Hikari "Kari" Shimizu, Daughter Of Yamato (Burning)

## **Character Description**

**Name:** Hikari "Kari" "Xena" Shimizu, Daughter of Yamato

**Species:** Oni

**Gender:** Female

**Age:** 161 standard Earth years

**Allegiances**:

* Oni Empire

* Yamato Clan

* *Defiance*

* Nathaniel Taylor Carter

* Sshalah

* Mihal of Obe

## **Appearance**

**Height:** 5 feet 2 inches (1.5748 meters/157.48 centimeters)

**Hair Color:** Burnished Copper with Rose Gold highlights

**Eye Color:** Jade Green

## **Strengths and Weaknesses**

**Skills:** Survival skills, analytical mindset, good listener, easy to talk to, sewing, tailoring, cooking, trained in various martial arts, skilled with her dual short swords, Ultraviolet hued vision, able to see in light levels most others find to intense, shinobi training, doesn't judge people by appearances or stereotypes, fluent in written and spoken Kiellar language, and a dedicated learner.

**Weaknesses:** Loosing herself during a fight, some social niceties, can be a bit literal at times, has issues with understanding innuendo, can be overly curious, a horrible shot, not best suited for frontline deployment, unfamiliarity with equipment outside her training and experience, and the specificity of some of her training not always applying.

## **Inventory**

* Mugenjin - can be sheathed on her back for formality, but usually left in quarters; momento from her father when she left home and not something she’s properly trained to use in combat
* Dual Utilitarian Plasma Pistols - kept in forearm holsters that can drop them into her hands on command
* Yin and Yang - scabbards kept on her lower back
* Environmental suit with modular helmet- can be equipped with modular components for different situations
* Shinobi tool pouches - worn as needed
* Tailoring and sewing tool kits
* Neural Link - An Oni model wearble personal computer that allows Hikari with augmented reality and deep dive virtual reality functionality.  While it has proven very useful in her daily life, it is not considered rugged enough for field use.
* Neural Focus - An Oni model augmented reality device that is a downgraded model from their Neural Links.  A more rugged device, it was designed for an intended use in the field while the more complex device risked damage.
* Cooking utensials suitable for personal use
* A variety of specialty clothing (like a thermal insulating coat, a horn hiding hooded cloak, and others)

## **Personality**

Usually a calm, collected individual, Hikari learned from her shifu to never act without understanding.  To this end, there is very little that'll make her act on sight alone;  generally, she gives each new person she meets a chance where she observes them and interacts with them before forming an opinion about them.

One of the few Oni who ranked highly in capabilities as a multitasker, Hikari always has a lot of thought processes going on as she goes about her daily life.  While this has helped her in most fights and staying alive in general, others can perceive her as distracted some times.  Though not meant as such, there have been some who considered this as rude.  In addition, her success with this has led to her ego and opinion of her own capabilities being inflated - prior to the mission to the ice moon, at least, where this inflated sense of self was brought to the forefront and popped without mercy.

Hikari's training allows her to suppress her emotions when 'on the job', or at least she likes to think so.  While there are some cases where they would be of use, her shifu stressed acting logically and rationally to accomplish tasks - emotions at the wrong moment could cause a mission failure at best, a loss of the operative's life at worst.  As such, Hikari enters a state of mind where she comes across as cold, logical, and calloused.

In the reverse, and part of the reason she works as a field operative for the Oni instead of living inside their sphere, Hikari can become overstimulated and lose the ability to suppress her emotions.  As proven by the mission to the ice moon known as Gadawei IVa and the death of Lee, strong emotional reactions can lead to acting without thinking.

Another reason why Hikari prefers the field to living in safety is her intense wanderlust.  This young Oni almost lives and breaths for the thrill of adventure - instead of sitting still, her heart is always seeking just what is around each bend in the road of her life.  This puts her in contrast with the majority of the Oni population who seek the safety that lies within their sphere.

## **Background**

**Role on Ship:** Tailer, seamstress, chef, and Kunoichi

**Crimes Committed:** Not applicable (depends on who defines what as a crime)

**Backstory:** Born a daughter of the affluent Yamato clan - the reigning clan that historically produced the rulers of the Oni people - Hikari Shimizu, or Kari for short, grew up in the traditional styles of both her people as a whole as well as the traditions unique to her family and clan.

From a young age, the girl's sense of adventure reared its head as she was constantly escaping her minders and exploring.  Though not restrained by the stereotypical tomboy or girly girl descriptions, Hikari climbed her share of trees and broke her share of bones just as often as she attended formal gatherings for friends and family.

By the time Hikari reached the traditional age of 100 Earth standard years of age and also graduated from her shifu's training, she began her walkabout into the greater galaxy outside what the Oni controlled near the core.  Appalled at what she found, she petitioned upon her return for the Oni leadership to authorize more active efforts to help those outside - however, her pleas fell short as it was decided the Oni were not strong enough as a nation to risk exposing themselves.  Frustrated with their lack of action and her own personality traits forcing the issue, Hikari agreed to work as a field operative tasked with both finding potential recruits to bring back to the Oni as well as serving the greater good abroad.

For the following decades, Hikari worked as a bounty hunter under the alias of Xena.  Those few who met her face to face often mistook her horns for the implants used by Kiellar Command psykers, which could make her work all that much easier;  though, it could just as easily hamper things.  Though willing to make use of these misconceptions, the negative reactions eventually forced her to fall back into the shadows and working through intermediaries and censored video communications.  Though trained in the use of Oni biology to her advantage, Hikari's life as Xena was not one that primarily operated on the frontlines;  instead, she mainly used subterfuge and stealth.  The whole time as Xena, Hikari maintained a strict code of conduct regarding which clients she took and which 'targets' she hunted.

Over the years, becoming more prominant as a tailor and seamstress - even garnering a number of high profile contacts she could call upon if she felt the need - than she had ever been as a bounty hunter, she helped an Archellian contact with several very lucrative and successful business deals.  As someone she could trade favors with after discovering her contact's nature, Hikari often brought profit the Archellian's way when she needed their help with something.  In fact, a world in the Neutral Zone colonized by rogue Kiellar wanted ships to defend themselves - Hikari acted as the intermediary, but gave her Archellian contact all the credit for bringing the planet's vast mineral wealth under their control;  this was her end of a deal to use her contact's personal ship to *Afewag Station* for an operation she was undertaking.

Unfortunately, neither expected the Gollar Confederation to have annexed the station during their transit.  Also unexpected was their reaction to Hikari's horns - mistaking her for a Command psyker upon arrival, they chucked her into a brig cell.  Thankfully, in respect for the profit she had brought their way, her Archellian contact kept her luggage aboard ship when they found out, ready for her retrieval when she got free.

In the meantime, Ansemenk began his assault on the *Defiance* in his bid to take over the former prisoner transport.  Even when her cell temporarily lost power, Hikari impressed her jailors by refusing to try and escape, even helping to rescue one when debris fell ontop of him and pinned his leg.  After the fighting died down - though Hikari can't prove it, she suspects her Archellian contact had a hand in things - the Gollar security officers sent word to the *Defiance* their resident psyker was back in the brig.

## Adventures Since Joining The Crew

Feeling a since of debt to Mihal and the rest of the crew for rescuing her from Gollar prison, even if it was just a corrupt security officer's attempt at shaking the *Defiance* down, Hikari, using her decades old Xena bounty hunter persona, felt obligated to repay what was owed.  To this end, she joined the crew and started forming bonds with a few here and there as they returned to the Gadawei star system, namely an ice moon the Gollar were convinced had some super battery they wanted was hidden away in an abandoned Command archeological site.

Ironically, for all her decades of 'bounty hunting' as Xena, Hikari was still quite young by Oni standards and, thanks to her rather unique method of selecting clients and what actually happened to those targets she brought in, blood had never really been on her hands before.  Hubris from youth and her own....unorthodox successes in the past led Hikari to joining the team from the *Defiance* crew as they departed for the ice moon's surface.  This was only compounded by a promise to Sshalah to bring their 'family' back to the ship.

At first, things went as they usually would in such a situation.  To many chefs in the kitchen and they all had to wear the biggest hat, so no one bothered to communicate or work with the others.  It was this lack of team coheasion that led to them not realizing the Command trap until it was to late.  This further caused issues during the ensuing fire fight as everyone who could was trying to co-ordinate the others, the ensuing chaos leading to the majority of the group being pinned down in underground caverns while their landed shuttle was destroyed, the pilot barely escaping.

Unable to land any meaningful hits at range and prevented from getting close enough for melee, Hikari turned to those she could to try and either find or make a back way out while the others kept the Keil troops distracted.  Unfortunately, they had become to scattered and a number were pinned down with no access to escape - resulting in casualties.  One of those that didn't trust the Command's leader's attempts at offering a deal, everyone's, Carter's in particular, hands were forced when Emeach took a hostage, the young human named Lee.

Forced to surrender in exchange for the youth's life, Carter ordered everyone to stand down.  Stashing her more irreplaceable gear in a secure spot, Hikari joined the rest as they lined up.  Unclear as to why it happened, just as Carter was presenting himself to Command custody in exchange for Lee, the Gnosara known as Ilyak 69 decided to explosively self destruct in the middle of everything.  The Command forces took this as a breach of the cease fire agreement and, with the *Defiance* crew members out in the opened and unarmed, resumed firing as Carter confronted Emeach to try and rescue Lee.

In the ensuing struggle between the two men, the Keil officer stabbed Lee with a blade he had taken from Carter.  Overrun by emotions and the desire to keep her promise to Sshalla, Hikari ran from cover to try and keep the young human alive regardless of the danger to herself.  As a result, the young Oni was right there Carter had the wind knocked out of his sails by the combination of Lee and the threat to the lives over the rest of his crew.  Forced to hand himself and the other humans over in exchange for letting the rest of the surviving *Defiance* crew go, Carter had no resistance when Emeach's troops shackled him.

It was only after Emeach's forces, complete with human prisoners, departed that Hikari learned the *Defiance* herself had crashlanded onto the frozen surface of the moon after an engagment with Command vessels.  Though maintaining enough presence of mind to recover her equipment, Hikari was only going through the motions - her mind shell shocked while her body followed its muscle memory and instincts to survive.  Though the crew was moving to rescue the humans from the *Zerataca*, Hikari was all but a ghost locked in her quarters.  As such, she was in no condition to contest orders to return to Musashi and report directly to the throne the day before the *Defiance* departed on the rescue mission.

Over the next seven months, Hikari spent her time alternating between being debriefed, returning to training under her Shifu as a coping mechanism, and studying.  Lee's death had hit her heard, as did the reality of being on the front lines, so she was quite welcoming of the time and opportunity to clear her head.  Of note, during this period, some of the more martialy minded Clan leaders had begun construction on a new line of Oni warships that represented a massive change in their naval doctrines.  As recognition of her accomplishments and activities in the field, Hikari was granted the right to name two of the new ships:  the *Mihal's Grace* and the *Sshalah's Fury*.

Eventually called before the throne one final time, Hikari was ordered to return to the *Defiance* and keep an eye on Oni interests as the war escalates between Keilar Command and the Ragon Empire.  Acquiring a letter of recommendation from a Kiel Admiral she was on good terms with after saving his granddaughter twenty years before, Hikari arrived on *Beachhead Station* and was, thanks to the letter and her decades of accomplishments under her Xena alter ego, signed back onto the *Defiance* crew roster by a Gollar Admiral.  As she wasn't aboard when the orders came through and the other circumstances of her case, Hikari wasn't impressed and is listed as an independent contractor.

Slipping aboard the day before launch for Kazshurn, just another face in the crowd for the overworked Kiel in charge of new crew sign ins, she reclaimed her old room.  Though aware of the others likely knowing of her return, or at least Xena's being back aboard, Hikari made clear her wishes to be left alone until she had her thoughts and emotions in order - which, ironically, was helped by the crew having their own affairs to deal with that, to them, were more important than a barely known face from the past.