[MeisterBabylon]

Hajime Yanko
“Nine-tails”
Affiliation: SSR - 14
Voice: Hikasa Yohko

The Mochizuki Institute of the Fine Arts for Girls is a fancy name for an orphanage and education facility. But it is really in the soft arts that they excel. Every child accepted is taught how to survive in the wide world, and, continuing the generations-old tradition, trained in the ways of the geisha and the chaste enlightenment of miko. Beneath that refined facade however is one of Japan’s worst kept secrets: All of these orphans are kunoichi, masters of intelligence gathering, smuggling, seduction, and, if need be, assassination. An affiliated school of Tokyo Butei, Mochigakuen has produced many confident young women who often specialize further within Butei’s many branches.

Yanko is another of these fabled girls, tall, demure and ravishly beautiful. She is a talent at ninjutsu, and is mentored part time under the tutelage of Hattori Hanzou when not at the Institute. She never seems fazed, and coolly turns down every confession with a few words of advice thrown in. She is also capable of superhuman feats, like merging into shadows, stepping through the dark and emerging from another to backstab an unwitting foe, dancing circles around an isolated enemy, replacing her body with a substitute and other things ninjas are famous for. Only a Choutei can learn these advanced skills, and as such their mastery is rare amongst the Mochizuki junoichi. However, these skills almost always require cover, shade, and are only really useful against a single target, or a few at most. Like a rogue, Yanko cannot go in guns-blazing like the other Choutei. Yanko's enthralling confidence and super-ninjaism earned her the title of Kyuubi or Nine-tails within Tokyo Butei.

The girl and Manami were friends from long ago as the werewolf would hang out at MIFA whenever the Black Pearl is docked in Tokyo Bay (Mrs Suzumeno’s alma mater is MIFA, having been in the same class as the current principal). As Yanko confesses, that cool gig was just all her years of training. The real Yanko is as about as girly and as scared as schoolgirls can ever get, the incredibly timid girl being frightened of anything from jack-in-a-boxes to cockroaches to odd things like barnacles. She is also very squeamish around matters of love and sex, and often falls victim to Nemo's innuendos. Her time at MIFA has honed her instincts to take over, and she copes by putting on an alluring mask that borders on a split personality. When there’s a need for it, she will suck it up and stalk her prey, using the methods she has sharpened close to perfection. She’s fine as long as she remains hidden. When she needs to strike, Yanko does, then quickly retreats into the shadow that is her comforter. However, she is prone to ‘gargolying’. This is explained by Manami to be ‘suddenly freezing up when the danger has passed because her body has been moving on its own but she has long fainted mentally.’ It takes a while before she ‘un-Stoneforms’, and requires her friends to keep her safe till then.

Because of her drilling in that art, Yanko is knowledgeable of toxicology. Oddly, this frightened Butei is fond of the occult, a fatal attraction almost akin to a scary-movie fanatic who scares herself to bits, picks up the pieces and go at it again. As such, Hajime is a generalist on matters of the supernatural, and provides a ‘bird’s eye view’ when involved in a case.

This kunoichi is first introduced when principal Krueger sent her to the Roswell Observatory to investigate reports of staff being abducted by supernatural forces. After Yanko and the X-Butei survive the mission, Yanko transfers into Butei Freshman Class X and officially joins the “Nakamura Faction”.

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Very long profile for a background character...

That leaves Adara, and thankfully, Tempy has given me the go-ahead.