Who are you?

PERSONALITY TRAITS:
diligent, resourceful, pragmatic, compassionate, warm, prideful, quick-tempered, calculating, cynical, ruthless.

PERSONALITY:

THE LAYERS OF YUMI

AT FIRST GLANCE yumi appears to be someone who has her mind focused on the present moment and that only. she's not cold, but she's welcoming you with open arms either. she is diligent and resourceful, able to think clearly and critically about situations and figure out the best possible scenario for herself and anyone with her. pragmatism has ruled yumi for her entire life, and circumstances have dictated that yumi's softer side is something one has to work to see. diligence is something that yumi has had in spades her whole life. once she has agreed to something, or has decided on something herself she will see it through to the end and to the best of her abilities. perhaps it's as a result of the expectations to be a good daughter worthy of the noble family she comes from that has lead to yumi's dedication to the fine details of everything she engages in. she always has to be the best, and the way to do that is to push through and suceed no matter what. she has always had a knack for figuring out the best possible scenario given her circumstances, and she has the drive to achieve her goals. this resourcefulness served yumi well during her upbringing, allowing her to shoot to the top of her class, and on the battle field, allowing her to prove herself worthy of her position in the army. her pragmatism allows her to see situations plainly, and has allowed her to make some tough decisions to keep herself and her companions alive in the past. 

TO HER FRIENDS yumi does have a soft side, it's just burried a little below the trauma and the noble upbringing. the battlefield doesn't allow time for warm feelings, and the nobility can be ruthless. if one takes the time to push past yumi's defences, she can be incredibly compassionate and warm. she feels everything so deeply, and this is something that yumi learned to hide at a young age, as people took advantage of it. however, this compassion allows yumi to put herself in the position of someone else so completely it colours her every experience. when she is close to someone, yumi will share their triumphs and sorrows like they're her own. she will celebrate whole heartedly, and grieve deeply. yumi can be counted on to know the right things to say to someone she is close to in any situation to make them feel understood and validated. she is a warm and loving person to those she cares about, and will show it through her gentle concern over your sleeping habits, or her spooning extra portions onto your plate at meals without a word. she likes to look after those she truly cares about, and does so happily in her own little ways. yumi allows her most childish traits, her pridefulness and her quick-temperedness, to come out around those she is close to as well. as a child of nobility, and as someone with complete confidence in her own abilities, yumi has a bit of an ego. she was the best in her class, the best in her unit in the military, and yumi rarely believes that she's wrong. when contradicted on this, yumi's quick temper can flare up and she will yell, throw fire, and generally make her displeasure quite clear. an apology and an offering of fire flakes can go a long way in soothing a bruised ego.

TO HER ENEMIES yumi is a formidable opponent. she has been studying battle strategies since she was a child, and her experiences on the front lines of the war have honed her into a calculating and ruthless soldier. she doesn't have the experience and knowledge to think on a larger scale, like the officers of the fire nation army, but when it comes to herself and the three or four people closest to her, she can be deadly. yumi is able to keep her head in volatile situations, and she will use anything she can to give her an advantage when facing someone down. she can be ruthless when the situation calls for it, and will make the hard decisions when others find it difficult to do so. she isn't one so easily crossed, and she will do whatever it takes to protect herself and her companions in a fight. of course not every fight is so serious, but yumi is cynical, and tends to see the worst in people and expect the worst from them if they give her cause to doubt their intentions. this has kept her safe throughout the years, but has also pushed many people away from her. they sometimes find it hard to reconcile the woman who tells jokes to cheer them up with the woman who looks at a battle field and decides which sacrafices to make. 

BACKGROUND:  

yumi grew up with her twin brother, yuji, as a typical noble fire nation citizen living right in their nation's capital. she was the daughter of eizo, a general of the fire nation army, and kotori, a teacher at the presigious royal fire academy for girls. as her father was a general, he was away at the front lines for a majority of her childhood. but when eizo came home yumi and her brother were regaled with tales of the war, heroic fire nation soldiers battling cruel and stubborn earth kindgom soldiers and strange water tribe warriors who would join the battles ever now and then. as a result, both yumi and yuji idolised their father and the efforts of the fire nation to spread peace and knowledge to the other nations. yumi's mother kotori was a teacher at the royal fire academy for girls, and so contributed to yumi and yuji's pride in their home nation. yumi was a bright and curious child, and loved to learn as much as she could. she loathed being apart from her brother when they attended school (he attended the royal fire academy for boys) but used it as an opportunity to throw herself headfirst into her studies, even from a young age. yumi had no use of close friends outside of her brother, and was friendly with the girls in her class but not friends with them. there was absolutely no one on the earth that was as close to yumi as her brother was. 

as close as they were, there was also no one who could vex yumi like her brother, and so when yumi was 5 her fire bending ability manifested during a fight with her brother. she spouted flames from her fist in a fit of rage when swinging at her brother, who responded in kind with a kick of fire from his foot, manifesting his bending for the first time as well. kotori was incredibly proud to have two bending children, particularly as she herself was not a bender. from that moment on yumi engaged with bending training at the academy and honed her skills, as expected of the daughter of a general. yumi spent all of her childhood making sure her parents could boast about her to the other nobles, a perfect example of what talent the fire nation can produce. although yumi was no prodigy at either school or bending, she spent all of her time studying and practicing so that she was flawless. there was a lot of pressure and expectations on yumi and her brother, like any children of the fire nation nobility. they had to be the best, and yumi was determined to become someone her parents would be proud of. yumi and her brother had decided quite early on that they both wanted to join the military like their father, and made sure to take advantage of their respective school's military related courses so they could get ahead before they finished school. 

in 93ag, when yumi and yuji were 17, they joined the ranks of the fire nation army straight out of school. most of the other benders in their graduating class, as well as a few non-benders made the same decision and so they were surrounded by familiar faces. kotori was proud of how hard her children had worked to be the best, and although she worried like any other mother about sending her children off to war, she was more excited to brag to the other noble women about her talented children. eizo was proud of his children. although he had been absent for a lot of their lives, he made the effort to come back and witness the ceremony when yumi and yuji finished basic training and marched out for the first time. yumi was particularly excited to join her father on the front lines, bringing peace and knowledge to the other nations. when they marched out, yumi and her brother were placed in the company of captain teiji, who served under their father's command. they were sent to the front lines, as all new soldiers needed to be "broken in". all those years of pushing herself to be the best paid off, and soon yumi was considered an invaluable member of her unit, using her strategic mind and her talents at bending to effectively fight and win. yumi and yuji came to be known in their unit as the harbingers, as they were swift, precise and deadly in combat. sometimes a small twinge of guilt would hit at yumi in the quiet of night, thinking about how a lot of the villagers and soldiers were not trained to fight effectively against the fire nation, and how sometimes the battles were more like slaughters. it made sleep a little harder to come by some nights. however, yumi comoforted herself with her steadfast belief that the fire nation was merely trying to spread peace and knowledge to the other nations. it was the earth kingdom soldiers and the water tribe warrior's fault that she was having to burn these villages to crush their fighting spirits. if they'd just surrender and accept the help from the fire nation, the war could be over more quickly. 

in 94 ag, yumi's unit got word from their general, eizo, that all troops currently stationed neat ba sing se were called to rally under the banner of general iroh, the dragon of the west. general iroh believed that the time had come to breach the great walls of ba sing se and bring the earth kingdom to heel after so many long years of war and resistance. yumi was honored to be part of what was surely going to be the greatest military victory of the fire nation since the defeat of the air nomad army. the siege was long, dangerous and bloody. yumi saw so much violence and death during the 500 day siege, and she was starting to lose hope as more and more of her friends, old class mates and fellow soldiers fell trying to breach the seemingly impenetrable outer wall of the city. what truly broke yumi, even after all this loss already, was the death of her twin brother, yuji. yuji was killed right before yumi's eyes. one minute, her brother was sending a wave of fire towards the approaching earth benders, the next he and several of their comapany were crushed under massive stone discs that appeared out of nowhere. for a moment, yumi couldn't understand why everyone was still fighting. she had just lost the most important person in the entire world, her other half, the other part of her soul. why wasn't everything still? why was she still breathing? why wasn't she lying next to her brother, staring up at the sky through unseeing eyes. they did everything together. why not this? 

yumi was pulled away from her brother by another of their unit and her focus narrowed to the battle again. she couldn't feel anything, and didn't see the point on living through the battle without her brother. and yet, hours later, when the wall was finally breached, and the fighting finally stopped, she was still breathing. she heard that they were retreating, and that general iroh had lost his son in the battle as well. she couldn't bring herself to be happy she had survived. yumi was the one to tell her father what had happened, hours after yuji's passing. she and her father dragged him out of the rubble, and stayed with the body all the way back home. there was a funeral, there was a short time to grieve, and then the general and his daughter were expected to be back out in the field, fighting for their nation. yumi was barely home for a month, after not having been there for two years. 

yumi threw herself headlong back into the war that had taken her innocence, her idealism and her twin brother from her in quick succession. she fought with a fury she did not have previously, and dedicated each of her victories to the memory of her brother and the cause he died fighting for. towards the end of 96 ag, coming up to the one year anniversary of her brother's death, yumi took a step back and looked at herself and her life. she had no friends, as majority were either killed during the siege of ba sing se or were placed in other companies. she had not contacted her family in a long time, her father being too busy in his role as general and her mother's grief filled pleas for her only daughter to come home too painful to answer. she slept fitfully, as the memories of countless burned villages and familiar bloody faces, crushed beneath stone, haunted her. she had lost weight due to her grief and found herself not as strong as she used to be. she realised she was killing herself. worst of all were the niggling doubts that were starting to raise in her mind. yumi couldn't see the point of the fighting anymore. if the other nations were so terrible, why were they trying so hard to protect themselves from the fire nation? why was she spending day after day, week after week assaulting villages full of people who couldn't fight back? 

throughout the course of 97 ag, yumi found herself becoming disillusioned with the fire nation army. she noticed as well that the orders being handed down from the officers were more and more cruel ever since fire lord ozai had ascended to the throne after the death of fire lord azulon. yumi was also under intense scrutiny from her fellow soliders, as the daughter of a general and a well respected soldier in her own right. she was used to the scrutiny, but it was becoming abrasive over time. eventually, yumi decided that she wanted out. she was tired down to her core, she was traumatised, she missed her brother and she just wanted to stop fighting for the first time in 4 years. but yumi didn't have the luxury of just leaving. she was a high status member of the military, a general's daughter, a talented soldier, and she had use of all of her limbs. her only way out was going to be desertion. she knew that of all the people who had tried to desert the military before, only two had been successful for more than a few days. admiral jeong jeong and one of his dedicated former students, chey. the rest were hunted and killed soon after their desertion. yumi knew of jeong jeong, and had even met him a few times, her father had been one of his students long ago. yumi had made her decision, and was determined to at least try to leave. she chose to make a break for it in the heat of battle over some territory at the edge of one of the fire naiton colonies. it was just her luck that this battle was being fought with some water benders, and the steam allowed her cover to slip into the forrest before anyone noticed her gone. 

since her escape, yumi has been moving around villages in the earth kingdom, trying to stay hidden from the fire nation military. as the third ever deserter to live beyond a few days, yumi knew there was a price on her head. she goes by yin in the earth kingdom, and her story changes each village she moves to. she is always a refugee from the war however, which explains her ragged appearance, and usually a kind villager will let her stay with them until she gets on her feet. she takes odd jobs wherever she can, and has picked up a variety of practical skills through this. yumi is hopeful that she may run into jeong jeong in one of these villages, and that she might be able to stay with him as she is weary of being alone. as of 99 ag, yumi finds herself in an earth kingdom town, hiding in plain sight from the fire nation army as an apprentice to a local seamstress. 

TRIVIA:

☯ yumi's most prized possession is a jade dragon pendant necklace that her brother got her for her 16th birthday. 
☯ she has a love for literature that she inherited from her mother. yumi and her mother would take full advantage of the library at the academy, spending many hours together reading and discussing their favourite tomes. 
☯ yumi likes to begin her days meditating at dawn, when at home she would be accompanied by candles to practice her control, diming them as she inhaled and expanding them as she exhaled. in exile in the earth kingdom, she makes do with a small 5 minute meditation before breakfast.
☯ yumi has a real soft spot for old ladies, and has been collecting adoptive grandmother's all over the earth kingdom. they feed her well and always offer sage advice, which yumi appreciates.
☯ she loves to swim
☯ yumi's favourite (snack) food is fire flakes, and she misses being able to eat them. she always thought the ones made in the colonies weren't as good as the ones from the capital, but she'd even take those over no fire flakes at all. 

RELATIONSHIPS: 

☯ twin brother - yuji (19 at time of death) / fire nation army / determined, witty, confident / 10/10
yuji was yumi's complete other half. they did everything together, from the time that they were born to the time that he died. yumi fully expected that they would die together one day too, which is why she has had such a hard time adjusting to life without her brother. she tries to dwell on the happy times they had together rather than the gaping hole in her life without him, but she still finds it hard. yuji was the more adventurous of the two, and if they ever ended up in trouble it was likely his fault. he was more of a free spirit than his twin sister, and chafed at life in the nobility. he appreciated the escape that the military offered him, and the ability to seek glory and spread the ideals of the fire nation across the world. 

☯ father - eizo (55) / general of fire nation army / stubborn, calculating, affectionate / 6/10
yumi was not very close to her father growing up. she can count on one had the amount of times eizo was home for longer than a week during her childhood. despite his abscence, eizo loved his children and yumi knew that her father would always be pleased to see her. they became closer when yumi joined the army and was stationed with eizo on the front lines. they didn't see much of each other during battle, as eizo was elsewhere as a general and yumi was a normal soldier out at the front of the battles. they would always spend time together in the camps at night however, and in particular after yuji died they spent a lot of time together. yumi feels guilty that she left her father behind when she deserted, but she didn't see any other way out.  

☯ mother - kotori (50) / teacher at national academy / proud, snobbish, warm / 8/10
yumi has always been closer with her mother, as she has been there throughout yumi's entire life without fail. knowingly or not however, kotori placed a lot of expectations on her children, and yumi has spent her life trying to live up to the high expectations of her mother. she wants to be skilled and intelligent enough for her mother to brag about to the other noble ladies. yumi is wracked with guilt whenever her thoughts stray to her mother. even before she deserted the military and stopped sending letters, it had been years since she had seen her mother in person. she hopes that one day she and her parents can be reunited and they can forgive her for leaving, and understand why she did. 

☯ in terms of romance, yumi needs a man who can accept that she can be kind and good but also ruthless and callous when called for. someone who will accept all sides of her past. she's bringing a lot of emotional baggage to the table as well, so she needs someone who can deal with that. 

RETURN TO the STORY

accionimbus2000 ✩ grace

LAST COMMENT: ah we're finally done! it's taken me a fair while to get through this, i hope you enjoy reading about my yumi! also i totally stole harbingers from genshin impact bcs i'm obsessed with that at the moment and it sounds so cool. i think i've got all my numbers right with the story beginning in 99ag, but let me know if i've made any mistakes with the timeline and i'll fix them right up! i put in some propaganda about the air nation army in her background, but without aang i guess no one will know it's just propaganda! also yumi would be at the academy at the same time as azula, mai and ty lee but she's quite a bit older than them, so other than knowing that the princess was attending the school i don't think yumi would have had anything to do with them. it's never mentioned in cannon if theres a boys academy as well but i put it in here bcs it makes sense :') 

SCENE SUGGESTION: 

☯ hopefully yumi manages to find jeong jeong and gets like a week of peace before starts going down again

☯ yumi collecting grandmother's wherever they travel. it's like her defensiveness is turned off completely when it comes to old ladies and she's literally the sweetest thing ever to them

☯ yumi getting to go ape at least once

PASSWORD: i see yuji as nct's yuta