K A G A M I I T Ō
"Ah! Well... Um..."
Profile
Name: Kagami Itō
Nickname: N/A
Sex: Female
Age: 20
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
Height: 160 cm (~5'3")
Weight: 55 kg (~121.25 lbs)
Ethnicity: Japanese
Nationality: Japanese
General Alignment: Neutral
Wrestling Alignment: Tweener
LAW Manager: N/A
Entrance Music:
Faceclaim: Kobeni Higashiyama from Chainsaw Man
Pictures
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Personality
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If someone were to describe Kagami, one would probably use the words "nervous" and "scared". She is slightly pessimistic insofar as she usually expects things to go wrong—and, with her bad luck, they usually do. Misfortune consistently finds an unwilling friend in Kagami, upending whatever endeavor she is currently engaged in and leaving her ever-so-slightly more neurotic.
This streak of ill fortune has led Kagami to be rather timid whenever confronted with anything new. Despite this, given the proper motivation or coercion, she can power through her fear and force herself to perform, whether it be at her job or in the ring. Her nervousness, however, often causes her to mess up on even the simplest tasks. She can be unfathomably clumsy, tripping over nothing at all or taking a tumble at the most inopportune of moments.
Yet, there is a different side to Kagami. When she is pushed or threatened far enough, her emotions deaden. Her motions become deft and swift, and a composed savagery befalls her. She can seamlessly blend breathtaking acrobatics and cold, brutal violence together, making for a devastating combination. She strikes hard and fast while avoiding serious injury. However, once the threat is gone, her emotions will quickly return causing her to slip back into her usual nervous self.
Kagami's nervousness serves as shackles that bind her. She is actually extremely intelligent, but is usually too nervous to make effective use of her intelligence. In Kagami's case, nervousness holds back an otherwise competent woman.
Aside from her nervousness, Kagami is a caring person. She cares for her family, even going so far as to send most of her paycheck back to her family to support them. Unfortunately, the relationship between Kagami and her family is exploitative as her family takes advantage of Kagami monetarily. Despite this, Kagami still works hard to support her family, even though they give her almost nothing in return.
This streak of ill fortune has led Kagami to be rather timid whenever confronted with anything new. Despite this, given the proper motivation or coercion, she can power through her fear and force herself to perform, whether it be at her job or in the ring. Her nervousness, however, often causes her to mess up on even the simplest tasks. She can be unfathomably clumsy, tripping over nothing at all or taking a tumble at the most inopportune of moments.
Yet, there is a different side to Kagami. When she is pushed or threatened far enough, her emotions deaden. Her motions become deft and swift, and a composed savagery befalls her. She can seamlessly blend breathtaking acrobatics and cold, brutal violence together, making for a devastating combination. She strikes hard and fast while avoiding serious injury. However, once the threat is gone, her emotions will quickly return causing her to slip back into her usual nervous self.
Kagami's nervousness serves as shackles that bind her. She is actually extremely intelligent, but is usually too nervous to make effective use of her intelligence. In Kagami's case, nervousness holds back an otherwise competent woman.
Aside from her nervousness, Kagami is a caring person. She cares for her family, even going so far as to send most of her paycheck back to her family to support them. Unfortunately, the relationship between Kagami and her family is exploitative as her family takes advantage of Kagami monetarily. Despite this, Kagami still works hard to support her family, even though they give her almost nothing in return.
Combat Information
General
Strategy:
Fighting Style(s):
Preferred Attacks:
Martial Arts
Primary: Itō-ryū karate
Secondary: None
Match Preferences
Preferred Matches:
Attitude Towards Hentai:
Other
Statistics:
Moves and Combinations:
Additional Information:
History
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They say that every child deserves a parent but not every parent deserves a child—such an aphorism rings resoundingly true in the case of Kagami Itō and her mother Minami Higashiyama. Kagami was conceived as the result of a drunken fling between Minami and a famous karateka named Yamato Itō. The two met at a bar, with the latter drinking away his sorrows after losing for the second time against his rival Risuke Kimura in a high profile "traditional martial arts versus mixed martial arts" bout. Minami, on the other hand, was an eighteen-year-old—fresh out of high school—who had lied about her age to get into the bar. The confluence of alcohol and emotion resulted in a transient pairing that should have never happened, and a child born to a mother who was too young.
The pregnancy shook up Minami's already tumultuous home life, causing it to finally shatter. Fed up with her daughter, Minami's single mother unceremoniously threw Minami out onto the streets, leaving Minami to fend for herself—and Minami returned the favor by robbing her mother blind. Yet, the money Minami stole was still barely enough to get by on, and the months following her departure were hell for Minami. Everything went towards survival, with nothing being left over for the sort of lifestyle that she wanted to live: a cushy lifestyle filled with partying, sex, booze, and the occasional hard drugs.
Once the money dried up, Minami was left in a difficult position. With no money and an infant child—Kagami—to support, Minami needed money. But Minami, being a perpetual slacker, did not want to work. Not that she could work though, as working in a conventional job would leave too much of a paper trail—something undesirable for a woman who was on the run after committing theft.
With no marketable skills and an inability to get a normal job, Minami relied on her stunningly good looks to get by. There was no shortage of lonely salarymen willing to throw money at a pretty young woman such as Minami in exchange for companionship. After some initial mild success, Minami figured that it was only a matter of time before she got hitched to someone rich and would be set for life. But ultimately, the sugar baby/gold digger lifestyle was not as lucrative or easy as it was stereotyped to be: hours, days, weeks spent sifting through faux wealth, posers, and exploiters only to find one or two decent catches. And among those, none provided enough to even get close to raising Minami above the poverty line.
In the end, Minami's hopes for an easy life were left unrealized. Instead, all she had was a crying little money-sink who needed to be fed and changed, and who could not be left alone for more than… six hours? Something like that. In Minami's mind, Kagami became the reason for all of her problems—if Kagami did not exist, maybe she would have better luck with finding someone who could support her; and maybe she would not have to spend half of her income taking care of a brat who gave nothing in return.
Kagami's first years of life were mostly loveless, the usual parental affection that children experience all but absent. Her mother viewed her as nothing more than a pest and a burden rather than a daughter. Kagami was also sometimes forced to bear partial witness to her mother's various liaisons, being forced to hide in the closet of their one-room jiko bukken apartment as her mother did the deed—however, the room was almost always dark and the closet door slats were close together, meaning that Kagami could never quite make out what was happening.
Kagami's brother Takeshi arrived in Kagami's third year of life, and with his arrival came an additional stream of income. Unlike Kagami's father, who denied both his paternity and Kagami's existence, Takeshi's father paid child support. As a result, Minami's disposition towards Takeshi was markedly more positive: Minami only saw burden with Kagami, whereas she saw benefit with Kagami's brother.
It was not long before Minami started relying on Kagami to aid with taking care of Takeshi. Kagami, jealous of her mother's unequal affection, was initially resistant. However, it did not take long for Minami to figure out that strategic applications of simulated parental love along with straight-up intimidation could manipulate Kagami into assisting. The fear of parental ire and the pursuit of motherly affection became the shackles that bound Kagami to servitude.
Two additional children later, Minami decided to move to America. The reason? Lackluster child support money. Compared to America, child support laws were much weaker in Japan—or rather, their enforcement was weaker. With the exception of Takeshi, Minami only got a small fraction of what the Tokyo Family Court suggested for child support. Thus, when Kagami was seven years old, Minami moved herself and her family to America, a place with stronger enforcement of child support.
The shy, timid Kagami did not fare well in her new school. It did not help that Minami enrolled Kagami in fifth grade—a full three grade levels ahead of where she was supposed to be based on her age—all in a bid to be rid of Kagami earlier. Between her lack of English, fearfulness towards socializing with her peers, and relative immaturity due to skipping three grades, Kagami quickly became seen as that "weird foreign girl". Bemusement soon turned to derision, and Kagami became the target of bullying. Eventually, the bullying got so bad that Kagami asked her mother to switch schools—her mother merely responded that sending Kagami to a different school would be a "massive pain in the ass" and that Kagami should "quit whining and just suck it up".
Eventually, Kagami hit middle school. Or rather, she was supposed to. Minami decided to, against Kagami's wishes, keep Kagami at home to help take care of her young siblings. Kagami had very little choice in this matter. For three three years, a sizable chunk of Kagami's waking hours was spent taking care of her younger siblings.
Meanwhile, Takeshi grew to become the "golden child". He had skipped three grades like his sister, although unlike Kagami, the reason for this was logistical: it was easier on Minami if both Kagami and Takeshi attended the same school as she would not have to transport them to different places. Further, unlike Kagami, Takeshi fit in well. He matured quickly for his age, allowing him to fit in with his older peers.
Kagami started middle school three years after she was initially supposed to. This time, however, Kagami's age was appropriate for her grade level. Takeshi, having been three years younger than Kagami and having skipped three grades, was also set to go to middle school at the same time as Kagami. The two siblings entered middle school at the same time.
Kagami's time in middle school was not any better than her time in American elementary school. Takeshi, being in the same grade as Kagami and having picked up on his mother's mistreatment of her, began to bully Kagami. With his charm and popularity, he rallied his classmates towards a single purpose: to antagonize Kagami. When Kagami tried to tell her mother about this, her mother did not believe her—after all, how could her "golden child" do such a thing? And, in Minami's mind, Kagami deserved such mistreatment merely for existing.
From middle school onwards, Kagami was constantly compared to her younger brother Takeshi. Kagami was scared, timid, unassertive, and lacked confidence. Takeshi was fearless, bold, assertive, and had confidence for days. Both children possessed high intelligence and both were quite athletic, although people only paid attention to those traits in Takeshi. Every day, Minami would ask her daughter Kagami why she was not more like Takeshi and would remind Kagami of her supposed inferiority to her brother.
However, Kagami's fortunes started to reverse once she reached high school. A new school meant a fresh start, and for once, Kagami did not have a target on her back. Even Takeshi—who was attending the same high school—had since grown bored of antagonizing Kagami and had left Kagami alone. With the weight of constant bullying lifted from her shoulders, Kagami began to open up, freely socializing for the first time in years.
Around that time, Minami had managed to snag herself a wealthy boyfriend, the latest catch in her perpetual stream of transient relationships. But this one would be different. The man, with his considerable wealth, was supposed to be her ticket out of poverty. But then, in Minami's own words, Kagami ruined everything.
The man was a lecher and had tried to grope Kagami. When that had happened, Kagami lashed out in fear, knocking the man out cold. For days after the incident, Kagami kept her silence, going through life wordlessly distraught. When she finally worked up the courage to tell her mother what had happened, the story had already gotten twisted. Minami's then boyfriend had convinced Minami that Kagami had tried to grope him, and that Kagami had gotten violent when he had tried to resist. A mixture of infatuation and incredulity over the notion that a man would lie about being beaten up by a diminutive girl led Kagami's mother to believe her then boyfriend over her daughter.
The incident with Kagami drove Minami's boyfriend away, and Minami blamed Kagami for this. Minami kicked Kagami out of the house, intent on never seeing Kagami again. Kagami was forced to live on the streets and ended up homeless for two weeks. She might have stayed there had a police officer not found her. Under the threat of criminal charges, Minami bitterly took Kagami back in.
This marked a turn for the worse in Kagami's life. Idle, careless gossip from Takeshi led to news of the incident—Kagami's supposed impropriety towards an older man—getting leaked to her classmates. Kagami got labeled a "DILF hunter" and a "pervert", and her classmates started joking that Kagami was a rapist who liked to go after men much older than her. To add insult to injury, Kagami's mother started anonymously cyberbullying Kagami in retaliation for supposedly "ruining" her relationship—that was in addition to her regular face-to-face antagonism towards Kagami.
Moreover, in order to make up for lost income due to losing her boyfriend and out of spite, Minami forced Kagami to get a job. She ended up getting a job at a restaurant called Family Burger where she was made to shout corny family-related slogans and do humiliating, cheesy poses. Kagami's nervousness around people and her propensity towards clumsiness when nervous caused her to often screw up at her job. Worse yet, whenever she messed up, her manager would yell at her and viciously slap her, calling the slaps "family slaps". The customers were not much better either—sensing Kagami's timidity, they were on her like sharks drawn to blood in the water.
Fearful due to experiencing abuse from all angles and due to her mother's ex-boyfriend's attempted impropriety, Kagami decided to take up karate to learn how to protect herself. She started attending a karate school that taught the Itō-ryū style of karate, a hybrid karate style that drew from Shotokan and Kyokushin karate along with Japanese jiu-jitsu and judo—and it was full-contact. At first, Kagami was utterly ineffectual and somehow managed to screw up even the most basic of moves. But as time passed, Kagami became less nervous. She started showing an unnatural talent for karate, demonstrating monkey-like agility along with an intuitive sense of timing and distance. Her stamina was also remarkable, with her being able to cut angles and blitz for days. This caught the attention of the dojo's master, Yamato Itō.
Shortly after Yamato began noticing Kagami, Kagami's mother Minami made an appearance at the dojo. She showed up not to encourage her daughter, but rather to complain that Kagami was spending too much time at the dojo and not enough time working. Yamato recognized Minami as the woman he had a liaison with following his second loss to Risuke Kimura. Upon seeing who Kagami's mother was, Yamato immediately recognized Kagami as his illegitimate daughter. In contrast, Minami did not recognize Yamato, and she instead only felt a vague sense of familiarity with Yamato.
Without revealing his relation to Kagami, Yamato took Kagami under his wing. He provided ample encouragement to her and worked with her one-on-one in private karate lessons. Kagami quickly blossomed into a talented martial artist and after just one year of training, she could beat black belts who had been training their entire lives. Shortly after that point, she was awarded a first-degree black belt in Itō-ryū karate. Being with a mentor who seemed to care about her and having a chance to excel at something, Kagami was the happiest she had ever been.
However, Kagami's mother Minami was very unhappy about Kagami's newfound "hobby" as it prevented Kagami from working as much. Minami demanded that Kagami quit karate, but for once, Kagami refused to abide by her mother's wishes. She got a sort of parental "love" from Yamato Itō, something that she had never had before. And she was not about to lose that "love". Even if it meant conflict with her mother and lackluster grades due to focusing on karate.
But not all was well in the dojo. Yamato was extremely strict and would only accept perfection from Kagami. Whenever Kagami fell short of perfection, Yamato would go cold on her. This invariably spurred Kagami to work harder to regain the warmth that she had lost.
Shortly after awarding Kagami her second-degree black belt—which Kagami had obtained just a few months after earning her first-degree black belt—Yamato revealed to Kagami that he was her father. Kagami was initially skeptical, but she knew that her father had been a high-level karate practitioner. Plus which, she could see how her appearance resembled that of Yamato. Despite having doubts, she ultimately chose to—correctly—believe Yamato's claim of being her father.
Kagami was initially elated after accepting that Yamato was her father. However, Kagami's mood quickly turned to uncertainty when Yamato told her to change her surname to Itō and begin competing. This was meant to boost the Itō name and promote the Itō-ryū style. Kagami was initially hesitant as she did not want to change her name and competing would take even more time away from school. Yamato, however, issued an ultimatum: either change her name and compete, or he would completely cut Kagami off—he instinctively knew that Kagami would comply, although he would not have actually gone through with his threat if Kagami had refused. Kagami, predictably, decided to comply as she did not want to lose her father-figure-turned-actual-father.
Thus, Kagami Higashiyama became Kagami Itō. She started competing in full-contact karate competitions and found great success there—at least at first. Initially, the pressure Yamato put on Kagami to perform well augmented her performance, and she even won a number of competitions. However, as Kagami attained more and more success, the pressure became stifling. She began to mess up. Freak accidents began to happen, causing Kagami to lose bouts that she otherwise should not have. Regardless, Kagami still managed to win enough that she got recognition for her skills.
Eventually, it came time for Kagami to graduate high school. Although her grades were less than stellar due to karate and being forced to work a lot, Kagami got surprisingly good test scores. She applied to a number of colleges, and even managed to get into a couple Ivy League schools courtesy of her test scores and killer personal statements—it turned out that the crap that Kagami had been through could be channeled into essay form. After accepting an admission offer, Kagami felt a load being taken off of her back: she was finally going to have some freedom from her family.
But that did not come to be. Takeshi, being on-par with Kagami intelligence-wise and not saddled by having to work, also managed to get into similarly prestigious schools. Minami, viewing Takeshi as the better child and more likely to benefit her down the line, decided to send Takeshi to college instead—she obstinately believed, despite potential evidence to the contrary, that she could only afford to send one of her children to college. That was just willful ignorance, however: Minami ultimately just wanted Kagami to not go to college so that she could work and support the family. Moreover, Minami expected Kagami to help pay for Takeshi's tuition by working.
Kagami was devastated that her mother would not let her go to college. She tried desperately to convince her mother to change her mind, but to no avail. After a lot of arguing, Kagami eventually acquiesced and began working full time. She had been thoroughly beaten down, verbally and psychologically, and broken to the point that her will to object had been crushed.
With her hopes of college crushed, karate was one of the only things Kagami had left. Kagami devoted herself to karate, choosing to spend as much time as possible training. Having already graduated high school, work and karate became her life. And karate was her escape, a doorway out of her monotonous life of working for meager pittances in support of her family. Excelling at karate gave Kagami an intrinsic sense of satisfaction, and it also allowed Kagami to gain approval from her father. These two facets pushed Kagami to greater and greater heights in karate.
Kagami soon approached the summit of karate. She entered a top-tier karate tournament in the kumite event—it was a double-elimination tournament. Her first match initially went well, with her opponent being unable to match Kagami's speed and skill. However, a hastily thrown spinning back kick managed to strike Kagami in the chest. As luck would have it, the blow happened at just the right time and place to induce commotio cordis—Kagami went into cardiac arrest.
An AED was swiftly brought out. Kagami's gi was ripped open, her undershirt cut apart, and her bra removed, exposing the then eighteen year-old Kagami's breasts to the world. The AED pads were placed on Kagami's bare chest and shocks were administered. The quick work of the medical team saved Kagami's life. However, the incident was televised, so Kagami got exposed on live television, much to Kagami's horror.
One would think that after going into cardiac arrest and being resuscitated, one would take it easy for a while. This was what Kagami initially wanted to do. But her father, Yamato Itō, had other plans. He not-so-subtly insinuated that he would be highly displeased if Kagami did not continue. Kagami, wanting nothing more than to please her father, acquiesced and continued in the tournament.
The loss put Kagami in the losers bracket. But Kagami proved herself to be anything but a loser. She managed to tear her way through the losers bracket, decimating her opponents with her prodigious skill. Kagami even managed to beat the favorite for the tournament, who had also suffered a fluke loss and had ended up in the losers' bracket.
After destroying the competition in the losers bracket, Kagami got to the finals of the tournament. However, in yet another upset, she again lost due to a fluke accident. Somehow, despite having thrown the kick thousands of times, Kagami managed to twist her ankle while throwing a high roundhouse kick. Kagami was unable to continue the match after that, and thus Kagami snatched defeat from the jaws of victory once again.
Most people praised Kagami for her performance—after all, she had been dominant all throughout the tournament, only losing due to fluke incidents. However, Yamato did not care as Kagami had lost not once but twice. The one person whom Kagami wanted to please was unhappy and unwilling to see the merit in Kagami's performance.
Yamato never let Kagami compete in any karate tournaments again. He viewed Kagami's accidents as embarrassing, and sought to prevent such "embarrassing" accidents from happening again. After the tournament, Yamato began seeing Kagami as yet another failed child of his—the other "failed child" being Ayame Aoi. Yamato became markedly colder towards Kagami, much to her distress.
The years after that fateful tournament were not kind to Kagami. Training karate became difficult as her father/sensei Yamato Itō was cold towards her. On top of having to contend with a father who was cold towards her, Kagami was trapped in a soul-crushing, dead-end job at Family Burger. She had to put up with abuse from her boss, her coworkers, and the customers.
Yet, through it all, Kagami was still loyal to her family. She was loyal to her father, and she felt an obligation to care for her mother and siblings. Kagami had given up on receiving parental affection, however, as it was clear that her parents would not give her affection. Kagami's father Yamato acted coldly towards his daughter, rejecting the one who had once been his star pupil. Kagami's mother Minami continued using her daughter as a source of income, not valuing Kagami much beyond that.
At the time, Kagami lived at home with her mother and siblings, and was perpetually underappreciated for her efforts to take care of them. Between Kagami's meager paycheck and alimony payments going to Minami, the family barely managed to scrape by. This left Minami wanting for more.
When Kagami was twenty years old, her mother gave Kagami an ultimatum: join LAW as a wrestler or do sex work . The rationale was that Kagami could make more money for the family doing either of those activities. Additionally, in regards to LAW, Kagami had fighting experience so she theoretically could fit into LAW. Not wanting to go against her mother, Kagami reluctantly agreed to join LAW.
After signing with LAW, in order to better participate in LAW, Kagami moved to Tokyo, Japan. Once in Japan, Kagami sought to gain additional employment in order to augment her income. To start, almost immediately upon entering Japan, Kagami got a job at a Family Burger location—a nice and familiar throwback to how she worked at a Family Burger location in the United States. Similarly to before, Kagami also suffered abuse from all angles at that job, even being subjected to so-called "family slaps" by her new boss, just like before. This abuse started the day she began work.
Three days after starting her new job at a Family Burger location, Kagami fell, spilling an order all over a customer. The manager verbally berated Kagami in front of the customer, even giving Kagami a "family slap". Feeling bad for Kagami, the customer, a woman by the name of Rin Asano, offered Kagami a job as a private investigator trainee at her private investigation firm Asano Consulting as an alternative to working at Family Burger. Rin was desperate to find new people for the company, given that recruitment was low due to the company's reputed high mortality rate.
Kagami agreed to join Asano Consulting, even after Rin emphasized that the job could be dangerous. The pay, while not outstanding, was decent enough to entice Kagami to join despite the risk. Furthermore, the life insurance policy that came with being an employee of Asano Consulting was high-end, so Kagami figured that her possible death would end up benefitting her family. However, even after accepting the position at Asano Consulting, Kagami still kept her position at Family Burger.
So Kagami, within less than a week of entering Japan, picked up two jobs in addition to her LAW contract. This ultimately left Kagami in an interesting, and uncertain, spot. LAW wrestler, private investigator trainee, and Family Burger employee—these were the three roles that Kagami had taken on.
The pregnancy shook up Minami's already tumultuous home life, causing it to finally shatter. Fed up with her daughter, Minami's single mother unceremoniously threw Minami out onto the streets, leaving Minami to fend for herself—and Minami returned the favor by robbing her mother blind. Yet, the money Minami stole was still barely enough to get by on, and the months following her departure were hell for Minami. Everything went towards survival, with nothing being left over for the sort of lifestyle that she wanted to live: a cushy lifestyle filled with partying, sex, booze, and the occasional hard drugs.
Once the money dried up, Minami was left in a difficult position. With no money and an infant child—Kagami—to support, Minami needed money. But Minami, being a perpetual slacker, did not want to work. Not that she could work though, as working in a conventional job would leave too much of a paper trail—something undesirable for a woman who was on the run after committing theft.
With no marketable skills and an inability to get a normal job, Minami relied on her stunningly good looks to get by. There was no shortage of lonely salarymen willing to throw money at a pretty young woman such as Minami in exchange for companionship. After some initial mild success, Minami figured that it was only a matter of time before she got hitched to someone rich and would be set for life. But ultimately, the sugar baby/gold digger lifestyle was not as lucrative or easy as it was stereotyped to be: hours, days, weeks spent sifting through faux wealth, posers, and exploiters only to find one or two decent catches. And among those, none provided enough to even get close to raising Minami above the poverty line.
In the end, Minami's hopes for an easy life were left unrealized. Instead, all she had was a crying little money-sink who needed to be fed and changed, and who could not be left alone for more than… six hours? Something like that. In Minami's mind, Kagami became the reason for all of her problems—if Kagami did not exist, maybe she would have better luck with finding someone who could support her; and maybe she would not have to spend half of her income taking care of a brat who gave nothing in return.
Kagami's first years of life were mostly loveless, the usual parental affection that children experience all but absent. Her mother viewed her as nothing more than a pest and a burden rather than a daughter. Kagami was also sometimes forced to bear partial witness to her mother's various liaisons, being forced to hide in the closet of their one-room jiko bukken apartment as her mother did the deed—however, the room was almost always dark and the closet door slats were close together, meaning that Kagami could never quite make out what was happening.
Kagami's brother Takeshi arrived in Kagami's third year of life, and with his arrival came an additional stream of income. Unlike Kagami's father, who denied both his paternity and Kagami's existence, Takeshi's father paid child support. As a result, Minami's disposition towards Takeshi was markedly more positive: Minami only saw burden with Kagami, whereas she saw benefit with Kagami's brother.
It was not long before Minami started relying on Kagami to aid with taking care of Takeshi. Kagami, jealous of her mother's unequal affection, was initially resistant. However, it did not take long for Minami to figure out that strategic applications of simulated parental love along with straight-up intimidation could manipulate Kagami into assisting. The fear of parental ire and the pursuit of motherly affection became the shackles that bound Kagami to servitude.
Two additional children later, Minami decided to move to America. The reason? Lackluster child support money. Compared to America, child support laws were much weaker in Japan—or rather, their enforcement was weaker. With the exception of Takeshi, Minami only got a small fraction of what the Tokyo Family Court suggested for child support. Thus, when Kagami was seven years old, Minami moved herself and her family to America, a place with stronger enforcement of child support.
The shy, timid Kagami did not fare well in her new school. It did not help that Minami enrolled Kagami in fifth grade—a full three grade levels ahead of where she was supposed to be based on her age—all in a bid to be rid of Kagami earlier. Between her lack of English, fearfulness towards socializing with her peers, and relative immaturity due to skipping three grades, Kagami quickly became seen as that "weird foreign girl". Bemusement soon turned to derision, and Kagami became the target of bullying. Eventually, the bullying got so bad that Kagami asked her mother to switch schools—her mother merely responded that sending Kagami to a different school would be a "massive pain in the ass" and that Kagami should "quit whining and just suck it up".
Eventually, Kagami hit middle school. Or rather, she was supposed to. Minami decided to, against Kagami's wishes, keep Kagami at home to help take care of her young siblings. Kagami had very little choice in this matter. For three three years, a sizable chunk of Kagami's waking hours was spent taking care of her younger siblings.
Meanwhile, Takeshi grew to become the "golden child". He had skipped three grades like his sister, although unlike Kagami, the reason for this was logistical: it was easier on Minami if both Kagami and Takeshi attended the same school as she would not have to transport them to different places. Further, unlike Kagami, Takeshi fit in well. He matured quickly for his age, allowing him to fit in with his older peers.
Kagami started middle school three years after she was initially supposed to. This time, however, Kagami's age was appropriate for her grade level. Takeshi, having been three years younger than Kagami and having skipped three grades, was also set to go to middle school at the same time as Kagami. The two siblings entered middle school at the same time.
Kagami's time in middle school was not any better than her time in American elementary school. Takeshi, being in the same grade as Kagami and having picked up on his mother's mistreatment of her, began to bully Kagami. With his charm and popularity, he rallied his classmates towards a single purpose: to antagonize Kagami. When Kagami tried to tell her mother about this, her mother did not believe her—after all, how could her "golden child" do such a thing? And, in Minami's mind, Kagami deserved such mistreatment merely for existing.
From middle school onwards, Kagami was constantly compared to her younger brother Takeshi. Kagami was scared, timid, unassertive, and lacked confidence. Takeshi was fearless, bold, assertive, and had confidence for days. Both children possessed high intelligence and both were quite athletic, although people only paid attention to those traits in Takeshi. Every day, Minami would ask her daughter Kagami why she was not more like Takeshi and would remind Kagami of her supposed inferiority to her brother.
Side note
Spoilered because of dark themes
Kagami considered suicide many times as a child and adolescent. What stopped her was a desire to not abandon her family. Eventually, she came to an odd sort of acceptance of her situation, and the suicidal thoughts stopped.
Around that time, Minami had managed to snag herself a wealthy boyfriend, the latest catch in her perpetual stream of transient relationships. But this one would be different. The man, with his considerable wealth, was supposed to be her ticket out of poverty. But then, in Minami's own words, Kagami ruined everything.
The man was a lecher and had tried to grope Kagami. When that had happened, Kagami lashed out in fear, knocking the man out cold. For days after the incident, Kagami kept her silence, going through life wordlessly distraught. When she finally worked up the courage to tell her mother what had happened, the story had already gotten twisted. Minami's then boyfriend had convinced Minami that Kagami had tried to grope him, and that Kagami had gotten violent when he had tried to resist. A mixture of infatuation and incredulity over the notion that a man would lie about being beaten up by a diminutive girl led Kagami's mother to believe her then boyfriend over her daughter.
The incident with Kagami drove Minami's boyfriend away, and Minami blamed Kagami for this. Minami kicked Kagami out of the house, intent on never seeing Kagami again. Kagami was forced to live on the streets and ended up homeless for two weeks. She might have stayed there had a police officer not found her. Under the threat of criminal charges, Minami bitterly took Kagami back in.
This marked a turn for the worse in Kagami's life. Idle, careless gossip from Takeshi led to news of the incident—Kagami's supposed impropriety towards an older man—getting leaked to her classmates. Kagami got labeled a "DILF hunter" and a "pervert", and her classmates started joking that Kagami was a rapist who liked to go after men much older than her. To add insult to injury, Kagami's mother started anonymously cyberbullying Kagami in retaliation for supposedly "ruining" her relationship—that was in addition to her regular face-to-face antagonism towards Kagami.
Moreover, in order to make up for lost income due to losing her boyfriend and out of spite, Minami forced Kagami to get a job. She ended up getting a job at a restaurant called Family Burger where she was made to shout corny family-related slogans and do humiliating, cheesy poses. Kagami's nervousness around people and her propensity towards clumsiness when nervous caused her to often screw up at her job. Worse yet, whenever she messed up, her manager would yell at her and viciously slap her, calling the slaps "family slaps". The customers were not much better either—sensing Kagami's timidity, they were on her like sharks drawn to blood in the water.
Fearful due to experiencing abuse from all angles and due to her mother's ex-boyfriend's attempted impropriety, Kagami decided to take up karate to learn how to protect herself. She started attending a karate school that taught the Itō-ryū style of karate, a hybrid karate style that drew from Shotokan and Kyokushin karate along with Japanese jiu-jitsu and judo—and it was full-contact. At first, Kagami was utterly ineffectual and somehow managed to screw up even the most basic of moves. But as time passed, Kagami became less nervous. She started showing an unnatural talent for karate, demonstrating monkey-like agility along with an intuitive sense of timing and distance. Her stamina was also remarkable, with her being able to cut angles and blitz for days. This caught the attention of the dojo's master, Yamato Itō.
Shortly after Yamato began noticing Kagami, Kagami's mother Minami made an appearance at the dojo. She showed up not to encourage her daughter, but rather to complain that Kagami was spending too much time at the dojo and not enough time working. Yamato recognized Minami as the woman he had a liaison with following his second loss to Risuke Kimura. Upon seeing who Kagami's mother was, Yamato immediately recognized Kagami as his illegitimate daughter. In contrast, Minami did not recognize Yamato, and she instead only felt a vague sense of familiarity with Yamato.
Without revealing his relation to Kagami, Yamato took Kagami under his wing. He provided ample encouragement to her and worked with her one-on-one in private karate lessons. Kagami quickly blossomed into a talented martial artist and after just one year of training, she could beat black belts who had been training their entire lives. Shortly after that point, she was awarded a first-degree black belt in Itō-ryū karate. Being with a mentor who seemed to care about her and having a chance to excel at something, Kagami was the happiest she had ever been.
However, Kagami's mother Minami was very unhappy about Kagami's newfound "hobby" as it prevented Kagami from working as much. Minami demanded that Kagami quit karate, but for once, Kagami refused to abide by her mother's wishes. She got a sort of parental "love" from Yamato Itō, something that she had never had before. And she was not about to lose that "love". Even if it meant conflict with her mother and lackluster grades due to focusing on karate.
But not all was well in the dojo. Yamato was extremely strict and would only accept perfection from Kagami. Whenever Kagami fell short of perfection, Yamato would go cold on her. This invariably spurred Kagami to work harder to regain the warmth that she had lost.
Shortly after awarding Kagami her second-degree black belt—which Kagami had obtained just a few months after earning her first-degree black belt—Yamato revealed to Kagami that he was her father. Kagami was initially skeptical, but she knew that her father had been a high-level karate practitioner. Plus which, she could see how her appearance resembled that of Yamato. Despite having doubts, she ultimately chose to—correctly—believe Yamato's claim of being her father.
Kagami was initially elated after accepting that Yamato was her father. However, Kagami's mood quickly turned to uncertainty when Yamato told her to change her surname to Itō and begin competing. This was meant to boost the Itō name and promote the Itō-ryū style. Kagami was initially hesitant as she did not want to change her name and competing would take even more time away from school. Yamato, however, issued an ultimatum: either change her name and compete, or he would completely cut Kagami off—he instinctively knew that Kagami would comply, although he would not have actually gone through with his threat if Kagami had refused. Kagami, predictably, decided to comply as she did not want to lose her father-figure-turned-actual-father.
Thus, Kagami Higashiyama became Kagami Itō. She started competing in full-contact karate competitions and found great success there—at least at first. Initially, the pressure Yamato put on Kagami to perform well augmented her performance, and she even won a number of competitions. However, as Kagami attained more and more success, the pressure became stifling. She began to mess up. Freak accidents began to happen, causing Kagami to lose bouts that she otherwise should not have. Regardless, Kagami still managed to win enough that she got recognition for her skills.
Eventually, it came time for Kagami to graduate high school. Although her grades were less than stellar due to karate and being forced to work a lot, Kagami got surprisingly good test scores. She applied to a number of colleges, and even managed to get into a couple Ivy League schools courtesy of her test scores and killer personal statements—it turned out that the crap that Kagami had been through could be channeled into essay form. After accepting an admission offer, Kagami felt a load being taken off of her back: she was finally going to have some freedom from her family.
But that did not come to be. Takeshi, being on-par with Kagami intelligence-wise and not saddled by having to work, also managed to get into similarly prestigious schools. Minami, viewing Takeshi as the better child and more likely to benefit her down the line, decided to send Takeshi to college instead—she obstinately believed, despite potential evidence to the contrary, that she could only afford to send one of her children to college. That was just willful ignorance, however: Minami ultimately just wanted Kagami to not go to college so that she could work and support the family. Moreover, Minami expected Kagami to help pay for Takeshi's tuition by working.
Kagami was devastated that her mother would not let her go to college. She tried desperately to convince her mother to change her mind, but to no avail. After a lot of arguing, Kagami eventually acquiesced and began working full time. She had been thoroughly beaten down, verbally and psychologically, and broken to the point that her will to object had been crushed.
With her hopes of college crushed, karate was one of the only things Kagami had left. Kagami devoted herself to karate, choosing to spend as much time as possible training. Having already graduated high school, work and karate became her life. And karate was her escape, a doorway out of her monotonous life of working for meager pittances in support of her family. Excelling at karate gave Kagami an intrinsic sense of satisfaction, and it also allowed Kagami to gain approval from her father. These two facets pushed Kagami to greater and greater heights in karate.
Kagami soon approached the summit of karate. She entered a top-tier karate tournament in the kumite event—it was a double-elimination tournament. Her first match initially went well, with her opponent being unable to match Kagami's speed and skill. However, a hastily thrown spinning back kick managed to strike Kagami in the chest. As luck would have it, the blow happened at just the right time and place to induce commotio cordis—Kagami went into cardiac arrest.
An AED was swiftly brought out. Kagami's gi was ripped open, her undershirt cut apart, and her bra removed, exposing the then eighteen year-old Kagami's breasts to the world. The AED pads were placed on Kagami's bare chest and shocks were administered. The quick work of the medical team saved Kagami's life. However, the incident was televised, so Kagami got exposed on live television, much to Kagami's horror.
One would think that after going into cardiac arrest and being resuscitated, one would take it easy for a while. This was what Kagami initially wanted to do. But her father, Yamato Itō, had other plans. He not-so-subtly insinuated that he would be highly displeased if Kagami did not continue. Kagami, wanting nothing more than to please her father, acquiesced and continued in the tournament.
The loss put Kagami in the losers bracket. But Kagami proved herself to be anything but a loser. She managed to tear her way through the losers bracket, decimating her opponents with her prodigious skill. Kagami even managed to beat the favorite for the tournament, who had also suffered a fluke loss and had ended up in the losers' bracket.
After destroying the competition in the losers bracket, Kagami got to the finals of the tournament. However, in yet another upset, she again lost due to a fluke accident. Somehow, despite having thrown the kick thousands of times, Kagami managed to twist her ankle while throwing a high roundhouse kick. Kagami was unable to continue the match after that, and thus Kagami snatched defeat from the jaws of victory once again.
Most people praised Kagami for her performance—after all, she had been dominant all throughout the tournament, only losing due to fluke incidents. However, Yamato did not care as Kagami had lost not once but twice. The one person whom Kagami wanted to please was unhappy and unwilling to see the merit in Kagami's performance.
Yamato never let Kagami compete in any karate tournaments again. He viewed Kagami's accidents as embarrassing, and sought to prevent such "embarrassing" accidents from happening again. After the tournament, Yamato began seeing Kagami as yet another failed child of his—the other "failed child" being Ayame Aoi. Yamato became markedly colder towards Kagami, much to her distress.
The years after that fateful tournament were not kind to Kagami. Training karate became difficult as her father/sensei Yamato Itō was cold towards her. On top of having to contend with a father who was cold towards her, Kagami was trapped in a soul-crushing, dead-end job at Family Burger. She had to put up with abuse from her boss, her coworkers, and the customers.
Yet, through it all, Kagami was still loyal to her family. She was loyal to her father, and she felt an obligation to care for her mother and siblings. Kagami had given up on receiving parental affection, however, as it was clear that her parents would not give her affection. Kagami's father Yamato acted coldly towards his daughter, rejecting the one who had once been his star pupil. Kagami's mother Minami continued using her daughter as a source of income, not valuing Kagami much beyond that.
At the time, Kagami lived at home with her mother and siblings, and was perpetually underappreciated for her efforts to take care of them. Between Kagami's meager paycheck and alimony payments going to Minami, the family barely managed to scrape by. This left Minami wanting for more.
When Kagami was twenty years old, her mother gave Kagami an ultimatum: join LAW as a wrestler or do sex work . The rationale was that Kagami could make more money for the family doing either of those activities. Additionally, in regards to LAW, Kagami had fighting experience so she theoretically could fit into LAW. Not wanting to go against her mother, Kagami reluctantly agreed to join LAW.
After signing with LAW, in order to better participate in LAW, Kagami moved to Tokyo, Japan. Once in Japan, Kagami sought to gain additional employment in order to augment her income. To start, almost immediately upon entering Japan, Kagami got a job at a Family Burger location—a nice and familiar throwback to how she worked at a Family Burger location in the United States. Similarly to before, Kagami also suffered abuse from all angles at that job, even being subjected to so-called "family slaps" by her new boss, just like before. This abuse started the day she began work.
Three days after starting her new job at a Family Burger location, Kagami fell, spilling an order all over a customer. The manager verbally berated Kagami in front of the customer, even giving Kagami a "family slap". Feeling bad for Kagami, the customer, a woman by the name of Rin Asano, offered Kagami a job as a private investigator trainee at her private investigation firm Asano Consulting as an alternative to working at Family Burger. Rin was desperate to find new people for the company, given that recruitment was low due to the company's reputed high mortality rate.
Kagami agreed to join Asano Consulting, even after Rin emphasized that the job could be dangerous. The pay, while not outstanding, was decent enough to entice Kagami to join despite the risk. Furthermore, the life insurance policy that came with being an employee of Asano Consulting was high-end, so Kagami figured that her possible death would end up benefitting her family. However, even after accepting the position at Asano Consulting, Kagami still kept her position at Family Burger.
So Kagami, within less than a week of entering Japan, picked up two jobs in addition to her LAW contract. This ultimately left Kagami in an interesting, and uncertain, spot. LAW wrestler, private investigator trainee, and Family Burger employee—these were the three roles that Kagami had taken on.
Relationships
- Coming soon
Quick Facts
- None
Secret
- Kagami does not masturbate. She tried to do so on a number of occasions in the past, only to be caught by her mother and/or siblings each and every time.
- Kagami's father—Yamato Itō—forced her to change her name from Kagami Higashiyama to Kagami Itō so that her success in karate competitions would boost the Itō name. Once Kagami fell out of favor with her father, she tried to change her name back only to be denied by the courts.
- Kagami has wanted to play Pokémon ever since she was a kid. Unfortunately, a lack of money and time prevented her from ever doing so. Her brother Takeshi, on the other hand, got a Nintendo DS with a Pokémon game for his birthday, only for him to eventually get bored of them and throw them away. By the time Kagami found out, the trash had already been taken out, thus preventing her from recovering the DS and Pokémon game.
- While she was still living in the United States, Kagami was consistently coerced into driving her mother and siblings around, as if she were a pro bono taxi service. To add insult to injury, freak accidents and unfortunate mishaps regularly befell her car, forcing Kagami to pay for repairs out of pocket.
- Kagami does not own very many clothes aside from her work uniform. Since she is unwilling to wear her work uniform in the ring and can barely afford clothes—let alone a costume—her options for in-ring attire are extremely limited.
- Kagami has native-level fluency in both English and Japanese.
- Kagami has not told her mother that Yamato Itō is her father.
- Kagami is extremely adept at dancing-based rhythm games.
- Despite never having given one, Kagami is preternaturally adept at giving sloppy blowjobs.
