Name: Kanade Akiyama
Gender/Sex: Female/Female
Age: 17
Description: Kanade is a tall and slender girl, being about 5'8'' in height. Her jet-black hair is also quite long, reaching down to the middle of her back, with a sleek, metal sheen to it, and held in place with a small pin in the shape of a butterfly with purple wings. Her eyes are a deep brown, almost black, and her skin is rather pale, lending her an cold, elegant look. This is aided by her preference for simple, yet opulent attire out of school, and the school uniform being rather formal and lending itself to a more elegant air. Her voice has a silky, sultry quality to it, and her expression always seems to be teasing, or coy, contributing to the air of vague mystery and elegance around Kanade.
Personality: Kanade seems hard to approach due to all of the above, not helped due to other factors in general, causing people to shy away for fear of angering an unseen clique of harpies or an overprotective boyfriend when Kanade approaches them to be as friendly as possible. Indeed, should these people actually pay attention to Kanade, one would detect a hint of loneliness and desire for companionship, caused by this enforced isolation. To someone completely unaware of what Kanade is really like, she seems overly open, always going out to greet the newcomers and trying to make conversation before the inevitable rumour mill comes into play. When one ignores the rumours and mystery and actually gets to know Kanade, she is rather teasing and mischievous, but kind and warm to her friends. She is protective of her friends to a fault, with an inner steel one might not expect from the fragile-looking slender girl that she is, shown especially in dangerous situations. Her kindness is not extended to her enemies, especially those stupid enough to harm her friends; to them, she is perfectly happy to unleash her bitingly harsh tongue and her wrath. She is also industrious and hardworking, seeking to ignore the stereotype of the idle rich.
Backstory: The Akiyama family are a small, but respectable and decently rich family, descended from the
samurai clique before the abolition of the class led the Akiyama clan to establish a
zaibatsu from their former lands' thriving ports with China that remains prosperous, albeit small, to the present day. Nowadays, the Akiyama clan- no longer in charge of the group, though most of the family still works in the conglomerate and Kanade's father, Tetsuo, is still the chairman- live off the riches of their eponymous group, living in simple, yet opulent surroundings as per their once great pedigree.
Kanade is the only child of the current generation of the Akiyama clan. As a child, she spent much of her childhood in Sendai; her parents, especially her mother Ayane- the local doctor- were determined that Kanade would live her life as she wanted to live it and so allowed her as much freedom as was reasonable for a child. Her childhood was normal at first, and Kanade excelled in school and made many friends, but as she grew older, and children began to realise the person in whose presence they were, they began to drift further and further apart from the growing girl. This was not helped as she blossomed into a beautiful young woman as people began backing away for fear of retribution from her friends or her non-existent lover should they get near her, and slowly her circle shrank only to her closest friends; nobody else could muster the courage to grow near to her. Kanade noted this, but was not overly saddened; as long as she had friends and people she could trust and confide in, she could tolerate it.
Eventually, the situation was exacerbated when, three years ago, the Akiyama family moved from their residence in Sendai to Aibo City, following a reorganisation of the company to move their Japan headquarters to there. The farewell from her friends in Sendai was tearful, and Kanade grew to miss them; even more so when it transpired that she knew nobody in Aibo. Aibo, indeed, was a far different place to Sendai, and everyone knew who the Akiyamas were there. Though the fellow rich families of Aibo were willing to socialise with the newcomers, they were still considered outsiders, albeit rich and shrewd outsiders.
Kanade spent most of her three years in Hakanai alone; though she had a circle of admirers who wanted to be her, and suitors who wanted to be with her due to her beauty or her riches, there were only a few, if any, people she could count as friends- closer to acquaintances who didn't fear the rumours, even-, and nowhere near as close as her friends in Sendai at that; if it were to be chalked up to any reason at all, it was due to a combination of her outsider status, her status as a wealthy person and assumptions about her as a result that she could not successfully debunk. Kanade's desire for a circle of close friends continued to grow, and her yearning for the past and for her old friends grew more, to the point that she found herself wishing sometimes that she could re-live her childhood and harken back to a younger time. However, as her last year at Hakanai began, Kanade grew optimistic. After all, she graduated this year, and perhaps, with a change of pace, she could get what she wanted; people she could confide and trust in, just as she once used to have.
On a side note, the family words of the Akiyama clan translate roughly to 'Be Careful What You Wish For'.
Weapon: Naginata/Lances
Arcana: Lovers
The bond that is friendship is a double-edged sword. Just as it ties you in companionship, so too does it hold you in servitude.