Hokuto

Hokuto Sumeragi
Quote:	"....."
IC Information
Full Name:	Sumeragi Hokuto
Gender/Sexuality:	Female/Unspecified
Species:	Human
Place of Origin:	Tokyo, Japan
Birthdate:	February 14th, 1975 (Age ??)
Height:	5'8"
Weight:	119lbs
Hair Color:	Black
Eye Color:	White (Blind, Right)/Green (Left)
Blood Type:	O-
Romantic Status:	Untangled.
Occupation:	Astrologer and Spirit Medium
Residence:	Starlight Shrine, Western Yuriba (former)

Hokuto Sumeragi is an talented onmyouji (also referred to as a yin-yang sorcerer or spirit medium) and the former 13th Head of the Sumeragi clan. She can be soft-spoken at times and is extremely kindhearted, though possesses a well-hidden violent side.

History

Hokuto Sumeragi spent much of her childhood sequestered with her twin brother, Subaru, in their family compound. This isolation came following the death of Hokuto and Subaru's parents at the hands of a spiritual assassin, the Sakurazukamori. Prior to her parents' deaths, Hokuto was confronted by the Sakarazukamori and pressured into participating in a "game". The Sakarazukamori promised that she would never harm Hokuto or her brother, so long as Hokuto never fell in love with the assassin. Hokuto agreed to this, without realizing the inherent trickery in play. The Sakarazukamori wiped memory of the deal from Hokuto's memory and marked her hands with a pair of pentacle-shaped cuts to commemorate the event. From time to time after her parents' assassination, Hokuto would dream of this meeting, but never in its full context.

By the time Hokuto and Subaru were teenagers, they had moved from their family compound into Tokyo, cared for by their grandmother Suzuka Sumeragi. This choice was a point of contention among the remaining Sumeragi family, but both of the youngest heirs to the family wished for more "normal" lives and refused to be restrained. During this time, Hokuto tried to juggle going to school and plying her trade as an onmyoujitsu; a spirit medium, and the Sumeragi family art. Hokuto and Subaru met and befriend a local veterinarian, Seishi Sakurazuka, around this same time. Seishi proved to be charming, subtly perverse, and utterly infatuated with Hokuto. Seishi integrated herself into their lives, never outwardly giving any hints that she was ever any more than what she said. But the truth was hidden in Hokuto's subconscious, as Seishi was, in fact, the legendary Sakurazukamori and had come to make good on her bet.

In the spring of 1991, despite Hokuto's protestations, she and Seishi did draw closer, something watched with a mixture of approval and worry by Subaru. By the fall of 1991 Hokuto fell victim to an attack by a violent spirit while attempting to perform an exorcism in a Tokyo subway. Seishi intervened, but in doing so suffered serious damage to her left eye and was partially blinded. At this selfless act, Hokuto admitted to Seishi that she loved her, and in turn sealed her fate. As soon as Hokuto realized and admitted her love for Seishi to herself, Seishi revealed her true colors, torturing Hokuto with the knowledge that she is the Sakurazukamori and that she--allegedly--cared nothing for Hokuto.

Seishi reciprocally blinded Hokuto in her right eye after this revelation and would have killed her, had Hokuto's grandmother not intervened. Seishi and the matriarch of the Sumeragi family would briefly fight one another, and though Seishi chose to flee, it was not before crippling the older woman and leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. The trauma of this event left Hokuto catatonic.

Two weeks later, in a bid to save his sister's life, Subaru masqueraded as his twin sister and confronted Seishi directlt. During their brief altercation, Subaru worked a spell on Seishi as she killed him so that if she attempted to kill Hokuto at a later time, it would backfire and take Seishi's life instead. It is only Subaru's death at the hands of the Sakurazukamori that roused Hokuto from her catatonia. Seishi would disappear from Tokyo entirely during this time, and Hokuto would never fully recover from their confrontation.

After Subaru's death and her grandmother's sacrifice, Hokuto was wracked with guilt and fled Tokyo. Pushed by both a need to avenge Subaru's death and some darker urge, she set to wandering in search of a means to exact her revenge. It was at this dark point in her life that Hokuto found passage on an old sailing vessel bound for Singapore. But, when the ship became lost in a thick fog bank, it nearly ran aground on the island of Yuriba. Hokuto, sensing the strange spiritual qualities of the island set off from the ship, warning the crew to stay aboard. After a brief exploration of the island she returned to the harbor, only to find that both the fog and the ship were nowhere to be found, and she was stranded. After arriving on the island in the midst of October in 2006, Hokuto had unknowingly been rocketed fifteen years into the future.

Hokuto remained on Yuriba for a year, during which time she was ultimately tracked down by the Sakarazukamori. However, thanks to he intercession of the Guardian breisleach and her many friends their intertwined fates were avoided, for a time. While Seishi never truly let go of her calling as the Sakarazukamori, she discovered that her heart truly belonged to Hokuto, and began to question her destiny.

During the early months of 2007, Hokuto returned to Tokyo with Seishi Sakurazuka for unknown reasons. While the two were only gone a handful of months on Yuriba, six years passed to them in Tokyo before they returned, resulting in the young Hokuto Sumeragi returning to Yuriba many years older. Hokuto confided that while they were away, she came under the employ of a supernatural entity named Yuuko Ichihara, though she was coy with regards to the circumstances of their work together.

In the fall of 2007, Hokuto came to rebuild and found the Starlight Shrine, a center for learning about Yuriban Animism located on the western side of Yuriba in a forest of yami no matsui. After the repair of the original structure, which dated back to the Lilian Era, Hokuto sought to make expansions on her own to the shrine through a magical process she was not yet ready to utilize. Hokuto attempted to perform the technique but was not physically or mentally prepared for, and was spiritually and physically drained. She was bed-ridden for much of a day, trying to recover her personal stores and has since given up plans on expansion of the shrine in that manner for the time being.

Between 2007 and 2008, Hokuto grew an extended family on Yuriba, including Seishi in that complicated family dynamic along with an immigrant girl named Iessica who came to be like Hokuto's adoptive daughter in this time, Hokuto began a complicated relationship with one of her students, Mirabelle O'Shea, though this came on the verge of troubling times.

In late 2008, Hokuto's grandmother came to Yuriba to visit with her granddaughter and ultimately chose to spend her final year of life on the island. But the matriarch of the Sumeragi family came not without ominous portents for both Hokuto and Seishi. A conflict was brewing in the world beyond Yuriba, one that both Hokuto and Seishi were destined to take part in, and one that neither were fated to survive. Hokuto and Seishi largely kept this secret to themselves, trying to determine how they would respond.

When Hokuto's grandmother Suzuka passed away, Hokuto was set upon by a horrific vision of devastation in the land that was formerly her home. Ultimately, she and Seishi chose to abandon Yuriba to fulfill their destinies, and Seishi convinced the onmyouji that the only way to part was without words. That any hesitation could convince Hokuto to stay behind with the people she loved. Knowing that she may never survive and unable to take the time to reconcile things properly, the pair vanished without a trace leaving a hurtful wake in their parting.

Years later in 2011, Hokuto would briefly return, meeting with briesleach and a handful of others. Though she did not speak much of it, Hokuto revealed that Seishi had died during whatever event had swept them away. She would not remain on Yuriba for long, but long enough to understand the pain caused by her departure. For many years after Hokuto would be little more than a memory of the island. Between 2011 and 2016 she appeared only once more, auspiciously arriving in a period of turmoil on the island to join the Guardian briesleach and her allies in a conflict with restless spirits in the remote reaches of the island. During this confrontation, Hokuto's spiritual self was grievously injured and she retreated from Yuriba to recover.

In the late summer of 2017, Hokuto reappeared in the shrine of Zokutou on Engetsu-san. There, bewildered by the passage of time and reeling from the unexpected nature of her return, she was met by the "spatial smasher" Sielle. The two had a brief conversation about the nature of coincidence, culminating with Sielle handing Hokuto the Hanged Man tarot card, one associated with her lost brother Subaru. Hokuto professed to not understanding where or "how" she was in Yuriba, and that it felt like a misremembered dream. Sielle opined that perhaps it was, in fact, a dream--but the wrong one. After which point, Hokuto's body guttered like a candle flame in the wind, vanishing before Sielle's eyes.

Current Relations

In her long absence from Yuriba, Hokuto's relationships with the island residents have understandably changed. Below are the people she has either met for the first time in meaningful conversation or reconnected with since her return following the 2017 Matsuri celebration.

breisleach: Forever bound to the Guardian breisleach, Hokuto has made small strides to reconnect with her former mate. Through their intrinsic bond the gulf that divides them has the potential to narrow, but both seem willing to let that take a natural course rather than force the reunion. On their first face-to-face meeting in years, Hokuto was introduced to several people in breisleach's current circle, which has set the onmyouji down new and at the same time familiar paths.

Five: Hokuto sees reflections of herself in breisleach's disciple, Five. Though many years her junior, Hokuto recognizes that they have both experienced similar traumas in their past. By understanding where she herself was at that age, Hokuto hopes to prevent Five from making the same mistakes she did and thereby finding some form of redemption for her own misguided youth. At the same time she cannot deny that there is an unspoken connection between them, be it their ties to breisleach or something else that has yet to be discovered. Hokuto has eagerly sworn herself to guide and protect the young woman.

Jubilee: Jubilation Lee, member of the Lily Blades is a recently-acquired fascination for Hokuto. The notion that Yuriba now has a self-styled militia operating out of subterranean tunnels makes her uncomfortable, but she can also tell that the close supervision of at least breisleach—if not all of the Guardians and Sentries—likely means this status won't be abused. Though she is keen to learn more about Jubilee and the Blades and determine just how much they are needed, and if there is another threat to Yuriba looming on the horizon.

Sielle: Sielle is, at present, little more than an enigma. Though one that Hokuto intends on solving, one way or another.

Abilities & Powers

Moved to Hokuto/Abilities for readability.

The Mystery of Yuuko Ichihara

Hokuto's relationship with Yuriba is juxtaposed with a dual-life she leads off of the island. Publicly, it is evident that Hokuto is missing from the island for long periods of time, sometimes spanning weeks, other times months or years in a row. Where she goes and what she does is not widely known, however that she has made mention to a woman named Yuuko Ichihara whom she works for in some capacity, as well as a shop owned by Yuuko. Hokuto claims that her service to Yuuko is voluntary, though there are reasons to doubt this. Hokuto has referred to Yuuko as both a "witch" and a "genie" in passing, and also jokingly referred to herself as the latter. While tongue-in-cheek, this notion seems to be tied with whatever work Hokuto does off of the island. Ever since taking on employment under Yuuko, Hokuto has become more keen on observing the wants and needs of others she encounters, to the point of being intrusive.

Music

2006-2007: Yoshida Brothers: Fuyu no Sakura

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnQy8AYsoTo&

Instrumental

2008-2016: Florence & The Machine: Cosmic Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfBY96qxVRQ

A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes

I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it’s left me blind

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

You left me in the dark

No dawn, no day, I’m always in this twilight

In the shadow of your heart

And in the dark, I can hear your heartbeat

I tried to find the sound

But then it stopped, and I was in the darkness,

So darkness I became

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

You left me in the dark

No dawn, no day, I’m always in this twilight

In the shadow of your heart

I took the stars from our eyes, and then I made a map

And knew that somehow I could find my way back

Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too

So I stayed in the darkness with you

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

You left me in the dark

No dawn, no day, I’m always in this twilight

In the shadow of your heart

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

You left me in the dark

No dawn, no day, I’m always in this twilight

In the shadow of your heart

2017: Agnes Obel: Fuel to Fire

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bNV28kwDWHA

Do you want me on your mind or do you want me to go on

I might be yours as sure as I can say

Be gone be faraway

Roses on parade, they follow you around

Upon your shore as sure as I can say

Be gone be faraway

Like fuel to fire

Into the town we go, into your hideaway

Where the towers grow, gone to be faraway

Sing quietly along

Pious words to cry into the under

Upon your shore as sure as I can say

Be gone be faraway

Oh what a day to choose

Torn by the hours

All that I say to you

Is like fuel to Fire

Into the town we go, into your hideaway

Where the towers grow, gone to be faraway

Never do we know, never do they give away

Where the towers grow, only you will hear them say

Sing quietly along

Sing quietly along