Name: "Kio" Shimizu
Age [appearance]: Early-mid teens.
Age [actual]: 14
Gender: Male
Species: Crow shifter
Theme Song: Sleeping Wolves from Wolf\'s Rain
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House: Confuto
Title: Student
Level: 4
Occupation/Job: Student
Appearance
Hair: Kio’s shortish hair is snow-white and always looks as though he just woke up. He finds the colour to be very inconvenient.
Eyes: Kio’s eyes are a medium-light bluish purple colour, and still fairly large. They’re both calm and wild, and most certainly alive.
Skin: Reasonably pale, but not as bad as some. His skin bears some marks of the sun’s touch, but not many.
Frame: He’s got a lithe, quick frame, good for hiding, contorting and climbing. Even his body suits his house well.
Tattoos/Distinguishing Marks: Kio’s got two small, stylised black wings tattooed onto his back - a mark of his connection to the crow.
Personality: In his learning to kill, Kio gained a profound respect for life. In some ways, Kio seems too kind or gentle to be a killer, but to assume that would be to grossly underestimate him. Kio does have a calm, gentle and often friendly demeanor, but how he is when he’s “on the job”, as it were, is quite different. Anyone who’s ever seen him in class can easily see the change between his “working” self and his “relaxing” self.
While he’s not training, Kio likes to read, help others with their studies or just simply talk to a friend or two. He makes an effort to get along with most people, and he usually manages it. There’s very little offensive about Kio, and he’s a very good listener - not to mention very focused, able to spend a lot of time on one thing. He enjoys physical activity, especially climbing, and often wants to share his good times with others. Kio tends to be happy, and overtly (if quietly) so.
That said, he’s very alert. After all, he’s made it to a level 4 and fully intends to make it the rest of the way. Kio pays attention to the things that happen in his immediate surrounds, mostly through his ears. After all, sound is what he’s best at. It’s very hard for things to sneak up on him because of his sharp ears, but Kio is always graceful - both about his victories and his losses.
When he’s actually fighting, Kio is utterly and completely focused in the moment, even moreso than he is otherwise. His entire reality shrinks down to the now, which makes him both more and less powerful. He doesn’t think ahead as much as he should, but nor does he miss anything that’s happening now. It’s the total focus that a bird has.
History: Kio began his training when he was very young - just 6 years old. The second-born son of his family had gone through assassin training at this school for as far back as the family could remember, and they weren’t about to stop their tradition now. Kio doesn’t remember his parents very well as a result, but he feels in his gut that they were kind people who loved and wanted him. At least, that’s what he’d like to think, and there’s little around him that might destroy this belief.
Kio worked hard at school, because he knew that that was what his parents wanted him to do, and he wanted them to be proud of him. At least, that was why at first. Slowly, he began to work at it because he wanted to do it, because he wanted to succeed. That was a more powerful driving factor than his parent’s pride had been, and Kio steadily worked his way upwards, graduating from 6th to 5th in just one year and from 5th for 4th in just one more. Kio hopes to keep up this pattern, but is well aware of the fact that he is unlikely to be able to manage that.
School life has been alright for him, though he hasn’t found anyone that he’s truly close to yet. Kio hopes to find a best friend or a lover sometime, hopefully soon, but doesn’t mind waiting. In the meantime, he’s had friends and lost friends in the normal flow of things, losing some to the more reclusive houses and losing others because of his own reclusive house. Still, he met new people when he joined House Confuto, and Kio isn’t very sad about it all either way.
Family: His mother and father are still alive, but Kio doesn’t remember them very well and doesn’t have contact with them, save for a couple letters a year. He also has an older brother and a younger sister that Kio knew when he was young, in addition to another younger brother whom Kio has only heard tell of. Kio has heard an Aunt mentioned a couple times, but he hasn’t met her.
Likes: Animals, quiet places, nighttime, sunset, books, learning, climbing, flying, painting, writing haiku, ikebana, water, meditation, shiny things, playing with hair, helping others and sharing memories.
Dislikes: People who make no effort, poor teaching quality, killing for no reason, meat, bright lights, overly loud people or places, being inside for too long, making stupid mistakes and his hair colour.
Strength: Kio has a good head on his shoulders and he’s a good student. He likes to learn, which makes him fairly good at what he does, and he tends to be ambitious. Kio doesn’t have many enemies as he makes an effort to get along with people, and his work with sound has given him an incredible aural awareness of his surroundings. Kio can also use sound, either as a distraction or a weapon. He has some measure of control over shadow as well, but he’s not nearly as good with that.
Kio can also turn into a crow. When he was young, he was either human or crow, but now that he’s spent time with his shifting, he can manage an intermediate change, as well as slight changes - assuming he wants to. These changes can be made fairly quickly to boot.
Weakness/Flaw: Kio’s kindness often makes others in his school look down upon him, even if they appreciate his help. Kio\'s drive often prompts him to neglect his physical health - most often sleep. In other words, he usually pushes himself too hard in his pursuit of knowledge and skill.
Kio can punish himself overly much about what he sees as his “mistakes”, particularly the interpersonal ones he makes. This can put him in a bad mood for several days at a time, as well as leave suspicious bruises in strange spots.
The transformations Kio preforms take some energy out of him, though Kio has learned how to minimise the loss. Still, he cannot change many times a day, much less in rapid succession. Kio has to choose his changes carefully, though lesser changes take less energy (but more focus) than going from human to crow.
Kio isn’t the best with hand-to-hand weapons, though he can certainly hold his own in a strictly non-magical duel. Still, it’s not a situation he wants to be in, nor one he’ll willingly remain in. Kio’s likely to get hurt there, and as he takes hits harder than a normal person does, as well as takes a longer time to heal, he’d rather not mess with it.
His respect for life means that he won’t kill unless it’s necessary - but he doesn’t have a problem killing for work, or in self defense.
Interesting Facts / Quirks: Kio can speak to avians, even when not in his crow form (though that requires some additional effort). He wears a small cat-bell on a collar around his neck. It holds nothing inside it, so it makes no noise unless flicked. He keeps it on him because of the high-pitched sound it makes - very good material to morph into a weapon.
Kio is a strict vegetarian. If it was once had working nerve endings, he won’t eat it. He has too much respect for life for that.
Favourite Food: Kio really likes green beans cooked with olive oil and garlic, or vegetable fried rice. Just about anything can be improved by hot sauce in his eyes, too!
Favourite Colour: Clear iridescence - like bubbles.
Hobby/Hobbies: Studying, climbing trees, playing with sound, playing with his ability to shift, sharing memories, writing in his journal, spending time with friends, acrobatics and learning new languages.
Sexuality: Selectively sexual
Relationship Status: Single... but keeping his eyes open
Weapon: Fighting fans and fighting chains are his specialty, but he\'s also fairly good with most small, thrown weapons.
Magick: Coming from the house he is, Kio has learned how to manipulate shadow and sound. Kio is particularly good at the manipulation of sound, though he\'s not a spring chicken when it comes to shadow either.
