"I'd made up my mind. Once. Even if just once...you...had come to check on me after that...then I'd spare your life. Lucky for me...you're a cold-hearted bastard." |
—Soara to her father, DMDP: Chapter 54. |
Soara Habaki (幅木 ソアラ Habaki Soara), codename Arahabaki (アラハバキ Arahabaki), is Chief Superintendent Hideaki Habaki's illegitimate daughter who underwent experimentation for at least a decade at a laboratory affiliated with the Bastard Children of Sabaramond. She presently works for a Bastard Children sorcerer who bears the emblem of the fallen Byandy Empire.
Appearance[]
Soara once had long, brunette hair that has since been cut short and turned light-hued. She is an fit, muscled young woman who bears broadly stitched scars from her time as a test subject and her past battles, prominent scars including but not limited to: an 'X'-shaped scar on her left cheek; three parallel scars over her left collarbone; another set across her right shoulder; a stitched scar on her abdomen; and two stich-scars encircling her arms (one per arm).
She keeps her trousers tucked into laced high boots, and, despite being a combatant, wears nothing but a sports bra to protect her torso.
Personality[]
To be added.
Chronology[]
Soara as a child, before becoming a test subject.
Soara is born illegitimately to Hideaki Habaki, a man who lives a double life as a policeman and loyal follower of the organization Bastard Children of Sabaramond. When Soara is still a young girl, her father offers her to the organization as a test subject to be used in their laboratories; when Soara asks her father if she is going somewhere nice, he compares the lab to paradise.
This proves to be a lie. For at least ten years, Soara is subjected to all manner of painful and dangerous experiments that, overall, not a single test subject has survived. During this decade, she promises herself that, if her father were to check on her—even if only once—she would spare his life. Habaki never does visit, and Soara eventually rationalizes this as 'lucky' since she will be able to take revenge on him after all.[1]
A revenge opportunity comes when Soara is a young woman—having been the first guinea pig to survive the laboratories—and working for the Bastard Children under the codename 'Arahabaki'. One night, a flock of spectral hands are spotted through smoke billowing over the Torture Building, chasing after a fleeing Tena Sorimura. A sorcerer bearing the simplified Byandy emblem arrives in Japan the next evening, eager at the news of a supernatural sighting; however, while the sorcerer is looking for a hotel, he receives word that Habaki placed an emergency call to the Bastard Children's headquarters.
Soara and an unnamed child accompany the sorcerer to a rooftop of a building in Tokyo, where the sorcerer relishes the ongoing thunderstorm and devours a lightning elemental—not that Soara can hear him over the sonorous downpour; from the shelter of a rooftop structure, she yells for her 'boss' to show a little consideration. Her boss exclaims that the city is just "such fun" and wonders who or what is behind the flock of hands—if a fellow sorcerer, he must track his compatriot down and give him a proper welcoming.[2]
After some amount of waiting, Habaki reaches the rooftop and is delighted to see the sorcerer. Soara keeps out of her father's sight as her boss speaks with him, his ambiguous "good work" compliment actually meant for Soara rather than Habaki. When Habaki declares his daughter must be rejoicing in her grave for her service to the Bastard Children, the sorcerer says Habaki is mistaken—such an expression is only used in reference to people who are dead.[1]
Soara grins behind Habaki, and, when he whirls around, punches her father in the face. She crushes his right wrist when he swings his fist at her, snaps his right ankle, and begins punching him repeatedly; this pain, she says, is nothing compared to that which she endured for a decade as a guinea pig. Upon bringing up the promise she made to herself, she hoists Habaki up by his throat and calls herself fortunate he is a bastard.
Habaki wheezes that he can still prove useful, promising to locate the sorcerer responsible for the flock of hands. The sorcerer says Habaki could never manage it, but he might consider giving him another chance regardless. Irate, Soara shouts that they agreed no such thing—but the sorcerer continues that Habaki spent too much time looking forward when he should have spared a glance behind him—including this moment.
Soara, holding her father aloft at the moment he is shot dead.
Habaki jerks in Soara's hand as a sniper bullet tears into his head, killing him instantly. After a stunned pause, Soara whips to stare in the direction of the shot's origin; then, still holding her father's corpse, she asks for orders. The sorcerer merely says she has three minutes; with a "Sicut vis," Soara drops her father's carcass, runs across the rooftops, and launches herself at the building sheltering the snipers Hiro and Rinne Horojima.
Catching onto construction tarp, Soara ascends via sheer arm strength, dodging the sniper's bullets, flips over the guardrail, and seizes the rifle from Rinne Horojima's hands. As the Horojima siblings are backing away, Soara bends the sniper rifle's barrel, tosses aside the broken weapon, and says she only hurt her father half as much as she would have liked—so the snipers must repent for robbing her of her revenge.
That, or tell her the name of the client who hired them. Rinne points a double-barreled handgun at her and asks if Soara is mocking them, to which Soara says she is not. Nevertheless, Rinne fires; Soara dodges, impressed that Rinne was aiming for her eye, and moves in close to 'destroy' the pair—only to abruptly dodge a flying kick from a woman in shorts. A tall bouncer then seizes Soara's top and flings Soara into the air; when Soara lands, she ducks a swordswoman's swing and flips back.
Halting into a handstand, Soara takes a good look at the three newcomers as do the sniper siblings, who recognize the trio as members of Lisa Kuraki's troupe. Where Hīro expresses distaste for Clarissa, Rinne still thanks the three for coming to their rescue—and everyone but Hīro, Soara included, is distracted by Rinne's adorableness. Soara stubbornly says she will not forgive Rinne on the grounds she is cute, proudly declaring her own gang has a cutiepie as well—only to realize the child and her boss are no longer on the rooftop.
Over three minutes have elapsed without Soara's notice. Frustrated, she supposes she will have to return to 'the guard', though the swordswoman has no intention of letting her leave. Undeterred, Soara topples a construction scaffold in hers and the others' direction and takes off, hearing the woman in shorts yelp that "She's gotta be Lemmings' level!" right before dropping off the side of the building.
The idea that this city holds others who can "do what [she does]" piques Soara's interest. She lands on a nearby rooftop and takes off running, spirits lifted somewhat by the promise of fun Shinjuku has just offered her.[3]
Etymology[]
- Soara's surname Habaki means "Baseboard" (幅木).
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Dead Mount Death Play (Manga): Chapter 53.
- ↑ Dead Mount Death Play (Manga): Chapter 52.
- ↑ Dead Mount Death Play (Manga): Chapter 54.