Backstory: Now, we come to Megumi's own story. She was born about three decades after the Awakening (as it was later called), raised in Tokyo as a city girl. Naturally rebellious and experimental, she clashed many times with her parents as she grew into a teenager - playing truant and spending days in arcades, but on the flip side still studying enough to pass tests with surprisingly well grades. She was competitive, just in the entirely wrong areas. So she lingered at the edge of being a law-abiding student for years while her parents worried and fussed - until her fifteenth year, where a particular bad economic downturn collided with particularly bad health and led to her father collapsing into a lethal illness. At heart, Megumi was not a cruel girl, and it was enough to shock her out of her routine. It was at this time that the Sign users of Eden approached her with a deal. She had the potential to be a very powerful user, they said. If she consented to them awakening her power for her, they would use their powers to cure her father. Of course she said yes.
As was promised, the doctors of Eden took in her father, while Megumi herself traveled to the city to meet her benefactors. Her mother was overjoyed at their wayward child finally being offered the privilege to study at Eden's best schools, and naturally gave her blessing. What was not told to her was the full fine print of Megumi's contract - not only for her to learn to use her Sign, Radiance, but to add something a little more. That something was to conduct an experiment on the boundaries of human potential. After a week, Megumi walked out of Eden's highest-security research facility still the same girl, save for the fact that she now had a star hooked up to her soul. A source of truly unlimited power for her, the officials said, so that she would never fear overdrawing her powers nor running out of battery for her phone. But she knew what it meant, from the moment the whitecoats placed silver cuffs on her wrists - limiters. She was intended as a weapon against the outside world, in case the nations decided that Eden would be better off not existing as a state.
As per her contract, she would be attending Eden's Corvius Academy. And she did, for her highschool education, where she lived mostly a normal life, save for the twin weights on her arms. In her second year, she was paired up with a certain Cecil Solastrus for further Sign training. He was a studious and quiet boy, much different from her personality, assigned to her for the very simple reason that his Sign counteracted hers. He had signed a similar contract, and had his Sign modified to nullify her powers and control them. A control rod to her nuclear reactor, a perfect pair engineered by the higher-ups as a last-ditch failsafe for Eden's sovereignty. For the most time, she tried to ignore her hidden status and live the normal life of a teenager. And it would work - mostly, save for regular checkups and intensive training sessions. She still had no reason to fight other than to eliminate Negatives or as sparring with friends - for now. The tensions in the outside world weren't missed by anyone inside of Eden, but it seemed to not affect them inside the city's little pocket dimension.
Until the arrival of Niflhelm changed it all. The city immediately went into lockdown, and all Sign users were immediately mobilized on instruction from The Three. The Fate signs were assigned to strategy, combat-oriented signs assigned to enter Niflhelm's lair with healers in tow. Due to her special status, Megumi had a team of her own - to train first, and lie in wait until a path to the core of the Negative could be found. The waiting took weeks, nail-biting times through which reports of deaths came as a constant stream, both of Sign users and civilians who were dying in external, Earth-based conflict. When the road was finally cleared, she joined the battle with Cecil in tow, combining both their powers to breach the Negative's core and neutralize it once and for all. Only with her star link abilities would she be able to put out enough energy to even dent Niflhelm's core. Her own battle lasted a full day, twenty-four hours of not sleeping and constant firing into the Negative's seemingly endless maw.
Megumi succeeded in the mission, but she didn't succeed in coming out of it alive. The strain was too much for her body and she entered a coma afterwards. The Three put her on life support in hopes of finding someone who could reverse her condition. After the closure of Eden, she was transferred to her home city of Tokyo, where she is now.
Personality: On the surface, Megumi fits the impression of a typical spunky teenager active in keeping up with the times. She's outgoing and takes initiative to act often, much like what one would expect from a 'shounen protagonist'. In interactions she is energetic, free with her thoughts and words, and generally tries to be a nice person to everyone she meets - while she doesn't have exceptional leadership abilities, she is nevertheless supportive of her peers and tries her best to care for them. She knows when to fool around and when to be serious, often switching between the two countenances at the drop of a hat if necessary. Outside of social interactions, her natural curiosity motivates her to learn more about the world around her, as well as the intricacies of her own powers.
This is in marked contrast to her personality before coming into her abilities. Megumi as a younger teenager was listless and found little to be motivated about in general; it was the discovery of her Sign, combined with how she could use it to help her father's illness, that gave her a goal to work for. This grew into a strong sense of purpose and drive after she spent time at Corvius Academy, enough to give her enough courage in the face of fighting a seemingly unstoppable foe. As a result, she doesn't give up easily (especially in battle), putting all of her effort into doing things that she thinks she should be doing. While she has her mind focused on a task, she can become almost oblivious to anything else happening around her; this has the potential to become dangerous should she miss something that is vital. Tied to this, she defends her beliefs and opinions very strongly, but isn't afraid to change her stand should new information come to light. While she has a good cut of reasoning skills and a reasonably fast mind to match, she can become very passionate about the things and people she believes in and get carried away by it.
Megumi is an emotional person. Much like her sign, Radiance, her vibrancy in life comes tied with a ferocious temper and a fury to match. If she is happy, she wouldn't hesitate to show it in her expression, and she isn't very good at hiding her feelings from other people. She used to be quite abrasive towards people she disliked - while it has improved somewhat, it's easy to tell who she likes and who she doesn't. With friends, she would be wholeheartedly and chatter to them, while the people she dislikes would receive the cold shoulder. For people who go out to hurt others (especially her friends), she can get very defensive and in turn it can easily become violent if threats against them are followed up with. Just like how her Sign is based off fire, her anger is explosive and can escalate quickly if she isn't calmed down. She believes in the 'an eye for an eye' principle, and can become terrifyingly fixated if a pursuit of revenge is decided upon. While this hasn't happened yet in her life, the possibility is very much still there.
That aside, it is worth noting that Megumi is not an unreasonable person. She is remarkably open-minded, not judging others directly until she has seen their actions in person. This is in part her way of paying it forward - as she did have a history as a delinquent, others were willing to overlook it and make friends with her. As a result, she now does it for other people, to give them a second chance. There are very few things that can rile her up, as she is used to tolerating other peoples' quirks. What will get her angry, however, is hurting others - trickery, outright harm, the like, which can get her temper up fast enough to shock people who haven't seen it before. This arose not only out of her sense of what is right and wrong, but also of her self-accepted duty to protect others. After being told that her powers were to be used for the good of Eden, she began to see it as a sign that she would protect her friends with it - not only in battles against Negatives, but also in any other situation. As a result, she can be rather reckless in fights, both out of the sheer firepower she possesses as well as her willingness to sacrifice many things for her friends.
For a teenager of her age, Megumi is surprisingly mature. Even if she fools around with her friends or acts silly for the fun of it, she is able to grasp seriousness in conversations when it does come up and change her demeanor appropriately to reflect it. After all, she was trained at first as a trump card and then as a fully-fledged soldier in her own right. While most of what she did fight were Negatives and thus non-sentient, as the conflicts against Sign-users became more intense she did have to kill for self-defense. She copes with guilt and other negative emotions by throwing herself into tasks and not thinking about them at all - only when she is alone will she attempt to sort out her thoughts properly. She acclimatized herself to her heavy duties of defense and having blood on her hands by talking to her partner Cecil, who acts as her emotional anchor. Without him, she becomes more volatile and can get moody at times.
Compared to the rest of her class, Megumi is also a naturally curious person. As with most of her positive traits, it was kindled after her abilities' awakening. What first came as a desire to learn the science behind her Sign turned into an appreciation for what it can do. As her powers revolve around one of the most potent forces in the universe, mastery of the theory behind it is necessary to ensure it can be used safely. Thus, she is very knowledgeable about energy science in general, and will be naturally motivated to learn more about the field. She is intrigued by many things, and will approach others to ask about what she doesn't understand; working on the matter persistently until she can grasp concepts fully. Thus, she is very open about learning, even from people that don't have formal qualifications.
That being said, one should bear in mind that Megumi is still a teenager. She still has her quirky side, fools around when she can, and jokes around when she feels like it. She can make careless mistakes, get sidetracked by her stubbornness, and brood over current events just like any other teenager would. Even if she does have a surprising amount of maturity due to being involved in politics and an all-out war before she turned twenty, she hasn't yet lost her childish side - both for the better, and for the worse. After all, she is a teen who has the maturity of a veteran, holding strengths and weaknesses of both the roles she has taken up.
no subject
Now, we come to Megumi's own story. She was born about three decades after the Awakening (as it was later called), raised in Tokyo as a city girl. Naturally rebellious and experimental, she clashed many times with her parents as she grew into a teenager - playing truant and spending days in arcades, but on the flip side still studying enough to pass tests with surprisingly well grades. She was competitive, just in the entirely wrong areas. So she lingered at the edge of being a law-abiding student for years while her parents worried and fussed - until her fifteenth year, where a particular bad economic downturn collided with particularly bad health and led to her father collapsing into a lethal illness. At heart, Megumi was not a cruel girl, and it was enough to shock her out of her routine. It was at this time that the Sign users of Eden approached her with a deal. She had the potential to be a very powerful user, they said. If she consented to them awakening her power for her, they would use their powers to cure her father. Of course she said yes.
As was promised, the doctors of Eden took in her father, while Megumi herself traveled to the city to meet her benefactors. Her mother was overjoyed at their wayward child finally being offered the privilege to study at Eden's best schools, and naturally gave her blessing. What was not told to her was the full fine print of Megumi's contract - not only for her to learn to use her Sign, Radiance, but to add something a little more. That something was to conduct an experiment on the boundaries of human potential. After a week, Megumi walked out of Eden's highest-security research facility still the same girl, save for the fact that she now had a star hooked up to her soul. A source of truly unlimited power for her, the officials said, so that she would never fear overdrawing her powers nor running out of battery for her phone. But she knew what it meant, from the moment the whitecoats placed silver cuffs on her wrists - limiters. She was intended as a weapon against the outside world, in case the nations decided that Eden would be better off not existing as a state.
As per her contract, she would be attending Eden's Corvius Academy. And she did, for her highschool education, where she lived mostly a normal life, save for the twin weights on her arms. In her second year, she was paired up with a certain Cecil Solastrus for further Sign training. He was a studious and quiet boy, much different from her personality, assigned to her for the very simple reason that his Sign counteracted hers. He had signed a similar contract, and had his Sign modified to nullify her powers and control them. A control rod to her nuclear reactor, a perfect pair engineered by the higher-ups as a last-ditch failsafe for Eden's sovereignty. For the most time, she tried to ignore her hidden status and live the normal life of a teenager. And it would work - mostly, save for regular checkups and intensive training sessions. She still had no reason to fight other than to eliminate Negatives or as sparring with friends - for now. The tensions in the outside world weren't missed by anyone inside of Eden, but it seemed to not affect them inside the city's little pocket dimension.
Until the arrival of Niflhelm changed it all. The city immediately went into lockdown, and all Sign users were immediately mobilized on instruction from The Three. The Fate signs were assigned to strategy, combat-oriented signs assigned to enter Niflhelm's lair with healers in tow. Due to her special status, Megumi had a team of her own - to train first, and lie in wait until a path to the core of the Negative could be found. The waiting took weeks, nail-biting times through which reports of deaths came as a constant stream, both of Sign users and civilians who were dying in external, Earth-based conflict. When the road was finally cleared, she joined the battle with Cecil in tow, combining both their powers to breach the Negative's core and neutralize it once and for all. Only with her star link abilities would she be able to put out enough energy to even dent Niflhelm's core. Her own battle lasted a full day, twenty-four hours of not sleeping and constant firing into the Negative's seemingly endless maw.
Megumi succeeded in the mission, but she didn't succeed in coming out of it alive. The strain was too much for her body and she entered a coma afterwards. The Three put her on life support in hopes of finding someone who could reverse her condition. After the closure of Eden, she was transferred to her home city of Tokyo, where she is now.
Personality:
On the surface, Megumi fits the impression of a typical spunky teenager active in keeping up with the times. She's outgoing and takes initiative to act often, much like what one would expect from a 'shounen protagonist'. In interactions she is energetic, free with her thoughts and words, and generally tries to be a nice person to everyone she meets - while she doesn't have exceptional leadership abilities, she is nevertheless supportive of her peers and tries her best to care for them. She knows when to fool around and when to be serious, often switching between the two countenances at the drop of a hat if necessary. Outside of social interactions, her natural curiosity motivates her to learn more about the world around her, as well as the intricacies of her own powers.
This is in marked contrast to her personality before coming into her abilities. Megumi as a younger teenager was listless and found little to be motivated about in general; it was the discovery of her Sign, combined with how she could use it to help her father's illness, that gave her a goal to work for. This grew into a strong sense of purpose and drive after she spent time at Corvius Academy, enough to give her enough courage in the face of fighting a seemingly unstoppable foe. As a result, she doesn't give up easily (especially in battle), putting all of her effort into doing things that she thinks she should be doing. While she has her mind focused on a task, she can become almost oblivious to anything else happening around her; this has the potential to become dangerous should she miss something that is vital. Tied to this, she defends her beliefs and opinions very strongly, but isn't afraid to change her stand should new information come to light. While she has a good cut of reasoning skills and a reasonably fast mind to match, she can become very passionate about the things and people she believes in and get carried away by it.
Megumi is an emotional person. Much like her sign, Radiance, her vibrancy in life comes tied with a ferocious temper and a fury to match. If she is happy, she wouldn't hesitate to show it in her expression, and she isn't very good at hiding her feelings from other people. She used to be quite abrasive towards people she disliked - while it has improved somewhat, it's easy to tell who she likes and who she doesn't. With friends, she would be wholeheartedly and chatter to them, while the people she dislikes would receive the cold shoulder. For people who go out to hurt others (especially her friends), she can get very defensive and in turn it can easily become violent if threats against them are followed up with. Just like how her Sign is based off fire, her anger is explosive and can escalate quickly if she isn't calmed down. She believes in the 'an eye for an eye' principle, and can become terrifyingly fixated if a pursuit of revenge is decided upon. While this hasn't happened yet in her life, the possibility is very much still there.
That aside, it is worth noting that Megumi is not an unreasonable person. She is remarkably open-minded, not judging others directly until she has seen their actions in person. This is in part her way of paying it forward - as she did have a history as a delinquent, others were willing to overlook it and make friends with her. As a result, she now does it for other people, to give them a second chance. There are very few things that can rile her up, as she is used to tolerating other peoples' quirks. What will get her angry, however, is hurting others - trickery, outright harm, the like, which can get her temper up fast enough to shock people who haven't seen it before. This arose not only out of her sense of what is right and wrong, but also of her self-accepted duty to protect others. After being told that her powers were to be used for the good of Eden, she began to see it as a sign that she would protect her friends with it - not only in battles against Negatives, but also in any other situation. As a result, she can be rather reckless in fights, both out of the sheer firepower she possesses as well as her willingness to sacrifice many things for her friends.
For a teenager of her age, Megumi is surprisingly mature. Even if she fools around with her friends or acts silly for the fun of it, she is able to grasp seriousness in conversations when it does come up and change her demeanor appropriately to reflect it. After all, she was trained at first as a trump card and then as a fully-fledged soldier in her own right. While most of what she did fight were Negatives and thus non-sentient, as the conflicts against Sign-users became more intense she did have to kill for self-defense. She copes with guilt and other negative emotions by throwing herself into tasks and not thinking about them at all - only when she is alone will she attempt to sort out her thoughts properly. She acclimatized herself to her heavy duties of defense and having blood on her hands by talking to her partner Cecil, who acts as her emotional anchor. Without him, she becomes more volatile and can get moody at times.
Compared to the rest of her class, Megumi is also a naturally curious person. As with most of her positive traits, it was kindled after her abilities' awakening. What first came as a desire to learn the science behind her Sign turned into an appreciation for what it can do. As her powers revolve around one of the most potent forces in the universe, mastery of the theory behind it is necessary to ensure it can be used safely. Thus, she is very knowledgeable about energy science in general, and will be naturally motivated to learn more about the field. She is intrigued by many things, and will approach others to ask about what she doesn't understand; working on the matter persistently until she can grasp concepts fully. Thus, she is very open about learning, even from people that don't have formal qualifications.
That being said, one should bear in mind that Megumi is still a teenager. She still has her quirky side, fools around when she can, and jokes around when she feels like it. She can make careless mistakes, get sidetracked by her stubbornness, and brood over current events just like any other teenager would. Even if she does have a surprising amount of maturity due to being involved in politics and an all-out war before she turned twenty, she hasn't yet lost her childish side - both for the better, and for the worse. After all, she is a teen who has the maturity of a veteran, holding strengths and weaknesses of both the roles she has taken up.