Kaō (Spiritual Forces)

Kaō (花皇, かおう, Japanese for "Flower Emperor") is the fourth of Avatar Aang and Katara's four children and their youngest son. When he was eleven, Kaō discovered he possessed clairvoyant abilities and immensely strong spiritual powers. Afraid to tell his family about his gifts, Kaō kept his paranormal powers a secret, and when he was sixteen he was abducted by dark spirits who hoped to use his powers to release Vaatu. Nearly thirty years had passed before he escaped from the Tree of Time, where for him it had been but a few days, and he was reunited with his family.
== History ==
=== Early life ===
Kaō was the last child born to Avatar Aang and Katara, and was a severely troubled child with tremendous psychic powers who suffered nightmares and was attuned to the negative emotions of the people around him. When he was five, his grandfather Hakoda's friend Bato passed away and he witnessed Bato's spirit descend to the afterlife; after Hakoda became aware of his grandson's clairvoyant abilities, Hakoda revealed that Kaō 's grandmother Kya was also psychic. Hakoda chose to keep his grandson's powers a secret even from Aang and Katara, as his wife endured fear and violence because of her psychic abilities.
Growing up, Kaō became distant with his elder siblings and parents because of his powers, but developed a stronger connection with his grandfather, who acted as his confidante regarding paranormal matters. Although slightly isolated from his family, Kaō was educated in Air Nomad culture as well as the teachings of the Southern Water Tribe. When Kaō was fifteen, Hakoda suffered a minor stroke and was hospitalized. Despite Katara's reassurance that Kaō would recover, he passed away in his sleep and his spirit visited a distraught Kaō. While at first staying earthbound to comfort Kaō, Kaō realized that Hakoda staying for him denied Hakoda the chance to reunite with his deceased loved names (e.g. Kya and Bato). Kaō promised Hakoda he would continue to move forward and vowed to help people with his gifts just as his late grandmother did with hers. Hakoda moved on to the afterlife and found peace, promising to always watch over Kaō.
In 143 AG, around the age of sixteen, Kaō's immense spiritual power attracted the attention of several dark spirits and demons. After getting into a heated argument with his parents, Kaō stormed out of his home and was abducted by a group of yōkai who worshiped Vaatu and hoped that Kaō's unusually strong spiritual powers could help release him from the Tree of Time.
==Personality==
Kaō is a very compassionate, kind, caring and considerate person, albeit shy and introverted. He felt ostracized because of his paranormal powers, and fell into self-loathing quote easily. Being bullied in school because of his homosexuality and effeminate nature also caused him to develop low self-esteem issues.
==Physical Description==
Kaō's appearance is that of a noble man with dark, messy hair. He is somewhat short and has a fair complexion. He also tends to wears eyeshadow and his lips are painted red.
== Powers and Abilities ==
===Powers===
*Kaō's spiritual powers manifest as a light lavender glow of light in color, although it is light blue on a few occasions.
*Immense Spiritual Power: Kaō's most noteworthy ability is the virtually infinite amount of spiritual power (the inherent power of the life-force itself) hidden within him. His strong spiritual powers are innate, and his spiritual purity is such that most wild animals generally calm down in his mere presence. Kaō has had formal training as a priest, and the average demon or spirit is no match for him. Several priests and spirits have even noted that Kaō is exceptionally powerful, even for a priest. Even before he was formally trained as a priest, Kaō was able to pass through most spiritual shields, resist the effects of curses and illusions, and could sense evil demonic auras to some extent. By means of his vast spiritual powers, he is able to perform several powerful mystic spells or enchantments (e.g. the high-level mayose spell).
**Spiritual Energy Projection: Kaō can project his own rapidly regenerating spiritual energy for a number of effects. By projecting his spiritual power rapidly at an object or person, he can create a concussive force of varying impact depending upon the amount he projected. The maximum amount he can expend without endangering himself had sufficient concussive force to demolish a small house or displace an average-sized person about 100 feet. Kaō can cast away the average demon or dark spirit with a single blow, as seen when Kaō, who was not even completely aware, quickly defeated a dark spider spirit. Kaō generally uses his hands to help him direct his spiritual energies, but he can also project spiritual power from his eyes. If he is in close range, he can even attack with spiritual power from his finger; Kaō demonstrated this when he used his finger to shatter wood and brick, deform steel, and strike Korra with extraordinary concussive force using his spiritual power. On another occasion, when Kaō and Mako were trapped alone in a cave together, Kaō concentrated spiritual power in his palms in order to destroy demonic insects that were attacking them. 
**Spiritual Shields: Kaō can project his spiritual energy field around himself (or others) to protect himself from both physical and spiritual damage. Under a barrier, he can create areas that neither humans nor demons can perceive. This field has a maximum range of about 250 feet from the center of his body, and he can sustain it for about 48 hours before jeopardizing his own store of life-force. When a human makes a barrier, even an ascetic monk must concentrate hard, but in Kaō's case, he can maintain a durable barrier in his sleep. 
**Spiritual Absorption: Studying the ancient scrolls of the technique, Kaō learned how to siphon life-force (or spiritual energy) from other people, causing varying degrees of shock and physical weakness depending upon the amount his siphoned. Although an organism's life-force is self-renewing, if he were to take too much of it from someone, the victim would die. Normally, Kaō did not absorb this life-force for personal use when he siphoned it; instead, he let it dissipate into the biosphere as if he were letting air escape from a balloon.
**Spiritual Healing: Kaō can focus his chi (or spiritual energy) to heal his own injuries or to cure his own illnesses. By projecting this energy into another person, he can heal that person.
**Spiritual Immobilization: Kaō is able to seal another's will, words and action with his spiritual power. When paralyzing someone, he could also make them invisible to everyone else but him. Kaō sealed Asami's movement by just touching her forehead lightly with his fingers.
**Spiritual Reflection: If his opponent is less powerful than him, Kaō can attack without using his own spiritual power and instead return his enemy's released spiritual power back at them. Kaō has successfully reflected curses and spells back at Hundun, who unleashed a shikigami serpent on Kaō, and an ascetic monk named Seikai, who attempted to seal him with a "Demon Binding Spell."
**Spiritual Projection: A high-level spiritual technique, Kaō developed the ability to place himself in a trance-like state while remaining fully conscious. While he is in this trance, he can project an intangible, ghostlike image of himself to another location, through which he can see and hear what goes on at that location. It is not yet known how far Kaō can project his "spirit-self" away from his physical body, but he can lock on to people's energy to project himself to their location and has projected to another continent.
**llusion and Demonic Energy Immunity: Simply being near demonic auras or dark spiritual energy causes damage to people's minds and bodies; thus, normal humans cannot go near or touch demonic power sources. However, Kaō, with his strong spiritual power, is unaffected by demonic energies. By nature, Kaō doesn't easily succumb to negative feelings (e.g. dread and fear) and this nullifies the illusion powers of the Fog of Lost Souls.
**Physical Enhancement: Through concentration, Kaō can harness his spiritual energy (or chi) to augment his physical and mental capabilities to superhuman levels. This includes strength (lifting 1-2 tons), speed, agility, stamina, and concentration, as well as self-healing ability.
**Purification Abilities: As a trained priest, Kaō can use his spiritual powers to send the evil or unsaved to heaven, and purify malevolent forces (e.g. demonic energies or miasma). Kaō constantly releases pure spiritual power unconsciously, but it's effects are more powerful when concentrated through tools (i.e. arrows).
**Shikigami Creation: Kaō can create shikigami to perform various tasks for him; his shikigami can take a variety of human or animal forms (e.g. birds, serpents, butterflies, dragonflies, paper-men or paper-birds). One shikigami Kaō had created was a physical duplicate of himself and specifically empowered by his spiritual energies.
*Spiritual Awareness: A result of his innate spiritual powers and training as a priest, Kaō can visually feel the presence of humans, spirits, or demons, and distinguish between the divine or the demonic; prior to the reopening of the spirit portals, he was one of only a handful of humans who could communicate with and perceive spirits in the physical world. He can also see through demonic auras and barriers, as well as perceive or sense the presence of spiritual energy.
*Mediumship: Kaō has the ability to perceive and communicate with the spirits of those who are dead. Kaō can not only communicate with earthbound spirits, but he can also speak with and understand several other types of spirit or phantom (e.g. zombies or ghouls). Kaō is at least a sixth-generation medium, as his great-great-great-grandmother and his grandmother are also mediums.
*Premonition: Kaō can perceive in his mind's eye past or present events which he has not personally witnessed (clairvoyance), or foretell events which have a high probability of taking place (prescience). Since there is more than one possible future stemming from almost any given critical moment, he cannot perceive the future with absolute certainty: overlapping mental images of alternate sequences of events appear to him simultaneously, the most probable futures appearing more "luminous" than others. The farther into the future he tries to peer, the greater the number of possibilities which appear and thus the greater degree of uncertainty. His future seeing powers are amplified by proximity to other precognitives, allowing him to see further into the future and with greater accuracy.
**Precognitive Dreaming: Sometimes, Kaō's precognitive abilities manifest themselves in his dreams, enabling him to envision possible future events. Although there are countless possible futures, Kaō foresees the most probable future path, and therefore his predictions usually come true. When dreaming the future, Kaō seemingly cannot foresee events more than roughly a few days in the future. Also, it is stated that his dreams are sometimes confusing and open to interpretation.
**Psychic Intuition: Kaō's psychic visions allow him to anticipate the actions of others as in many instances Kaō has sidestepped and jumped out the way of incoming fire blasts and boulders with perfect timing. When his sight has been incapacitated, Kaō has demonstrated that he could psychically "see," which is a facet of his clairvoyant abilities.
**Sharing Visions: Kaō also develops the power to trigger a vision in someone else with similar powers, "sharing" visions with the guru Pathik and fellow psychic Kya.
*Telepathy: With great concentration, Kaō can scan people's thoughts or project his thoughts into their minds. Kaō is also one of the few telepaths skilled enough to communicate with animals (animals with high intelligence, such as flying dolphin fish, dogs, and raven eagles). The range of his telepathic powers is not yet known, however, tactical contact allows him to search the deepest recesses of a person's mind. His natural powers make him particularly sensitive to similar powers in others.
**Eidetic Memory: As a side effect of his telepathy, Kaō has an eidetic memory.
**Psychometry: Kaō can telepathically read "psychic imprints" that people leave on objects that they have handled, and thereby learn the thoughts that an individual had while handling the object, a phenomenon known as psychometry. The stronger the person's emotion while handling the object, the stronger the psychic imprint he or she leaves on it. Moreover, he can also read a person's future in this manner as well.
*Telekinesis: Kaō possesses telekinetic abilities enabling him to levitate and manipulate living beings and inanimate objects psionically. The current extent of his powers is not yet known, but it is far greater than it was before his near-death in the Spirit World. When amplified by his emotions, his telekinesis is strong enough to lift large and heavy objects; he flipped an automobile, he was able to channel his anger in order to pull a boat towards him.
**Levitation: Kaō can use his telekinetic abilities on himself or others to simulate a limited approximation of flight or levitation.
===Abilities===
*Master Archer and Marksman: Revered as a master archer, Kaō excels in the use of a bow and arrow. Due to his great marksmanship, he is capable of firing multiple arrows in rapid succession, striking a foe's weak points with extreme accuracy and directly hitting small targets at great distances.
==Weaknesses==
*Emotions: According to Tsubaki, when a monk or priestess abandons all human emotion (e.g. love) their true power emerges. Kaō's spiritual powers apparently did weaken after he fell in love with Mako.
*Mortality: Despite his spiritual powers, Kaō is still human and shares many of the same weaknesses as non-supernatural beings (e.g. age, blood loss, decapitation, disease, heart-failure, suffocation, snapped neck, etc.).
*Overexertion: Each of Kaō's expenditures of spiritual power utilizes his own life-force to varying degrees. Kaō has to use his power wisely, for too great or too rapid a depletion of his energies can endanger his own life even to the point of killing him. He is capable of using his spiritual powers at an intensive rate of expenditure for up to seven days before he begins to impair his own life functions.
*Spiritual Powers: Despite having great spiritual power himself, Kaō still proved susceptible to the effects of spiritual power.
==Equipment==
*Bow and Arrows: Kaō often carries a traditional red Saigu-Yumi and a quiver of Hamaya.
**Sacred Arrows: Kaō can charge arrows with his spiritual powers, which allows the arrows to pulverize enemies, penetrate barriers, break spells, and purify objects such as dark spirits. The effectiveness of his sacred arrows varies depending on his emotional state, but at times his spiritual power becomes such that it can destroy buildings. Even if they merely graze his enemies, his sacred arrows can still cause considerable damage. Kaō can control the extent of his spiritual power at will, and is able to seal enemies without exterminating them; for example, by simply nailing his intended target to a tree. This type of sacred arrow is referred to as the "Arrow of Sealing" and places a demon under a spell of eternal sleep. According to Kaō, these arrows are meant to seal demons who are otherwise invincible. If a demon is sealed onto the Tree of Time, the demon's body with remain perfectly intact and preserved. They will only awaken when the one who shot the arrow desperately wishes for the demon to be revived.
**Reflection: By charging his bow with spiritual power, Kaō can reflect a weaker opponent's spiritual power back at them. He has used his bow to return Tsubaki's released shikigami serpent and damaged Tsubaki's face, leaving a spiritual scar.