Hana Tsurugi

*"I absolutely love technology. It's my dream to use my technological prowess to help my family one day." -* Hana as a child, expressing her desire to have her own computer in a village where technology was hard to come by.

*"My eyes aren't set on the alternate world, but I'll gladly fight for the vessel you've used and look after it when this war is over. You won't have to worry about a thing." -* Hana in an unreleased letter intended for Kendra, an excerpt in a bigger message meant to be the original declaration of war.

*"This is a new chapter in our lives. We have to make sure everything goes seamlessly as the transition goes smoothly. Let's do it, Etheridge Collective." -* Hana, being the very first to namedrop the new collective's title, when Kodachi was still becoming a host.

**Hana Tsurugi** is a member of the Etheridge Collective, and an overseer of most of Synaptum's world. Her skills lie in technology and being diplomatic for other countries during a time where social order is being regained across Graelenncia and Etheridge after the Eternal Ruin/Dictatorship Era.

## Biography

Hana Tsurugi was born in Garmsby Village years before her cousins hatched. Growing up, she had a marked talent in technology and preferred to not have much to do with the natural world at first, a trait that would become less apparent as she grew up with triplet cousins who couldn't get enough of the natural world. Hana was often picked on in school, but that changed as soon as the triplets started attending.

As Hana grew up, technology as a form of entertainment, medium of business, and its potential were being taken more seriously by Garmsby Village, and thus computers became less expensive as they were rolled out to the country of Garmsbia, and so her dreams of it being useful for her family was taken seriously after some point. In high school, she was able to reach her full potential and was recruited by the local government to become an administrator intern, which would be a crucial connection down the line for Chokuto to own his own Quantum laptop, developed by the tech team she always dreamed of joining.

When her cousins were locked away in the dungeon, she, along with Zeph and an escaped Chokuto, as well as the rest of her family and the citizens of Garmsby Village organized a grassroots movement that would soon become a rebellion. It was this village's small army that would storm Naxera and free the prisoners right out from under Queen Kendra's nose; this convinced many of Her guards to defect or retire outright, seeing that they may be on the losing side one day. For months, Garmsby Village planned the rebellion, but it was Hana who was able to scope out and oversee many of the missions from afar. This made her an excellent tactical lead and was considered the head of communications.

After the rebellion was won, Hana moved on to becoming an overseer for the Etheridge Collective and remains head of communications, as well as being in charge of diplomatic related ventures with other leaders in Etheridge and Graelenncia. She also looks over the health of the physical component needed for the collective to interact with the alternate world.

## Personality

Hana is gentle natured and somewhat shy, preferring to stay out of the spotlight and keep to herself, even amongst her family and friends as she prefers to stay in her office and watch from afar. Despite this, Hana is able to be easily summoned when needed and doesn't seem to mind it (most of the time), in fact, she likes being able to help those around her. Her intensely introverted nature makes it hard for her to carry out roles on the front line when it comes to the alternate world, and such roles, in her words, would "drain her social battery faster than a graphically intense game can run out a laptop."

Hana, being an expert at communications, functions as a cool headed leader when it comes to leading the nightmare defense squad and the medical team. Although most would look at Hana and not see a fighter, her ability to think fast in the heat of the moment allows her to be able to turn the tides of a battle, which have won her team a few critical showdowns. She cherishes her friends and family, and takes special care to watch over them even when nobody thinks she's there; she's able to hide her presence, but will make her presence known if someone needs her.

## Relationships

### Yuri Tsurugi

Yuri and Hana are really close despite their differences when the latter was growing up. Whilst her mother wanted her to learn how to sew, cook, and do general housekeeping tasks so that she may win the heart of a man one day and be able to take care of a family, Hana had other ideas from a young age. Growing up, it wasn't uncommon for Hana and Yuri to argue over how the former should live their life, which led to many nights of Hana staying with her aunt and uncle so that she may have some peace and quiet. These arguments would persist until late middle school when her older cousins were getting caught up in a war, and seeing the opportunity to help her family, she rebelled against her mother by joining the fight instead of fleeing.

Nowadays, between Hana's constant watching out for her friends and family and Yuri's inability/unwillingness to visit Hana, the two of them haven't spoken since the war.

### Tessen Tsurugi

Growing up, Hana and Tessen weren't too close at all. While there was strife between Hana and her mother, Tessen's situation was more work oriented. While he tried to bridge the gap between himself and his daughter growing up by sending him semiprecious gems along with letters from the Lorcan coal mines, the letters and gifts stopped some time before middle school. While others outside of her family would feel bad for Hana in that she didn't know her father too well, Hana doesn't seem to miss him as, "you can't miss someone you didn't know too well." Despite this, she never brought him up with her mother.

### Tachi Tsurugi

From a young age, Hana considered Tachi to be more of a mother than her own mother. Rather than riding her case about being a good future homemaker, Tachi was more than happy to teach Hana about combat through the use of swords, but because of Tachi's own life experiences and never having heard about using external technology from just being a vehicle with magical capabilities, she wasn't a mentor in the tech field. In spite of this, the two of them were very close and Tachi would often find herself coming to Hana's defense when her mother was being overbearing, to varying results.

### Nagamaki Tsurugi

Hana saw Nagamaki as another motherly figure she could look up to from a young age. Before Nagamaki had her triplets, she got her feet wet in parenthood when she was looking after Hana since she was an infant, back when Yuri was too busy to look after the house. If Tachi couldn't look after the young AE85, it fell to the orange-haired baker to look after her. Nagamaki was gentle and encouraging, and would often listen to Hana's woes. While Nagamaki did teach her how to prep food and clean multiple surfaces, it was more to give her transferable skills to other fields aside from homemaking, and not just to groom her for the homemaking role that Yuri was hellbent about.

If it wasn't Tachi, it would be Nagamaki tutoring her after school, taking her for ice cream, or just in general spending time with her.

### Tobiguchi Tsurugi

Hana found her uncle to be humorous, and found his lighthearted humor to be a cure for stressful days when there had been yet another fight between her and her mother. While Tobiguchi was her uncle, the two of them saw each other more like father and daughter. He was often the first person Hana approached when she was being picked on in school, and he would be often found confronting administrators and teachers over why they weren't taking care of the problem. He was on the brink of having her pulled from public education to homeschooling when his own children were old enough to attend the same primary school, and to his surprise, he had been informed the bullying stopped after the start of the second semester.

Aside from being Hana's protector, he was also her tutor in combat and along with Nagamaki, encouraged Hana to go after her dreams no matter what old ways Yuri was stuck in. He even funneled some of the money saved from his bakery business into Hana's first computer, but the computer was kept at his and his wife's home for Hana's safety.

### Chokuto Tsurugi

Chokuto was Hana's primary protector in school, as he looked up to her like a big sister. He'd ask her with constant questions about her homework, about her computer, about her as a person. She would even ask for the names and faces of anyone who had picked on her and put it on a special list, a list that would get smaller over the course of his first semester even attending first grade. While Hana never found out what ever happened to him, Chokuto proclaims to this day that they got so scared that they never came back. Whether this was true or not remained unknown until the ex-bullies were found again during the Etheridgeon Rebellion as allies, where they revealed that they were pulled out of school with reasons not having to do with him. Or so they said.

### Kodachi Tsurugi

Kodachi and Hana have a close relationship, and Kodachi was the first one who noticed that technology was becoming more prevalent in Garmsbia. She donated her allowance money to put towards a new computer for her younger cousin. As they grew up, they fought in the war together as she played her role as Kodachi's tactical lead and head of communications. As Kodachi was permaswitching with Kendra, she oversaw every step of the process to make it as seamless and as unnoticeable as possible, as Kodachi would have lost her memories after defeating the queen. Even after Chokuto and Makibishi returned, she was careful about how much information her fragile (at the time) cousin could take in. In the present, the two of them work closely together in daily life affairs and in collective safety matters.

## Abilities and Combat

* **Technology Manipulation** - the collective is represented by technology like past collectives. Knowing this, Hana has established herself in a gatekeeper protector role as she oversees major and minor processes, and can make updates to the framework as requested. In combat, her technological prowess allows her to be able to communicate with anyone on the field at any time thanks to the earpieces she created during the rebellion.

## Trivia

* Hana is able to function as a host/leader, but prefers not to. It's extremely rare to see her 100% present at the front lines.
	+ She'll speak outwardly in situations that call for it and when she needs to outwardly answer any questions. Sometimes, she'll partake in banter.
* Hana is the first gatekeeper in any collective history.