Kobayashi Moriiko

## Personality

Moriiko is socially awkward and often secludes herself due to her past experiences with kids her age. Due to her appearance and morbid interests, it’s hard for her to make friends. She’s very quiet and soft spoken, but when heard she may come across as weird or creepy. She’s a wallflower and isn’t the type to introduce herself first. If greeted by someone “too happy” or “too excitable” for her, she often reacts like a turtle and will close herself off and slink back into a shell.

At first glance, she seems quiet, shy, and innocent. However, if greeted and spoken to her true personality and interests may come forward rather quickly. In her school days, kids would often flock away from her when she spoke about her passions and she soon learned to keep to herself. Almost 90% of the time Moriiko won’t speak unless spoken to. The exception to this is when she mumbles to herself under her breath. Although, on the occasions where she does speak, the mortician has a slight tendency to make sarcastic remarks.

In the murder game, Moriiko would remain unusually calm. While others would panic or try to think rationally, the mortician would choose to instead sit quietly and observe the others. Based on their reactions to the situation, Moriiko would then figure out how she should react as well. She takes notes of everything interesting she sees on a small notepad, mostly due to her wavering memory. As for motives that could make them to murder someone, telling a false lie about another’s body would be an easy start. Perhaps mentioning that so-and-so received a false kidney when they were younger or had a metal plate in their body. Simple mysteries like this would drive the girl’s curiosity and could very well push her to kill someone. However, her killing someone would not be with malicious intent. It would be a very naive and almost childlike reason to do it, like investigating the inside of a toy box.

## Appearance

The first thing you notice about her is her size. Moriiko is the definition of petite, measuring at only a little bit more than 4 feet tall, she sticks out in a crowd (or perhaps disappears is more like it). She rocks two long ponytails situated at the low end of her neck. Her hair is a dull green and her skin has a sickly tinge to it. One of the most notable features for Moriiko is the dark bags she has around her eyes. Whether it's from lack of sleep or sunlight or just an unlucky genetic trait, the young mortician suffers from chronic dark circles.

Her default outfit consists of a light grey leotard and a short, navy blue pencil skirt. On her thin arms are two unconnected sleeves that begin right below her armpit and are kept in place by a red tie string and pure illogical physics. Under the leotard is a training bra with intersecting straps that create an “X” across her chest. Under the skirt are dark grey thigh highs, however due to her size they often come across as tights as they are far too long her for legs. On her feet are dark brown flats with matching straps that criss-cross around her ankles. And to top the outfit off, Moriiko wears a rather large dark red bow attached to a white headband on her head. It normally sits at an angle on the right side of her head and has a realistic-looking blue eyeball in the center.

## Biography

**「 Public Biography 」**

After the calamity struck the world, many people fell into despair. The world was awful and gruesome and the horror was sucking the lives out of everyone. When things began to die down, an older man and his son named Kobayashi Daisuke lent their hand to the world as morticians. When the man passed away, Daisuke, now a young man, took over the business and kept the parlor going for the community. Over the years he helped many families receive closure and helped heal the wounds inflicted by the Despair, including the ones he faced when his wife, Mirai, passed. He opened his home into a funeral parlor where people could come say their final goodbyes to those lost in the tragedy. His daughter often followed her father around like a puppy, watching

him in action. And just like any daughter, she grew up wanting to be just like her daddy.

Whether her fascination with death spawned from her home life or genetically is not known. What is known, however, is that Moriiko has a keen eye and is the best sidekick her father ever had. Together they prepare deceased bodies for funerals and wakes. Her father prepares the services and helps move and dress the bodies, while Moriiko is in charge of working with the bodies closely. She drains them, embalms them, and readies them for their final appearance. Because of her work, she’s seen all types of deaths and different ways different bodies react. It fascinated her immensely, and it just happens to work well with cleaning up after Despair.

Because of her and her Father’s work in helping create a peaceful world once again, Moriiko was offered a spot in the most prestigious school in Japan. While her grades aren’t quite up to par due to her absences in school and difficulty paying attention or staying awake, she is intelligent and willing to learn, she just has to be interested. Her Father encourages her to join Hope’s Peak and promises to take care of the shop while she’s gone.

**「 Full Backstory 」**

As the daughter of a mortician, it only made sense that Moriiko would grow up surrounded by death. But simply watching her father work his magic didn’t quite curb the young girl’s curiosity. She was absolutely fascinated by death. The concept of another life; the sequel to a long story. But the physical things that went along with death tugged at her attention much more. How the body reacts when the life essence is sucked out. How death can corrupt the mind and affects the emotions of those around it. Every aspect of death interested her. As she grew older, she began to literally take Death into her own hands and assist her father in preparing the deceased for funerals.

As if being the daughter of Death wouldn’t scare other kids away enough, Moriiko’s appearance seemed to isolate her. Her skin wasn’t pale white or ice cold like it would be if she were in a movie, but she had chronic dark circles under her eyes and a sickly glow to her skin. Whether it was from lack of sleep or sunlight or just a genetic trait, dark rings were always under her eyes giving the appearance of death or sickness. It was around her 5th year in public school, when kids began to grow judgmental, that Moriiko decided to stop attending school. She saw this as an amazing opportunity. Math and grammar weren’t interesting to her so she refused to learn it. Science and art were much more enjoyable. Learning about the body and how it works – or how it stops working, to be more exact – was so cool to her. But textbooks weren’t enough. She needed to get a hands-on experience. Her little hands would fumble around and make morbid things with clay or draw terrible scenes of death on a napkin until she was tall enough to reach the morgue table. The young child’s fascination with death seemed to be more than just a kid’s wild mind. As she grew older and got to see the world and it’s inhabitants more, her imagination only grew darker and more sadistic.

Too often the young girl would be found attempting to dig up graves in the local cemetery to examine the remains, or playing with roadkill to determine the time and exact cause of death. She would reenact brutal deaths in her backyard by herself and take notes on exactly how the body would react to such torments. The world was starting to come together again after the most Despair-inducing incident in the world and the deaths were decreasing, which saddened the girl. She wanted more bodies to play with and often dreamt of killing. The odd part was, she didn’t do it with any evil intent. All of it – all the dreams of torture and love of gore and skeletons weren’t because she wanted others to be harmed or hurt, but because she wanted to examine them and to study the way it all fit together. She wanted to know how the organs worked together like an orchestra; a magical symphony of agony and despair. Because of this, and perhaps because of her lack of social interactions with peers or anyone, she is absolutely ignorant. She’s not too familiar with societal norms as well as what is and isn’t frowned upon. Whether this includes invading other people’s privacy for a “closer study” or engaging in seemingly morbid topics, Moriiko tends to be an outsider. She’s a petite misfit who is trying her best to fit into the buzzing world of life.

One day, she received an odd parcel in the mail from a “Hope’s Peak Academy.” When she opened the envelope, she was faced with an odd invitation to a private school for elite teenagers. It was addressed to her, but it surely couldn’t be correct, could it? She hadn’t attended school in years and, as far as anyone else knew, she barely existed. As she read further it stated that she was offered a spot in Hope’s Peak due to her and her family’s help in reuniting the world after the calamity. Since her Father was far too old her high school, the invitation fell to the next eligible student. If she were to accept the invitation, she would be awarded a Super High School Level title and grouped with other elite students who would be practically guaranteed to succeed in the world. This idea of a new adventure piqued her interest and, paired with her Father’s encouragement, Moriiko accepted the invitation.

## MonoMachine Items

1. **Love**; Bird Skull: This skull is small but packs a punch to the unsuspecting. A bone head with a beak doesn’t seem like much of a treat, but to the right person it could be a treasure.
2. **Like**; Box of Rubber Gloves: A cardboard box with 52 pairs of disposable rubber gloves. Use them to protect your hands from germs and toss them out when done.
3. **Dislike**; A Carrot; A basic carrot, orange with a green tuft at the tip. Good for eyesight and a great snack for bunnies.
4. **Hate**;  Frilly Pink Frock: A beautiful dress for a beautiful little girl. Decked out with sequins and lace, this dress is fit for a pretty princess.