Post by Catherine Kiyonari on Apr 3, 2007 0:15:24 GMT
Name: Aiko “Catherine” Kiyonari
Codename: None at this time
Age: Late 30’s
Mutation: Cat retains a intensive healing factor though a mixture of instability, emotions and chemical imbalances in her body has suppressed it. She has not been able to fully reach its true extent. As much as she knows her healing factor regenerates wounded, damage or infected cells within her body. Though she has the ability to heal, it takes her a long time, though swift by human standards. A paper cut will be healed within a few hours, a major wound could take several days, longer if it’s a vital organ. Cat normally allows her body to heal itself at a natural pace. The regeneration capabilities have extended to her life span, working at an unconscious level to slow down the aging process. She averages 1:2 year ratio. She may only look in her early teens but in fact she has judged her age to be in the late 30’s.
She has a keen sense of hearing, vision and smell much like an animal. She has 25 times more olfactory (smell) receptors than a normal human does so when she breaths in deep, air is drawn into the clefts of her nostrils and over about half a square inch of yellowish tissue in which are embedded several million chemoreceptor (sense organs). They are long thin cells with hair-like crowns making a web lying on the surface of the tissue, which is bathed in mucus. These are connected to a part of the brain called the olfactory bulb, the size of which is a fair indication of the keens of the sense of smell. In low light, like night, color and hue are not perceived, only black, white and shades of gray. Cat’s eyes have an elliptical pupil, which opens and closes much faster than round types and allows for a much larger pupil size. This allows more light to enter the eye. The inner cannel and drum of her ear has been so fine tuned she is able to detect sounds as high as 85,000 Hertz (canine reference) and as low as 50 Hertz (feline reference) She’s agile and fast, more then she is strong. The tendons in her legs are tightly packed allowing the strength and skill to jump several feet into the air. Cat retains an animalistic/feline instinct in her, an ever-watchful predator that stands quietly in the shadows of her mind, a berserk side to the pacifist. She’s been lucky enough it does not interfere with her life much.
Her skeletal structure is plated with titanium alloy, though this was not meant to be a permanent matter at a young age. Because she was still growing and with the aide of her healing factor, she was able to grow normally without any deformations. However her bones have grown around and over the alloy, hence leaving large open gaps. Talk about growing pains. She has titanium claws, which were built over her preexisting ones. By flexing certain muscles she releases the three-inch claws. Built in a interlocking way when sheathed she still has full use of her fingers but lock into place when extended. However the titanium ones were too long for her so she is unable to fully retract them, so they double as nails. She has to be careful with them, razor sharp and deadly and though they barely reach the tip of her finger when retracted she can still cut, scratch or slice things.
Despite having a healing factor it still has its drawbacks. She can manually activate it and send it into overdrive by concentrating everything on the pain and pushing everything else out. She goes into a deep trance like state and becomes completely vulnerable in this state. She usually looks like she feel asleep; her heartbeat slows down to 45 beats per minute followed with shallow breathing, just enough to pump oxygen to the brain and keep her organs functioning. However this leaves her vulnerable and nearly helpless. It drains her of her strength and at times of overuse she becomes violently sick. She is not immune to poisonous gases and tranquilizers, they interfere with her concentration and she reacts the same to them as anyone else. Cat still becomes sick be it a cold or the measles, healing in less time.
She is by far from immortal, she can still be killed as easily as a normal human. If the injuries received are too massive, she does not have the mindset capacity to heal herself and thus must rely on modern medicine. She can bleed to death, suffer from poisoning or die of shock. The downside to her night vision she doesn’t see color as brightly as everyone else. Sharp sudden noises can send her ears ringing. Strong scents can overpower smaller ones, screwing with her sense of smell. Physically she is not strong and must rely on a quick escape. Her feline instinct can be triggered by certain pheromones or an intense rage that is she helpless to stop. The weakest areas of her skeletal structure are her skull and parts of her chest and legs.
She is attracted to magnets literally and she cannot swim at all, she’d sink to the bottom and has a healthy fear of water any bigger then a tubful. A side affect is if her body drops the minute’s degree, the metal within gets cold thus making her body temperature drop even more. She sometimes has nightmares but only when highly stressed. Her metal claws don’t necessarily cut through everything, she has yet to test what she can but she knows she has trouble cutting through other metals. Her healing factor is constantly battling against the foreign object and at times she can lose the battle, slipping into a fevered state of mind.
Physical Description: Standing at 4’9 and 87 lbs, 114 lbs with metal structure Cat is small framed and frail looking, she has a lean almost malnourished look due to her rib cage being much more narrow then a regular human having an extra pair of ribs. Her eyes are a dark green with flecks of gold with no visible sclera (white area of eye) Orb shaped, larger then human eyes. Hair a deep rich black in color with the facade of a blue sheen. Once long, she took her claws to it in a fit of passion and it has remained in a tattered mold, cropped close with wild strands in a pixyish style. A heart shaped face with stubborn baby fat that refuses to melt away leaving rounded cheeks reminiscent of a lion cub. A flat little nose and thin lips, a gift of her Japanese heritage. Thin with small bird like bones that look like they could snap under the slightest bit of pressure. She has a humanoid body from the waist up, her legs are built slightly different having a longer foot and ankle joint with muscled calves and finely tuned tendons, her feet only having four toes. This also includes a tail at the base of her spine, which acts as merely balance and nothing more. Enlarged ears that set a little higher atop her head. The average human has 32 teeth, Cat only has 30 and although smaller and needle sharp her jaw is slightly smaller then normal. Her skin color is a dark bronze boarding more on a brown. She’s most comfortable in a crouch or lopping on all fours. She often appears and vanishes like a spirit, a silence to her wild soul but to see her move it’s like watching a reed in the wind; it bends almost unnaturally but never breaks.
She wears her native clothes of yukatas, keiko-gi and kimonos, depending on season and special occasion. She remains barefoot with no body piercings or tattoos. The only form of jewelry she wears is a cross made of two nails on a line of twine. She binds herself with strips of cloth, a makeshift undergarment because nothing fits her structure. In the event she leaves the premise of the school she will wear her green wool cloak.
Personality: First impressions are everything to Cat. She has been brought up in a strict Japanese culture with firm rules that were created both to form the mutant into a proper young woman and to protect her from public scrutiny. She may appear one dimensional on the surface, a skittish child but beneath her edginess she is quite the complex jigsaw puzzle. She has an instinctual feral nature that’s become an exhausting power struggle over it. Intoxicating and alluring, she both loathes and loves it and it frightens her at how easy it is to give into the wildness. Shove her into a corner without an escape and it builds to a crescendo of untamed emotions. She may yell, she may cry, she may even strike out unable to control the passion until it’s worked its way out of her system. This euphoric moment never lasts long and Cat can seem distant for some time, often vague in holding conversations as if she’s busy elsewhere regrouping herself.
Normally quiet, gentle and withdrawn she watches the world with large round eyes. There’s rawness to her thinking, an outsiders look to the cruelty and love of mankind. Naïve of the American culture she doesn’t understand many things but does her best to uphold her family’s honor. She speaks fluent Japanese but only a limited amount of English and struggles with it. Naughty jokes to the recent Johnny Depp movie go over her head and the English language easily confuses her especially when words sound the same but mean completely opposite things.
Highly insecure of her looks, she prefers to hide away then to be seen finding a nook or cranny to sit quietly. A way to combat this is meditation and Shin-Shin Toitsu Do (Japanese yoga) to help deflect pent up energy and soothes the beast within. She enjoys the outside much better then being stuck behind wall and comes alive at being free to traverse in a natural world and more true to herself, a curious woman searching for a purpose.
Background: Cat was born to an Ukrainian/American man and Japanese woman in the late 1970’s. Thomas was a soldier in the army and stationed in the bay of Tokyo. There he met Cat’s mother who worked as a waitress along the ports. They met and courted in secret throughout the years every time Thomas was stationed there till he was done with his term. When it was up he came back to Japan for Yomi’s hand in marriage. Her family disapproved marrying outside their race but their daughter already carried Thomas’ child. They disowned her and banished her from Japan, a common trait within the strict family ruling.
Immigrating to American to restart their lives, they wed and had their child Lillian. To their shock and dismay the young baby showed immediate signs of her physical mutations. Fearing persecution the family then moved to Canada, to live in seclusion on an apple orchard farm where they could live a peaceful life with their daughter. Inheriting it from an uncle they rebuilt it to its former glory and made enough to live off comfortably with the aide of several close friends from their small town. In the off-season, Thomas took a small teaching job as an English Professor; his second love while Yomi remained at home to take care of their daughter.
Unbeknownst to them, Lillian’s real mutation kicked in at a young age after a frightening experience with several workers and farm equipment. Wanting to play in the orchards and being exceptionally unruly that day, the seven year old snuck out to play without her mother’s knowledge. Like a wild child, she ran off and eventually wandered across her father and several workers working in the fields. A nearby tree topper roared by and kicked up a rock, striking the child sharply. Bleeding from a head wound, Thomas rushed her back to the house with Yomi panic stricken. They sent for the resident doctor, a good friend of the family and knew of the young Lillian’s mutation. By the time he made it to the farm, the nasty gash had stopped bleeding and started to close up. It was deemed not life threatening and only a few butterfly band aides fixed the rest. Lily became terribly sick during the night but in the morning she was back to her old self.
In the neighboring hood of Alkali lake General William Stryker, leader of Weapon X was working on the perfect weapon for battle. But he needed a test subject, there was no need to waste his precious soldier. Searching for a mutant, it was only a matter of time before he came across Lily. Forcibly taking her, which resulted in the death of her parents. Stryker kept the child at the hidden base, studying her and her mutation till he worked the titanium to her specific structure. At that time, several other mutants were brought in as test subjects for various reasons, one a teleporter. He managed an escape but his mutation went wild and resulted in taking several people with him when he ported, Lily being one of them. The teleporter’s mutation worked in a spider web effect and spun off his excess cargo, leaving them to appear in different parts of the world.
A jolting ride coupled with her crippled life sent the shell of a child spinning into inner madness and to save her soul, she essentially shut down and restarted. Stranded in Shirakawago; a small mountain village in Japan no memory of how she got there or anything before that. In the middle of the night, a nasty storm blowing she was found by a young couple Akira and Ami Kiyonari.
They were newly married barely a year, Ami pregnant with their first child. She miscarried during the third trimester and spiraled into a deep depression over the loss of her unborn son. Akira torn between shame and grief, he didn’t accept the demon girl as readily as his wife did. Naming the little girl Aiko, the young mother pulled herself from her misery and found the true meaning of love. She cherished her daughter finding a purpose in life. Living at the edge of the village, they remained in perfect seclusion and raised the girl in secrecy. Her mother feared their village’s people would not take to their demon child.
Aiko grew slowly and fought her parents the entire way, battling with a wicked temper she couldn’t control. She would have bouts of terrible temper tantrums and the scars they and their home carried of their patience. Akira wasn’t as patient as his wife and often left to work in the rice fields, leaving Ami to deal with the child. It wasn’t until her third year of living with the Kiyonari’s did the child win his love. In the end of a decade and close enough to a birthday for Aiko, wife persuaded husband to take their daughter to the fields to see the fireflies. Grudgingly he took her and watched the angry little demon he had associated her to be shift into a happy skipping child. Thus began happier times.
Aiko’s age always puzzled her parents, taking into note that she matured at a very slow rate, while her parents aged rapidly past adulthood into their elderly years. Another unexplained factor added to the utmost safety of their child but it was hard to quell a wild soul. In a repeat of history, the child disobeyed her parent’s rules and left her home unattended to cross paths with a village boy named Kenji Kobayashi. In childish innocence they bonded, Kenji her first friend and Aiko his spirit guardian. They kept their friendship a secret for years, slowly blossoming into a relationship until Kenji grew up and moved away in a arranged marriage. Heartbroken, the teen sank into a depression but like any emotional adolescent she emerged from it, her new haircut the only reminder of her grief.
Living in Shirakawago for 20 years, the quiet village was visited by a missionary woman named Helen Maxwell who came to her village to teach the word of God. Helen had grown up in the US and had several mutant friends. She taught several of the people English and eventually lived with the Kiyonari’s after meeting their daughter. She grew to love the child and spoke of a special school for people like her where she grew up. Aiko was not the demon child they had once thought, but a breed of human called mutant. Sister Helen knew of Xavier’ school due to several of her friends went there.
She explained to Aiko’s parents that she would not be persecuted for the way she looked and could live her life in safety and peace. After much debating, Akira agreed to send his daughter to America to go to the school though Ami struggled with letting go of her child. Aiko could be given a new chance at life and Helen helped start that by baptizing the teen, giving her a Christian name Catherine, named after St. Catherine de' Ricci. Helen made all the arrangements, traveling to Tokyo to contact the school and spoke to Ororo, setting up an arrival date and she would accompany Cat on the trip. She has not searched for her lost past nor does she care for it. There is only the future for her now and she will make the best of it.
Current Affiliation: Student at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Catherine has a open mind and is new to the mutant thing. She is easy to manipulate by her gullibility, if someone wishes to sway her with words.
Sample: She didn’t know when she was aware of the slight pressure against her shoulder. Fingers trailed against the line of bare skin that peeked through the layers of clothing, scratching lightly with a thin fingernail before it ghosted between the sharp rise of her shoulder blades and down her spine. She arched under the touch and twisted, the blanket tightening around her body. The once kept hair had become little more then a wild thicket of black, grimy from lack being able to clean it properly, plastering sweat soaked strands against her forehead in a abstract design.
In the haze of slumber, a heartbeat between dreams and nightmares the woman drifted. The weight of a knee dipped the thin mattress made of whatever she was able to collect, the displacement of a hand near her waist. The faint smell of fresh rain and crushed leaves lingered in the recycled air washing over her in familiar memories. Catherine curled her head down further into the crook of her arm, eyes fluttering beneath paper thin lids. A small delicate hand nearly white in color stretched from the darkness of her mind and splayed slender fingers against her cheek pulling away the loose strands that clung to her mouth before a soft laugh echoed in the cool confines.
“Catherine,” a soft voice whispered and the woman opened her eyes staring up at the ceiling torn from the fitful sleep and shoved into reality. A wind chime spun lazily, delicately carved birds twirled around the gold and green tree caught in a endless chase of tinkling bells. Beneath her the hum of the engines vibrated the walls with its pulsing song of traversing the roads of air sending the chime spinning slowly. Beneath heavy brows the green gaze stared vacantly before drawing to the corner of her eye and blinked slowly before the woman eased out her breath in a long sigh at the familiar face of her friend. The gnarled hand tapped her cheek again smelling faintly of oil and sandalwood, different from her dreams before pulling back to rest in the elder woman’s lap.
“--{We’re almost there.}--,” the rough Japanese was comforting in the loudness of the cargo hold.
Pulling the rough blanket from her, Cat shifted to her hip and pushed herself up to scoot to the edge of the makeshift bed and strained to look out the cargo plane’s window and peered at the landscape below. Resting a thin hand on a crate silver nails scratched nervously leaving faint gouges in the weathered wood. “--{America.}--“
WESCHESTER
Codename: None at this time
Age: Late 30’s
Mutation: Cat retains a intensive healing factor though a mixture of instability, emotions and chemical imbalances in her body has suppressed it. She has not been able to fully reach its true extent. As much as she knows her healing factor regenerates wounded, damage or infected cells within her body. Though she has the ability to heal, it takes her a long time, though swift by human standards. A paper cut will be healed within a few hours, a major wound could take several days, longer if it’s a vital organ. Cat normally allows her body to heal itself at a natural pace. The regeneration capabilities have extended to her life span, working at an unconscious level to slow down the aging process. She averages 1:2 year ratio. She may only look in her early teens but in fact she has judged her age to be in the late 30’s.
She has a keen sense of hearing, vision and smell much like an animal. She has 25 times more olfactory (smell) receptors than a normal human does so when she breaths in deep, air is drawn into the clefts of her nostrils and over about half a square inch of yellowish tissue in which are embedded several million chemoreceptor (sense organs). They are long thin cells with hair-like crowns making a web lying on the surface of the tissue, which is bathed in mucus. These are connected to a part of the brain called the olfactory bulb, the size of which is a fair indication of the keens of the sense of smell. In low light, like night, color and hue are not perceived, only black, white and shades of gray. Cat’s eyes have an elliptical pupil, which opens and closes much faster than round types and allows for a much larger pupil size. This allows more light to enter the eye. The inner cannel and drum of her ear has been so fine tuned she is able to detect sounds as high as 85,000 Hertz (canine reference) and as low as 50 Hertz (feline reference) She’s agile and fast, more then she is strong. The tendons in her legs are tightly packed allowing the strength and skill to jump several feet into the air. Cat retains an animalistic/feline instinct in her, an ever-watchful predator that stands quietly in the shadows of her mind, a berserk side to the pacifist. She’s been lucky enough it does not interfere with her life much.
Her skeletal structure is plated with titanium alloy, though this was not meant to be a permanent matter at a young age. Because she was still growing and with the aide of her healing factor, she was able to grow normally without any deformations. However her bones have grown around and over the alloy, hence leaving large open gaps. Talk about growing pains. She has titanium claws, which were built over her preexisting ones. By flexing certain muscles she releases the three-inch claws. Built in a interlocking way when sheathed she still has full use of her fingers but lock into place when extended. However the titanium ones were too long for her so she is unable to fully retract them, so they double as nails. She has to be careful with them, razor sharp and deadly and though they barely reach the tip of her finger when retracted she can still cut, scratch or slice things.
Despite having a healing factor it still has its drawbacks. She can manually activate it and send it into overdrive by concentrating everything on the pain and pushing everything else out. She goes into a deep trance like state and becomes completely vulnerable in this state. She usually looks like she feel asleep; her heartbeat slows down to 45 beats per minute followed with shallow breathing, just enough to pump oxygen to the brain and keep her organs functioning. However this leaves her vulnerable and nearly helpless. It drains her of her strength and at times of overuse she becomes violently sick. She is not immune to poisonous gases and tranquilizers, they interfere with her concentration and she reacts the same to them as anyone else. Cat still becomes sick be it a cold or the measles, healing in less time.
She is by far from immortal, she can still be killed as easily as a normal human. If the injuries received are too massive, she does not have the mindset capacity to heal herself and thus must rely on modern medicine. She can bleed to death, suffer from poisoning or die of shock. The downside to her night vision she doesn’t see color as brightly as everyone else. Sharp sudden noises can send her ears ringing. Strong scents can overpower smaller ones, screwing with her sense of smell. Physically she is not strong and must rely on a quick escape. Her feline instinct can be triggered by certain pheromones or an intense rage that is she helpless to stop. The weakest areas of her skeletal structure are her skull and parts of her chest and legs.
She is attracted to magnets literally and she cannot swim at all, she’d sink to the bottom and has a healthy fear of water any bigger then a tubful. A side affect is if her body drops the minute’s degree, the metal within gets cold thus making her body temperature drop even more. She sometimes has nightmares but only when highly stressed. Her metal claws don’t necessarily cut through everything, she has yet to test what she can but she knows she has trouble cutting through other metals. Her healing factor is constantly battling against the foreign object and at times she can lose the battle, slipping into a fevered state of mind.
Physical Description: Standing at 4’9 and 87 lbs, 114 lbs with metal structure Cat is small framed and frail looking, she has a lean almost malnourished look due to her rib cage being much more narrow then a regular human having an extra pair of ribs. Her eyes are a dark green with flecks of gold with no visible sclera (white area of eye) Orb shaped, larger then human eyes. Hair a deep rich black in color with the facade of a blue sheen. Once long, she took her claws to it in a fit of passion and it has remained in a tattered mold, cropped close with wild strands in a pixyish style. A heart shaped face with stubborn baby fat that refuses to melt away leaving rounded cheeks reminiscent of a lion cub. A flat little nose and thin lips, a gift of her Japanese heritage. Thin with small bird like bones that look like they could snap under the slightest bit of pressure. She has a humanoid body from the waist up, her legs are built slightly different having a longer foot and ankle joint with muscled calves and finely tuned tendons, her feet only having four toes. This also includes a tail at the base of her spine, which acts as merely balance and nothing more. Enlarged ears that set a little higher atop her head. The average human has 32 teeth, Cat only has 30 and although smaller and needle sharp her jaw is slightly smaller then normal. Her skin color is a dark bronze boarding more on a brown. She’s most comfortable in a crouch or lopping on all fours. She often appears and vanishes like a spirit, a silence to her wild soul but to see her move it’s like watching a reed in the wind; it bends almost unnaturally but never breaks.
She wears her native clothes of yukatas, keiko-gi and kimonos, depending on season and special occasion. She remains barefoot with no body piercings or tattoos. The only form of jewelry she wears is a cross made of two nails on a line of twine. She binds herself with strips of cloth, a makeshift undergarment because nothing fits her structure. In the event she leaves the premise of the school she will wear her green wool cloak.
Personality: First impressions are everything to Cat. She has been brought up in a strict Japanese culture with firm rules that were created both to form the mutant into a proper young woman and to protect her from public scrutiny. She may appear one dimensional on the surface, a skittish child but beneath her edginess she is quite the complex jigsaw puzzle. She has an instinctual feral nature that’s become an exhausting power struggle over it. Intoxicating and alluring, she both loathes and loves it and it frightens her at how easy it is to give into the wildness. Shove her into a corner without an escape and it builds to a crescendo of untamed emotions. She may yell, she may cry, she may even strike out unable to control the passion until it’s worked its way out of her system. This euphoric moment never lasts long and Cat can seem distant for some time, often vague in holding conversations as if she’s busy elsewhere regrouping herself.
Normally quiet, gentle and withdrawn she watches the world with large round eyes. There’s rawness to her thinking, an outsiders look to the cruelty and love of mankind. Naïve of the American culture she doesn’t understand many things but does her best to uphold her family’s honor. She speaks fluent Japanese but only a limited amount of English and struggles with it. Naughty jokes to the recent Johnny Depp movie go over her head and the English language easily confuses her especially when words sound the same but mean completely opposite things.
Highly insecure of her looks, she prefers to hide away then to be seen finding a nook or cranny to sit quietly. A way to combat this is meditation and Shin-Shin Toitsu Do (Japanese yoga) to help deflect pent up energy and soothes the beast within. She enjoys the outside much better then being stuck behind wall and comes alive at being free to traverse in a natural world and more true to herself, a curious woman searching for a purpose.
Background: Cat was born to an Ukrainian/American man and Japanese woman in the late 1970’s. Thomas was a soldier in the army and stationed in the bay of Tokyo. There he met Cat’s mother who worked as a waitress along the ports. They met and courted in secret throughout the years every time Thomas was stationed there till he was done with his term. When it was up he came back to Japan for Yomi’s hand in marriage. Her family disapproved marrying outside their race but their daughter already carried Thomas’ child. They disowned her and banished her from Japan, a common trait within the strict family ruling.
Immigrating to American to restart their lives, they wed and had their child Lillian. To their shock and dismay the young baby showed immediate signs of her physical mutations. Fearing persecution the family then moved to Canada, to live in seclusion on an apple orchard farm where they could live a peaceful life with their daughter. Inheriting it from an uncle they rebuilt it to its former glory and made enough to live off comfortably with the aide of several close friends from their small town. In the off-season, Thomas took a small teaching job as an English Professor; his second love while Yomi remained at home to take care of their daughter.
Unbeknownst to them, Lillian’s real mutation kicked in at a young age after a frightening experience with several workers and farm equipment. Wanting to play in the orchards and being exceptionally unruly that day, the seven year old snuck out to play without her mother’s knowledge. Like a wild child, she ran off and eventually wandered across her father and several workers working in the fields. A nearby tree topper roared by and kicked up a rock, striking the child sharply. Bleeding from a head wound, Thomas rushed her back to the house with Yomi panic stricken. They sent for the resident doctor, a good friend of the family and knew of the young Lillian’s mutation. By the time he made it to the farm, the nasty gash had stopped bleeding and started to close up. It was deemed not life threatening and only a few butterfly band aides fixed the rest. Lily became terribly sick during the night but in the morning she was back to her old self.
In the neighboring hood of Alkali lake General William Stryker, leader of Weapon X was working on the perfect weapon for battle. But he needed a test subject, there was no need to waste his precious soldier. Searching for a mutant, it was only a matter of time before he came across Lily. Forcibly taking her, which resulted in the death of her parents. Stryker kept the child at the hidden base, studying her and her mutation till he worked the titanium to her specific structure. At that time, several other mutants were brought in as test subjects for various reasons, one a teleporter. He managed an escape but his mutation went wild and resulted in taking several people with him when he ported, Lily being one of them. The teleporter’s mutation worked in a spider web effect and spun off his excess cargo, leaving them to appear in different parts of the world.
A jolting ride coupled with her crippled life sent the shell of a child spinning into inner madness and to save her soul, she essentially shut down and restarted. Stranded in Shirakawago; a small mountain village in Japan no memory of how she got there or anything before that. In the middle of the night, a nasty storm blowing she was found by a young couple Akira and Ami Kiyonari.
They were newly married barely a year, Ami pregnant with their first child. She miscarried during the third trimester and spiraled into a deep depression over the loss of her unborn son. Akira torn between shame and grief, he didn’t accept the demon girl as readily as his wife did. Naming the little girl Aiko, the young mother pulled herself from her misery and found the true meaning of love. She cherished her daughter finding a purpose in life. Living at the edge of the village, they remained in perfect seclusion and raised the girl in secrecy. Her mother feared their village’s people would not take to their demon child.
Aiko grew slowly and fought her parents the entire way, battling with a wicked temper she couldn’t control. She would have bouts of terrible temper tantrums and the scars they and their home carried of their patience. Akira wasn’t as patient as his wife and often left to work in the rice fields, leaving Ami to deal with the child. It wasn’t until her third year of living with the Kiyonari’s did the child win his love. In the end of a decade and close enough to a birthday for Aiko, wife persuaded husband to take their daughter to the fields to see the fireflies. Grudgingly he took her and watched the angry little demon he had associated her to be shift into a happy skipping child. Thus began happier times.
Aiko’s age always puzzled her parents, taking into note that she matured at a very slow rate, while her parents aged rapidly past adulthood into their elderly years. Another unexplained factor added to the utmost safety of their child but it was hard to quell a wild soul. In a repeat of history, the child disobeyed her parent’s rules and left her home unattended to cross paths with a village boy named Kenji Kobayashi. In childish innocence they bonded, Kenji her first friend and Aiko his spirit guardian. They kept their friendship a secret for years, slowly blossoming into a relationship until Kenji grew up and moved away in a arranged marriage. Heartbroken, the teen sank into a depression but like any emotional adolescent she emerged from it, her new haircut the only reminder of her grief.
Living in Shirakawago for 20 years, the quiet village was visited by a missionary woman named Helen Maxwell who came to her village to teach the word of God. Helen had grown up in the US and had several mutant friends. She taught several of the people English and eventually lived with the Kiyonari’s after meeting their daughter. She grew to love the child and spoke of a special school for people like her where she grew up. Aiko was not the demon child they had once thought, but a breed of human called mutant. Sister Helen knew of Xavier’ school due to several of her friends went there.
She explained to Aiko’s parents that she would not be persecuted for the way she looked and could live her life in safety and peace. After much debating, Akira agreed to send his daughter to America to go to the school though Ami struggled with letting go of her child. Aiko could be given a new chance at life and Helen helped start that by baptizing the teen, giving her a Christian name Catherine, named after St. Catherine de' Ricci. Helen made all the arrangements, traveling to Tokyo to contact the school and spoke to Ororo, setting up an arrival date and she would accompany Cat on the trip. She has not searched for her lost past nor does she care for it. There is only the future for her now and she will make the best of it.
Current Affiliation: Student at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Catherine has a open mind and is new to the mutant thing. She is easy to manipulate by her gullibility, if someone wishes to sway her with words.
Sample: She didn’t know when she was aware of the slight pressure against her shoulder. Fingers trailed against the line of bare skin that peeked through the layers of clothing, scratching lightly with a thin fingernail before it ghosted between the sharp rise of her shoulder blades and down her spine. She arched under the touch and twisted, the blanket tightening around her body. The once kept hair had become little more then a wild thicket of black, grimy from lack being able to clean it properly, plastering sweat soaked strands against her forehead in a abstract design.
In the haze of slumber, a heartbeat between dreams and nightmares the woman drifted. The weight of a knee dipped the thin mattress made of whatever she was able to collect, the displacement of a hand near her waist. The faint smell of fresh rain and crushed leaves lingered in the recycled air washing over her in familiar memories. Catherine curled her head down further into the crook of her arm, eyes fluttering beneath paper thin lids. A small delicate hand nearly white in color stretched from the darkness of her mind and splayed slender fingers against her cheek pulling away the loose strands that clung to her mouth before a soft laugh echoed in the cool confines.
“Catherine,” a soft voice whispered and the woman opened her eyes staring up at the ceiling torn from the fitful sleep and shoved into reality. A wind chime spun lazily, delicately carved birds twirled around the gold and green tree caught in a endless chase of tinkling bells. Beneath her the hum of the engines vibrated the walls with its pulsing song of traversing the roads of air sending the chime spinning slowly. Beneath heavy brows the green gaze stared vacantly before drawing to the corner of her eye and blinked slowly before the woman eased out her breath in a long sigh at the familiar face of her friend. The gnarled hand tapped her cheek again smelling faintly of oil and sandalwood, different from her dreams before pulling back to rest in the elder woman’s lap.
“--{We’re almost there.}--,” the rough Japanese was comforting in the loudness of the cargo hold.
Pulling the rough blanket from her, Cat shifted to her hip and pushed herself up to scoot to the edge of the makeshift bed and strained to look out the cargo plane’s window and peered at the landscape below. Resting a thin hand on a crate silver nails scratched nervously leaving faint gouges in the weathered wood. “--{America.}--“
WESCHESTER
