Yukari Freeman (nee Suzuka) is a Nekovalkyrja NH-29 captaining the latest ship named YSS Miharu. She also is part of the Star Army of Yamatai's intelligence agency known as SAINT. She also was executive officer of the YSS Asamoya/Byakuren, team leader for Black Spiral's 44th Fireteam special operations unit, and executive officer of the first YSS Miharu.

Freeman was created in early 2006 by Jake and has been his avatar character ever since.

	Yukari Freeman [涼風 縁 (ゆかり)]
General Information		Physical Characteristics
Species:	Nekovalkyrja (NH-29)	Height:	160 cm (5'3“)
Gender:	Female	Weight:	60 kg (132 lbs)
Age:	23	Measurements:	86-64-92 cm
Organization:	Star Army Intelligence	Bra size:	34D (American)
Fleet:	None	Hair color:	Light brown
Occupation:	First Officer	Hair type:	Long, wavy
Rank:	Taisa	Eye color:	Green
Zodiac:	Aquarius	Boot size:	9 (U.S.) in men's
Current Assignment:	YSS Miharu

Yukari is a GMPC.

Yukari has faintly olive-colored skin; wavy, voluminous, thick hair, falling between her shoulder blades, that varies in color between an auburn brown and honey blond; and bright, almost emerald-like green eyes. Her ears are pointed and coated on the backs with short, velvety fur a slightly darker shade of brown than her hair.

Yukari's face is slender and roughly heart-shaped, with a pronounced jawline, cheekbones and a softly pointed chin. Her nose is a little tall in the bridge. She has thinner lips that she twists and contorts very aptly into all manner of expressions.

Her frame is curvy for a Neko, but also has unusual muscle definition thanks to her SAINT training. Her musculature is clearest in her arms, shoulders and traps, but her legs bulge from built calves, thighs and hamstrings. Her stomach is flat and toned. Her bottom is a bubble that hides hefty glutes, and her hips are slightly tucked in. Her bustline is smaller than her frame suggests.

Yukari speaks Nepleslian with a slight Yamataian accent, always with proper grammar. When she needs to speak faster, she will switch to Yamataian, which she sometimes does in the battlefield.

She usually puts her hair in a pony tail set low on her head, but has been known to wear it in pigtails, down, in a crown, and in a warrior's braid.

Her gaze is intense, especially when she is upset or strongly feeling some emotion.

Yukari wore a Raltean love ribbon in her hair, around her neck similar to a choker, or around her wrist (the traditional Raltean style). It is a brilliant red and blue color, with gold laced into it.

The ribbon actually was two ribbons wound together — hers (red, from Tom) and Tom's (blue, given first to Tom then given back).

The ribbon was destroyed when she was assassinated in a fire bomb attack on SAINT's headquarters.

Yukari has two genetic tattoos on her body not related to her SPINE:

• A black Yamataian eel coiling twice around her right arm until just before her wrist bone, its mouth opened to show several rows of sharp, tiny teeth with a single beady yellow eye.
• A large, shimmering salmon on her left thigh, toward the middle, with its tail on the back of her leg and the head on the front.

• A SiZi Model 79 Police pistol, caliber 10 x 25 mm KZ or .357 Zen
• A Type 33 Dark NSP with 3+1 magazines
• A Type 29 NSP with 2+1 magazines
• A Type 28D NSP with 2+1 magazines
• A GP-1 assault rifle with walnut hunting stock, 2 30-round magazines, 4 five-round magazines and a quick-attach reflex sight
• "触れ情熱" Furejônetsu (Passion's touch), a kodachi forged from "Divine Arrows" Zesuaium, with black wrapping and scabbard (blade of 45 cm/18”, hilt of 18 cm/7“)

• A koto given to her by Kotori.
• A keytar/guitar. The guitar side is generated with volumetrics by flipping the keytar around.

• An incomplete and inoperable V1 Hoplite-class variable starfighter, Leone

Leader, commander, wife — overall, Yukari is a very serious person. She holds high such concepts as duty, service and sacrifice, and she demands the best from herself. Because of that, her interactions with others are sometimes dour, especially if she believes she does not have time to be friendly.

However, those whom with she is friends are held close and fiercely defended, for she knows all too well what it is like to lose people she cares about.

Duty most often dominates her life. Yukari has come to see herself as a protector as well as a soldier, especially after undergoing SAINT training. For a Neko, she has lived a long time and seen much, but no matter the marks that blight Yamatai's reputation, she firmly believes the Empire and her people are worthy of all available protection.

Sometimes, ugly things must be done to protect the greater public. As Yukari learns to grapple with this essential truth of intelligence work, she has become more thoughtful about her actions.

Yukari also is a tough soul. She does not get down easily, but rarely does she speak with great optimism; for her, things simply must be overcome and languishing on the negative is not constructive to her.

When she does cut loose, Yukari actually is a warm, pleasant individual to talk to. She tends to find pleasure in simple things — food, nature, music and good company.

To her husband, she is something much more, as he is to her — a constant whose name is not “death” or “battle.” She strives to be a rock for him, knowing her need to serve the Empire inhibits her often.

Yukari is captain and commander onboard the reconstituted Miharu. She is considered a mustang, having risen from enlisted ranks up to where she is now, Taisa.

• Helmswoman/pilot: Yukari is an expert pilot.
• Team leader: Yukari has extensive capability here, having led informal away missions as well as formal ones.
• Crew liaison: Yukari excels at this, able to empathize with the crew and counsel them while bringing necessary issues to the attention of commanders to be worked out. As commander herself, she attempts this too, if in a more nuanced, personal fashion.
• Operative: Having completed SAINT training, Yukari is considered a fully deployable special operations unit, covering interrogations, insertions, undercover, SERE and assassination.

First Officer, Soldier, Pilot, Power Armor Infantry, Operative Team Leader and Intelligence Officer.

• Markswoman: Yukari has exceptional marksmanship with firearms of all types, in and out of power armor. She is especially good with pistols.
• Gravity manipulation: Flying comes naturally to Yukari, but even without a vehicle, she is able to be handle maneuvers, small and great, and speeds with her body's own gravity manipulation that are uncommon in other Neko.

Yukari started life in YE 23 as an NH-17R before PNUgen conscripted her into the NH-17T project. After being revived out of the project with her memories of it sealed within her OS, she was put into an NH-22C (Yamataian) body and spent time as a freighter pilot. She reached the rank of Heisho early YE 25 and became a freighter pilot specialist, experiencing time behind the sticks of dozens of starcraft.

Her natural piloting skill led to another promotion in YE 26, thanks in part to the sparsely populated Logistics field. She spent about another year learning all that the field could offer while training on the cargo hauling craft of other environs (terrain, hydro, aero, aero/spacy). After some time in the Juni ranks, Star Army Personnel Command deemed her fit to attend the Kyoto War College to train as a bridge officer. While at the college, Yukari double-qualified in Intelligence and left with a promotion to Shoi Kohosei (Seito).

The unique blend of skills led Taisho Ketsurui Katsuko to select Yukari as Flag Aide, 5th Expeditionary Fleet, in late YE 28. Yukari showed an affinity for the duties of being an executive aide, but before she could make much progress, the Ichiro Incident occurred. During the incident, Yukari led individuals for the first time, and experienced mind domination for the first time too. Both experiences affected her for years.

Yukari departed 5th XF soon after. She also upgraded her body to an NH-29H – her first time in a Nekovalkyrja body since she was an NH-17. She maintained her human look when she was recruited onto the YSS Sakura as an Intelligence Officer. It was there she first met and worked with Ketsurui Kotori. Their time there was short, as they became the commander and executive officer for the experimental vessel YSS Miharu.

Yukari spent the next four years – through YE 33 – on Miharu. She was her pilot and navigator, but she also took command of the vessel and its crew several times when Kotori could not or was away. The years on Miharu were her most formative, as she professionalized her friendship with Kotori, found a dedicated lover in Tom Freeman, experienced other moments of mind domination and leadership, and eventually brought down one of Yamatai's most notorious foes.

There came a few months of relative peace and tranquility, and it was during this time that Yukari married Tom, but they were not to last in the honeymoon phase. Black Spiral leader Nagase Nagako made Yukari an offer she could not refuse in trying to learn all that could be learned about a frightening new weapon against the Nekovalkyrja race: the Rewriter Virus. She agreed to lead a team of herself, Tom, Rolf Eastwood, Kurusu Ruri and some Miharu (美晴) Clan members to get the data. They saw a great many horrors, but came up with the data, as well as destroyed the blighted planet.

What also came from those moments was a kind of awakening for Yukari. While on Bizankro, she discovered a journal and star map left from Shinichiro Nobumoto, the other father figure of the Nekovalkyrja race. In the studio space, a hologram of Shinichiro explained from his perspective much of Nekovalkyrja — and the Empire's — evolution. Yukari learned that the key to it all likely was AvaNet, the race of sentient artificial intelligence that inhabited and ruled Geshrintall before Yamatai's ancestors arrived. The studio's AI then explained that Shinichiro knew Yukari had found out about his diary and other research, and it started the self-destruct sequence of the planet. But not before identifying Yukari and wishing her good luck.

Because of the state of their ship, the team spent the next two years slowly traveling through space to get home, rotating time in stasis. The couple got another two months rest in YE 36 before they again were swept up to help Kotori and the Miharu Clan retrieve the Soul Savior Pod from Miharu. It was a short, but emotionally fraught mission, with Tom nearly dying and Yukari's choices of duty and Empire over love and friendship exposed for the crew to see. Only through Kotori's power did Tom live, and Yukari become free of the surprise Umbral's domination of her mind. During that time, she nearly killed Tachihara Reika. Memories of Ichiro briefly came back to her, but she proved stronger that time.

After the mission ended, Yukari and Tom fought. They had fought before, but this time felt like a make-it-or-break-it moment. Tom decided to stick by Yukari this time, but now with the acceptance that Yukari was a soldier through and through, and that he might always come a close second (or unreliable first). Yukari was not happy about admitting it, but with Tom's blessing, she decided to pursue her own command and fulfill her potential. That meant breaking from under Kotori's command, which she did after a terse and anguish-ridden conversation.

Alas, it was not to be. Yukari's SAINT handler reminded her of her SPP status. The Taisa most recently assigned to her had a counter-offer – complete the SAINT training course INDOC, and maybe she could get her own command. Yukari, knowing she was cooked, gave in and elected for SAINThood. Twenty weeks of training, Package refinement and several missions made an operative out of her, but she was changed. Imbued with the knowledge that each day threats threatened to topple the Empire — and not just the big ones she was used to — Yukari accepted that she might not ever leave the military's specialized fields, and that her marriage to Tom always would be tinged with that.

Since the Battle of the Blue Rift, Yukari's development as a sample of the Nekovalkyrja species has left the usual curve. This is not only because of her runtime, but her time in the NH-29 body and certain external stimuli.

If one considers Ketsurui Yui the Alpha (beginning), Kotori the Omega (end) and someone like Sesshoseki Tamamo (physically) or Tweak Three Seven (mentally) to be the Delta (change), Yukari would be Sigma (the sum). She is on track to become an evolved summation of what the Nekovalkryja species could be. Rather than continue to upgrade into new NH frames, or divert into a civilian frame, she pursues (on purpose or not) the perfect summation of the NH-29 frame – the only frame in the NH-series to combine natural human and artificial Neko genetic material.

These developments are most visible in her gravity manipulation ability. While Yukari always has been a natural flyer, the ability has executed several times without her commanding it. This “emergency field” has protected her several times, even going so far as helping her avoid weapons fire. She has become unusually adept at how she moves her body – flinging it, flying, even jumping and rolling.

Her proficiency to interact with IES-type technology also has increased. Skill is subsumed by a kind of natural communication with the unit. She is not a hacker by any means, nor is she able to perform tasks outside of her learned ability. The units instead react more favorably toward her, even conversing with her as they interact. Her SPP status has let her continue to access PANTHEON despite not being in an approved body, but the system does not seem to differentiate between her and a “modern” user.

Telepathy is the most unusual “development.” At the start of the battle with Melisson and the Umbral Mefpralphra, Yukari had no better telepathic ability than any other Neko. After the psychic-heavy battle, and in years beyond, Yukari's telepathy became more intense. Sharing full-motion memories with audial, physical and emotional layers became natural. Most disturbingly for her, she could touch an individual and transmit a display that she only can describe as a “vision” — not a memory, not a pre-formed idea, but something drawing from a part of her subconscious she does not understand.

The Package was designed to be a conditioning device, tried and tested on each type of Nekovalkyrja without flaw. Or so SAINT believed.

The Package did not work as designed with Yukari, who's Nekovalkyrja VII frame had age and instability working against the smoothness of the deliver. Instead, SAINT saw the Package malfunction, but not to the detriment of its end user.

Level I seemed to work as planned; Yukari's only limitation was her lesser body, a problem not shared by older Nekovalkyrja VI and new Nekovalkyrja VIII frames. Level II did not function as SAINT understood. Yukari exhibited all her usual limitations to stress — though she grew to be more resilient — and none of the expected stability from Level II protocols. What was affected was her telepathy. SAINT classified it not as more powerful, but more “effective.” Yukari was put through several stress trials to test the limits of it, and she did not disappoint. The sharing, copying and retention of data Yukari could perform was unusual for any Neko.

Level III is untested. SAINT believes the Nekovalkyrja VII frame has something to do with Yukari's Level II responses.

Yukari died in YE 45 at SAINT Headquarters after an assassin placed a fire bomb in a satchel she was taking with her to a presentation. She was reconstituted soon after, without the Package, and into another NH-29 frame.

Art by Zairyo and Zolaida.