to a school. Also, her mother? She's from the Kuronami bloodline.
They were known as one of the most frightening Grimm killers in the town. Their founder, Haruna Kuronami was rumored to have consumed the Grimm she killed, thinking it was possible for her to gain the power of the Grimm and use them.
There were some merit on this, given how every head of the family always have a bloodlust for killing Grimm. This eventually stopped by the time Maki's grandmother was born.
Back to Maki, she started out hunting the Grimm alongside her father. Though initially inexperienced, she lost her fear of killing in an early age, which may have been the earliest point in which a deranged side of her is ever seen.
She didn't have her own weapon, only helping his father by pointing out any nearby Grimm. A few years later, her father agreed to commission a sword for her, but only a sword. They can't afford any kind of advanced weaponry. As compensation, the sword's edge are both serrated and sharp, being made from an alloy the Kuronami kept in stock.
When she finally had her weapon forged, at age 9, she started going out at night to hunt Grimm personally. This may have helped contribute to her overspecialization in combat.
She's gotten good at killing them that at one point, she encounters a Huntsman, who mistook her for a Grimm mimicking human form. Fortunately, she managed to explain her way out of that. He recommend that she attend Signal Academy at a later age, which may help her get better at what she's already doing.
She then saved up and worked part time until she earned enough money to enroll to Signal.
At age 14, she attended Signal Academy, but due to her lack of interest in most of the lessons taught and especially the requirement that they create their own weapons, she dropped out and decided she was too good to attend school. She planned to come back home at her birthday.
However, the few weeks she had left the village, was enough for the Grimm to quickly regain their numbers, being "led" by a middle-aged woman wearing a Grimm mask. By the time Maki returned, everyone was already dead.
Seeing the genocide of human life for the first time, she immediately lost it and ran away from her home, but not before burning that image in her mind. This is the point where her mind slowly become unhinged.
Throughout the night, she fought every Grimm she can find, killing everything that crossed her path. Having lost everything, the only thing in her mind was to take revenge or to die, both were equally satisfying.
But the latter didn't happen. By the time she was exhausted, she already wiped out the entire Grimm population in the forest. The woman with the Grimm mask was nowhere to be seen. Reaching her limits, she eventually fainted on the spot.
When she woke up, all that was left was her, alone in the forest devoid of life. Returning to her hometown, as a manner of respect, she single-handedly attempted to give a burial to the entire town. She only managed to bury a quarter of the town, due to the rest having been dismembered and mangled, including her father. Finding his headless corpse in a nearby bakery.
She made her way home, she gathered whatever she can take, including the family heirloom pistol, her mother's glasses, all the Lien she saved, and the final gift her father planned to give her at her 15th birthday: a ribbon to help her tie her hair if it ever gets long. Leaving behind her former home, she left the town and the region, hoping to start her life anew.
"Goodbye, father."
With that, she traveled the world for two years leaving behind her past, stopping by at small towns to assist them in Grimm attacks. However, an ambition was growing within her. Her bloodlust has awakened, the same one that the many heads of the Kuronami family had. She wanted to become powerful enough so that nobody can take away anything from her ever again. This was taken a step further when she begins taking pleasure in killing Grimm. She regretted not attending Signal, since she now harbors a desire to become a Huntress, in order to sate her repressed rage.
Due to this, her Aura turns pure black when she's in a bloodlust state, indicating her loss of human morals.
Along the way, she received an injury on her back, which was treated by a travelling doctor-in-training with a smoke pipe.
At age 17, she encountered a Dust shop robbery in a nearby region outside of Vale, being done by a crook under Roman Torchwick. Though she planned to intervene, a Huntsman got ahead of her and managed to subdue the criminal. The same Huntsman, now a teacher in Beacon, who encountered Maki a long time ago near her hometown.
She seized the opportunity immediately, and decided to enroll in Beacon by recommendation of the Huntsman.
However, unlike Ruby who wants to become a Huntress with good reasons. Maki is doing it entirely for herself. Her sense of justice has twisted into a desire to kill Grimm.
But a new challenge presented itself to her. Something that even her combat skills can't overcome: Finding a partner for the Initiation. There was only one face she recognized among the nameless crowd. The doctor-in-training who treated her.
"If you plan on teaming up with me, you better help me do good."
==The Story so Far==
===The Initiation===
Maki was given an assignment to summarize what they experienced during the Initiation. Through this, she recounts the story of how she met her teammates and cut a bloody swath through the Emerald Forest. She was paired with Azalea and later teamed up with Ivory and Noname to defeat a pair of King Taijitus and a mysterious new grimm...
==Additional (yet irrelevant) Information==
Weapon: Lost Wing (Cutlass), Anastasia (Dust Flintlock Pistol)
*A cutlass forged by the finest blacksmith in Yamato. Not powerful, but it does it's job despite the simplicity. It's made from a metal that cannot come in contact with Dust, causing it to not be able to cut through Dust of any kind, and allowing it to deflect Dust-based attacks.
*The Kuronami family heirloom. While outdated, it remains powerful. But the mechanics requiring to use it are complicated than an amateur can break it easily while reloading.
Accessories: Glasses, Ribbon, Kuronami Emblem Tattoo
*A pair of glasses her mother used to wear. It's been enchanted with White Dust to enhance the eyes of an individual to see through lies as well as spirits. It was used by her mother since she has an incredibly weak aura.
*A ribbon her father was suppose to give to her during her birthday. Sadly, he didn't live long enough to do so. She ties it on her left hand as a memento and it looks stylish.
*The Kuronami Emblem, which is tattooed on her left shoulder. It was engraved there before she studied in Signal. She normally covers it with a bandage.
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
*She doesn't care for anything but herself, though she's not quite heartless, since she's willing to play hero if she'll be able to enjoy herself.
Likes: Juggling, Cakes, killing Grimm
*She picked up juggling from the blacksmith who forged her weapon, who demonstrated a couple of times while her weapon was being created.
*She adores cakes. Especially the peanut butter kind.
*She derives twisted pleasure in killing Grimm, which she gained after her inner bloodlust awakened.
Dislikes: Dark places, Dogs, Mushrooms
*She has nyctophobia. She can't remain in the dark for a long time or she'll start freaking out. Nighttime with a clear moon is an okay though.
*Due to the resemblance of the Beowolves with dogs, she has taken a dislike for dogs.
*She despises mushrooms, since she accidentally ate a poisonous one when she was hunting in the woods.
RPG Stats:
*Class: Warrior
*Strength: C+
*Defense: C+
*Dust Usage: F
*Aura Usage F
*Dust Resistance: C
*Speed: S+
*Evasion: A-
*Luck: B+
==Trivia==
*This is the fourth variant of Maki I've created.
*Despite her hair color and outfit, her color is black, which represents her inner bloodlust heritage.
*Her temper, coupled with her short stature among her teammates makes her quite similar to Napoleon Bonaparte in terms of personality.
*Her character origin is as Hisei Tokuhana's second genderswap, after Dunkelblau Noname became a character of her own. Though Maki diverged and eventually stopped being Hisei's genderswap in terms of character and backstory, she eventually became Hisei's parallel existence. In Layman's terms, they're the same person, just in a different universe. This does not apply to the RWBYverse.
Category:Accepted Character
Category:Fan Made Character
Category:3rd Gen
Category:Team MAID
Category:Female
Category:Beacon Student
Category:Signal Student
Category:Yamato Village