Clara Rouge

## Image

Clara Rouge (JP: クララ • ルージュ, *Kurara Ruuju*) is a tsukumogami formed from a Welte-Mignon player piano, whose *kami*
 has since been transferred into a keyboard. Only sentient for about
two years, she is the youngest in Raiko Horikawa's closest equivalent
to a family, which includes the Tsukumo sisters.

She is currently alternating between the Human Village and her home, hoping to meet others in her path.

## General Information

If one were to summarize her personality, it would be expressed like this:

"She is chipper, but quite fluid - she wears her heart on her sleeve, but thinks quickly on her feet. Playful most of the time, she prefers to make things fun for everyone, and thus is rarely very serious with things."

"She may pretend to be cool and lady-like because she idolizes someone who is both, but she often finds it too much to keep up with. Nonetheless, she is one of those who only takes a day to befriend but will stand by you for a lifetime."

### ☯**Personality**

*"My apologies, but... well, let's not make this too serious, hm? Now, then, get ready~!"*

At a glance, it would seem that Clara is a bit formal. Flowery language and respectful tone is the norm for her, and her personality seems refined, too.

But look again, and that image falters quickly. She's a excitable one at heart, eager to look out and see the sights. Somewhat flirty and teasing, she is nonetheless honest and thoughtful, but often subtle about her words - sometimes reaching cryptic levels of talk, or just plain silly metaphors.

One thing that's guaranteed for her is that she loves fun, and being a source of it. Having been made for that purpose, she still prefers to remain like that despite being capable and empathetic of more melancholic emotions. She may seem childish at times because of this, but beneath that lies someone who just wants to support her friends the best way she can.

Despite being a tsukumogami, she doesn't feel any sort of grudge towards humans. In fact, her situation is the reverse - it seems she actively wants to play with them again. She's not very forward with it, though, preferring to hint it instead.

She is averse to violence, and though she may fight if pressed, she always makes an effort to not injure an opponent in any way until she is left with no choice. This is partly why she prefers performance danmaku to actual combat - along with such being a good way to engage herself creatively and playfully.

However, if one manages to get her to talk very straight, she's either serious, or quite pissed off. There are two things that can bring her to that state easily: mess up a piece of music badly - especially if it is one that she really likes - or abandon someone in their hour of need, with her as a witness. Both of them really strike home with her; the former because of her love of music, the latter because of her past.

More seriously, if you manage to hurt her friends and especially if her family is in danger, she is liable to lose her cheer and regain the vengeance of her kind; if she actually invokes her violent past, it may be time to plead to her empathy or run away.

Speaking of her love of music, she has been exposed to a wide variety of genres, and decades of first-hand experience have left her with excellent skill and knowledge. Improvisation in particular seems to be her forte - give
her a song to listen to, and she'll get to it with her own variation.
However, she is unable to write down any of her music, owing to her lack of knowledge regarding actually writing sheet music.

### ☯**Appearance**

Clara's instrument - essentially her real body - resembles a Yamaha CS5,
scuffed up and with a rainbow strip highlight running through the upper
half of the case. Seems like it has seen better days, but it is in
surprisingly good condition - like it were something that was recovered
and then fixed up. Strangely enough, this one seems to have the standard 88 keys instead of the 37 that the actual CS5 has.

Her projected body is a five foot two (5'2*, 157* cm*),* with blonde hair
just barely down to her shoulders and a fair complexion. If she had a
human age, it would be approximated to about twenty.

Her outfit is a frilled white dress and skirt underneath a black apron-like dress that has a rainbow strip running around the circumference near
the bottom section. She also uses white thigh-high socks and black doll
shoes, along with dark blue frilled wristbands. In summary, she wears
what could be called a cross between the outfits of a maid and that of a magician.

Curiously,she is never seen without her ear-clips which extend to long blue outline-structures resembling cat ears, and two more of which decorate the sides of her dresses' skirts. The latter two in particular are important - most of her spell cards are channeled through them, usually signaled by them changing form or integrating with Clara in different ways.

### ☯**Theme Songs**

* Kirby's Epic Yarn - Dusk Dunes (Regular)
* Touhou Mythical Mirror - Matenrou / Skyscraper (Battle)
* Kirby and the Rainbow Curse - Revenge of the Enemy (All-Out Battle)

## Backstory

Clara
 started her life as a US-made Welte-Mignon reproduction-type player
piano in 1917, finding a home in northern France within a
place known for hosting various cabarets. She was used quite often
there; and with the many players and piano rolls that she was exposed to
 came the knowledge and influences that shaped her personality.

Said
 place abruptly grew quiet about a decade later, and soon shut down. She
was never sold to anyone else; instead she was left alone, abandoned in
the silenced hall. With little awareness as to what had happened, she
kept waiting for people to play with her. Nobody came.

Frustrated,
 lonely, and useless, her growing depression gave way to fury and then
to tranquil rage. With that came the dreams of a paradise for abandoned
tools like her, a place where she could finally take revenge on humans
for leaving her to gather dust, a place where she could finally be free.

One
 day, several decades later, she awoke to find herself somehow there, in a field devoid of
 any man-made structures. More surprisingly, she found herself somehow
moving, walking, seeing - she somehow gained a body separate from the
piano.

With
 both her rage and the buzzing from the power that coursed in her, she
took to fighting any youkai or fairy that she could reach. Eventually,
she grew tired of that, especially after finding out that she was still
not free; her piano bound her there. She then took to just playing out
all the songs that she could remember, but as the weeks passed she felt
herself weaken every day - the power was fading from her.

She
 would have died if it wasn't for Raiko and the Tsukumos chancing upon
her. Seeing her plight, they immediately suggested that Clara undergo
the transfer ritual, having a keyboard with them at the time. She agreed
 after much thought, and they somehow succeeded in the operation despite
 the risks.

It
 took a while to get used to her new self, but it was worth more than
she asked, expected, or wished for. New energies flowed through her self
 and gave her an almost unbreakable pep, while her knowledge grew even
more versatile than before.

Clara,
 indebted to them for her life, agreed to live as their protege as a
family of sorts. Her feelings of loss and nostalgia for human
interaction resurfaced after a year’s worth of experiences, though, and
thus she decided to make her way towards the Human Village, and perhaps create her own destiny in the process.

## Relationships

### ☯**Anthony Heartstrings**

She stumbled upon him making music in a forest one day, and was
somehow pulled in with him in a dance that left a mark on her heart.
After an afternoon of examining with wonder his various works, she bid
him farewell and headed onward to the Human Village. A few days later,
she found him serenading her right outside her home, and soon after
their courtship began.

It took him a while, but eventually he won
her over - and as of the summer of that year, they are now in an
exclusive relationship with each other. She considers him quite the
charming and dependable gentleman, though his manner of speaking may
sometimes be hard for her to keep up with.

### ☯**Aphires 'Phir' Pajchimapa**

He and his friends are the first friends she made in the Human Village,
and she owes him quite a bit for that. This helped her a lot when the
artificial sea came around; he was the only one she recognized out of
all the people present.

### ☯**Benben Tsukumo**

She considers this Tsukumo her big sister, and though at times she gets a
 little disappointed with her unhurried personality, she still likes her
 and finds her calm to be a good match for the other Tsukumo.

### ☯**Raiko Horikawa**

Clara looks up to their leader in all but name a lot, and often calls to
 her in her mind whenever she's stuck with a problem. If anything else,
she considers the red-haired drum tsukumogami her mother, and she finds
her quite awesome - collected, yet quite fun to be with.

### ☯**Yatsuhashi Tsukumo**

The younger Tsukumo sister, on the other hand, is the one she's closer
to, sharing similarly boisterous personalities. Her tendency to nudge
and flip out at times may cause a bit of pouting from Clara, but at most
 times times she is quite amicable with her, often doing performances
and playing games with her.

## Abilities

### ☯**Ability to Perform by Oneself**

Clara
 is a keyboard tsukumogami, and thus can manipulate herself to perform
in ways virtually (and sometimes actually) impossible for a human to
replicate. This is not limited to solo-play, either - she can and
prefers to perform duets with someone else. The effect is akin to a
player piano's action, though the keys aren't fixed to any single note.

Despite
 her genuine skill in playing the piano, though, she cannot do such
impossible pieces on another piano - she is still limited as to what her
 projected body can physically do. She may use magic to replicate such,
but it would be fairly taxing due to the precision and endurance
required.

### ☯**Ability to Regenerate One's Body**

Her
 projected body can regenerate from anything including complete
destruction. Any injury and 'death' still inflicts equivalent pain
and/or debilitation on her. The regeneration period varies depending on
the severity of the damage and the level of exhaustion that she was in
when the damage occurred, ranging from a minute at the least to a week
at most.

### ☯**Ability to Derive Power from the Outside World**

Her
 magic source is linked to the outside world, and is extremely hard to
disrupt. This gives her a surprisingly high magical supply for someone
of her level, though magic-spikes tend to have a risk of going out of
control if she attempts to take advantage of this.
Said
 link also allows her to play any song that has a prominent piano
section to it; although as the years pass by her ability to adapt to
other songs will likely improve. She may have an essentially unlimited
number of 'voices', but she hasn't mastered them yet.

## ☯**Danmaku**

### ☯**Projectiles**

Clara's
 primary projectiles are various bars of different colors, ranging from
black and white to all the colors of the visible spectrum. These carry
no additional properties.

Occasionally,
 Clara may use projectiles in the shape of musical symbols. These
projectiles, aside from their unusual shapes, also have no special
qualities to them.

### ☯**Preferred tactics**

Clara's
 preferred offensive tactics involve watching the enemy's movements and then interrupting
them with carefully-placed barrages. She rarely attacks directly,
preferring to cut off routes and put undue pressure on their every
motion, eventually catching them with attacks that they themselves ran into.

Her defensive tactics involve a lot of damage avoidance; she is unable to take many good hits, and a powerful spell card can disable her outright. To that end, she tends to use her speed to her advantage, constantly relocating and weaving in between patterns, never allowing the enemy to have a good shot at her.

### ☯**Formations**

She
 has a number of preferred formations on hand. Her personal favorite is
the ring barrage - four rings of danmaku in quick succession aimed at
the opponent. The first ring is rather wide, but the radius of each one
is successively smaller such that the last of these will take quite a
bit of squeezing to pass through.

### ☯**Close combat**

Clara
 attacks rather unusually in close combat - while most combatants will
switch to a melee weapon, she will continue using danmaku barrages even
at near point-blank ranges. Up close, she tends to use bullets with short expiry and high speed bleed-off, using the conserved stamina to fire them out in bulky formations resembling wedges and spikes, but with a musical twist.

### ☯**Familiars**

Clara actually has two familiars with her - these are the two ear-shaped bits that decorate the sides of her skirt. Although she cannot use these normally, her splash cards enable her to use these as well. They tend to act as complements of her normal firepower; with them she can attack in up to three directions at once or pressure an opponent more effectively.

## Spell Cards

*Clara
 actually has no spell cards at all, as she had not been able to make
any pattern that she liked enough to keep. However, recent events have
inspired her to make up three water-based spell cards called Splash
Cards in record time - all in preparation for a certain water
tournament.*

### ☯**Splash Cards**

*(Note: These are RP: Heat Wave exclusive cards.)*

A short amount of time after they reach their designated locations, they will each release a bubble sphere around themselves, which will immediately explode into more bubbles that will slowly scatter about in the area for a short time before dissipating as well.
 Rhythm Game "Splash Revolution"
One rune from each set lights up with a sound at her command, one after the other. Aftera few seconds, both familiars fire a fast jet of water in the opponent's direction, modified by which runes are active at the time. For example, if both familiars have the left-arrow rune lit, they will both fire directly left of the enemy, splashing the opponent if they were moving left at the time.
Note that these familiars may fire in different directions; for example, if the left one flashes right and the right one flashes left, then horizontal movement in either direction will be met with a splashing. However, each jet lasts only for a moment, and the familiars themselves are stationary when they are about to fire or are firing. After each shot, the familiars may re-position themselves to better cover the opponent's movements.
 Water Sign "Wave Rider"
She then picks a direction and rockets herself in that direction with water jets from her accessories. Any opponent directly behind her motion will have to quickly move out of the way or be splashed.
Should the bubble pop, or the jets fire for long enough, she immediately loses her momentum and the excess energy (including incoming water near her) is deflected and splashed out to all those very close beside her, ending the spell card.

## Weaknesses

### ☯**Susceptibility to total death through destruction of instrument**

Clara is, despite her power source's strength, still a tsukumogami. Damaging
her keyboard enough will incapacitate her ability to regenerate her
projected body properly (resulting either in altered image, personality, or outright losing parts in cases of extreme damage).

Destroying her keyboard will kill her, and though it is transfer her *kami* to a new body if the ritual is performed quickly enough, it will have a permanent effect on her self.

### ☯**Lack of an actual ability**

She also lacks any sort of power beyond her magic supply, rendering her
powers a fair bit weaker than usual due to her inability to focus on a
particular application. It seems as of recent times, she has been
developing something; time will tell as to what her ability will be.

### ☯**Lack of combat experience**

Her lack of experience in live combat is evident - she is entirely reliant
on her magic, danmaku, and her familiars, and thus cannot engage
properly in hand-to-hand combat. A surprise attack and repeated
disruptions to her focus can disable her for a time, and though her
reaction time is excellent, she cannot take many direct hits before
running out of stamina.

### ☯**Power instability caused by excessive burst**

A magic spike from her using too much magic in a short period of time,
usually out of desperation, can have unpredictable consequences. These
generally manifest as magic leaking out of her; and could prove fatal in the sense of her losing sentience if the rate of drain is enough to
force her source of spiritual energy to sever her from it.

### ☯**Reliance on precision-type pressure**

Due to the risk associated with her firing out huge bursts, she is forced to rely on precise barrages and delayed danmaku as the main part of her offensive tactics. This limits her effectiveness against swarms of enemies and larger targets that can take huge amounts of damage.

### ☯**Power leaks in moments of extreme emotion**

In non-combat situations, she normally has her powers under control;
however, extreme emotion (be it excitement, depression, or rage) can spontaneously cause her to
leak magic. The most common manifestation of this is her unconsciously
playing music appropriate to her emotional state. She has been learning to prevent this, however.

## Trivia

* Her name is derived from two persons: *Clara Schumann*, a prominent piano player who encouraged Johannes Brahms, and the *Moulin Rouge*, a location in France famous for hosting a large number of cabarets.
* The event that locked her away is the *Great Depression*, which started in 1929 and brought a collapse to the piano industry among the myriad events of the era.
* There's

 a good reason why Raiko's cooking tends to have a little spice in them -
 Clara likes them that way. This extends to her usual choices outside of
 their home; she prefers foods that have a little spicy kick.

* Her danmaku style - in particular, her use of colored bars as her primary projectile - is a homage to *Synthesia*, a music-making program specializing in creating MIDIs with a piano-like interface for playback with a computer or any MIDI-compatible device.

This is also based off of popular fan theories of Raiko Horikawa's
outside-world power link being from rhythm games, particularly *Taiko no Tatsujin*.

* Furthermore, all three of her current splash cards are themed after music-centered games: Beat Hazard (Burst Hazard), Dance Dance Revolution (Splash

Revolution), and Audiosurf (Wave Rider).