Kasumi Akashi

A not too terribly ordinary girl that came from an ordinary world, Kasumi's life was ever the simple one. She was born and raised in Osaka to two loving parents. They gave her freedom and weren't too overbearing as parents, and she was always none the wiser of the underlying reason to that: they were at ends with one another. It came to fruition when she was just shy of turning ten and they inexplicably divorced. She was young enough to not completely understand it but still retain the emotional recoil of the separation.

Until she was about fourteen, she lived with her father. He didn't treat her any better or worse, and she was grateful for the complacency. She came to understand the way the situation was with her parents and accepted it after seeing them both more at ease with themselves. If anything, they both seemed to have found some fortune monetarily in their lives independent of one another. Her mother found work in Tokyo and her father remained in Osaka moving up in the ranks of the company he was in which employed. She never minded shuffling herself between cities during her breaks to stay with one or the other, because it gave her the opportunity to meet new people.

She was never without friends in any city she found herself living. There was never a friend she didn't keep in touch with and never a friend she had a falling out with for that matter. Perhaps that was largely due to the fact that she was only living in the same city as her friends for a limited amount of time and saw them sparingly in person. Whenever she was around them, however, they were always out until six in the morning doing one thing or another.

By the time she was ready to enter University, she had seen just about all there was to see of Taiwan. For all her traveling, she began to desire to see more of the world outside of Japan. So, her first venture was to study Chinese in Beijing, China. She spent a year and a half in China and came pretty close to being fluent in Chinese when she got the impulse to go back somewhere else. Looking into programs in her school, she found one that was located in Sydney, Australia and thought: what the hell? She didn't know a bit of English, but took the chance.

Although she picked up on some while living in Sydney, she didn't really grasp the accent. So, she decided to study abroad elsewhere. She was offered a position to teach at Texas Tech University and was put through a rigorous conversational English class prior to her arrival. While it helped and she has adapted, she can't speak it or write it as well as she would like. She keeps trying, however! When she initially arrived in Lubbock, there was a screw-up with her visa. The U.S. ended up deporting her to Mexico, so she was left in Juarez.

While waiting for counselors from Texas Tech to come and retrieve her, she got bored and left to wander around. Eventually, she found a Mexican cantina and stopped in. They found her there getting wasted off of tequila unknowingly, but she was in high spirits! It wasn't much of a hassle thereafter to get her back, and everyone was little more than relieved to find she was completely unharmed for the ordeal.

Since the outbreak, she has been living in Lubbock and has resumed teaching Japanese per her contract while attending classes.

condemnations

2009

• 12/25 — Got to go home for Christmas thanks to Danidani-kun.

2010

• 01/19 — Participated in the Dodge Bowl.

• 01/27 — To Honolulu thanks to BoA.

• 01/29 — Attended the Girls Abroad Tour in Hawaii.

• 03/12 — Got a visit from Ai-chan!

• 03/14 — Got to go to the Apple & Cinnamon show with Akanishi-kun!

• 03/21 — Attended the Look Who's Sexy Tour in New York with Akanishi-kun!

• 03/22 — Helped out fighting infected when the hospitals were overrun.

• 04/14 — Attended the It's Raining 24/7 concert somehow by god. Somehow.

• 05/10 — Participated in the Lee Hyori Charity Games.

• 05/16 — Attended Point de Suture Tour in Paris with her buddies. They stayed and toured the city awhile after!

• 05/25 — Returned to Lubbock.

• 06/06 — Flown to Honolulu for a friend's wedding and also a conference for her home University!

• 06/18 — Returned to Lubbock.

• 06/23 — Got the vaccine!

• 06/27 — Went to New York!

• 07/20 — Helped where she could in New York during the attacks.

• 08/07 — Attended the Taboo 24/Se7en show!

• 08/10 — Was forced to stay in New York due to the destruction of Lubbock.

• 09/05 — Cupid made her fall in love with the first person she saw on the streets, and she spent the rest of the day trying to find him.

• 10/09 — Started the not-so big move into a student dorm!

• 10/24 — Attended the Beautiful World Concert.

• 10/31 — Did her best to stay out of trouble when shit hit the fan, but vampires really like her!

• 12/20 — Japan!!

• 12/24 — Attended On A Winter's Night both days!

• 12/31 — Spent her new years in Daimon, but drinking made her somehow end up in Shinjuku by new years day.

Kasumi has always been thought of as an unnaturally outgoing person. She is an easy person to like with how friendly she comes across to others. Even if she were to dislike someone, she would grin and bear it and try to find a way to get into their good graces anyway. In this respect, she is definitely an immature person in some ways because she's much too stubborn for her own good to the point of not knowing any better. Overall, she isn't all that immature, but sometimes she tries to act like she is just so people don't get caught off guard when she acts younger than her age anyway.

She is a busybody and always thinks she's going to be late, so she runs everywhere unless she's just too tired to care. Due to her blustering nature, she's also a little bit absent-minded. She means well and takes it hard when she does something wrong, but she has some bad habits she just can't seem to shake.

It certainly comes as a shock when she tells people she's teaching Japanese and she always urges her students not to say she's their instructor. Because of her close proximity in age coupled by a youthful appearance, she has a tendency to branch away from how she's supposed to teach by the book and gets reprimanded at times for it by her supervisors. So, she does try to take teaching slightly more seriously despite feeling ridiculous teaching adults on elementary level Japanese.

Outside of teaching, she is a playful individual. She feels old because she has to be studying day in and day out, and hardly has time to do anything fun. The most important thing about her though is that she really, really misses Japan. It's been the key factor in mellowing out her otherwise quirky personality.

Red Spectrum Light — Kasumi can generate coherent red spectrum light force which she can use for energy blasts, and to form solid energy constructs. These include swords, force fields, shields, and funnels. This energy is malleable in that she can basically use it to her heart's content as long as it is feasibly possible and she has the physical energy to maintain it. She could, for example, propel a car through the air with passengers inside and fly along with it as long as she possessed the energy herself to concentrate on it all with ease.

Flight — Basically, she can propel herself into the air and fly by force of will. She can only go as fast as her mind can comprehend. So, not any faster than she could basically handle driving a car. It does not, however, take anything out of her energy-wise to fly. High speeds only affect her concentration if she is trying to manipulate the spectrum light.

Phasing — Kasumi possesses the ability to pass through solid matter by passing her atoms through the spaces between the atoms of the object through which she is moving. In this way she and the object through which she is passing can temporarily merge without interacting, and each is unharmed when Kasumi has finished passing through the object. This process is called "phasing." When Kasumi is phasing, she is, for all intents ad purposes, intangible. Hence, when attacked, she can shift into a "phasing" state (even if she is not at the time passing through an object) so as to allow oncoming projectiles or energy blasts to pass through her harmlessly. Kasumi passes through objects at the same rate of speed at which she is moving before she "enters" it.

air walking — Using her phasing ability, Kasumi can walk on air. In fact, she can use her ability to walk on the air from the ground to the upper stories of a building as if she were climbing a staircase.

phasing extension — From the first use of her phasing power, Kasumi has been able to phase her clothing along with herself. Through practice she has learned to phase other objects along with herself without harm to them, and could potentially phase an entire group of people with enough training. However, she must maintain physical contact with the people or objects she phases along herself for the effect to work with this other person or object.

electrical disruption — Kasumi can phase through any material object, even living people. When she phases through an object with an electrical system, the process disrupts the systems workings.

telepathic resistance — Her thoughts are highly erratic when phased as if there was no mind to telepathically affect.

Mother & Father — Living safely in Tokyo, Japan.
Takumi Akashi — Six going on seven and she's just so proud of how much kanji he can read!

love interest

Hiroshi Yoshida — Her ex-boyfriend~ He always said she was immature. He stayed with her after the outbreak, as he had been visiting her at the time. Often she felt like he doesn't really care about her, but she was (and still is a little) crazy about him. He's slightly older and a professor of Japanese at University of Texas in Austin, and since they broke up at the end of December in '09, he returned to Austin.

3some

Michel Hurst — Maiku-kun! He is so gloomy sometimes, which is so weird! How can he be when he's surrounded by hot women? She drags him along with her for just about everything like Shun Shun and Veronica-chan! If they didn't have such a bad language barrier, she just knows they'd probably get along better! She really does think of him as one of her good friends though. Missing.
Shun Bian — Shun Shun! She was a grad student Chinese professor in her department. They used to have an epic language barrier between them with their English mutually kind of sucking in some ways until some incidents led Shun Shun to go to the Revival Project to formally have the language put into her head. It took Kasumi some time to get over the insults she got through the ordeal, too, but she knows it wasn't the real Shun Shun talking. She loves her Shun Shun to itty bitty bits and is looking forward to when they can hang out together regularly again and be silly girls.

faculty friends

Bishop Cheng — Bishi-kun! He is so nice! She likes to take his classes at the Rec, too. He's pretty blunt, but she takes that fairly well (all things considered). She appreciates him for letting her come watch his TV!
Veronica von Schauer — Veronica-chan! She's a Sign Language teacher and always takes her out for lunch! She also gets to learn ASL from her and in return she teaches her JSL.

good friends

Akio Tsurata — Aki-kun! She went to high school with him. Isn't his hair so cool? He's such an interesting guy and she is hardly ever phased by his personality jumps, as she's one of those people that can get along with just about anyone. He is one of her best guy friends since they go so far back! He is also the deriver of her nickname of Azumi. She is really attached to him, he's something of a brother to her.
Ayaka Komura — Ayaka-chan! She's one of her oldest friends. She met her when she was little, and often visited her! She really adores her and thinks she's ridiculously talented.
Iris Cheng — Ai-chan! Someone she met in Tokyo, naturally. God is she so cute! Kasumi just loves her to death. She thinks of her as one of her very good friends and is always happy to see her and try her sweets!
Mizuki Shiranui — Shira-chan! She has such a good heart, Kasumi loves her to death. When they met, Kasumi took to her immediately and thinks of her as a good friend. Granted she tends to think that of everyone, she means it every time..! She tries to keep in touch with her as much as possible.
Takumi Matsumoto — Taku-kun! She knew his girlfriend, Moeko. They became friends while they were dating and despite their breakup, she remained pals with him! They keep in touch as often as they can despite the distance between them!
Tatsuya Nakamura — Tatsu-kun! She knows him from her high school days in Tokyo. One of her good friends!

friendships

Akanishi Jin — Akanishi-kun! Omg. He takes her places. He is obviously her favorite member of KAT-TUN now for taking her to concerts, especially on White Day!
Daniel Sying Chieu — Danidani-kun~! He had a funny video posted and didn't expect her to be a teacher. Siiiigh! He seemed nice and she congratulated him on his A. He's a nice guy, and helped her go home for the holidays!
Haruki Kobayashi — Haru-kun! Why did he stop replying to her letters? She met him when she was younger and saw him playing. He was so good! She kept in touch with him until he got a big head and quit reciprocating. What a meanie!
Himawari Nakamura — Naka-chan! She's Tatsu-kun's onee-san! She seemed nice. Everyone she meets that is nice to her is basically a friend in her book.
Lonán Ailill Sullivan — Roro-kun! She met him when she was going to school in Sydney, Australia. In hindsight, she's (not honestly) miffed that he kept referring to has "pretty girl!!!" He seemed so fun! But sup language barrier.
Sierra Bellini — Shiera-chan! She used to date Aki-kun! She was friends with her until she disappeared. Now she isn't sure what to think of her, because she sides with Aki-kun (understandably). She supports them all the same, however, and she doesn't think badly of her as much as she just has no place thinking anything at all.

acquaintances

Adelaide — Aderai-chan! She met her at the Lee Hyori Charity Games. So nice! She liked her rice cakes, so obviously she is awesome.
BoA — Jolin-san! Holy shit! That's BoA! Out of respect for her, she hasn't told her she is 99% certain she is in fact one of her favorite pop stars. She helped her get to Honolulu to see her in concert.
Micah — Maika-kun! He thinks Bishi-kun is going to make her repay him for the Paris trip. She is nervous. Otherwise, Maika-kun seemed nice!
Min-ki — Minki-kun! He was so adorable and liked her ricecakes! He will soon be a good friend of hers, for serious!
Naiteu Song Sim — Naito-kun! He was so nice! He was a lot of fun to have on her team for the Lee Hyori Charity Games.
Se7en — Holy crap. He likes her rice cakes! He is obviously her #1 singer.
Show — A really nice guy, and his Japanese was fantastic! She was on his soccer team for the Lee Hyori Charity Games!
Siobhan — Shiba-chan! She liked Kasumi's rice cakes that she brought for the soccer team at the Lee Hyori Charity Games. Thought she was nice and cool! Missing.
Shimizu-kouhai — She was his senpai and didn't know him too well outside of sports. She keeps up with him a little over the community now. Missing.

The obligatory disclaimer since she is kind of a uh unique character. Kasumi is based off of one of my own Japanese teachers I've had who types (and speaks) pretty much the same way by mixing English with romanized Japanese. She does it because she's too lazy to switch her keyboard over full time to a Japanese one. So, if your character knows Japanese and you don't, just leave me an ooc note or email/message (something) asking what it means, it's cool. Seriously! She's just a quirky kinda gal. She's not intended to be offensive or something!

Categories: New York City, New York | Characters