Meru [APPROVED, 3-3]

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» Name: Meru Broadsword Asthavon
» Titles: (Does your character have any sort of special title rank, nickname or alias?)
» Age: looks to be in her late teens, between 16 and 18. True age is 12.
» Gender: female
» Affiliation/Rank: Asthavon Family

» Shifter Appearance Written: Meru’s hair is long and soft to feel. It is a bright blonde in color, though she doesn’t seem to take good care of her hair on her own. It is messy, a few hairs here and there sticking up oddly as if she didn’t care at all about it. Looking down from there, her left eye is a reddish golden color, while her right is covered by a black eyepatch in order to hide her eye due to its strage look. Meru's right eye has no pupil, her iris covers the area that would normally be the pupil. This eye is a light blue color, and she is completely blind in it. Her right iris is not completely blue though, a red circle surrounds it, and a five pointed star is formed of red lines within this circle, creating a pentagram in her right eye. Her left ear has many piercings, including a golden chain that ends in a clip on her lower lip. Her skin is soft, light in color with almost no visible blemishes. Around her neck, she wears a leather collar. From the collar hang four chains, each ending in a sharp, claw like piece of metal. These chains are spaced evenly on the front half of the collar, with a round metal plate like a tag sitting in the very center, two chains on either side. Engraved in to the tag is her name, Meru. Her body shape is definitely feminine despite the fact that she is fairly flat chested having had almost no breast growth. She wears a black leather jacket, the inside a red color though. Underneath this she wears a black tee shirt along with a pair of black jeans to complete her outfit. Most of the time when not around her family she can be seen carrying a whip or a metal chain in one hand for some reason.

» Shifter Appearance Picture:

» True Appearance Written: One could say that Meru's true appearance is a demonized version of her shifter appearance, but it is actually the other way around. Meru prefers to be able to blend in with humans as much as possible, and as such her shifter appearance is simply a humanized version of her true appearance. With that said, she had very few traits which could not be passed off in the human world, but these are the ways her true appearance differs from her shifter appearance. Her true form has black bat like wings sprouting from her back, attached to her back just below her shoulder blades. Additionally, metal chains hang directly from her forearm, as if coming directly from within her body, three chains on each arm. Along with these traits, she has gray, metal like cat ears on perched on top of her head and five metal chains sprout from the small of her back, five metal chain tails. Finally, in her true form her pupils are slit like instead of round like a humans. Other then these changes, she appears exactly as she does in her shifter appearance.

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» Personality:
Can’t keep secrets: One of Meru’s defining weak points is that she doesn’t think about what she is saying before saying it. This makes her seem very open about more private things, but it also means she is horrible when it comes to keeping secrets. She’ll just let it slip out before realizing what she is saying and how that could affect others.

Laid back: Meru tends to be a very relaxed individual when she is not fighting. She appears to not even notice the world around her at times, as if nothing worries her at all. The closest one could come to describing how she looks is bored, but Meru isn’t actually bored. She simply does not care what goes on around her unless it involves fighting, her family, or things she needs to survive. With any of these three things, Meru can get very emotional, depending exactly on the circumstances.

Touchy Subjects: There are certain subjects that just cause Meru to close herself off and stop talking. Things like her true appearance, her twin sister, and the like tend to cause her to attempt to withdraw from any conversation about them. She also becomes highly emotional when these things are brought up, though she attempts to hide this from others.

Curious: The one thing that seems to break her laid back state other then what is already stated is Meru’s curiosity. Meru has this seemingly insatiable curiosity where she will go out of her way, and sometimes in to harm’s way, to simply fulfill her curiosity. When dealing with a subject of her curiosity, Meru will often display attentiveness and high levels of interest and sometimes happiness, but otherwise she acts just as she normally does.

Enjoys Fighting: One thing Meru truly enjoys is fighting, the rush of adrenaline in her veins, she loves battling with another individual. However, the stronger the individual the more joy she gets in fighting them. This has led her to really despise weak individuals, seeing as they give her little to no joy when fighting them.

» Likes: sweets, fighting, her family

» Dislikes: those who would hurt her family, her true appearance, weak humans
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» History
Twelve years ago, twin girls were born to Mifune Soan and Katana Broadshield. One was named Shani Broadsword, the other Meru Broadsword. For the first few hours, their life together seemed secured. Unfortunately, things were not to be that way. Within hours of having been born, Shani's energy began to suddenly drop, the weaker of the two children started having trouble breathing and would soon be dead if nothing happened. The other child was rushed from the room, and within moments, Shani was fine again. After a few minutes, Meru was brought back, and minutes later Shani was found to be dying from a sudden drain of energy again. Rushing Meru from the room, and once again Shani immediately felt better. Taking note of what happened, this time Meru was sat outside of the room, Shani in her mother's arms with Meru in her father's. Experts in the field of supernatural abilities were rushed in, and after examining Meru they declared she was what was known as an energy vampire. Lacking a way to replenish her own energy, she fed off the energy of those around her. Sadly, this meant that Shani and Meru could not grow up together, as until Meru learned to control her feeding, she would end up killing her sister by draining her of her energy if they lived together.

Hearing the news, Katana was adamant that she would care for both her daughters, keeping them separate from each other while loving both at the same time. The first two years went well in this plan, Meru growing at a fairly fast pace, about four times faster than the average human. However, in the middle of that year, Meru's dad made a final decision. So far Meru had made no signs towards having more control of her energy vampirism, and coupled with that her appetite seemed to have increased immensely. Since Shani was never allowed near Meru and Mifune did not have any energy at all for Meru to take, Katana had to bear the burden of being the sole donor for Meru. Mifune was worried that at this rate, Katana might be harmed due to the large amounts of energy Meru was devouring from her. So, on that fateful night, Mifune Soan took Meru to the Asthavon family, begging them to take her in so that she could grow up without being isolated in a room, away from the whole world. The Asthavon family held some of the strongest demons, there would be no risk of her growing up around them he reasoned. When questions about his wife, Katana, Mifune claimed she agreed it was in the best interest of the child and this was what she wanted as well. This wasn't completely true though, Katana would never have agreed to give their daughter up, she cared for both of them too much. When Mifune came home without the child, he was confronted by his wife, and he told her what he had done. Katana was understandably angry, but Mifune tried to use the safety of their other daughter to reason with her, and after a while she did calm down. Mifune promised her that they would one day in the future go to see Meru, though so far this family reunion has not been able to happen.

Immediately after becoming part of the Asthavon family, Meru was taught to control her feeding. As she had been maturing at an advanced rate, she was quite capable at understanding concepts, and slowly but surely she got the hang of controlling her feeding. This was first done by teaching her to suppress the feeding using a trial and error approach. Then, once she managed to suppress her subconscious feeding, she learned to reach out and feed through touch, once again using trial and error. During this whole time, Meru had been kept in one room, locked away until she mastered the ability to control her feeding. However, as she was often training with someone who would let her know how she was doing, she felt happy, finally feeling like there was someone who cared about her. She was well aware that she would not be allowed out until she mastered the ability, and thus she worked as quick as she could to achieve what in her eyes would be her first victory. After a year of being locked away, Meru left the walls of the room, having perfected her ability to control the feeding.

As the young girl’s feet touched the ground for the first time, sand leaped up to form a thin cloud around her feet. After a while, it became obvious that the sand had a mind of its own, protecting Meru even when she could not have known that anything dangerous was about to happen. One day, Meru had been walking around alone, and some random individual called her a freak. Tears leaked from her eyes, and she glared at them. Suddenly, the ground beneath them broke apart in to sand, launching up and in to the being’s mouth, suffocating them to death. This was how Meru first learned that she could control sand, and happily she worked to have more control, pushing herself to learn this newfound power of hers. By the time Meru had reached the age of six, two years after she stopped growing, she had a strong enough control of her sand to be considered a formidable foe for the average demon. Still, she did not contend herself with only that knowledge, her thirst for power pushing her to fight more powerful individuals, hoping that this would lead to her becoming even more powerful then she was at that point. Another year past, and though her control of sand was flawless, she was still trying to push herself to obtain more than she currently had.

Eventually though, she found herself up against an opponent who her sand could not defeat. Battered and bruised, Meru had been almost at the breaking point. However, at this point she reached inward, looking for something, anything that would allow her to defeat this man. In that instant she reached in to a yet untapped area of her powers, one she had finally unlocked. Her sand turned in to iron dust, tiny particles of sharp metal which she could control. Glaring at her opponent, she sent the vast number of bits of iron at her opponent, cutting him to shreds in an instant. Standing up shakily, she sighed softly as the iron dust returned to being sand. This was how, at the age of nine, Meru first accessed her iron sand state. For a year after that, not much seemed to happen to the youngster. She trained and lived her life, pushing herself to excel at everything she did. Then, on her tenth birthday, things changed.

She had been sitting in her room, thinking to herself about her birth parents. She wished that one day she would get to see them, hear how they were and perhaps talk to her twin sister for a bit. However, until now her birth parents had made no sign that this was the case. They seemed to have abandoned her, left her on her own, and thinking about this Meru fell in to sadness. Feeling frustrated and upset, Meru lightly shoved her dresser, but instead of barely reacting, the dresser shot off like a rocket, smashing in to the wall. Eyes wide, Meru attempted to stand up and go get it, but it was as if she was trying to move across the bottom of the ocean, like the air was trying to stop all movement. In fact, she had unconsciously multiplied the friction of the air many, many times over to the point that she could barely move. Collapsing on to the bed, she just sat there, taking calming breaths till eventually the room returned to normal. Questioning herself, Meru then attempted to recreate the effects she had just caused. After a bit of trial and error, she learned the basics of this power, figuring out she could manipulate the friction of an object. Over the next two years she would work to master this power while still trying to advance her sand based powers. It would take her a while to do so, but eventually she would obtain about the same mastery over both abilities, letting her control both with ease.

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» Natural Abilities:

» Unique Abilities:
Energy Vampirism: Meru is known as an energy vampire, a being that drains the energy from nearby beings in order to live. In fact, energy vampirism is a defect that occurs in all races of being. This defect causes the individual to be unable to replenish their energy reserves, causing them to slowly deplete until they empty completely, killing themselves. In truth, these beings have very unstable energy reserves, causing the energy that would normally replenish their reserves to just spill out of them. In turn this makes it impossibly for individuals with this condition to hide their energy from other people. However, those born with this defect also gain the ability to feed on the energy of those around them in order to restore their energy. At birth, this is done unconsciously, feeding off all those within a good five to ten feet of them. In order to control their feeding, these individuals learn to consciously feed off of others which in turn allows them to suppress their unconscious feeding. However, conscious feeding requires direct or indirect touch to the individual. By indirect touch, it means there can be clothing or other very thin object between her and her victim, but she cannot feed at a range from the victim. Note that any barrier or shielding techniques effectively prevent Meru from feeding on the individuals behind the barrier or shield. This is because she cannot absorb energy from techniques, and these techniques separate her from making contact with the individual she wants to devour energy from.

When it comes to feeding, Meru has to take some care as to who she feeds from. Seeing as she is a demon, holy energy is a poison to her. Even taking it in through her energy vampirism, this energy cannot be converted in to her own supply. If she, through any means, takes in holy energy her tier will actually drastically decrease as the holy energy poisons her from the inside, destroying her energy reserves. Holy energy is most commonly found among Angel Iramasha, but can sometimes include certain light based powers in other races. When found in other races, these are usually less potent against her, but it does depend on the individual. Another way Meru can be affected by who she feeds upon is when feeding upon those whose energy has a certain affinity. When she feeds off such a person, her body will have a unique reaction based on the affinity which the energy possesses. For instance, those with poison affinity can make her feel nauseous and sick, those with shadow affinity can cause her to randomly shadow walk accidentally, fire or heat affinity may make her feel feverish, etc. Thus, these factors make it in Meru's best interest to watch who she feeds upon instead of feeding randomly.

Demonic Fist Art, Devouring punch: This technique could be considered the mainstay of Meru's combat style. It is the combination of an unarmed attack combined with Meru's energy vampirism to create an attack that violently rips away a portion of the opponents energy and feeding it to Meru. This results in the opponents tier temporarily decreasing by one one tenth of a rank if her willpower is beginner, one eighth if her willpower is adept, one sixth if her willpower is advance, or one forth if her willpower is master or above (so every 10/8/6/4 hits with this technique, their tier would drop by 1, from a 3-1 to a 3-2, 2-3 to 2-4, etc). In addition, Meru gains a tier increase of half that value. Every 3 posts, Meru loses one 'stack' of her buff, and any being effected by the debuff loses one 'stack' of the debuff. This technique can only be performed twice per post. Also, note that any barrier or shielding technique will totally block this ability. However, if the opponent has holy type energy, as defined in the section about her energy vampirism, Meru is actually hurt by this technique. While it still applies the same debuff to the one hit by the technique, Instead of gaining the usual buff, Meru loses one tier. This is considered a stack of her buff, and is lost last when it comes to losing stacks of her buff every 3 posts.

Sand Manipulator: Meru's true power is the manipulation of sand, tiny grains of earth that together are her weapons and armor. She can freely manipulate the sand in to any form she wishes and for any purpose she needs it for. In addition, Meru can break up the ground below her in order to form sand if she needs more then she already has.

Crushing Sand Grip: When Meru activates this technique, she clamps her hand tightly in to a fist. Then, sand rushes up from the ground under the target for this ability. As it does, is surrounds their body in a cocoon like formation, and quickly hardens until it becomes immovable. However, the hardness of this technique is attached to the fist she closed upon activating it. If it is completely shut, the sand will be immovable, if she opens it completely, the sand would just fall to the ground. In reverse, if someone struggles within the sand, it will be like they are struggling within her hand, attempting to force it open. So, there are two ways to remove the technique: struggle from within until her hand completely opens, or have someone from the outside pry open her hand for you.

Friction Manipulation: Meru's only secondary power set as of this time is friction manipulation. This allows Meru to increase or decrease the friction of matter near her, even decreasing it to negative values. When friction reaches negative values, instead of resisting directional forces, it will increase the directional forces. The more energy Meru uses, the more she can increase or decrease the frictional value of any matter.

Speed Rail: This is a technique Meru has created using her Friction Manipulation in order to deal with her current weakness when it comes to Shadow Movement. Using this technique, Meru creates a small "plate" in front of her which has negative frictional values. This negative value is usually indicated by the multiple Meru decides on, as this multiple is how much the friction will multiply her speed by. She then uses shadow movement or another super speed technique, or even just runs over the plate normally. At the same time, she creates a "rail" of manipulated friction in front of her, these manipulation causing there to be no effect of friction, resulting her her not slowing down at all. Thus her speed will be multiplied at the start of the rail, not influenced by friction as she moves down the rail, and at the end of the rail she creates a "cap", a space that has super high friction in order to cause her to stop. In short, this is a technique that allows her to multiply her speed greatly while moving in a straight line. It does take a fair amount of energy to use, especially over longer distances and with higher multiples. In addition, it has a cool down of 3 posts after use.

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» Note: Feel free to change "Adjustable State Appearance" to any title you'd like for your Demon's Stages.

» Iron Sand State Appearance: In her iron sand state, Meru appears the same as she does normally.

» Iron Sand State Benefits:
Iron sand transformation: This is the easiest way to notice that Meru is in her iron sand state, as when she enters this state all the sand under her control turns in to iron dust. Any sand she further creates by breaking down the ground is also immediately turned in to iron dust. The difference between the iron dust and regular sand is that the iron dust is tougher and is capable of cutting individuals, whereas the sand is weaker and unable to cut through individuals in its purest form. Once she leaves iron sand state, all the iron sand transformed with this method will turn back in to sand.

Iron sand manipulation: In this state, Meru can manipulate iron dust as well as sand, using iron dust as if it were sand with her sand manipulation. She can also break down metal objects containing iron in order to make iron dust from the metal object. Finally, while Meru cannot manipulate the iron that is normally in a human's blood stream in this state, if there is additional iron added to their bodies she can manipulate this iron, allowing her to pull it from their innards in order to make iron dust from it.

Iron Sand Storm: This technique spreads all her iron dust throughout an circular are, up to fifty meters in diameter. Then, the iron dust swirls around in the area violently, attempting to cut up anyone within it except for Meru. Th iron dust will not come within two inches of Meru's body, even if she is within the area of the iron sand storm.
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To Find Out about what these skills are for, please READ THIS THREAD before you try doing anything to it. After you have read it, do not feel your skills out until a staff member has graded your thread. We will also do your will sheet for you upon grading your application.

Racial Skills

• Za Koa Skill: Adept
  
• Demon Magic: Beginner
  
• Shadow Movement: Beginner
  
• Akuma Kyōdo: Adept
  

General Skills

• Durability: Beginner
  
• General Speed: Adept
  
• Strength: Adept
  
• Weapon Skill: Adept

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