Coming from the illustrious kingdom of Mistral Ayaka was exposed to many diverse cultures at an early age, though often safe from grimm with its geography there were other threats that she had to struggle with. Unlike the capital Windpath and other cities such as Kuchinashi, where Ayaka grew up in, had considerably more dangerous backgrounds.
Coming from a family of theater performers Ayaka grew up with strict tutelage and instruction from her parents to be proper and humble. Though not completely sheltered at a young age Ayaka was not as exposed to other children as she was to close family members and was also a rather quiet child. Having traditional parents who believed that a person should grow with their own strength rather than relying on others Ayaka had it hard when she had problems with kids who bullied her for being part of the ‘upper class.’ This continued on for a while to the point where Ayaka started shunning and only briefly interacting with her own parents to become a stronger person, taking their advice to the extreme by not wanting to interact with anyone in general unless necessary.
In the family home there was a traditional longsword used for theatrical ceremonies of impressive length that always caught Ayaka’s eye. Rarely being used save for ceremonial uses she took interest in it and the intricate movements involved in its execution, almost as if the sword and its techniques were an art in itself. Even though she showed interest in it Ayaka was denied learning how to fight due to her parent’s wishes, them wanting her to take after the performing arts or some other reputable occupation. They believed fighting to be abhorrent and uncivilized and reserved for the lower more brute castes of society.
Stubborn as she was Ayaka started practicing with wooden play swords at first, practicing on makeshift straw dummies that she tied together dressed in theatre costumes to emulate real people. Of course, not having any proper tutelage the only things Ayaka developed was the strength of her swing and how fast she could attack. At school she would constantly be picked on as usual but her new found confidence in herself caused her to often get involved in fights with other kids, usually them ganging up on her and her going home battered and bruised.
Having her ‘training’ sessions in secret Ayaka started working with the theatre as well to maybe learn how to incorporate the smooth fluid movements of the performances with her own movements and hopefully later on learning how to use the family sword. Instead of staying alone all the time Ayaka learned how to interact with people, albeit not enjoying it, and started gaining her family’s approval in her and her newfound strength and determination. Wanting to further impress her family she took up tutelage under a seamstress to help make the theater costumes and learn the ways of the thread while learning some minor self defense techniques with it from the seamstress seeing as how often she came home after a fight at school.
Hiding her bruises and cuts under her usually long clothes, usually robes such as kimonos and the like, Ayaka finally got to score a meeting with one of the theater’s primary sword performers. Following the man home she begged at his doorstep to be taught how to both fight and perform with the blade and didn’t leave till he gave in to the child’s insistent demands. Eventually her parents learned of her new tutors and let her learn under them with the condition of being one of the main performers in the theater to show off the dangerous swordplay as an art.
To avoid injury during their practices and spars Ayaka got her aura unlocked by her teacher and soon enough developed her semblance as the days went by. Taking the lessons to heart she found her teacher’s rather lax personality lacking and her desire to be a better swordswoman to overshadow that of her desire to be a theater performer. Taking additional lessons during supposed vacations Ayaka learned more from both the seamstress and the swordmaster and tried incorporating her new learned skills in her self practice sessions.
Word came out eventually to her parents that Ayaka was getting involved in fights with students from school while using her training to overpower them, most of them being untrained students. Wanting to punish her they sent Ayaka to a real combat school when she came of age to show her that fighting was really not something to be taken lightly.
Ayaka reveled in the chance to properly fight for real but found the first few weeks excruciatingly tough, having been raised in a sheltered background. Coupling her lessons with her studies she trained long and hard to be able to compete with the better fighters of her new school and even went as far as constantly challenging others for fights, be it duels or multiple opponents against her. Needless to say she excelled later on despite her rather rough start and even became one of the more proficient fighters in her year.
During her free time from school and tutoring classes Ayaka actively sought people to challenge by bringing her practice blade and wires to the rough parts of town and picking fights with the numerous local thugs around the area. Word came out of a kid angering the local gangs and her parents worried about her safety, knowing very well of Mistral’s infamous underground.
Much to her parent’s dismay Ayaka enjoyed combat school and planned on moving on the Haven Academy, having now boosted her confidence even more but her rejecting the theater arts for combat seemed like a massive blow to them so they decided to send her off to Vale instead, lest their reputation be further tarnished. Well that’s what they told Ayaka at least. Deep inside her parents were a bit proud of how strong their daughter became but if she stayed and caused any more trouble they feared of the underground’s backlash and what they might do to her.
Disgusted by her parent’s decision Ayaka ripped her clothes and begun wearing rather ripped and uneven clothing to show her defiance just a little before graduation. She also took the family blade along with her, disassembling and restructuring the blade as taught in school to coincide with her needs with some help from her teachers who were somewhat befuddled by the combination of wire and sword but nevertheless found a way to make it work.
Before leaving for Vale Ayaka gave one last performance in her parent’s theater with blade and wire garnering looks of booth awe and confusion among the audience for its unorthodox design. Leaving Kuchinashi Ayaka headed for the capital city and from there took an airship to Vale, to Beacon Academy to further her desire to get stronger.