Kiyomi Sake

### **Killer Style**

I'm fond of making outfits myself, as I love sewing. But lately I've been wearing a lot of the newest trends, because they'll make me beautiful. I would also never be caught un-dead without my trusty surgical mask.

### **Monster Quirk**

I'm a bit obsessed with my appearence and am constantly asking people whether they think I'm pretty.

### **Pet**

Aka, my pet nine-tailed fox. She's rather young, so she only has three tails. She's still very pretty, though.

### **Favorite Activity**

In my spare time, I like to do arts and crafts. I'm pretty decent at origami and also like to draw.

### **Biggest Pet Peeve**

With a slitted mouth, it's kind of hard to drink. The liquid just lips out of the cracks. It irratates me to no end.

### **Fav School Subject**

Home Ick. It gives me a chance to use my scissors.

### **Least Fav Subject**

Mad Science. I've been trying not to give in to my chaotic, slasher film side, and a gory subject like this doesn't help much.

### **Diary**

I'd rather you not read my personal things...

"You know, I agree, Teresa! I think today I'll stop being such a doormat! I mean, uh, if that's okay with you..."

-Kiyomi, trying and failing, to change her ways.

Kiyomi Sake is the eternally sixteen year old daughter of the Kuchisake-onna, the slit mouthed woman of Japanese mythology.

## Character

### Personality

Kiyomi, despite her heritage, is actually a gentle, compassionate and refined soul. She tries to help anyone in need, as she is a kind person at heart, but  sometimes her extreme shyness gets in the way. Kiyomi is social awkward, not wanting to show her face in public. She's fairly smart and tends to get straight A's in school. She is often painfully polite and has a habit of adding honorifics (e.g. '-san' '-sama') to the ends of people's names to show respect. She tends to be reserved and is hard to get to know.  She is very introverted, preferring to spend time alone, drawing or doing other crafts, than going out to parties.

Above all, Kiyomi is rather obsessed with her appearance.  Her monsterous deformities are the root of her problems and she thinks that because of them no one will like her.  She is a slave to fashion magazines and buys as many brands of skin cream, hair gel and perfume as she can carry. She thinks that if she just follows the latest styles to the letter, she'll be beautiful. A little bit obsessive compulsive, Kiyomi, who rarely talks to people, will often go up and ask strangers whether they think she is good looking.

Apart from the above, Kiyomi tries to steer away from all else that links her to her mother's legend.  Being a bit of a scaredy cat, she despises gore in all its forms.  Her least favourite subject is Mad Science, because dissection often arouses memories of the people that her mother mutilated.

### Appearance

Kiyomi, with her mask on, could easily pass for a Japanese normie. She has large, light blue eyes and a pale golden complexion. Her hair is straight, black and always slightly disheveled looking. It is about elbow length. She is fairly tall and rather thin, making her a bit of a shrinking sunflower, as opposed to a shrinking violet.

If Kiyomi were to take off her surgical mask, you'd see what made her monsterous. Her mouth, like her mother's, has been split into a Glasglow smile, a gash that stretches from ear to ear.

She usually wears the current 'latest trend', or the patchwork dress that she made herself, with her very own scissors.

#### Dawn of the Dance

For Dawn of the Dance, Kiyomi wears a short white kimono. It has red accents and a long red bow at the back. She still wears her surgical mask, of course. Her black hair is tied up in a high ponytail, with a ribbon that's rather similar to the one on her dress. She wears white gloves on her hands. She has knee-high socks and wears high heeled black shoes, the heels of which are actually made to look like scissors.

####

## Origin of Species

The kuchisake-onna, literally 'the woman with the split mouth ' in Japanese, is an Asian urban legend, popularized in Elementary and High Schools.

The kuchisake-onna has many different origins. Some say that she was the result of plastic surgey gone horribly wrong. Others say that she was disfigured in an awful car crash. The rarest version is of a young woman who escaped from a mental asylum and, in her insanity, cut her own mouth to look that way.

The most common origin is a story of a very beautiful woman with a possessive husband. One day, he caught his wife cheating on her, with another man who was complimenting her immense beauty. Taking his knife, he cut her mouth, screaming, "No one will ever think you are beautiful again!" as he made her into a monster. The woman died on the spot, but soon came back from the dead as a malicious spirit to get revenge of the living.

The story goes that if a young girl is walking home alone, she will come across a lovely woman wearing a surgical mask and a trench coat. This is not an uncommon sight in Japan, as many people wear masks to protect them from germs.

The woman walks up to the girl asks her whether the child thinks she is beautiful. If the child answers no, the woman will pull a pair of scissors from her trench coat's pocket and stab her to death. If the girl says yes, the woman will remove mask to reveal a horrific cut across her mouth.

The woman will then ask, "Am I still pretty?" after the mask is removed. If the child says no, she will be, like before, stab her to death. If she say yes, the woman with mutilate the girl's mouth, so that it looks just like hers.

The girl cannot run from the kuchisake-onna, as she has the power to teleport and will reappear right in front of the girl once again.

The only way to escape the monster is to tell her that she is average, neither pretty nor ugly. This will confuse the monster, letting the girl walk away to live another day. Some versions of the legend say that she can be distracted by fruits or candies being thrown at her.

## Relationships

### Family

Kiyomi lives with her mother. The two recently moved from Japan. She and her mother have a somewhat rocky relationship, as she believes that Kiyomi is 'far too soft' for a monster. It is currently unknown as to who or what Kiyomi's father is, only that he is constantly away on business trips and rarely comes home. He is her mother's second husband, as her first was the reason for her death.

### Friends

Kiyomi is a bit of a loner, since she doesn't have many friends. She is usually too shy to strike up a proper conversation (meaning one not related to whether or not she is beautiful.) Currently, she is trying to develop proper social skills and how to make friends.

However, Teresa has made it her personal goal to become Kiyomi's GFF. Kiyomi doesn't mind, as she is in desperate need of friends. The old saying goes that opposites attract and quiet Kiyomi and boisterous Teresa couldn't make this more true.

### Pet

Kiyomi owns a pet nine-tailed fox named Aka. Nine-tailed foxes are immortal, just like Kiyomi, so they are a match made in heaven. Nine-tailed foxes gain their tails as they mature. Aka only has three tails so far.  Aka is the closest thing to a friend that Kiyomi has.

### Romance

As Kiyomi can barely talk to other girls, she hasn't even had time to think about boys.

## Trivia

* Kiyomi, in Japanese, means 'Pure Beauty', relating to Kiyomi's obsession with being pretty.

* Kiyomi is Missy's first original character
* The reason Kiyomi likes strawberries is due to the fact that Kuchisake-onnas are easily distracted by fruit.
* 'Aka', the name of Kiyomi's fox, is Japanese for 'red', the colour of said fox's fur.
* Kiyomi is one of the few characters in Missy's menagerie to have an outfit other than their basic.
* If she was real, her voice actress would be Andrea Libman, using a voice akin to that of Fluttershy. Both characters are introverts and extremely shy.