Kotori's Biography

[longingfreesia]

Name: Mizuki, Kotori
Age: 20 (D.O.B: April 21st, 1999*) *Not official
Gender: Female
Occupation: Business owner/Fashion Designer of 'Little Birds'.
Duel Information: Fairy Deck
Family:
Mizuki, Kana (Mother)
Mizuki, Jou (Father)
Mr. Heartland (Estranged biological father)
Tsukumo, Yuma (Partner)

Personality: Kotori is a very cheerful and positive girl who is very loyal and supportive to her friends. This is especially true for Yuma, who she shows a very unwavering belief in, no matter the circumstances. She is often the person who is the most likely to bring him down to earth when he gets in-over-his-head with something as she is very level-headed. She takes a lot of things in her stride and never tries to let things bring her down, always trying to press on. Thanks to this, she also is the type to try and take control of a situation, if no one else is willing or able to. She's not afraid of speaking her mind and saying things that need to be said.
She can become easily annoyed by Yuma's childish and naive attitude, however, and is always willing to knock him down a peg or two when needed.
Kotori's favourite things include fashion, sweets and cute things, although fashion is something that she's taken a much more keen interest in. She's considering the possibility of working towards some kind of fashion designing career after she finishes school. She has also got some talent in sewing / making clothes, something her mother has been teaching her the last few years.

Appearance: At her current age, Kotori looks quite different to her ZEXAL counterpart. She has a more matured, but rather petite, body shape, and she is of an average height for her age (She is slightly shorter than Akari.) Her hair is now much longer and goes just past her shoulders, but curls up at the back, like before. She has also grown out the shorter light green bang which is now longer and kept on the right side, usually pinned back by hair clips. She does wear her hair in numerous hairstyles from time to time, but a lot of the time she opts to wear her hair down, rather than in the bun.
She tends to wear very girly outfits and likes to co-ordinate her wardrobe. Though the item she always wears, no matter what outfit she is wearing, is the heart-shaped locket that her mother gave to her only a few days before the Heartland tragedy. This is a very precious item to her that she always keeps with her.


History:
Kotori has known Yuma ever since they were very young. She attended school with him, and their other friend Tetsuo up until middle school. Thanks to this, she also knows Yuma's family incredibly well and often spends time around his house, staying for meals and even helping to prepare them. She lived in Heartland City with her mother, father and grandmother.

Kotori had always admired Yuma for his determination and ability to challenge himself, despite how annoying it could be sometimes, but it wasn't until Yuma left for Duel Academy did she really start realizing how much she enjoyed his company. Things became too quiet around Heartland City as she moved onto high school without her best friend by her side, like he'd always been. She even missed all his annoying quirks. What began as a childlike admiration and crush slowly developed into a proper romantic interest in her friend during his absence.
During Yuma's first two years at Duel Academy, she kept in touch with him through e-mail and talking over their D-Gazers, but Yuma never once visited Heartland in those two years. When she learned that Yuma wasn't planning to visit Heartland during his third winter at the academy, she decided to take things into her own hands and decided that if he wouldn't come back home for the holidays, then she was just going to visit him!

- Desparado Plot -

For the two-week winter holiday, Kotori stayed at a hotel in Domino City and was able to meet up with Yuma, as well as meet all his friends at the Academy, including Yuya and Yuzu, who he'd spoken about a lot. Sadly, during her stay, she was kidnapped by Desperado, a group that had been targeting Yuma and Yuya, and used her as a way to try and make Yuma leave Duel Academy. Yuma decided to duel her captor, which resulted in a dark game being activated and the demon Beelze being summoned. Kotori witnessed the demon pick up and repeatedly smash her best friend into the floor, effectively killing him, but even then, she had unwavering belief in Yuma, and yelled at him that he had to get up, this is when she witnessed Yuma gaining his ZEXAL power and doing the ZEXAL morph for the first time, which helped him win the duel and save Kotori from being eaten by the demons.
Afterwards, Kotori took an injured Yuma back to her hotel room where she tended to his injuries. Despite being shook up herself, she supported Yuma as he broke down in front of her, reassuring him that no matter what happens with him, that she would always be there to support him no matter what, even if things took a turn for the worst. This was something Yuma greatly appreciated and made him realize how much he'd taken Kotori's support for granted.
The rest of her visit went well, despite Yuma's injuries.
When the day came for her to leave, she told Yuma at the train station to keep her informed of things and she promised him that, unless she felt she needed to, she'd keep the information from his sister and grandmother. When she was about ready to leave, Yuma stopped her although he didn't know why. After hugging her and admitting he'd really missed her the last two years, she realized that she'd noticed him picking up on her feelings for him and was even returning them a little, but he was still unaware and unsure of his own feelings, so she decided to allow him to think on things himself.

Once she returned to Heartland City, she found Yuma was true to his word and kept her informed by e-mail or D-Gazer conversation of anything that happened at the Academy, which allowed her to support him as much as she could through them.

For Valentine's Day, Kotori was looking to give Yuma something special. She figured that he probably wouldn't understand her real intention behind the gift, but she didn't mind as long as he enjoyed it. Haru, very well knowing and understanding that Kotori was in love with Yuma, gave her a recipe for some chocolate cookies and suggested that she make something for him, so together with Haru, she made the cookies and sent them to Yuma.

When Yuma, Yuzu and Yuya were facing their expulsion duels for dueling after hours in a restricted area and causing the temporary evacuation of the island, Kotori, along with Akari and Haru, were invited to the island by Desdemona to allow Yuma to spend time with them and let them support him in his duel.
During his expulsion duel against Alexandra Grant, Yuma was faced with a tough situation when Alexandra summoned Beelze. Both him and Kotori were first frozen with fear, instantly remembering the events during the winter holidays, but Kotori was able to break free from the fear so she could shout encouragement to Yuma, helping him to overcome that same fear, reminding him that this was not the same situation. Thanks to this, Yuma was able to win his match against Alexandra.

That evening, while everyone celebrated with their family and friends, Yuma asked Kotori to go on a walk together to the beach. There he thanked her for being able to break him out of his fear of Beelze, to which she told him that they overcame that fear together.
After this, Yuma brought up the cookies that Kotori had given him for Valentine's Day. Although Kotori had received Yuma's White Day gift, she didn't realize that Yuma had understood her intention with the gift until he asked her if it was sent to him as something more than a gift from a friend and asked her to be truthful with her feelings towards him. Realising that he had finally began understanding her feelings, as well as possibly acknowledging his own, Kotori was honest to him and told him that she loved him. She was surprised when Yuma responded to her feelings, telling her that even though they were soon parting ways, that he'd give her a promise that the next time they were together, that he'd take her out on a date, where ever she wanted to go and that they can work on things from there. Kotori happily agreed and told him that she'd look forward to that day.

On the way back to Domino City from the island, Akari, who had picked up on Yuma and Kotori's fear over Beelze, asked her if something had happened back during the winter holidays. Kotori, unable to get out of it, ended up having to tell Haru and Akari everything that Yuma had been through. Akari, understandably, was both angry and upset, wanting to drag Yuma home, but Kotori begged her not to, telling her that this was not what Yuma would want because he loved the Academy and he loved his friends there. Thanks to Haru, Akari calmed down and accepted that Yuma was no longer a child that needed protecting and that he was growing up, and decided to believe in the words Kotori told her, that they had to believe in Yuma.

- Barian Plot-

Kotori, who is aiming to become a fashion designer, posted some designs of her own, based on Duel Monsters, that caught the attention of Fubata, Shiroko, one of the co-owners of a small private fashion business in Domino City, named Castle & Castle.
When Kotori decided to visit Yuma for a few weeks out of the summer, she also decided to contact Shiroko in order to show her a portfolio of her work. After showing her portfolio (and learning of Shiroko's more supernatural talents) she and Ai decided to give Kotori the chance to learn under them for the two weeks she was in Domino as a temporary un-paid intern.

During the two weeks, Kotori also had her first date with Yuma. Their date began well, they visited the Domino City museum together and then decided to have a picnic together in the park, but as they were finishing their picnic, they noticed a strange gathering of people. When they went to check it out, they saw a young woman who was in distress. They assumed that she was overheated from being in the sun for too long, but it became quickly apparent that the woman was suffering from something more than just heat stroke.
Upon the woman's request, Yuma and Kotori attempted to drive the crowd away, but before they could get away themselves, they found themselves trapped in a ring of fire. The only way out was to duel the woman and win.
Yuma stepped up, being the only duelist between the two of them, and began the duel.
During the duel, the woman, Shoushi, used two Numbers and was able to rank them up using the rank-up magic "Barian's Force". The woman told Yuma that the Numbers began playing up when she was given the card to her by a 'blonde woman' and that before that, they were fine.
After Yuma took down her Numbers a second time, the woman collapsed and the duel abruptly ended. Kotori called for an ambulance and the two of them stayed with the woman until the help arrived, making sure to keep her cool in the sun.

After this, Yuma was feeling very down, so they went back to Kotori's hotel room to rest.
While there, Yuma apologised to Kotori for not being able to keep his promise to give her the best date he could, but Kotori told him that it was fine, because he didn't know that event was going to happen. She admitted that she was surprised that Yuma had still wanted to go through with the date, after everything that had happened to him, but reassured him that if things were too difficult right now, she was happy to wait longer.
Yuma told her how much he appreciated her and how she stands by him no matter what. That she was one of his absolute best friends and always would be, but that's why he wanted to try answering to her feelings for him and that he wanted to give a relationship with her a try. He wanted to see where it would lead them.
Kotori agreed that it was the same for her too.
Before they parted ways, Yuma told Kotori that when he visits Heartland for the winter holidays, he'd take her out on their second date.

When a demon attacked Osiris Red, with Yuma being what they were aiming for and Desdemona getting severely injured, Yuma contacted Kotori in order to tell her about what had happened and that there was a good chance he would have to fight the demons. This left both Kotori and Yuma upset and Kotori wondered why Yuma had to go through such things. Why did he have to deal with powers and demons and things that wanted to kill him!! She felt so helpless because she was in Heartland and was unable to be there at the Academy with him.
After talking to Alex, she made Kotori realise that these were things that were a part of Yuma's life now. That this was his responsibility and that Yuma wasn't going to not use his powers and let others get hurt. Kotori knew that instead of wishing these things weren't happening to him, she instead needed to accept that they were and that not only is this a part of his life, but also hers and she needed to be strong enough to support him.
After Akae was able to bring Kotori temporarily to the island for her to see Yuma for a few hours, Kotori told Yuma this and asked him to teach her dueling when he visits during the winter holidays. Yuma was hesitant at first, telling Kotori that he didn't want her to see dueling just as a tool to help him, but that he wanted her to have fun with it too, which she promised she would.

Around the beginning of December, Kotori was visiting Yuma's sister and grandmother, in order to show them a dress she made, but while visiting, an army of people suddenly showed up, summoning a bunch of mechanical like Duel Monsters and began attacking the city. Kotori escaped, along with Akari and Haru in Akari's car, but they were pursued relentlessly by the mechanical monsters and those that were controlling them. They watched their city being destroyed helplessly as they fled and Kotori thought she saw one of the attackers turn two people into cards, but was unsure if she was seeing things. The three of them were almost cornered by one of the attackers, with a Chaos Giant, but with Akari's quick thinking and even quicker driving, they managed to flee Heartland.
Terrified and slightly injured, they headed towards Domino City and met up with Yuma, who with Yuya, took them to be seen at the hospital. While there, Juudai offered the family a place to live, a newly renovated apartment at Sakana, where they could stay until they got their feet back on the ground.

Kotori was distraught. She'd lost her home, her family, her friends... she tried countless times to get in contact with them, but no one answered. Still in shock and coming to terms with what happened, Kotori kept to herself and didn't really talk about what happened to anyone. She began suffering nightmares about the event very frequently and it wasn't until it gained Yuma's attention one night that she finally opened up to him about how she was feeling. She was missing her home, her family, her friends... she wanted to go back, but she couldn't. She was feeling incredibly frustrated and confused, but Yuma comforted her and reminded her that she still had a family, she still had his family and that she'd always been a part of it. He promised he'd do everything he could to make sure they were all going to be alright.
After this, Kotori found the courage to start moving forward with her life. She began looking into getting into Domino City high school in order to finish her education, which she worked incredibly hard at in order to be able to graduate at the end of March.
She also was taken on by Shiroko at Castle & Castle, where she currently works as a paid intern.

During the winter holidays, Yuma helped her get her first deck as a Christmas present and since then she has been practising very hard on learning how to use the deck and has been dueling different people to try and become better at using it.

- Arc - V Plot-

Through the months, Kotori concentrated on both working towards her goal of being a fashion designer and practising her dueling, which she started to get very into.

Around early November, Kotori began getting random headaches and dizziness which through the weeks began getting worse. She originally thought that it was stress due to the approaching anniversary of the Heartland incident. When the headaches still didn't go away, she attended doctor and hospital appointments, but every test they tried came up negative for what she was tested for.
By Christmas week, the headaches were becoming unbearable for her.
On Christmas Eve, after spending the majority of the day at the hospital doing tests, Yuma and Kotori arrived home with Kotori in a bad way. This eventually resulted in something strange happening when the pain reached it's peak for Kotori. She demonstrated a powerful telekinetic ability, along with the creation of butterflies made out of light energy. The telekinetic ability ripped through the living room of their apartment and threw Yuma backwards.
When Yuma awoke moments later, he found Kotori in a trance with various items in the living room floating above their heads which shifted every now and then.
After a while of Yuma trying to get through to Kotori, she passed out.

Yuma was able to contact Souha so they could take a look at her where Souha told Yuma that something had probably awakened her abilities, but because she didn't know it, it built up in her and caused a backlash. They further talked to them a few days later where they asked Kotori further questions. They figured out that the trigger to her abilities waking up was possibly an incident around Halloween, where a prank vending machine sent a swarm of maggots after her. They felt this had triggered her flight or fight response, especially since she was on her own. Souha offered to look at the tests the hospital did to see if he could find out the cause of her powers.
A while later, Souha contacted Kotori to tell her that the tests showed that her powers were due to non-human elements being in her blood, indicating that the power was an hereditary trait.


Abilities: N/A