Aoi Hayanose

## Summary

**Aoi Hayanose** (早瀬 あおい, *Hayanose Aoi*) is one of the Sages in *Instant Death* and a minor antagonist of Volume 2. Her job is to deal with and assassinate Lost Sages and sage candidates.

## Appearance

Aoi is described as a young and cute woman whose appearence is like a boy with short hair, but thats due to her not entirely conceling her feminine figure. Her clothes reminds of people during the modern era of Japan.

## Personality

She is a very calm girl who acts very cautiously (sometimes not much due to her ability), and doesn't like to take unnecessary risks. Likewise, she always knows what she is doing and uses her power in the most efficient way possible to deal with whatever problem. Additionally, due to the nature of her ability, she is very experienced in assassination and doesn't really care if the target is good or bad as long her job needs to be done.

Aoi is also a realistic and pragmatic about her situation and events that unfold around her. She tends to make prudent decisions and doesn't let feelings get in her way. She also knows when not to engage or meddle with events/affairs she doesn't need to. Even when she's turned into a nervous wreck by realizing the full scope of Yogiri's power, she still had the presence of mind to avoid him and advised everyone else to stay away from him and not antagonize him.

## Abilities

* **Philosopher Stone:** Each Sage contains a special stone inside themselves, which grants them immortality. If a Sage happens to die, it means the stone's power had been exhausted.

* **The System:** As a Sage, she should be capable of using all the unique abilities the Battle Song grants.

* **Balance of Power:** Balance of Power is Aoi’s ability to *change events as she believes* having *Power Nullification* thanks to it. The main use of the ability being applied through the belief of *a cruel world where only great efforts are rewarded*. This achieves her belief of *balance of power* in the world where obtained abilities are not your own power and as such she does not allow them, causing them to disappear. Her beliefs also include what she doesn’t believe, and what she doesn’t believe in what cannot be realized, as such, her ability also causes most supernatural events to become impossible because they should not be realizable.

* **Meta Perspective:** Aoi can “look down” at fate, described by herself as a meta-ability that allows her to peek at the entire “script” of the world simultaneously. This is not limited to seeing the future as the ability also allows her to look at the past to see the events that lead up to an event/learn about her opponent, and the present to see the current events taking place. As an extension of this ability, she’s also capable of seeing/sensing the Fate value of events and Destiny value of people and knows how to manipulate them. She’s not limited to seeing one linear flow of Fate, she’s capable of seeing all possible flows of Fate.

* **To Reject All, To Not Let Anyone Past Here:** One of Aoi’s natural skills as a Sage, rewriting the laws that govern space. In Aoi’s case, she creates a richly colored mosaic that fills a forest sized area. The mosaic is created after space is cut disorderly and connected over again halfheartedly, each section in a state as if they were in a different universe; each section that should be a ‘fragment of the world’ is a state of constant change, being rewritten, combining, and splitting just like that. The laws of the world are specifically modified to reject anyone and anything who tries to get past the mosaic, including magical power as the errors created by trying to cross a space operating under completely different laws that keep changing, are too many for it to make it past a section or even maintain itself.

## Etymology

* The name **Aoi** means "blue" (あおい) in Hiragana.
	+ However, when written in kanji (葵 or 碧), it could possibly mean:
		- 葵 - "hollyhock, althea".
		- 碧 - "green, blue".
* Aoi's surname **Hayanose** means "rapids, swift current" (早瀬).