(Disclaimer: Above picture is copyright 029 and Akehara. Picture is used for reference purposes only, as Kei is too lazy to create an original picture.) Name: Xin Chi'sae Age: 17 Gender: Female Nationality: Chon'sin Allegiance: None Class: Tactician Level: 10 Weapon Levels: Magic C (0/5), Heavy Swords D (0/5) Weapons Chijun, the Shield of the World Magic, Defensive, Potency, Area of Effect Chijun calls upon the forces of earth to raise a wall from the ground of sufficient size to protect Chi'sae and her nearby allies, instantly erecting a sturdy barrier against arrows, magic, and any hapless melee combatant who happens to be running in the caster's direction. Suiha, the Unrelenting Flood Magic, Corrode, Complex, Martial By manipulating local moisture particles, Suiha painfully disrupts the internal workings of the target's body, causing significant harm. Neither innate magical resistance nor physical defenses seem capable of mitigating the damage caused by a spell that is truly unrelenting. Kaei Magic, Corrode, Potency, After-Effect Spontaneous combustion allows Kaei to materialize as searing-hot, non-projectile flames, reaching temperatures that can melt even weapons, shields, and armor. It can easily burn long after the source of its power is cut, allowing Chi'sae to focus on more pressing matters after casting. Fukai, the Realm of Wind Magic, Defensive, Complex, Area of Effect Taking form as a large whirlwind, Fukai causes minor damage to Chi'sae's foes, but, more importantly, disrupts all enemy movements and attacks by hindering them with howling gales, all while ensuring that her allies remain unaffected by this hindrance. Kuya, the Arrow of the Heavens Magic, Delay, Complex, Killer Kuya fires a deadly beam of unadulterated energy at Chi'sae's foes. Complex targeting algorithms help stabilize the spell's otherwise wild and dangerous nature, while priming mechanisms allow her to keep the spell in store where it could be summoned at a split-second's notice. Koyoru, the Withering Night Heavy Nodachi, Massive, Glass Koyoru is a massive weapon that might go along comically with Chi'sae's diminutive height, but from a tactical perspective, it greatly makes up for her lack of reach. It is helped by the inherent lightness of most Chon'sin swords, and although very long in length, it is also very thin and is thus extremely light compared to the rest of its weight class. With highly precise movements, Chi'sae can maximize the effectiveness of Koyoru's cutting edge while gently deflecting blows to reduce the strain on the glass weapon. Appearance Height: 151 cm / 4'11" Weight: Not Telling Hair: Black, Torso-Length Eyes: Blue Skin Tone: Pale Build: Slight Standing barely more than one and a half meters tall, any physical appraising of Xin Chi'sae must first begin with the realization that she's quite tiny for a young Chon'sin girl reaching the prologue of adulthood. Pale of skin and slight of build, it would not be unreasonable to mistake her as an adorable porcelain doll having come to life, although her appearance hides the presence of coiled muscles capable of more strength than would be expected from someone her size. Stoicism is the usual inhabitant of Chi'sae's features, wide blue eyes uncommon amongst the Chon'sin and a small petite mouth, framed with long black hair reaching down to her torso. The front of her hair is generally let loose into slightly windswept bangs, but the remaining majority is tied into an elegant ponytail favoring her left side, generally coming down over her shoulder and flowing down the front. Chi'sae is most often seen wearing full-length, straight-lined navy blue robes, a traditional Chon'sin attire for females common amongst her ethnic group, tied at the upper waist with a wide yellow sash. Wide sleeves allow her not only to hide her hands, but to form hidden pockets where surprising amounts of items may be stored and concealed. Beneath the robes she normally wears boots, but traditional wooden sandals are not uncommon during more casual events. Light armor plating may be applied atop the robes if necessary, but due to Chi'sae's preference for mobility, it generally mostly covers the chest, shoulders, and elbows, with gauntlets possibly hidden within the robes' billowing sleeves. Although the robes may seem rather formal and restrictive to those from the continent of Ylisse, it actually provides a surprisingly wide range of movement, freeing her to perform acrobatic and athletic maneuvers. Personality A relatively young but certainly intelligent girl, Xin Chi'sae is a study in contrasts, blurring the border between a child and an adult. Oftimes, it is entirely easy to forget her youth, especially in the way she carries herself in a formal, mature, elegant, knowing way generally associated with people at least a decade older. Like many of the Chon'sin ethnicity, her speech is somewhat antiquated and traditional, further giving credit to the impression that she is far wiser than her years might suggest; her formidable intellect and foresight only serves to consolidate such opinions. But she is a young girl, and as such, Chi'sae can be prone to reactions befitting her age bracket, such as open wonderment, unreserved excitement, reluctant poutiness, and girlish happiness, at least when she's not actively suppressing her outward emotions, instead reinforcing her visage of maturity, grace, and competence. She remains friendly and approachable, seemingly pleased to socialize with others. All of this, however, masks the fact that Chi'sae is actually a high-functioning victim of borderline personality disorder. Rather than being emotionally aggressive, stunted, or unstable, she suffers from a very deep sense of social alienation. Despite being in full retention of her feelings and a basic moral framework, she is either entirely incapable or has a diminished capability in forming empathetic relations with social groups, feeling as if she does not share a common framework of values or even similar emotional bandwidths. Events that draw emotional reactions out of others instead fall flat on Chi'sae, who can cognitively decipher and understand the response but cannot bring herself to feel it herself, either out of a different set of values or inability to instinctively connect with crowd mentality. She believes that while she can understand how others feel, she herself cannot feel their feelings as a normal person might, while the majority of people neither understand nor feel her own emotions. The result is a polarization of Chi'sae's sense of self; one side of her is increasingly sensitive and ironically emotional towards her self-evident alterity, but the other side of her is clinically cool and objectively detached as a subconscious coping mechanism. While this obviously causes her a degree of distress, she has long since accepted and rationalized her behavior, choosing instead to either simulate or suppress emotions to "fit in" with society. This is fortunately balanced out with her runaway intellect; Chi'sae is very well-studied in the knowledge of one of the world's oldest cultures, and through both ancient and modern Chon'sin texts, she is not only a skilled magician but also a good swordswoman and an excellent scholar, befitting her role as a tactician and therefore the sharpest mind in any group. Her inadequate empathy also allows her to ruthlessly pursue the most efficient course of action, regardless of the reservations and qualms of those around her. Chi'sae serves no consistent master out of loyalty, instead choosing to roam the world in search for whatever may interest her most. Her motivation, therefore, can be said to be a mixture of her own personal interest and whatever benefits her pocketbook the most. Although she occasionally makes references to the Old Gods of Chon'sin, it is debatable as to whether it is an indicator of any faith or if it's merely a linguistic quirk. While Chi'sae may have once been bitter at her exile from Chon'sin, it is nearly impossible to tell whether this is still the case nowadays. Backstory Born in a time when the Kingdom of Chon'sin was still an independent sovereign state existing beside the Valmese Empire, Xin Chi'sae was the twin sister to Xin Ro'wen, both scions to Clan Xin, one of the many noble families of the kingdom. In accordance with expectations placed upon them to rule their lands when they come of age and inherit the mantle of leadership, Chi'sae and Ro'wen were trained in the arts of politics and warfare; where she learned magic, he learned swordsmanship, and where she learned administration, he learned leadership. Of course, this separation of specializations didn't seem to matter so much as the twin siblings soon began to share what they knew with each other, exhibiting a profound capacity at learning as their fields of study blended with each other, and soon both siblings were given a more rounded education encompassing the different fields. Chi'sae's childhood would've personally been normal and typical of girls of her station, had it not been for a personal self-discovery when her grandmother passed away of old age when Chi'sae was only seven. A beloved woman respected by even her most ardent political opponents, many came to her funeral and openly mourned her passing. However, Chi'sae, who had up to that point believed that she had truly loved her grandmother, realized that although she understood the finality of death and that her grandmother was gone, she was incapable of feeling sorrow at this particular event. She understood why the others were mourning, but she herself could not feel their sadness, as if she existed only within her own emotional bubble. Confused yet fearful of seeming different from everyone else, Chi'sae also feigned tears, a tactic she would have to resort to in the years to come as she soon came to realize that she existed on a very different emotional bandwidth from others, turning to emotional guardedness, cognitive deduction, and some buffoonery to maintain her image as a normal person with a sense of social empathy. Unsurprisingly, Chi'sae's childhood was marked with a silent, invisible suffering invisible to almost everyone else. Finding it difficult to instinctively connect with her family, friends, and peers, she was forced to project and simulate the appearance of emotions to fit in. She found the reactions of everyone around her to be absurd, but also felt that she had no choice but to imitate them as if she was some kind of circus animal. Only the most astute, those who struggled to understand Chi'sae well, realized that her reactions, her smiles and giggles and pouts, were forced, fake. It was not that she had no emotions, nor that she had an active desire to deceive, as much as it simply was that she could not emotionally engage with others. The number of people she could be honest with was less than the fingers on her hand, a number that included Ro'wen. At the same time, however, Chi'sae naturally became able to regard people as entities she could disregard without emotional consequence; she didn't necessarily consider them disposable, but she acknowledged the fact that the suffering and deaths of others simply did not effect her as they did others. At age fourteen, Chi'sae and Ro'wen were both to participate in Kumatai, a great gathering of clans in celebration, with field exercises held amongst the clans of Chon'sin, wargames held for the next generation of leaders and tacticians in which mock armies proved their mettle against each other. Representing Clan Xin, Chi'sae was designated as the tactician for the battle, while Ro'wen would lead the troops into battle. Through the weeks-long wargames, Chi'sae and Ro'wen led their "armies" through an unbroken chain of victories, a combination of foresight, intelligence, ingenuity, and daring that allowed them to outthink, outmaneuver, and outfight their opponents. Their final challenge, however, pitted them against the scions of Clan Wei, who had prodigies of their own to rival the twins. Stalemates between the two competing clans lasted precariously, with both sides implementing daring, dangerous strategies against each other, neither able to achieve the deceive coup de grace to ensure their victory. Chi'sae decided that their only option was to eliminate the enemy leadership directly rather than facing a protracted battle of attrition amongst their troops. However, she understood that Clan Wei's scions were too competent to be fooled by just any feint, and so she needed to make her feint seem real by dedicating the bulk of her forces into an enemy trap; either Clan Wei would assume that no feint would see such dedication of manpower, or that the opportunity would be too good to squander even if it was a trap. Chi'sae intellectually knew that Ro'wen would not approve of a move that sacrificed so many of their troops, even if it was just a mock battle and not a true conflict, but her inability to emotionally connect with others caused her to be certain that this was the best course of action. To complete the deception, she convinced Ro'wen to lead the suicidal feint, in her opinion harmlessly taking advantage of her twin brother's belief that she would never send him personally on a suicide run. In the end, Chi'sae's plan was a success. As expected, Ro'wen and the bulk of the Clan Xin forces were eliminated, but a surprise flanking move by Chi'sae took out Clan Wei's core leadership, thereby ending the wargame in a Clan Xin victory. Reactions to her win, however, were mixed; while some, including her parents, considered her strategy a pragmatic move that was acceptable because this was only a war game and not an actual conflict, others, including Ro'wen and many of her men, felt that the move was far too manipulative and ruthless. The Kumatai increased the emotional gap between the twins, which was particularly devastating for Chi'sae, who had come to rely on her twin brother as something of an emotional crutch. This only caused her to be increasingly emotionally-guarded, and she actively attempted to suppress her emotions as her social alterity became ever more of an evident and sensitive subject for her. The Valmese Empire formally began its invasion of the Kingdom of Chon'sin when Chi'sae was but sixteen. As one of the fiefdoms at the country's borders, Clan Xin was amongst the first to be caught in the first wave of attacks, forced to be the wavebreakers making it easier for Chon'sin reinforcements to hold out against Valmese troops that have lost their momentum. Within the course of the week, Clan Xin had lost most of its members, with Chi'sae's parents confirmed dead and Ro'wen's status unknown. As the highest-ranking member of Clan Xin available, Chi'sae was responsible for leading the remnants of her forces and her peasants in a retreat towards safe Chon'sin territory. However, she was well aware that she was being pursued by Valmese military forces who would swiftly catch up. Feasibly, her options were to surrender to the enemy in an attempt to save those under her charge, or to start a costly fighting retreat that might see her peasants safe but would bleed out most of Clan Xin's remaining fighting strength. Chi'sae chose the alternative, and she ordered the peasants, whom she considered to be strategically disposable, to march in a different direction, deceiving them into thinking that they were headed for safe ground while the fighting men of Clan Xin lured the pursuing Valmese away. In reality, it was her soldiers she was trying to save, not her peasants, with the latter acting as the decoy while Chi'sae and her fighting forces retreated to regroup with the rest of the Chon'sin. Her subordinates pleaded with her not to do so, but with her inability to feel how desperate the mood was and her cognitive belief that this was the only feasible option, she carried out the plan anyways. Her strategy worked, and although the peasants were never seen again, Chi'sae managed to reach the capital of Chon'sin with all of the soldiers having survived the retreat. But some of the officers resented her for the sacrifice, and word soon reached the ears of the Chon'sin princess, who took matters into her own hands. While she commended Chi'sae's strategic and tactical acumen, and while she admitted that Chi'sae was a brilliant thinker who knew how to weigh the pros and cons astutely against each other, the princess criticized Chi'sae for lacking the heart to understand her people. Furthermore, while she conceded that Chi'sae's plan was the "right thing" to do from a strategic wartime perspective, the princess found her lack of willingness to protect her own subjects, going as far as to use them all as sacrificial pawns, unforgivable. Still, the princess was unwilling to sentence her to death, especially since Chi'sae's actions had been motivated entirely out of loyalty and concern for her kingdom, so she instead had Chi'sae exiled from Chon'sin, where she was never to return. With no choice left to her, the last daughter of Clan Xin made for the continent of Ylisse, where the only path left available to her was to put her considerable talents onto the market, to see who was going to be the highest bidder. Timeline Notes Approved by Blonde Panther.
