[SNPC/Esper] Tataki Hinagiku

FULL NAME: Tataki Hinagiku.
AGE: 15 years.
GENDER: Female.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
A summer girl through and through. Tataki Hinagiku could have been a true beauty, unfortunately she doesn’t care enough about it. Her skin is of rather pale complexion, a condition that does not change no matter how long she’s bathing in the sun. She is short, only being 1.51cm high and quite slender – lacking a properly developed body – as well, but that is hardly surprising for someone who should be in their first year of high school. She is both sporty, a bit muscular and her skin, although pale, is rather rough. Her hair is long, yet wild and oftentimes bound into a careless pony tail, an act she performs in the morning to get done quickly. Beyond that her natural hair colour would have been brown, yet with the help of some dye and bleach it was changed to blonde, suiting her naturally emerald eyes.
To ruin any chance of a good impression, she quite often chooses clothing that could very well be described as «summerly» not to say «skimpy». Only wearing a tiny white tube top on her upper body that is hardly enough to cover her average chest and jeans which have both their legs cut off until the bases of her thighs, even slipping past the category of hot pants, she shows off quite some skin, possibly all one can show off without breaking public decency laws. However to at least cover some more up and to escape lusty glances of perverts (which unfortunately are quite common around her place) she’d often wear a red leather jacket. One she never buttons up, though. And if that isn’t odd enough, her selection for foot wear is often bound to center around black steel plated boots like those worn by construction workers or soldiers, not for style reasons, but because she knows she’ll need them eventually.
In the end though nothing about her might appear truly cute or sexy, is she lacking both the radiance of a lady and the sex appeal of a properly developed woman, actually falling into the category of delinquency, which pretty much ruins all chances at anything for a lifetime!

PERSONALITY:
¥Back-alley Business Tycoon
There’s a lot of things people can be good at. Some write poems. Some play an instrument. Some can kick a soccer ball over an entire field. Some simply are genius businessmen. The latter is Hinagiku, more or less. As the child of the most scammy, impolite and cunning fish merchant there ever was in Tokyo bay, she inherited all the worst parts from him and his craftiness. Her mindset is geared towards business, ignoring any borders, limits, regulations or morals, quite frankly turning her into someone even the most terrible wall street bankers would shit their pants in front. And yes, she would most likely ease them of their hard earned bills if she ever got the chance to.

¥Asphalt Maiden
To be what she is in Academy City and to survive that way extreme measures are necessary. If you fear the loan sharks outside, you likely can’t even imagine what those inside are like. But if you do have an idea, you should quickly learn how to survive. Tataki for her part did. She’s not someone you can fool easily, not somebody who would recklessly walk into her own demise and most of all not somebody you wish to mess with. Skill-Out, drug traders, contracted killers, mafia like complexes, she’s dealt with all kinds of people and been hardened by the experience; even though she quite often managed to only slip away by a hair’s breadth.

¥Ill mannered as hell
Don’t invite her to parties! Don’t even invite her to a normal eat-out! She wasn’t raised well and she doesn’t give a shit about learning. She does know how to convince others to do business, but that’s all. She doesn't have any manners or any understanding of that. Table manners? No trace. Conversational etiquette? What’s that?! She talks the way she wants, she gnaws down on food the way she wants, she basically does everything the way she wants. It’s basically as though she would perfectly well fit among vikings, barbarians or the like.

¥Straight forward
Some people are careful, some mindful, some empathetic, Hinagiku is cruel. Once a thought crosses her mind, she isn’t too shy to express it immediately. Pairing that with her lack of manners, it’s always bound to hurt a lot. She would always speak up immediately if anything annoyed her, and immediately charge at any trouble makers bombarding them with her razor sharp tongue’s words. You don’t believe that’s bad? Well, then you have never stood on ground zero, really.

¥Iron shell, Bubblegum core
Acting all tough all day is in some way only a facade she adapted over the long time of having lived in a world full of danger. Hinagiku is a fighter, but she’s still just a girl. A girl with a heart, emotions and a tough past on her back. She cries like a normal person, grows attached to others like a normal person and has ideals like a normal person. No matter how corrupted she might seem to others, in the end there is still something like a good will buried somewhere underneath that pile of bad traits. You will catch her crying, you will catch her despair and you will catch her true heart, once the time for those things comes. She isn’t inherently bad, she just is good at burying her weak spots for her own good.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
It’s a dog eat dog world.

Unlike the majority of people in Academy City Tataki Hinagiku is not daughter to some big shot business man, a scientist or someone in any way respectable. Her father being a merchant at the Tokyo fish market and her mother said to have worked as a hostess in a club especially popular with the yakuza, the best expression suiting her background is…despicable.

However if it wasn’t for their rather unique professions then their life mentality would actually seem even more out of place and of course despicable. Both of them from the days they were born to the time they will eventually die, were and will always be the kind of people solely seeking to cash in in the most convenient, even though utterly shameful, ways possible. That’s what they wanted to do, that’s what they were good at and that’s what their entire life was driven by. And in the end, what did it bring them? Trouble, so deep it’s ridiculous.

Just a few missteps here, some fucked up bets and a bunch of unforeseen bills caused by a number of lawsuits there and suddenly the loan sharks would be glued to their asses like vultures to a rotting corpse. Faced with that kind of problem, the sole solution for the couple to arrive at was to at least send their one and only child away to a place seemingly remotely safe: Academy City. There everything would change, there she would have a new start and there she would be granted a chance to escape her old life altogether with her parents’ overbearing mistakes; hopefully.

At least that’s what they had sincerely hoped for. Unfortunately children have this odd habit of coming too closely after their parents, especially if those actually do spend the entire childhood period imparting their «genius» teachings.

With those teachings at her back and a city full of possibilities right in front, the outcome was obvious from day one forward. At least she finished middle school, yet not with the best of grades or even best attendance. While her classmates met for studying sessions, she strolled the scrap yards searching treasures, while they gathered for karaoke she sold her merchandise for good over the top prices and while they sneakily picked up their first unofficial part-time job at some indie back-alley café, she would prepare to scam them in the evening. Everything she did was shady, underhanded and very much the lowest, yet most convenient kind.

And what of it in the end? Her final grades were bad, her entrance exams a screwup and her reputation so bad, no high school would even ever want her; not that she cared, though. Money is money. Gain is gain. Business the only thing to live by. Not having any dorm to serve as her home, her current place is some shabby shack somewhere in District 11, both cheap and small. Instead of heading anywhere she’d mostly spend her days seeking the big opportunity, getting involved into whatever new stuff there might occur. Be it turning failed prototypes into the big new sensation, drug dealing, or simply making new lines of business her own.

Yet somehow she’s still alive and kicking.

ABILITIES:
¥Scrapyard Champion
Academy City is the treasure trove of science and technology. There’s an infinite amount of new ground breaking products developed every single day. They are countless and their value insane. However with production counts this high, it is hardly surprising that not everything leaves the prototype state. So to say there’s a lot being discarded. And this is where Tataki comes in.

Early on she realised the big potential in that unfortunate fact and built on it from the beginning on. She’s the kind of person to seek out scrap yards in order to search for whatever prototype had been abandoned over there, aiming to turn it into the next big selling hit. Naturally over the years she developed quite some skill in figuring out an item’s value and possibilities. She wouldn’t just see the most straight forward aspects, but seek out the true depths of the potential, twisting the original purpose around quite some corners until she’d finally arrive at something that would turn the trash into a bright star business.

However that is only half the truth. In fact what she does is not simply picking out items nobody would have ever considered useful, she is quite capable in the aspects of modification, as in restructure a device so that it would serve new purposes, as well as actually fixing things (even though it’s mostly done in makeshift ways). She could even go as far as to use the items for combat purposes by stretching their original usage to an extent that’d allow utilising the most harmless thing in the most harmful ways. A good example for her work style would be the prototype of a high tech blow dryer that held the accidental downside of blowing people’s heads off, she found and turned into a rideable rocket for sky-high rodeo purposes.

Currently her range of tools is quite broad yet mostly limited to daily appliances created to make everyday life better; not anything too drastic or actually military grade. After all that kind of stuff is hardly accessible, not to forget quite troublesome to make money of.

¥Offensive Self Defence
With her childhood having been overshadowed by all kinds of trouble, the loan sharks threatening her parents on the outside and Academy City’s underworld becoming her company on the inside, it’s mandatory for Hinagiku to know a thing or two about self defence. Most of what she can do has been self-taught but that came from experience. Having been getting into trouble with street gangs ever since she entered Academy City, she has mastered a bunch of ways to throw punches, kick asses and to make sure she somehow gets away alive. As she is now she could probably take on two or three guys at the same time, however if it gets to more of those she’d have to run.
Ignoring the skill, though, her frail figure is actually none but a delusion caused by her lack of developed features, meaning she does have quite the muscle power to saturate her offence.

¥Monkey Girly
She’s a delinquent, a tomboy and thus a monkey. Unfortunately it’s not just something brought across by her demeanour, but actually something delivered by her skill-set as well. She can move quickly, pull off some acrobatics and isn’t too shy to try new stuff. Be it climbing a street lantern, jumping from building roof tops or crouching through sewage pipes, she’s ready to do anything and quite adept at that stuff. Thus not only a monkey girl by looks, but one in all aspects.

¥Scam Artist Queen
It’s not scam, it’s business. The teachings of her parents still linger somewhere within Hinagiku. As a Tataki her life is oriented towards the goal of making more than just a living. Business is a philosophy driven not by big deals or whatever, but by being innovative, cunning and in all ways convenient. You don’t produce and sell good products, you sell the stuff nobody wants and for prices that’s way over the general estimate or fairness. The customer isn’t king, the customer is someone you have to exploit, suck dry and then force into submission. And if somebody cannot pay, they should piss off. It’s cruel, but that’s how it goes.
Hardened by years of being taught and refined by more years of first hand experience, Tataki Hinagiku is the expert at making people spend all their money. Be it through simple advertisement talks, persuasion or cheap scam. She knows how to use the means at hand for the very best gain. A skill, no reason d’être, making her a tough contender in all kinds of negotiations.

¥Fish Maniac
Business isn’t the only thing that’s in her blood. The fish merchant aspect of her father was another thing she inherited back from home, manifesting in a heavy expertise to anything that involves fish, especially for dining purposes. She knows a thousand recipes to get working with the sea’s fruits, going so far that she could replicate quality ingredients with makeshift ones in case she doesn’t have access to the good ones. Surprisingly, though, once it gets to actually buying fish she doesn’t hold back on money at all, quite often going for more exquisite choices from high quality sources.
However in case money’s a bit short, she could very well produce excellent meals from simple canned rations.

FACE CLAIM: Mordred from Fate/Apocrypha.