Scorched App.

[repeatingfate]

In Character Information

character name: Rika Furude
Fandom: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (visual novel version, with supplementary material from the manga)
Timeline: The end of Minagoroshi-hen.
character's age: Over a hundred, is physically eleven.

powers, skills, pets and equipment:
Without Hanyuu, Rika has no actual power, as the two together are what affects the flow of time and resets the world each time. The only other things of note would be that Rika does retain memories from over a hundred years, as well as that she’s still able to pass off as an eleven year old (despite that starting to wane by the point that I took her). As well, she retains a basic ability for sensing others, which allows her to determine if people are close-by.

In all other regards though, she can be seen as a normal human girl. For Scorched, however, she’ll be gaining the ability to shield herself (and only herself) from attacks as well as be able to stop one action at a time by freezing time around that act. Both of these require concentration and knowledge of the threat or act to activate. An example for the time one (as that one is more vague) would be someone slashing downward with a sword. She would be able to stop the sword with concentration, but the assailant could still lash out with their other hand or kick out, etc. She likely won’t realize she has these until she gets into situations that would require them.

canon history:
http://whentheycry.wikia.com/wiki/Furude_Rika

On a superficial level, Rika’s history is small. She was born into a closed-off village in Japan as the seventh daughter in seven generations. According to myth, this signified the return of the village’s deity, and because of that, Rika was raised as if she was the god herself, with the older generations treating her kindly and granting her special privileges. This was fortified by her seemingly unnatural ability to predict the future and foretell what was going to happen. Other than that, Rika was a mostly normal child, minus a few strange ways of speaking and odd remarks, preferring to spend time playing with her friends over anything else. Rika’s parents died when she was about nine, though she was able to live alone with the support of the village. When her friend’s family died as well, the other girl moved in with her, and the two have been living together since.

Her life comes to a head after a yearly festival, when her life is taken by an unknown source. However, this only begins Rika’s story.

The truth is that Rika’s birth did signify something, namely a being called Hanyuu’s return to the human world, despite only as a spirit. Rika grew up with Hanyuu, knowing her more intimately than any other, and viewing her as a parent of sorts. When Rika died, Hanyuu could not allow it, and reset time in hopes of negating Rika’s fate. This would be repeated for over a hundred years.

Three truths remained as the pair sought to fight their miserable fate. Each time one of Rika’s friends would give into darkness and go mad, every time that time was reset two adults would be killed no matter what, and every time, most believed one of the main families in the village was behind everything, due to two people’s interference.

Near the end of the hundred years, Rika stopped trying to find a fate that allowed her happiness, and because of that, an alternate being was born--Frederica Bernkastel--the combined despair and cynicism of a hundred years of failure. Rika’s true personality came to mimic this, despite her attempts at maintaining the “Rika” personality--cheerful and childlike. She began to give up prematurely, in each new world, because of the knowledge that she would always fail.

This continued until a particular world emerged. One of her friends followed the first rule and went mad, yet another friend remembered his sins from a past world, despite the impossibility of the fact, and worked with all his might to save her, as he was the only one that could understand her madness. The boy succeeded, and for the first time, Rika witnessed a miracle as fate changed and shifted under the boy’s strong will. For the first time, it seemed happiness was in sight. But Rika was still killed soon after that, and the world reset again.

There were two problems of note with the resetting. Hanyuu’s powers were getting weaker each time, going from resetting time to Rika’s birth to only being able to reset it to two weeks before Rika died. The other fact was while Rika was not aging in a normal way, her mind still held a hundred years of experience, and maintaining a mind appropriate for her apparent age was faltering. Experiencing the same things over and over were numbing her, and if she continued, she would lose all her emotions, and cease to be anything more than an uncaring doll. This was the way that things were heading.

However, after the boy’s miracle, Rika again found the will to fight, and tried to shift fate, even in small insignificant ways, to adjust all that she was able to. If the small things could be changed, the larger rules as well had the possibility to. This was what she thought.

This was not something that could be changed easily. Throughout the next world, Rika struggled with the will to fight, bouncing from uncaring to fighting for what she wanted. The world began to turn out as she had envisioned; each horrible piece shifting to something that fit well. Miracles happened that had not happened before, miracles made real by everyone coming together, be it her friends to believe in her, or the entire village to rise up to fight for another little girl’s freedom. She began to believe, slowly, that if everyone believed in success, including herself, she would actually win in this world. That she would live.

Despite everyone’s fighting, this was denied by Hanyuu. To the end, she attested that Rika would die, and that it would be better if she didn’t have hope in succeeding, so she would not become hurt and lose more of herself because of it. Again, Rika started to lose hope. However, she had promised she would not give up until the end, and when her enemies came to kill her, she fled, and when cornered, was rescued by the combined efforts of her friends, who had been watching out for her. They decided to fight back, flee, and hide until something else could be decided, and were successful for a time being in fighting off their pursuers. This run of luck and will halted with the boy’s death, and after that, each was gunned down by the true culprit.

Rika, like in each world, was taken to be dissected alive, in order to start the turn of a horrific virus. In addition to everything else about Rika, she was also the queen carrier of a virus, which slept while she was alive and the other carriers were near to her. With her death, the virus would activate, and the carriers--namely, the majority of the village she lived in--would go on murderous and destructive rampages. This was all to satisfy one person’s desire to see those effects.

Unlike the other worlds, Rika denied them when they went to sedate her for it, wanting to suffer through all of it so she could attempt to remember the true culprit, instead of forget, as she had each time. Hanyuu stayed near to her, and she took comfort in that, and as she began to die, she envisioned her friends with her as well. She was satisfied with fighting as hard as she did in this world, but they were outraged at the loss. They had been so close to their perfect future and still, the tragedy occurred. Still, their miracle had not happened.

One allowed that it was because not all of them had believed they would succeed. Hanyuu, despite being insubstantial, had denied the likelihood of success from the beginning and doomed them from the start. To succeed, all of them needed to try, and believe with all their hearts. The last thing that world’s Rika saw were her friends reaching out to Hanyuu, and Hanyuu taking their hands.

personality:
Rika legitimately has two parts of her personality. The eleven-year-old human girl and the hundred year old witch. Her legitimate personality is the latter, to the point of her needing to remind herself how “Furude Rika” would act in certain scenarios. The human side is a well-worn mask of an existence that should have developed further long ago.

Rika, as a human eleven-year-old girl, is a bit off. She acts almost half her age, words colored with verbal tics and sounds (nonsense words like nipa, mii, nano desu, and the sound of things like, whoosh whoosh, meow, etc). Part of this is herself, and part of this is from being more or less spoiled growing up as a child in a village where she was worshipped and loved by everyone within it. She has no inhibitions on her actions, and will be outright with what she wants, as well as what should be done or said by others. Even as a child, she was regarded as someone wise who could be asked for advice, and she has a tendency to do so, sometimes at length in discerning fashions, which shows that the carefree child is a bit more aware of her settings than she lets on.

This is attributed to her true personality, who, after living the same life countless times, has had more than enough patience and practice in noting the details on others, and watching for the tells that people offer up. In both personalities, Rika is seen as slyly conniving; this mostly covered up by her childlike persona and joked about by others once it’s noted, but there nonetheless--she’s capable of lightly seducing or manipulating others to do what she wants so she can come out on top, and is comfortable with any amount of ruthlessness if it suits her purposes, whether life or death or one of her club’s games.

This, of course, fits in any case but those regarding her friends. The ones in her club are the ones she treasures most in the world, and while she would move in any way possible otherwise, when those people are involved, her actions and mindset shift to prioritize on them. Even in worlds where her own survival seems nearly assured, if it comes at the cost of another, she’s unwilling to accept those worlds. The world in which her and all of her friends are healthy, safe, and happy is the only world she will accept, and she’ll fight for that world.

It didn’t always used to be like that, and honestly only shifted back to that mentality in the world in which I’m taking her from. Rika started out fighting fiercely against the fate of her own death, but as the worlds cycled and the years started to stretch out, she changed over time. First turning to sorrow, then rage, and finally apathy, a near-complete acceptance of a fate that continued to appear. Restarting the world each time became a lip service more than a battle, a fake-hope that broke before each had started. The turning point was the miracle given by the boy stated in the history--his allowance that she could easily break fate, something “as insubstantial as a spider’s web.”

It still took a while, but each move she made was given to grace successfully, her changes making fate become as well as she wanted it to be. Because of that, she regained hope. By seeing each of her friends smile and remember to care about and speak to each other, she regained faith. By watching others fight, she regained her own will to do so. By the time she was killed in Minagoroshi-hen, Rika had bound herself to continuing and struggling until she gained her “good end,” rather than just let life continuously slip through her fingers.

Her one-hundred-percent true personality is only ever seen in full by Hanyuu, so there’s a few aspects of note to add. Rika, as herself and not the child, shows markings of being sarcastic with an edge of cruelty, something understandable after that long with no hope to hold to. In some worlds, when the situation becomes too unbearable, or too obvious as a “bad end,” she gives up prematurely, casting off the people in it, and telling them she won’t care about “these versions” anymore. Just the same, in some she’ll use the knowledges gained previously to try to fight the outcomes, despite the fact that the child Rika shouldn’t be able to place sense in what’s happening. She has a dry sense of humor, and seems more than a little prone to schadenfreude, depending on the situation. She’s fond of alcohol and spicy food--both mainly for the fact of affecting Hanyuu, who is linked to Rika’s physical form and hates those, and uses the consumption of them as a punishment.

Hanyuu herself, needs a note in particular. To Rika, she is everything, and this shows in complicated ways. Hanyuu was the first being that Rika was aware of in her life, and over the past one hundred years, Hanyuu has been Rika’s only confidante and ally in their fight against Rika’s fate. Hanyuu, to the end of Minagoroshi-hen, would rather Rika not hope for a better end and just quietly accept things. Because if Rika continuously gets her hopes up, her mind and heart will break faster, which would be unbearable to Hanyuu, who sees Rika as a lifelong partner, and does not want to lose her quicker than is necessary. Rika’s own love for Hanyuu isn’t apparent in a large part of the story. The girl continuously takes advantage of Hanyuu and lightly abuses her, showing some resentment at the lack of Hanyuu being able to do more. In all truth, however, Rika is entirely reliant on Hanyuu, who has been her mother, sister, best friend, and closer than a lover to her over the years. Neither are wholly willing to move on their own without the other, and it wouldn’t be far from the truth to see both as two halves of a whole rather than two separate existences. Hanyuu has been slowly giving up all of her power to reset time for Rika, and Rika has never denied Hanyuu’s existence, who has been existing unseen for hundreds of years. Their alignment is rough at times, but never in doubt, and they both need the other for their continued existence.

why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting?
Rika is both apt at acting as if everything is fine and far more than used to living through horrors after watching her friends kill themselves and going through her own death for a hundred years. She’ll be able to make friends and socialize as much as become used to the frightening and strange aspects of Anatole, and will be able to adapt to the scenario.

On her age, canonly, she’s an eleven year old living on her own, and later on, with one other friend her own age, so she’s adept at taking care of herself. Otherwise, her knowledge gained from her long lifespan has made her more able at dealing with things as they come up.

Writing Samples

Network Post Sample:
[ The Forge clicks on to show someone’s head. Or more appropriately, the top of someone’s head and their hands held up like cat ears, fingers flicking as if listening. ]

Mii… The kitty wants to have a party… Does anyone want to have a party, too?

[ The screen is grabbed and held up to reveal the owner; a tiny little girl smiling cheerfully. Rika needs some movement and this is how she’s planning to go about it. By forcing others to play along. ]

We have people and places and food, and games are easy to come by. We have everything to make up a good party! So we should all play, okay? It’ll make all the bad feelings go away. Go away, go away, no more bad feelings….

[ She smiles as if that’s an obvious point, known even to a child. If that was true, however, she would have escaped her repeated fate decades prior. The cheer doesn't waver from her expression.
]

Answer if you want to! It’ll be a lot of fun!

[ The Forge is again placed in her lap--her hands go back to her head, cat ears sharp and tall. ]

Play with the kitty, okay? Nipa~☆

Third Person Sample:
There was the clatter of metal and voices raised in excitement or fear. The sound was near the same, in the end, and she knew that better than anyone. She’d heard the sound too many times before. The small girl moved nearer to the sounds, less curiosity, and more a light boredom, green dress slipping and waving in the light breeze. It was starting to get chilly here. She’d do well to start bringing a jacket with her on her walks.

A sharp sound came, and a grunt of pain--the source of which became clear as Rika rounded the corner, taking in the crowd of people surrounding a fighting ring. Two fighters stood there, and obviously had been for a while--one was wiping blood from his mouth in near exhaustion while the other moved with a limp, a hand to his side.

Had she tread this close to the arena without realizing? She should pay more attention. You would think, after everything that had happened, that she’d be--

“Rika! Hey! Rika!”

--More aware.

The woman ran up to her, smiling brightly as she waved. “Hey, didn’t you hear me? I’ve been calling your name for a while.”

Had she? For a moment Rika stared at the other, violet eyes flat and empty. This woman, too… She was one that would disappear with time, and nothing Rika did would affect that. Nothing that she did would--

“Rika?”

The girl started suddenly as if struck, then blinked quickly. What was she doing? To this one, she was still Furude Rika, and she couldn’t let that slip. Too many problems would be caused, and she had already decided. To play this game out to the fullest. Was she already giving up? Already losing hope in yet another chance at a miracle?

The woman stood there, concerned and worried, and suddenly Rika hid her face. The woman leaned down. “…Did something happen? Are you o--”

Rika threw her hands out. “Boo!” The shriek given was satisfying enough for now, and the girl giggled politely before linking her hands behind her back. “Mii… You were fooled, weren’t you? I got you this time.”

The woman frowned. “Rika, you shouldn’t play tricks like that. I was really worried, you know.”

Rika only smiled. Because Furude Rika would smile now, and the shift was like another skin, nihilism slipping away in exchange for a role she played for one hundred years. “It was just a game.” She wiggled fingers in front of her, miming moving a piece across a game board. “Click clack click-- Capture! Nipa~☆”

The woman sighed, and looked to the fight. “How about I walk you home, okay? This fight’s easy to read, anyway.”

Here, only, did Rika purse her lips, more like her self than any façade. The words, however, still were the girl’s, and not the witch’s. “They shouldn’t fight.” She looked upward, speaking lightly. “They should all be friends and play together.”

It honestly didn’t matter if they fought and died against one another. They were not valuable to her, they were not her precious people, and she would look upon it as she had--as a human watching insects crawl. Or as a god watching mortals scamper the earth.

It was an easy enough comparison to make.