Akane Watsura
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Permanent Record[edit]
Academics and Clubs: Watsura Akane transferred to Yamato High as a second-year student. Although she attended Yamato Elementary School, she transferred to Toyama Middle School when her family moved out to the countryside. (SEE FAMILY NOTES, BELOW). The return transfer was prompted by some personal troubles at Toyama, and were not for disciplinary or academic reasons.
She's on average a straight-B student; her best subjects are are geography and economics, and her worst subjects are Engrish and history. She has had no trouble making new friends and adjusting to the environment at Yamato High, and she renewed many old acquaintances. She's a member of the Kung-Fu Cooking Club, and she always goes out to see the girls' volleyball team compete, having known several of the team's star players since elementary school. She is an excellent sprinter, and many have tried to convince her to join the girls' track team, but she has personal reasons for refusing.
Watsura-chan can be seen around school sporting a battered red Toyama Middle School bookbag and a bracelet of red lacquered buddhist prayer beads in addition, of course, to her Yamato High uniform. The prayer beads were a gift from her late grandfather; they may or may not be magical. When not at school, she changes into jeans and a bright red motorcycle sports jacket. Her nickname, "Red Cat" is both a pun on "Akane-ko" (Little Akane) and "Akai-neko", a reference to her red jacket and the crimson-and-black airbrushed logo on her motorcycle, itself a parody of the Yamato Transport Company's famous "kuroneko" logo. However, she is very picky about who is allowed to use that nickname.
Interests and Hobbies: Watsura-chan runs a side business as a "finder" - she claims she can find anything in the prefecture. Rare CDs, lost wallets, missing siblings, etc. for a small fee. If a fellow student wants her to find something, they usually either TXT message her during class or they leave a note in her locker at school; she then meets them after school at "America-no-Shakeu", a milkshake stand a few blocks from the hich school, to learn more about the job.
The act of finding is an utterly chaotic, hapazard affair. While there is a cursory element of "investigation" and "research" involved, it largely involves Watsura-chan running and zooming all over town on her beloved 150cc Yamaha motorcycle. These madcap scavenger hunts are astonishingly successful; she seems to have an extraordinary, even supernatural, knack for finding hidden things. This talent manifests in other ways as well; for instance, she can guess where people have hidden their spare housekeys.
Watsura-chan charges a flat fee for each successful job, and the fee can vary wildly - past fees have included 5000Y for a rare CD (the CD itself, when found, accounted for 3800 of that), a home-cooked bento for finding a lost dog, and on one occasion even a complete overhaul and custom paint job for her motorcycle in exchange for finding someone a date for the Toyama Middle School graduation dance. (It is rumored that personal fallout from that particular "job" prompted her recent transfer to Yamato High.) One aspect of the fee never changes - whether or not Watsura agrees to the job, the customer has to cover the cost of the milkshake.
She joined the Kung Fu Cooking club after one succesful job, when a member of the club asked her to find some rare ingredients on short notice as part of an urgent recipe; she agreed as long as she got some of the finished product. She was so impressed with the dish that she stayed to learn how to cook better; since she lives alone, she does her own cooking most of the time.
Family History: Watsura-chan's father, Watsura Tomura-sensei, is a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine from a long line of such specialists, while her mother, Tomiko-san, is a stay-at-home housewife. The family moved to the countryside when Tomura-sensei's parents died and left her son a beautiful old pre-war cottage in the country hills outside of town, just down the road from a famous onsen. It was this move that prompted Watsura-chan's transfer to the much closer Toyama Middle School.
The two are rarely at home; Watsura-sensei has a prestigious tenured position at an area hospital, and usually spends the night in the hospital's dormitories. Tomiko-san, meanwhile, spends most of her time recently with her own ailing parents in Nara, leaving Akane with the run of the house. Since it takes three hours by train and taxi to get to Yamato High from the country house (although Akane can do it in two on her motorcycle), her parents have rented her a tiny apartment about twenty minutes' walk from Yamato High; she sometimes goes out to the country house for the weekend, especially when she needs to study for a big exam; when she goes, she often brings a few friends along. The cottage is just a short walk from an old hot springs, which are perfect for relaxing after a long day of cramming.
The country house may or may not be haunted.
Rivals and Adversaries: The highway leading out to the Watsura country house is the turf of a group of teenage bosozoku called the Red Zepperins. The Zepperins largely consist of Toyama High students, lead by a guitar-toting bad-boy the others call "Jirumi-sama". These bikers can hear Watsura's customized 150cc bike coming a mile away, and they make a point of trying to scare or harrass her whenever she rides through, usually by surrounding her on their (much larger) bikes and revving aggressively, or sometimes by trying to run her off the road. She occasionally has to veer her bike into suburban side streets at high speed before she can finally ditch them. This is a rather terrifying experience for any passengers riding with her.
It's rumored that in her Toyama Middle School days, Watsura-chan was a "junior member" or "mascot" of the group, and that she left on bad terms. Two curious facts give credence to these rumors: first of all, the Zepperins all call Watsura-chan by her nickname, "Akaneko", or occasionally by just meowing derisively at her. Second, Watsuri's "genki-jujutsu" fighting style closely resembles a more kinetic version of Jirumi's own ruthlessly efficient aiki-jujutsu.
Other than the antagonistic Zepperins, Akane is on uneasy terms with her former classmates at Toyama, many of whom Those few who will deign to acknowledge her presence often point to her bike and remark sarcastically that they hope it was worth it. This invariably causes the normally feisty Akane to bite her tounge and flee, at the point of tears.
Off the Record[edit]
Martial Arts[edit]
Watsura-chan's budo, "genki-jujutsu", is a highly energetic and mobile form of unarmed aiki-jujutsu featuring lots of running, ducking, dodging, and weaving in response to attacks. This motion is largely horizontal, with very little leaping or vertical movement; she's more likely to clamber over a wall - or even run up the side - than to jump over it. This constant movement keeps foes off-balance, and permits Akane to turn an attacker's momentum against him with throws and counters. Offensively the style focuses on fast punches, grabs, and locks meant to unbalance an opponent and cause them to lose their footing. Occasionally she mixes in sweeping low kicks.
