Serafina Baxter

Serafina is a freelance mercenary, of English and Italian origin, working in Tokyo, Japan.

## Appearance

Sera would likely go unnoticed in most western countries, possessing a reasonably plain face and build. She's fairly athletic, but one wouldn't be able to tell the exact extent under her casual attire. Just that she was quite thin and narrow. She shies away from any excess makeup or jewelry, usually just opting for loose shirts and well fitted jeans on a day to day basis. With that being said, she does have a fondness for dressing up if ever the occasion arises, and is extremely judgemental of how others chose to dress.

For missions or assignments, she has a variety of gear. If combat is a given, she has a set of light CCG raid armour, spray painted black. More often than not, she'll wear dark hoodies and loose trousers, more for the comfort and ease of movement than 'being one with the shadow'. To go over this, she has various pouches, straps and cases to hold quinque, guns, bombs and tools.

Her hair is black, strait, and normally tied back in a ponytail, to avoid the requirement of ever doing anything with it. Her eyes are a dull green, but possess a certain 'keenness' to them. As for her skin tone, it is a light olive, closer to her mediterranean half than her norman. There are a number of substantial nicks and scrapes across her entire body, but, again, nothing that would ever be seen normally.

## Personality

To be frank, Sera isn't the most moral of people. She is often times extremely dishonest, driven by greed and self desire alone. Her only responsibility is to herself, and she's quite happy that way. After a life of being forced into doing what others wanted, she's finally got the ability to work towards her own goals, and can be quite relentless in holding onto that freedom. She has little issue when it comes to petty crime, or even the killing of killers, but isn't so morally bankrupt that she'd ever torture people for fun or kill innocents on an order. No, she's merely taken on her own view of how things should be done, something she wouldn't easily be dissuaded from. Sera can be quite close-minded in her views and options, and has trouble taking on criticism from others.

That's not to say that she's all terrible of course, no one is. She considers herself to have a *relatively* stable moral compass, and can be surprisingly modest if given the chance. As long as she gets what she wants, she's happy. To contrast, she's a very confident person, in both her ability and intelligence. This often leads to her being fairly cocky. However, she usually has sense enough to never let that cloud her judgement in serious situations.

As long as it's of no major cost to her, Sera can be very kind to others. She fears being, or being seen as, useless. So, she will often do a fair bit to help. Whether this is business related, or simply personal.

Sera can rub along well with others, or not, if she wishes. She's adaptable enough socially that she can befriend who she wants to befriend, and isolate those who she sees as being a bother. Sadly enough, she's come to approach most such situations with this analytical distance. It's been years for her, since having any more than shallow friends or acquaintances. Generally, she'll act relaxed and confident. She'll usually end up being quite condescending to those about her, if she really doesn't care for what they think of her.

Along with this, she's very good at keeping relatively calm and collected. At least outwardly. Even if she's terrified, or pumped up on adrenalin. Although in such situations, she does tend to fall back on insulting and mocking her foes to hide how she really feels. The exception to this rule is spiders. Serafina would rather face an SSS rate Kakuja than spiders.

She has no explicit hatred towards Ghouls, but that doesn't mean she minds killing them at all. In her previous life, that was almost a weekly routine. It's the same with people really. As long as they're not *people*. Once you put a life, family and personality to what would otherwise be a name and face, it makes it much weightier to take it all away. She's even refused jobs in the past if they were simply treating her as an assassin. As she sees herself as somewhat of a 'premium' mercenary, she will only do very little for the same payment that other may happily kill. She avoids directly hurting humans as much as she can, and charges a hefty fee for putting herself in direct danger against a ghoul.

As a side note to her position on ghouls, although she would deny it, the GSA's way of portraying them to their Agents, and her father's opinions have certainly shaped her views a great deal. She sees them as much less than humans, and only good for being 'the muscle' in most cases. Years of working in criminal activities with ghouls have certainly mellowed her out, but much like deep seeded racism, the niggling thoughts persist.

## History

Serafina’s father and mother may as well have been exact opposites of eachother. Her father was the epitome of what a proper british investigator should be. He was staunch, gentlemanly and extremely proficient at exterminating ghouls. It was truly a marvel that he’d managed to hang onto Serafina’s mother for nigh on thirty five years. Just as her father was very stereotypically british, she was your catch all, emotional italian woman. She was either absolutely ecstatic, or shouting the roof off the house.

Serafina was born five years after they were married. They’d tried to have kids a number of times before her, but miscarriages and stillborns were the only eventuation. This didn’t bother her father too much, as he was never really too keen on having children. Her mother on the other hand, suffered from depression for the two years leading up to her birth.

While they undoubtedly loved each other, the clashing personalities, her father’s work and a city lifestyle made for a fraught relationship, and a very unstable environment for Sera to grow up in. She doesn’t have any memories of her father from back then, aside from him always fighting with her mother about who knows what. Credit to her, her mother did do her best to care for her in the early years, but by the time she was four, both were just about ready to send her off to boarding school. Not a second thought between them.

Between then and her fourteenth birthday, Serafina’s parents had a very hands off approach. She would spend nine months of the year at preparatory school, and the other three stuck in their London apartment, only catching the briefest glimpses of her father, and spending very little quality time with her mother. All the while, they ensured that she remained ahead on her studies, attended gymnastics classes and spoke Italian whenever she was home.

Around about the time she turned 14, after she’d already begun high school, but before O-Levels, her father announced they were moving to the USA. This fact in itself didn’t really bother her too much. From everything she’d seen in film and television, America looked like a fantastic place. The matter which she would soon become vehemently opposed to, was the fact that she’d be attending the junior academy for GSA operatives.

Alas, at only 14, she had no rights to oppose her father’s wishes, and they were on a plane within the week. He was taking up a job as a high ranking officer in the Dallas branch, while her mother stayed home, and she was shipped off to the academy. It was an academy in name at least. Unlike the preparatory schools she’d been exposed to up until that point, the GSA academy was more akin to a military boot camp. They treated the children like soldiers, and in the times when they weren’t in class, they were training, sparring or undergoing rigorous physical exercises. It was quickly made apparent just *why* her father had insisted on her getting so involved in gymnastics. Although even that prior experience was just about enough to have her keep up with the other students. Most had lost parents or family to ghouls, and were driven by a forceful determination that Serafina found hard to fathom. If not, then they were pressured by the GSA's take on ghouls into thinking the same way. Serafina would like to think such indoctrination didn't affect her, but the reality is she still has a slightly twisted view towards Ghouls.

Four years passed there. Four grueling years. As some compensation, she was free to do what she wished after it was done. Or at least, that’s how her father phrased it. The academy gave its students no qualification to speak of, and the only jobs she was suitable for were all low-earning and menial. Granted, she could have become a professional gymnast, or something of the like, but her father, surprisingly enough, knew Serafina quite well. He knew the sort of life she wanted for herself, and played to that by leaving the door to the GSA wide open.

The one thing he couldn’t control, yet, was where she worked. After a life of being shut away from society, Serafina wanted to go where she’d be able to find the most action. Not to mention, be as far away from her father’s influence as possible. New York turned out to be her destination of choice. In such a compact area, Ghouls were almost as much of a problem there as they were in Tokyo, so they would never turn away a willing soldier.

Over the next half decade, Serafina would become quite good at her job. She was never terribly good at taking on ghouls one on one, but her abilities were invaluable for the more subtle undertakings of the GSA. Her skills of investigation and deductive reasoning were about as average as her fighting prowess, but her niche skill set had her rise the ranks to Senior Agent, and she was given command of her own, small, covert group at age 24.

Things would begin to stagnate a bit for Serafina around the same time as she was given command over her *small* squad. To be sure, she had proved useful to the GSA, but there was no need for such a selfish and seemingly carefree person taking on a higher rank. In other words, there was no need for her to move up to a higher pay grade.

Such a dilemma soon had Serafina taking on small, legally questionable side jobs, while keeping up with her work at the GSA New York offices. She maintained the balance well, and due to well covered tracks, neither law enforcement or her colleagues suspected her of foul play. As time past, this balance would continued to shift back and forth, as she completed mercenary contracts on the side, investigated ghouls, and partook in numerous raids. Her ties between sides often meant she had the power to sway things in her favour. Using the GSA database, tipping off ghouls, getting information on GSA targets from underground associates, all while making a lot more than her father.

On the topic of family, Serafina did keep in contact with them. As much as any daughter might. She’d return there for a Christmas every now and again, and phoned her mother on a monthly basis. It turned out that her father was much more amiable when she was only meeting him in short bursts, and he had the common ground of the GSA to start conversations.

Things were going well overall. She was away from her parents, had a luxurious apartment, a stable job. She never had a partner of any sort, and her closest relationships were work friends, but that didn’t really bother her all too much. In the end, what did it all in was Sera’s greed, rather than some earth shattering event.

The raid had been planned and set up like any other. Serafina’s squad were to infiltrate the base of a prolific ghoul organization, and exterminate all found inside. This just ‘’happened’’ to coincide with another contract she’d been offered, to kill off a member of said organization in anyway she saw fit.

She’d been tasked with moving past their lines and planting the explosives necessary to bring down the building. The plan was for the main bulk of their forces to distract the ghouls at the entrance, while she and a few others planted the charges.

In short, it went poorly. Very poorly. Most of her squad perished, and she was assumed to have died with them.

In an instant, all she’d worked for was gone. Her career, her life, her possessions. It was a catch 22. If she made it known to the authorities that she’d lived, then it wouldn’t be long before they made the connections to her more dubious activities. Being dead was better than being in jail, but it was still terrible.

Eventually, she took on the last name Baxter, and used the last of her cash to buy herself a new identity, and a plane ticket to Japan. Friends had suggested the middle east was better for mercenary work, but cities had always had a strong draw for Serafina. She could also speak fairly fluent Japanese from her time in the academy, and interactions with the CCG for joint operations.

Now, she’s a dead woman, carrying out mercenary contracts in Tokyo, rather than New York. At the moment, she really just wants to build back up all that she lost. The political and racial tensions of Tokyo hold little interest for her.

## Powers and Abilities

**Expert Acrobat:** From a young age, Sera was forced into doing acrobatics. Although never really enjoying it all that much, she eventually got to the point where it felt like a waste to quit, and continued it until the age of 18. From then on out, she incorporated it into her future career and combat style. Often she'll perform complex and flexible movements to evade damage, gain vantage points, and escape from foes.

**Expert in Covert Operations:** Not being terribly powerful or outstandingly skilled in combat, Sera tended to prefer, and excel, at the more subtle missions and operations dealt out by her employers. Through the past decade, she's picked up a number of skills and experiences that currently serve her well in Japan. Including those in areas such as infiltration, reconnaissance, assassination, and sabotage.

**Adept Markswoman:** Like most in her previous line of work, Sera has received a fair amount of training in the use of basic firearms. She's no sniper or lone ranger, but she's certainly proficient enough to meet her target when calm.

**Adept Close Combatant:** Akin to her training with long range weapons, Sera can also boast much higher than average close combat skills. Pure hand to hand she struggles with, mainly due to a lack of any substantial strength, but give her a knife or sword and she's legitimately dangrous. She'll incorporate her agility wherever she can, and although this burns through her stamina quickly, it's effective for the short period of time where she can manage.

**Multilinguist:** Sera's mother ensured that she learn italian, insisting on her using it most of the time at home when her father wasn't there. As such, she picked up that second language fairly quickly, after English. She learnt Japanese, German and French to a basic level at the academy, but never really got a full grasp of the former until she was required to converse with a plethora of native speakers, for her former job.

## Quinque

**Name:** Jack in a Box

**Rating:** B

**RC Type:** Bikaku

**Appearance:** Black and discrete, with a quinque case handle attached to what appears to be a 30cm spike. She keeps it attached to the opposite side of her belt to her sword.

**Mechanics:** The spike allows for the quinque to be embedded into concrete, wood and even steel. The handle detaches from the spike, and a new one is generated. If pressure is placed on the spot where the spike was placed, it quickly erupts with a long spike. Pressing a button on the handle can cause all currently placed mines to erupt. Five traps can be placed at once

**Strengths:** The spike is powerful and sturdy. It could easily tear through the leg of a ghoul or impale them. The quinque can be used to set up a battlefield before hand to give Serafina a tactical advantage. If fighting against a slow opponent, it could be used to place spontaneous traps.

Weaknesses: It's tricky to use in sudden combat. Potentially, it could be stabbed into someone, but it shoots a spike outwards, so most of the damage would be done via the stab, not much more than a sword. If Sera wants to manually activate the traps, it has to be done all at once.

## Relationships

 Ayano Morino | At first, Sera didn't see much in Ayano, much like she hadn't rated Daren very highly. In their first mission, she merely acted as the muscle. Although despite that, Sera did warm to her a bit over her time in the inquisitors. As much as one can warm to a ghoul. Ayano gave Sera her scorpion quinque.
 One-Eyed Cat | Moriko and Serafina have a very odd relationship. They first met on New Year's Eve, while Serafina was carrying out a hit on a binge eating ghoul. Moriko had killed the ghoul first, and was in a semi-kakuja state. Serafina was terrified, and so insulted the cat mercilessly, threw a knife in her eye, and ran away. Moriko tried to approach her in her human form the next day, but Serafina didn't recognise her. By chance, Serafina went into a Re: one day for a pot of tea, and got into a conversation with the woman. Eventually, Moriko revieled the old knife and her identity. Serafina was terrified, and deemed her mentally unstable. Counterintuitively, she concluded that her best course of action would be to 'befriend' the cat, and turn her into an ally.

## Gallery

Serafina by /u/JokersMazeThe gear Serafina wears when out on jobs
## Trivia

* Serafina's name means 'fiery one'. Combined with her last name, Baxter (an old english title for bakers), it can be thought of as fiery baker. At a stretch, 'Toast'.

* She's never had a romantic relationship

* She has a phobia pertaining to most insects and arachnoids.