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Character Name: Akiko Amaya (“Aki”; her name means ‘autumn night rain’)
Age: 15?
Description: 5’ 8”; long light brown/orangeish hair. She wears violet contacts—she looks like and moves like a dancer
Fighting Style: Her weapon is the Tessen—a Japanese war fan used to attack, signal, deflect arrows, and shade out the sun. Aki’s fighting has to be in quick movements, since she has to fight in close range.
Backstory: Aki had an enchanted childhood living in a remote sea-side town. Her parents were kind and her older sister always looked out for her. One day, while playing in her family’s old house, she found a loose floor board. Beneath it, wrapped in silk, was an iron fan; a tessen. Almost instinctively, she picked it up and played with it—danced with it—for hours. The cold, heavy iron felt so natural in her grip. When she showed it to her father, he explained that it had belonged to his grandfather, who had been a samurai. When the samurai were banned, he had been forced to hand over his sword and other weapons, but by covering the fan in decorative paper and giving it to his wife to hold decoratively, it escaped their notice. He hid it away, where it had been all but forgotten to family stories until Akiko discovered it. From that time on she learned to move and dance and fight with the Tessen, finding more and more that she longed to learn to master the ancient weapon and that there was no one to teach her. Her sister Cho, now grown up and married, lives near the academy, which is how Aki learned about it. Aki has learned such inner discipline that she has sealed part of herself away, making her quiet and shy. She hides her face with her fan, but deep down, she wants to be seen.
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