BasicsFull Name: Kayo Onizuka
Nickname: N/A
Age, D.O.B.: 17, October 2nd, 2003
Gender: Female
Category: Persona-User
Grade/Career: Third-year student at Mishiro High
Ethnicity: Japanese
Family:- Masahiro Onizuka - Father, age 51
- Kaede Onizuka - Mother, age 53
- Daichi Onizuka - Older brother, age 20
AppearanceKayo stands at 5'8", putting her well above the average height of Japanese women. Her broad shoulders and rectangular body type give her a sturdy, solid look, further accentuated by subtle muscle tone in her arms and legs. Kayo's eyes are a very light brown, although they colour is so desaturated that they look grey under most lighting. She keeps her black hair cut at a length that keeps you wondering if she's in the process of growing it out, or if she needs a haircut. It doesn't help that her hair seems like it's always in dire need of a good combing -- Kayo's hair is thick and unruly, and it shows.
As far as clothing goes, Kayo prefers simplicity and comfort over style. Jeans, t-shirts, button-ups and vests make up most of her wardrobe, none of which are particularly colourful or eye-catching. She hates wearing dresses and skirts, to the point where she wears the boy's uniform to school.
PersonalityLikes: Machines, cars, sports, martial arts, salty food, autumn, dogs, learning
Dislikes: Heights, sweets, bitter food, anything with lace/frills/etc., cooking, doing nothing
Hobbies: Tennis, reading/studying -- anything beyond this depends entirely on what skills Kayo is focused on improving
Goals: To constantly improve herself, in every sense of the word
As a woman of few words, Kayo is an extremely difficult person to talk to. Any conversations involving her are heavily one-sided; she will not contribute any talking points, nor will she freely share her thoughts or experiences. In fact, the only way to get any sort of information out of her is to pose a question. The majority of her answers are short and blunt, however, making it difficult to use them to keep the conversation going. Even questions that touch on her interests -- sports, machinery, mechanics, etc. -- still get short, unhelpful responses.
Those questions will, however, keep her from tuning the conversation out.
Because Kayo, if disinterested in a conversation, will make no efforts to keep track of it. Why should she? It's a waste of her time to stand there and listen to, even
think on, things she doesn't care about. No, if Kayo is going to participate in a conversation, it's going to be worth her time and energy.
Kayo's definition of "worth" is simply something that challenges her -- something she can learn from. This applies not only to conversations, but to every aspect of her life. Kayo is in a constant state of introspection, always searching for a weakness or skill to improve upon. And there always is something, because perfection is only an ideal, not a state of being. Where some might find that line of thought discouraging, Kayo absolutely loves it. It means she's never left without a goal, never left without something to do.
While this goal of never-ending self-improvement is an admirable one, Kayo is nevertheless an asshole for how she implements it. By categorizing conversations, people, and things as "worthwhile" and "useless", she puts herself on a sort of pedestal, considering herself "superior" to the people/things that she deems unworthy. It's one thing to dislike small-talk, and another thing entirely to refuse to talk people unless they present something "interesting" to her.
This is the primary reason why Kayo doesn't have any friends. She hasn't met a single person who consistently performs to her standards, constantly maintaining their status as "someone worth spending time on". Because someone like that, quite frankly, doesn't exist -- not by Kayo's definition. Kayo values people based on the information they possess, not based on their character. That's not to say she'll stick around someone who constantly disrespects her, but she
does have a higher tolerance for unpleasant people because of this. Regardless, it's still a bad way to view others, and it works very well to both enforce Kayo's arrogance and her isolation.
HistoryKayo has led a quiet, uneventful life.
She was born into the middle-class Onizuka family in Sanyo City to two loving parents, and a slightly less loving older brother who wasn't too thrilled about having a sibling. She was raised in a modestly-sized home in a quiet little suburb, and never went without the basic necessities of life... And then some. When school started, she made friends quickly and did fairly well in her classes.
...Though, she never did quite as well as everyone hoped.
She never
failed -- never even did poorly -- but Kayo's marks never got much further than "average". Even in elementary school, her parents found this concerning. They wanted only the best for their children, and that meant getting them into the prestigious Futaba High. So they hired tutors and worked on Kayo's schoolwork with her, hoping that this early intervention would avoid issues with low grades in the future. It worked, to an extent -- Kayo's marks saw a slight increase, but it wasn't as much as her parents hoped it would be. They still continued with the tutoring anyway; a slight increase was better than no increase.
Kayo not only took these extra lessons in stride, but fully embraced them. She loved learning, and tutoring offered a lot of new ways of thinking about problems, and how to solve them. She genuinely wanted to do better in school, too -- Kayo understood the importance of getting into a good high school, and an even better university. It helped that she wanted to follow in her brother's footsteps, too... If only to one-up him and be the "smarter" child later down the road.
Time went on, and Kayo's tutoring continued into middle school. Her grades were a great deal better than they had been, but it was still unlikely that she'd get into Futaba High. It was a depressing thought, having spent all those years studying for nothing. Kayo confided this in her father one day, and his response is what shaped Kayo into the person she is today. He admitted it would be disappointing if she didn't get into Futaba, but also noted that her hard work wasn't for nothing. She had learned -- not only academic concepts, but things like self-discipline, work ethic, time management and so on. Kayo had grown so much over the years, and to dismiss it all based on grades was simply unfair.
...He then went on to talk about how she could still get into a good university from Mishiro High, though Kayo stopped paying attention at that point. She spent awhile mulling over her father's speech regarding all the ways she'd grown, and why she was basing her self-worth entirely on her marks. Kayo concluded that it was stupid to consider herself the sum of her grades; look at all she had accomplished! Look at all she had to offer! Confidence renewed, Kayo found herself at peace with the idea of not getting into Futaba High.
She also found herself a new mission in life: to keep improving, no matter what. Yes, she'd accepted she wasn't going to get into Futaba High. No, she wasn't going to become complacent about it. Kayo examined her weaknesses, looked at what had held her back... And then resolved to rectify it all. She was going to learn from her shortcomings, was going to make herself a better person.
And for awhile, that was exactly what she did. The issues she identified and the solutions she pursued were typically simple. But as time went on, Kayo's self-reflections grew little more nuanced. She stopped looking solely at herself in terms of weaknesses and their solutions. It was now a more general, more abstract "what will make me a better person?" Which, for a period of time, worked to her advantage. But somewhere down the road, Kayo's thoughts became less focused on
people, and more focused on
things. Information and content became the focus, not experiences. She started to cut people out of her life based on whether or not they were beneficial to her self-improvement. If they couldn't challenge her, if they had no new information to offer, she stopped speaking to them.
By the time Kayo started high school, she had completely isolated herself from all her old friends. Her behaviour did nothing to gain her any new ones, either. With no friends, Kayo has had no one to challenge her way of thinking, and has gotten progressively worse in the past few years with this line of thinking.
EquipmentKayo fights with a metal bat, which she "borrowed" from her brother's collection of baseball bats. It's barbaric and she hates it, but it's better than trying to fight Shadows with her bare hands.
Notes- Kayo is on the school's tennis team. She picked up the sport in middle school and has been playing ever since. She's a well-rounded player, and does well in both singles and doubles matches.
- She is terrified of heights, and struggles with anything more than two feet off the ground. Kayo tried to "fix" this fear by climbing a tree once, but got stuck there for three hours until her brother came to rescue her. She hasn't tried to fix her fear of heights since.