THE LIGHTLESS Character Profiles #13: Asuka Hinode
Asuka’s childhood was full of love, but very few good memories.
Her parents loved and took care of her, but they never could quite get themselves to sign off on anything that she chose to do. It seemed to them as if she was doing things with the intention of disappointing them, of going against their wishes, When in reality, she was simply doing the things that interested her, what her heart and mind were telling her to do, same as any young person.
This contention would lead to a great fracture in their relationship the older Asuka became, until one day they hardly spoke to one another. They wanted one thing for her, and she wanted another. She had her sights set on joining Leviathans and Apex Mammals(LAAM) with her longtime best friend Lindsey Delpo, in order to help protect their hometown of Morrowtown. This would require she moved away, but she promised them that she would be the one to return to service Morrowtown, so she could still see them every so often. But her parents wouldn’t hear it, and took their shunning of their daughter to the next level, not speaking to her whatsoever. As Asuka prepared to leave for Halestock, to start her new career, the one she had since high school been pining for, her parents would throw one final, hurtful burst of remarks at their only daughter: she would never make them proud, and she was wasting the life they had given her, choosing a friend over family was unforgiveable.
Why they couldn’t ever listen to reason, or why they couldn’t show some compassion and support for their child was never made clear for Asuka. To this day she holds a special bullet-wound in her heart, put their by the very hands that created her.
Halestock, LAAM, and Lindsey Delpo
Her less-than-easy-going youth behind her, Asuka found some real solace and comradery in joining LAAM, and leaving Morrowtown behind for the time being. Lindsey had made the trek to Halestock a week before her, and when the two were reunited, it was nothing short of a celebration. Lindsey couldn’t believe Asuka had gone through with it, assuming that her friend would be handcuffed and stuffed into a closet by her parents before they let her take her life into her own hands like this. However, Lindsey had been delightfully wrong in her assumption.
The Halestock LAAM office wasn’t the cream of the crop out of the few in Quadrant One, and not even the adjacent Quadrants. The pay was weak at best, benefits next to none, and hours longer than either Lindsey or Asuka had ever been accustomed to. But, it was something both of them were passionate about: protecting Unfeasted, and ensuring that the life that the Leviathan Safety Organization(L.S.O.) had established continued on, well-oiled, well-guarded, and well-respected.
Their job was one that many of Unfeasted’s people considered not only lowly, but morally corrupt. Under the monopolized regime of the L.S.O. many things had gone from bad to worse. However, just as many wrongs had become righted under their leadership and rule as well. It was those goods that Asuka and Lindsey believed in, and they believed that they could help in the places where the L.S.O. had fallen off, the situations that had been handled poorly.
They had ambition for the good of humanity, to nurture good within a villainized government body that effectively ruled the world, and had waned from seeming as heroes to villains. Was that so bad an ambition? To see evil brough back to light?
