Shinkirō no Hatsume

"An eternal play, incarnating over and over... It becomes monotony, although never identical."

- Dreams of Serenity Shinkirō no Hatsume (場爪 心綺楼, Hatsume Shinkirō, lit. Talon's Place of the Heart Fabric Tower) is a female Mage belonging to a guild going by the name of Huang's Pearl. Serving as the Guild Master of aforementioned company, she is widely considered to be the most powerful member. Being older than many of even her fellow masters, she still takes on a very youthful appearance. Initially, Hatsume was born male several centuries ago. Mastering an esoteric Magic known as Miserable Doll, he gained the ability to transfer his soul between artificial bodies created by unknown materials. Ever since, Hatsume has travelled between various bodies every now and then, while attempting to perfect the body. Due to the unstability of the artificial bodies, Hatsume could not remain in them for an extended period of time. As a result, Hatsume also lost most of the identity Hatsume once possessed and sacrificed many of the memories in the process. Because Hatsume lost most of her memories during this time, her current incarnation lacks knowledge about the past and can only remember clearly up to 50 years back. This essentially renders her to be more similar to an 50 year old than a 300 year old. Since she changes bodies and gender every so often, it is not known what she originally looked like nor how much time she spent in the previous incarnations. But it appears as if Hatsume's incarnations have started to last longer and longer as Hatsume became more and more proficient with her Magic and thus has gained the capacity to create bodies with higher quality. It should also be noted that Hatsume takes a different name every time she changes bodies, therefore her identity is dependent on whatever her artificial body looks like. However, the current identity which she possesses, the one referred to as Shinkirō no Hatsume, is quite old in comparison to her earlier incarnations. In fact, she possessed this incarnation when she adopted Aya Frindra, Cattleya Amadrine and Margreta Bellisara 15 years ago. Most remarkably, it appears as if the body has managed to remain intact and has not been worn out either.

Despite possessing a frightening facade, with dead eyes and mechanical movements, Hatsume is a rather pleasant person to be around. Usually fairly giddy around her guildmates, she has a tendency to act dramatically in order to cheer them up and often resorts to childish antics in order to please them. Yet, she also possesses an insight which is not always apparent to even her subjects. Few actually believe she founded the guild and some even go as far as claiming that she is an imposter; that the real master has long since passed. This is also a result of her seldom seen participation in combat. But since Huang's Pearl primarily focuses on entertainment, not manual labor, this is to be expected of even some of the most commom members. But when she does show her talents in combat, Hatsume unleashes a terrifying display of emotions in a parade similar to a Noh play. More talented than even her student Aya, who is classified as their Guild Ace, not even the senior students of the guild have seen her engage an opponent seriously in combat. In fact, one of the few incidents involving Hatsume engaging someone in serious combat was in the age of demons, where she faced the Demoness Invertia and managed to seal her with the assistance of other Mages, although with great difficulty. However, this feat remains forgotten in the more recent generations, as they do not even bear knowledge of the level of threat the three demonic sisters posed nor of the identity Hatsume assumed back then. But as the return of the demons has been marked by the resurrection of Invertia's elder sister Maricia and the recreation of Faux Babylon, Hatsume serves as a valuable asset against said guild. However, she seems focused on working behind the scenes and does not favor appearing in public. Allowing the Phantasmal Ensemble to hunt down Faux Babylon and the previous member of the Magic Council, Chang'e, she is instead intent on figuring out the business of the council member Salome Barbatron, as Hatsume suspects that she is involved in the demon incident.