"I promise, no matter what...I’m going to do what it takes."
Name: Yuki KazikuraAge: 20
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Height: 5'4 / 163 cm
Weight: 118 lbs. / 54 kg
Hometown: Yokohama, Japan
Alignment: Face
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Appearance:
Ring Gear
Special thanks to Dokki for making this model!
Casual
Gym
Swimwear
”If...you’re sure I have to...”
Old Art
Hatsune Miku - Senbonzakura
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History: Yuki began wrestling when she was 16 years old, joining a local joshi puroresu circuit in the area. At the time, she was young, curious, and still largely undecided about her place in the world. But she had long been a fan of wrestling, and when she heard about tryouts for the local league coming by her area, she signed on to see what it had to offer her.
At the time, she thought it would just be a passing phase. Even her parents thought she was just putting on airs in an attempt to find herself. But what started out as a whim turned into a fascination. As she trained with the other members of the league, and went on a few smaller-scale shows, Yuki learned more and more about the world she was entering - and she found she loved it.
She became enraptured by the rush she got when she was in the ring, applying her skills to take down her opponents and struggling at the limits of her mind, body, and willpower to overcome all obstacles. It was a state of flow for her, one where she was focused and alert, where every moment counted and she had to stay on top of it all. For some, such conditions might prove intimidating. But for Yuki, they helped organize her thoughts and hone her awareness of her situation. She saw it as the ultimate test of her ability, something she needed to approach with the utmost seriousness. She simply hadn’t found anything she could be so passionate about before.
It wasn’t like she was all that great back then. She had just joined, with no prior wrestling experience, and little knowledge beyond what she’d seen on TV. Most of her opponents were also high school kids still learning the ropes. But what set Yuki apart was how well she learned. Her first few matches might have been rocky, but she committed the lessons she learned in them to heart, and sought to improve at any cost, to reach the height of her potential. She trained and studied her own strengths and weaknesses, looking for ways to hone what she excelled at and compensate for what she didn’t. And soon, she was tearing through the competition, proving herself to be a veritable prodigy. Not only did she overcome all of her fellow rookies, she was going on to taking down veterans. Yuki felt the rush she could only get from victory, and it excited her. She had never felt so accomplished in what she did before - and now that she knew she had found her calling, she wanted to take it further!
Yuki started to trade up to bigger and bigger promotions as news of her prodigious talent spread, earning her the nickname Dynamite Schoolgirl - she would often go right from finishing classes at her high school to wrestling a match, something that made her quite popular with her classmates. Finally, on her 18th birthday and in her senior year, she applied for LAW, hoping to compete against some of the strongest wrestlers in the world to hone her skill. And when she got accepted, she knew there was no going back.
Though her entrance in LAW came quietly, it wasn’t long before Yuki was proving herself worthy of the big leagues. She achieved many successes, and eventually was rocketed to the main event scene in the lightweight division. This came as a surprise for Yuki, who was never used to having this much attention on her. She always thought of herself as a so-called indie darling, but never in the same league as the greats. At the recommendation of her colleagues and fans, she challenged for LAW’s Lightweight Championship, preparing herself to rise to her greatest challenge yet. And, while she lost, the fact that she could go the distance against the champion in a competitive bout was deemed reason enough to keep her high on the card, and she went on to compete at the 2020 We Are LAW pay-per-view against a mystery opponent.
That opponent turned out to be Rose Gold, and that match turned out to be a mercy match, where only the victorious wrestler could decide to accept a submission as worthy. Yuki had a strong lead - but, ultimately, she came up short. As she was beaten and humiliated in front of a bigger crowd than she had ever seen in her life, Yuki had no choice but to surrender. And it was then that she realized she had been stuck on the glass ceiling. While Yuki might have been at the top of her game on the indies, in a major promotion, everything was different. She had been coasting on her good fortune up to that point, but her luck had run out.
Since then, she graduated from high school, taking time off from wrestling to recover and train. She saw no other path for her way forward than wrestling, or think of any job or position where she felt more at home. Yuki knew from the start that she would come right back to wrestling. Before she’d even applied to any colleges, she had sent word back to LAW that she would be making her return. And at last, the time had come.
Along the way, Yuki ran into a couple of bumps in the road. Despite training and trying to reinvent herself, she soon found that she struggled to live up to the high standards she had set in her indie career, and that no matter how hard she tried to recapture her past glories, she still ran into a long string of losses, injuries, and disappointments that left her questioning her own abilities, and if she was getting anywhere in her journey as a wrestler. In particular, she was faced with the realization that she hadn't prepared for any other future besides being a wrestler, and that she had no backup plan in case her career came to a halt. But Yuki prefers not to dwell on that too long, instead deciding to throw herself into wrestling to the fullest and to strive to always be the best she can, in the hopes of proving her own self-doubt wrong. And she still wants to avenge her loss against the woman who would go on to become LAW Lightweight Champion, but her greatest obstacle in that journey has been her own fear of the consequences...
Personality: Yuki is a quiet girl, far from the more bombastic fame-seeking personalities many wrestlers adopt. As far as she's concerned, wrestling is more of an art that she pursues because it speaks to her and she enjoys it, not because she wants to become a celebrity. In fact, the amount of attention she gets can be confusing to her, and rather embarrassing if people recognize her in public places. Nevertheless, she doesn't mind the fame, as she's happy to be doing what she loves. She's very calculating and careful, which she applies to the ring in her cautious but cunning style. Though she isn't the most extroverted person, she does face life with a friendly and approachable demeanor, and is grateful for whatever friends she does make.
Since her sabbatical from wrestling following We Are LAW 3, Yuki has grown to question her outlook on life, and to wonder if her agreeable disposition was holding her back. She’s become more serious and perhaps even cold to others, as well as being less ready to trust people, since her opponent in that fateful match caught her off-guard by using her connections to her personal friend (who was, in fact, her alter-ego. It’s complicated). She came to view blind acceptance and optimism as a weakness that kept her from achieving her true potential. At heart, Yuki remains a good-natured girl who wants to do the right thing and values her fans and the people in her life. But she does struggle with doubts about her future, and where she’ll go from here.
Though she tries to keep herself calm, composed, and collected in all her matches, Yuki still struggles with aggression, especially as she tries to cope with the often frustrating turns her career can take. In numerous matches, she lost control of her instincts when she was pushed too far, and the brutality she showed the world (and herself) she was capable of was enough to frighten even her. She's tried to repress those feelings ever since, refusing to succumb to her darker side out of fear of becoming like Rose Gold. But sometimes, she wonders if she may be holding herself back too much...
Trivia:
- Yuki is used to living a very hectic schedule between her classes and her commitment to wrestling, and she sometimes has to skip meals. This means that when she does eat, her appetite tends to be bigger than most people expect from someone of her size.
- She owns a Siberian Husky named Cleopatra, which is most definitely not a reference to any real-life huskies with Egypt-related names owned by wrestlers.
- Yuki is highly self-conscious about her small breasts due to being picked on for it when she was younger, though that tended to stop after she became known as a wrestler, for obvious reasons.
- In her personal life, Yuki is what experts would call "a dumb nerd", and enjoys anime and video games. She also said when she was about 6 that she wanted to be a Kamen Rider when she grew up.
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Fighting Style: As a wrestler, Yuki specialises mainly in agility and high-flying moves. She takes advantage of her smaller frame to avoid attacks and propel herself into aerial maneuvers. This has often helped her win the support of the crowd at seeing the flashy moves she can pull off, though she isn't usually one to brag. However, she knows better than to get right into the fancy stuff off the bat. Yuki is a keen tactician, and she works best when she can focus her mind and pinpoint the best strategy to take an opponent down, calculating her moves and her surroundings to fine-tune her strategy to what works best. In particular, she'll use hard-hitting strikes to weaken an opponent before going to take them down with one of her more complex techniques.
Precisely because she works so well when she's fully aware of the plan, Yuki's greatest weakness is an enemy who's unpredictable or that she can't anticipate. She has to take care to avoid getting into a situation like that at all costs, as it can leave her in a daze, and a sufficiently tricky foe might even manage to distract her long enough to break the concentration she tries so hard to cultivate in the ring, leaving her at their mercy.
As Yuki isn’t as sturdy as some wrestlers, she tries to avoid attacks more than she blocks them, as she doesn't take chances with how much she can absorb. Her pain tolerance, in particular, is a little lower than average, and submissions can be particularly rough for her, so her best defense is to avoid ending up in such a position to begin with.
Favored Match Types: Yuki is largely agreeable to any kind of match type. While she isn’t in any formal tag teams, she does have people she can fall back on for that, and she’s willing to work with them. Due to her low pain tolerance and her fairly shy demeanor, Yuki isn’t the type to sign on to hardcore or lewder matches more readily; however, she understands it as a part of the reality of her profession and her place in LAW, and she’s willing to work with what she’s dealt.
Finishing Moves:
Kazikura Destroyer
A Canadian Destroyer
Shiranui
Warrior Sacrifice
A crucifix powerbomb Yuki learned from Aoi Fukiwara.
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Friends:
- Mayori has become a close friend of Yuki's ever since she fought her in Mayori's first match. Even though Yuki lost, she recognized the potential in her opponent and she wanted to help her achieve it. While she and Mayori have difficulties communicating due to speaking different dialects, she tries to help her out however she can.
- Kelsea Rose is an old fan of Yuki's (who Yuki didn’t even know she had until their paths crossed at a coffee shop), and one who helped the girl realize how far she had come since the beginning of her career. She's inspired Yuki to strive to new levels, and she's grateful for her for emboldening her to live out her true potential. While her more energetic, exuberant attitude stands in contrast to the more demure Yuki, she enjoys her company all the same. While she hasn’t admitted it, she also has romantic feelings for her.
- Elena “Bola de Nieve” Salcido is someone Yuki views as a friendly rival. Though they came from very different backgrounds, with Elena training in lucha libre rather than joshi puroresu and being so far from home, Yuki came to respect her for how the two girls shared in their passion for their respective styles and their commitment to mastering their domains. Though she lost their first match against each other, it was a pitched battle that came very close, and Yuki hopes to be able to face her again.
- Aoi Fukiwara is someone Yuki has looked up to ever since the blue-haired girl became LAW's first-ever Lightweight Champion. Yuki challenged her for the belt, and even though she lost, she was grateful to have the attention of someone of Aoi's status and to have put up a good fight against her. When Rose Gold defeated Aoi, not only taking her championship but breaking her leg and taking her out of action, Yuki was aghast - and all the more determined to take Rose down for it. She's since dedicated herself to living up to Aoi's example, and even trained with her, learning some of her moves.
- Yuki’s relationship with Kelsea’s wrestling persona, Rose Gold, is...complicated. Though she was initially shocked to see Rose reveal the face of Kelsea behind her mask, it became clear enough to Yuki that the two were, on some level, separate entities. However, she still can’t forgive Rose for the torment she put her through in their match, and she can only hope that if their paths ever cross again, she’ll be strong enough to prove to her she’s stronger than that. She can’t bring herself to hate her, however. She still sees her as a part of Kelsea, and if she is, then she’s sure there has to be a way to redeem her, even if it takes time to convince her.
- Amano Jaku has become somewhat of a rival to Yuki, though Yuki herself hardly knows why she singles her out. After their first match, Amano grew resentful of Yuki for what she perceived to be talking down to her, even though Yuki insists she didn't intend to, as well as the girl's more stable, peaceful, and comfortable life compared to her own struggles. Desperate to prove herself, Yuki took the Demon on in a barbed wire deathmatch that left both of them injured, but, as Amano was clear to emphasize afterward, their feud is far from over.
- Angelina Tarrant has proved herself to be a thorn in Yuki's side for a long while. At first, she thought little of her, seeing her as just another opponent when they faced off, and despite a very close brush with victory, it was ultimately Angelina who took victory in the end. Yuki was left questioning her own abilities and trying to save face, but Angelina found that their rivalry was bound to go far beyond the ring, antagonizing Yuki not just in LAW but in her own home. Yuki is determined to settle the score against Angelina, but she fears what Angelina might be capable of bringing out of her.