NIKAIDÔ Sayoko

ALIAS(ES): Rika Lefcourt
BIRTHDAY: August 6th, 1991
BIRTHPLACE: Kamakura City, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan
CURRENT: Lefcourt Castle
FAMILY:

• Father: Nikaidô Hiroshi, deceased, pure-blooded status
• Mother: Ryoko Lefcourt, deceased, half-blooded status

• Cousin: Hojo Shiori, aged 24, leader of the Hojo family, pure-blooded status
• Cousin: Hojo Hanako, aged 20, pure-blooded status, married to leader of Fujiwara family
• Cousin: Hojo Mayumi, aged 15, pure-blooded status, second in line of succession, former student at Shirasagi, now at Hogwarts
• Cousin: Hojo Hironobu, aged 26, pure-blooded status
• Cousin: Hojo Kazutoyo, aged 23, pure-blooded status
• Grandfather: Hojo Haruyasu, aged 77, pure-blooded status, former leader of the Hojo family
• Grandmother: Hojo Kaede, aged 76, muggle born status

• Grandfather: Nikaidô Takahiro, deceased, pure-blooded status
• Grandmother: Nikaidô Reiko, deceased, former leader of the Nikaidô family, pure-blooded status
• Uncle: Nikaidô Yoshitaka, deceased, pure-blooded status
• Aunt: Nikaidô Kyoko, deceased, pure-blooded status
• Cousin: Nikaidô Akira, deceased, pure-blooded status
• Cousin: Nikaidô Ryo, deceased, pure-blooded status
• Cousin: Nikaidô Shuuya, deceased, pure-blooded status
• Uncle: Nikaidô Kojiro, deceased, pure-blooded status
• Uncle: Nikaidô Takeshi, aged 41 , pure-blooded status
• Soon to be Aunt: Kuribayashi Minami, aged 35, muggle, small business owner

BLOOD: Pureblood
ORIENTATION: At first thought her answer would be heterosexual, however, there was a certain incident before she was moved to Britain the first time, so she’s really more bicurious, if anything.
WAND: 13", made of wood from the Usuzumi-zakura, the oldest cherry tree of Japan (1,400+ years old and still growing and a National Treasure of Japan since 1922), with a gotoku neko hair core (a parting gift from Anenokoji Masahiro-sensei, headmaster of the Shirasagi Academy of Wizardry and Witchcraft.

DESCRIPTION: 5’3” tall, 95 lbs light, has black hair and brown eyes, but the hair color and length tend to not be constant at all. She’s slightly nearsighted and, while not really needing it, keeps a pair of silver-framed spectacles.
PLAY-BY: Maeda Aki

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PATRONUS: Japanese peregrine falcon
BOGGART: The poor boggart would have a hard time manifesting as something. She fears for her family members, certainly, so it could turn into any of them being dead, but she also fears going mad like the Harrowing suggested, so it would be herself stark raving mad. Or the fear of failure at her tasks. Ultimately, the boggart would likely change randomly between any of those.
MIRROR OF ERISED: A normal life. Normal in her terms, which would be a teacher or librarian at Shirasagi, or working in the archives and history departments of the ministry in Kyoto, so the mirror would show her being surrounded by many, many books, parchments and scrolls.

HABITS: When bored Sayoko usually ends up tapping the fingers of her right hand against something, anything in range. When nervous Sayoko's left hand usually clenches rather tight and touching her left incisor with the tip of her tongue isn’t uncommon for her in such a case either.

PET PEEVE: Annoying people who don't take “no” for an answer. Rude people. Usurpers. Those trying to hamper her work on her tasks.

STRENGTHS:
• excellent memory
• extremely well read
• trained in muggle weapons and warfare
• can pass as muggle
• transfiguration
• care for magical creatures
• potions
• charms

WEAKNESSES:
• alcohol
• tends to bite off more than she can chew
• stubborn
• know-it-all
• self-doubt
• divination
• flying (can get from A to B, but that’s about it)
• growing paranoia

TRAITS:

When Sayoko went to Shirasagi, and was still Rika, she was usually shy towards strangers, but would eventually warm up towards them, once she'd know them. Then, when she came to Hogwarts, she was angry. Back then she hated her family, hated the Lefcourts, hated everyone and everything for what they had done to her. It lead to plenty of troubles at Hogwarts (the Halden Incident, the fight with Lex). Eventually, though, Sayoko realized her own errors. She doesn't hate the Lefcourts anymore, after all, what's is really left of them? Not much except Annabelle. But Sayoko hasn't really reverted back to how she used to be. Over the past almost two years Sayoko has matured considerably. She has come to realize that her position in the Hojo family bears a lot of responsibility. Running away from it would be cowardly. While Sayoko doesn't like being the second in line of succession to the Hojo "throne", the thought of being considered a coward is more threatening and scary. Cowards, those were people like Kira Yoshinaka, and Sayoko doesn't want to be compared to those. Since she has matured she has also learned that sometimes tough decision have to be made. And as it is for her right now, the own family comes first. Japan comes first. The British problems are British problems, not Japanese problems. It is not her war.

Though, the Hojo succession isn't her biggest issue. Sayoko is, in fact, the head of the Nikaidô family. During those almost two years since the Yule Ball Incident Sayoko has been pushed into a position that her real father wanted to protect her from. It was during this time that Sayoko had been forced to make certain tough calls, which showed that she is capable of being rather ruthless and coldhearted. Achieving the status of leader of the house Nikaidô came with a certain price and Sayoko paid it. During this “incident” Sayoko also proved that she had quite a talent for being manipulative and scheming.

And during the past months, this talent quite improved. The shy bookworm from the Golden Chrysanthemum had turned into a leader, who was willing to go to great lengths for those she cared for. Her decision to restore the Nikaidô to their former glory sparked concern in Japan's wizarding world and put her at odds with the people she used to consider family.

Still, she knows that this isn’t her way of life. She doesn’t want it, but somehow has to make do with it, because it’s ultimately the only option she has. She takes no joy from the power she has now. It’s more a notion of stubbornness and defiance along the lines of “I went through all of this for nothing? Not going to happen!”

Most importantly, Sayoko has accepted that sometimes one has to fight for the things important. And sometimes killing was inevitable. The idea of changing her name was triggered by these realizations. Rika was the past. Sayoko was present and future. However, she also learned that, to some people, she would always be Rika and eventually managed to accept that.

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HISTORY:

Childhood
The lie
Rika was born as the daughter of Rokuhana Ryoko -a pure blood witch- and Hiroshi -a muggle- in Kyoto, Japan. When the little girl was three years old, her mother was killed in an accident. Ever since that day her father had taken care of her.

Misinformation and error
Rika was born as the child of Hojo Ryoko, a former pure blood Kiku student at Shirasagi Academy and Geoffrey Alveredus Lefcourt, lord of Carham on Tweed. When she was three years old, her mother abandoned her and left Japan to follow Geoffrey. Ever since then Rokuhana Hiroshi had taken care of her.

Finally the truth
Rika, her birth name, was the child of Hojo Ryoko and Rokuhana Hiroshi. Her mother still abandoned her and ran after the notorious former Slytherin student and Death Eater. She was born two months early, which didn't attract any attention. Since her mother was a gotoku neko, it was considered to be normal that the child was small. It was a simple error.

But no matter how one was looking at it, Haruyasu, Ryoko's father and Rika's grandfather, still considered his daughter's behavior to be cowardice and thus disowned her.

From that moment on Rika lived with the lie, not knowing the error yet. She grew up as a member of the Hojo family, one of the oldest and most influential wizard families in Japan. Records at the Japanese ministry of magic showed that the Hojo were pure bloods, but that was certainly not the truth. How could the Hojo be pure bloods when they weren't even entirely human? The Hojo, in fact, were gotoku neko, a species of magical creatures that had simply used their abilities to infiltrate the humans for thousands of years. The records at the Japanese ministry were simply... forged. And the Hojo were not the only ones. There were other families, just as old. The Fujiwara, the Mori, the Ashikaga, the Takeda -which, at that time, were already part of the Hojo-, the Tokugawa, the Uesugi and even the Oda -just to name the most important ones. Not all of them were gotoku neko, no. There were other magical creatures, after all, the world of magic in Japan was just as illustrious as in Great Britain or the Americas. One could say that these species of magical creatures were similar to the Goblins and Centaurs in Great Britain. They were listed as beasts, while they were sentient. They were not allowed to use wands. There was, however, one big difference: in Japan they had learned how to blend into the crowd, how not to be seen, how to infiltrate the humans, how to becomes one of them, how to pretend to be one of them. Centuries of practice had made them masters of “how not to be seen.” And, for them almost luckily, there had always been wars. Wars, earthquakes, floods, fires, tsunami and other catastrophes, which had often destroyed the ministry's files or killed people who had known too much.

For Rika it all didn't matter. While she found the whole world of the gotoku neko quite fascinating, she didn't like the fact that she was the second in line of succession for leadership of the Hojo. Even at very young age, Rika didn't like such things. She also disliked special treatment just because of her status. When she finally enrolled at Shirasagi Academy at the age of ten -which brought a tearful farewell from her father, she simply didn't want to go and was scared as hell- she insisted on being called Miss Rokuhana instead of Lady Hojo. It was this down-to-earth attitude that she would keep for the rest of her life.

The ancient naginata at Shirasagi -it had once belonged to one of the Eight Heroes of the Youkai Daisensou (the Great Spook War of 859 AD) and had been charmed by the Five Who Returned from the war, to sort young students into their respective houses- sorted Rika into Kiku, the same house her mother had been part of. It wasn't really a surprise. Hojo always made Kiku or Shiratatsu, and they usually found friends in those two houses and Kikyo. Exactly that happened for Rika as well, and, in order to keep up a Hojo tradition, she ended up butting heads with Black Lotus members rather soon as well. She even got involved in a rather dangerous broom chase across the school's premises, during which she crashed her broom into a cherry tree. The Black Lotus student and Rika were then severely punished and spent their detention transfigured into cats.

At Shirasagi Rika also joined the Takahagun, one of the two unofficial groups that represented the Three of the Eight who died or simply didn't return from the Great War. There she picked up archery, for which she showed natural talent.

This lasted up until her fifth year. It was close to Christmas, when a small group of wizards working for the ministry came to the conclusion that Rika was the one a prophecy warned them of. According to it a “traitor's spawn” would be responsible for triggering the second spook war. It all fit perfectly on Rika. Her mother was a traitor, Haruyasu had said so himself. Thus, they concluded, the trigger for a new war had to be removed.

Rika was with her father, using the muggle transportation called car, when her normal life came to a violent end. They were just about to cross a tall bridge that led over a large lake when the assault came out of nowhere. Officially it was a mere accident, the muggle transportation malfunctioned, broke through the side barrier and took a dive down the bridge into the lake. The impact in the water knocked Rika and her father out and the car started to sink immediately. It was already submerged and reaching the bottom of the lake when Rokuhana Hiroshi came back to his senses and managed to free Rika from her safety belt. The passenger compartment was flooding quickly. Hiroshi pushed Rika out of the car, but was unable to get out himself. Rika came back to her senses close to the surface of the lake, but only because -as she later described it- something touched her, pushing her upwards towards the surface. Shortly after being rescued by a bunch of muggle fishermen she passed out once more.

The girl finally woke up again in a muggle hospital. There she learned that her father had not survived the accident. To her, though, something didn’t seem right. Everyone was calling it an accident, the tire of the car had blown up, her father had lost control and the rest of the story was known to her. But there was something, a faint memory, a flash which she believed to have seen from the corner of her eyes. She decided against mentioning this to anyone, though.

Shortly after the incident, her mother resurfaced and claimed her daughter since, according to her, the Japanese shores were too dangerous for Rika. It could been motherly love (well, maybe not) or simply a sudden strike of guilt (possibly), whatever it really was, Ryoko ended up in a massive fight with her own parents over who would take care of Rika.

Ryoko ultimately -and after a fight that took several months, way into November of the following year (which would have been Rika’s sixth year at the White Crane)- prevailed. It seemed that, by now, she had married Geoffrey and was now living in Europe with him. His first wife had been killed in an accident (coincidence?). The fact that Ryoko was obviously living a proper life eventually made the responsible department in the Ministry of Magic to decide in her favor (apart from that, certain elements inside the ministry hoped that Rika would leave the country, never to return). Rika, though, didn’t fight against it. She didn’t do anything except remaining silent. The shock of the man she had believed to be her father being killed was still too deep. What followed after going with Ryoko and arriving in England was the revelation that Hiroshi had not been her father. Rika learned that Geoffrey Alveredus Lefcourt was her father.

Before the Takeover

After that, Rika shut herself off from the rest of the world for several months. Geoffrey, meanwhile, pulled a couple of strings and managed to have her signed up for Hogwarts (for the fifth year -she had never finished her fifth at the White Crane). Rika’s family name was officially changed from Rokuhana to Lefcourt. She remained in that shut off state, but obeyed to board the Hogwarts Express. Standing on platform 9 and ¾ Rika finally realized that it had all been but a dream. No, not a dream. A giant lie, maintained by her grandparents and the man she had believed to be her father. Certainly... it angered her, to say the least.

Things, however, changed from there. Within just a few weeks at Hogwarts Rika was first sorted into Ravenclaw, and then managed to lose more than 100 points, which didn't necessarily amuse the other Ravenclaw students as it put Ravenclaw into a horrible position for winning the house cup. In fact, their points were in the negatives. But what had happened? First of, her cousin Annabelle was an outright bitch, she had always been one. Secondly, that outright bitch enjoyed playing a few pranks on Rika. After all, Lefcourts ALWAYS made Slytherin. Why Rika hadn't... well... nobody really knew. So it happened one day that Annabelle tripped Rika in one of the corridors spilling bow and arrows on the ground. After gathering everything, though, Rika collided with Gryffindor's Quidditch captain, Jack Halden. One thing lead to the other. He called her “sweet cheeks”, she slapped him. He touched her bow, she hit him with her bow. Rika then refused to explain herself to professor Casey Winslow, which resulted in losing those 105 or so points and bringing Ravenclaw into the negatives for the house cup. She also ended up with serving several weeks of detention, under the supervision of William Travis, the squib janitor, not to mention the two essays Winslow ordered her to write.

It was in those days when Rika's life was turned upside down once again. For once, her parents considered her to be a failure. Her mother even denounced the things she had learned at Shirasagi and urged Rika to do the same. But the girl refused. She also had an uncomfortable encounter with Lex Arnold, another Ravenclaw student from Rika's year, and her friends. It ended in a fight, which Rika, surprisingly for herself, won. It seemed that the only one, who didn't give a damn about house points, blood status and a “good” family name was William Travis. Another thing that brought her back into reality was an attempt on her life, conducted by an assassin from the Amida Tong. Why and how one of them would go to England only to try to kill her was something she would only find out after returning to Japan. Needless to say that Rika survived the assassination attempt, but only because she cast the killing curse. It was badly aimed and really horribly done, but it did its job. The assassin was killed, Rika lived.

But the one thing that really pulled her back to who she used to be was a letter from her cousin Shiori. No matter what, so Shiori said, Rika would always be part of their family. Slowly it started to dawn on her that she had been wrong. She had blamed the wrong people. It wasn't her grandparents' fault, it wasn't the family's fault, it wasn't her cousin's fault and it certainly wasn't Hiroshi-san's fault. They had done what they had considered to be the right thing. Rika's conclusion was simple: she had to get out of Hogwarts, out of England. She had to go back to the only home she knew, Japan.

From there Rika's attitude changed a little. Though, most people didn't realize it, and Rika cared little about that. They didn't need to realize it, it was not important. Since she was seventeen already it would have been easy to simply resign from school. But first Rika had to finish her detention, and she had to write those essays. Both things she did and in the week before holidays would begin in December, she announced to professor Winslow that she would not return from vacation. But before leaving she had to attend Yule Ball. A promise was a promise after all. A Hufflepuff student from year seven had asked her to be his date. His name was James Graham and Rika always wondered why he would ask “Mop Girl” -which had been her nickname while serving detention. Yet, despite all fears, Yule Ball proved to be quite relaxing and entertaining. James was a good dancer and overall a really nice guy. Would Rika have stayed, who knows what would have developed between them...

Yule Ball, however, was also the day when the Death Eaters attacked Hogwarts and the ministry. It was bloody and eventually lead to the closing of Hogwarts. For Rika this didn't mean anything. For her that night was a fight for survival. The Lefcourts had decided to use this opportunity to get rid of Rika. Hector Lefcourt, her uncle, had a score to settle with professor Lawson, while Olympia, her aunt, and her parents Geoffrey and Ryoko, with the help of Annabelle teamed up on Rika. It ended in carnage. James and a friend of his, Henry MacGrey, tried to help Rika, but both were murdered by the Lefcourts. Rika managed to kill Olympia and her own mother, but then her father almost killed her. She was saved, not by her own abilities, or by Annabelle -who had developed a full scale crush on Rika. She was saved by one of the Hojo's shinobi, Sagure, who had decided to check out the party and had stumbled right into the Death Eater attack. Sagure butchered Geoffrey and eventually killed him by ripping out parts of his spine.

At that moment, the only Lefcourts left were Annabelle and Rika, and Rika was the oldest, thus the one who'd inherit everything.

Sagure then successfully extracted Rika to the Forbidden Forest, where she and two of her comrades had set up their base. The next day they returned into the castle to pick up Rika's belongings. But they also took with them Ryoko Lefcourt's head, for reasons Rika would find out about from her cousin Shiori -who, by then, was already running the clan. After that, they left Great Britain.

Since the Takeover

The takeover by the Death Eaters had little, or better said no impact on Rika's life. Once she had left the UK, her life returned back to normal. She didn't know that Annabelle, who had witnessed both the death of Geoffrey and the shifting of Sagure into her natural form, was in St. Mungos. She didn't know that the Death Eaters were taking over Great Britain. And frankly, even if she would have known, then she wouldn't have cared. There were more important things.

At first, Rika wanted to return soon, so that she could tell James' parents how he died. She also wanted to deal with the Lefcourt heritage, sell it, give it away, donate it. She didn't want this “blood money” for herself. Freeing the house elf Sparky was also on her schedule. But then...

Then her cousin told her the truth. Shiori had spent months, years with researching the background and history of the Hojo family. What she had found out was disturbing, but also interesting, especially for Rika. The conclusion of Shiori's research was that Geoffrey Lefcourt was not Rika's father. A simple comparison of their blood types proved that without a doubt. Rika's blood type was A, her mother's was B, but Geoffrey's was 0. A type 0 and a type B could not have a child of type A, it was impossible. Hiroshi-san, however had had the blood type A. To further prove her point Shiori opened another bag with surprises. Her real father, Rokuhana Hiroshi, did not exist. There was and had never been a Rokuhana Hiroshi. His true name was Nikaidô, and that name rang a bell. The Nikaidô and the Hojo both had similar roots. Both had once been in Kyoto at the imperial court, but both families had simply left it. The Hino family from the imperial court had turned into the Hojo family. The Nyakouji, after doing the same, had chosen the name Nikaidô. For centuries they had been allies, until the year 1800. It was then when they, the Hojo and the Nikaidô, became enemies. The reason for this was the murder of the head of the Kira family, his wife and his children -except his daughter- and, later, the attempts of Nikaidô O-Yuki to topple the Tokugawa reign.

And now Shiori revealed to Rika that her father was, in fact, a Nikaidô. Two families, at war with each other for more than 200 years, had now joined with this union. But that wasn't all. Her father's family were wizards, just like the Hojo, but they had, at least officially, retreated from the wizarding world as an act of self-defense. After being almost wiped out by the shogun for the murder of a high ranking member of the court and his family only Nikaidô O-Yuki remained. O-Yuki lived, exiled to the Sado island, changed her name to Ishikawa, but she never left Sado again. She died there, after being forced to marry an extremely low ranking samurai just to prevent starvation after an earth quake robbed her of everything. But she had a daughter, O-Aki. O-Aki managed to get off the island when she was eighteen. She changed her name and waited. She married and waited. She had children and waited. Then, when the Tokugawa reign came to an end, the family appeared again, but not as Nikaidô. No, the Nikaidô had decided to hide their name, for it was too dangerous. They took cover under names like Tanaka, Watanabe and Satô (similar to Smith and Jones) when walking among the wizards and witches of Japan. Among muggles, however, they were still known as Nikaidô. The reason for this was simple. Just like in Britain the magic folk in Japan didn’t care much for muggles. Certainly they were quick to pick up new things the muggles invented, after all staying on top of the game meant surviving, but they never cared for the muggles themselves.

Shiori produced significant proof for her theory, but there Rika found a flaw. The family tree, which Shiori had found in the tiny village of Monbetsu on Hokkaido -pretty much at the ass end of the world- showed a Nikaidô Rikka, which was spelled totally different than her own name, so Rika insisted. But Shiori even managed to debunk this. Rika had to accept the truth. Her father was Nikaidô Hiroshi, who had adapted the name Rokuhana to protect his daughter from any Hojo retaliation and also from the struggles inside the Nikaidô family, because such family feuds weren't done with after a mere 200 years.

Then Shiori left Rika with a choice. She had to pick her family name. Hojo, Rokuhana or Nikaidô.

Worse yet, after New Year 2009 -just a day before Shiori would reveal all of it to Rika- Fujiwara Nobuyasu, the leader of the Fujiwara family and a classmate of Shiori, proposed to Rika!

It happened during the negotiations among the Old Families for a truce or even a treaty.
Rika eventually turned down his offer. He was a nice guy, good looking, with a great personality, but Rika didn't love him, so, at least for her, a marriage was out of question. Her decision was backed by Shiori, who refused to use Rika as a token in politics.

The treaty was signed, even by the Fujiwara. Nobuyasu didn't take Rika's refusal personal. It was her decision. And just within a few weeks after the summit, Rika's and Shiori's younger cousin Hanako, who was the third in line of succession, asked her cousin for permission to get closer to Nobuyasu. Since Hanako was not of age yet the marriage, while being agreed on by Shiori and Nobuyasu's right hand man, was postponed until the day she would be old enough.

Rika, meanwhile, came to a conclusion herself. It was Nikaidô. After all, it was her father's name and she had to hold it up. There was no need for an official truce, since the Nikaidô were now part of the Hojo family, sort of. However, with Rika officially adopting the name Nikaidô, the family itself decided to return to the public. The biggest surprise for the whole wizarding world of Japan was, that the Nikaidô still had plenty of retainers. They were still a force to be reckoned with. Again Rika was confronted with something she didn't like. Being called -hime was unnerving. She didn't consider herself to be better than others, just because the ministry had her listed as pure blood and as a member of one of the most influential families. And now she had her own retainers. Oh merciful...

Power and money, those had never meant anything to her.

As for the blood status... Rika knew that it was pointless and stupid. Pure bloods... pure what? Wizards? Humans? The Hojo were neither. Which meant that she was neither.

There were, however, one thing that Shiori didn't tell her. The Nyakoji had been gotoku neko as well, which effectively made Rika a three quarter gotoku neko, just like her cousin Shiori. However, due to the total lack of training and education in the arts of the gotoku neko -Shiori never told Rika that she was one-, she never learned to shift, never learned to do magic without a wand.

Rika had no idea of this. It was late in January when she decided against returning to England right away. First of, since she was a Hojo, a few things had to be learned. Rika enlisted in the SWACSOG (Special Wizarding Assistance Command - Studies and Observation Group), to learn the basics of warfare, after all she was the second in the line of succession of a family that had brought out several key figures in Japanese history. It was a regular GSDF unit, but operated and lead by... wizards. They only accepted recruits from wizarding backgrounds, and all of this was done with the backing of the old families and the Japanese government. Rika spent twelve weeks with them, which was basically basic training and boot camp (which was a lot harsher and more strict than their muggle counterpart), during which she learned how to handle muggle weapons, which was sometimes a necessity -in the past, wizard families in Japan had used muggle weapons without hesitation, the Tokugawa and their riflemen, or the Takeda and their elite cavalry were just two famous examples. At the end of these twelve weeks she took part in an exercise at Mount Hakkoda in Aomori prefecture. Aomori was the most northern prefecture on the main island of Honshu and was also known for its masses of snow. While the cherry blossoms on Okinawa were already getting ready for blooming, Mount Hakkoda was full of snow. Worse yet, Rika and her group were surprised by a snow storm and given the mountain's history (the Imperial Japanese Army had lost an entire platoon of infantry on this mountain due to a blizzard in the early 20th century) it could have been their doom, but luckily they had paid attention to their training.

After that Rika did not return to Shirasagi. Instead she left Japan and moved to China for a bit over year. There she became a student of Master Chen Li Yue, who was now an old woman, but who had once been headmaster of the Chinese academy. Master Chen lived secluded in the Chinese mountains, away from all the civilization, whether muggle or magic. She had found her way. It was there that Rika learned of the close relation between the Hojo and China, of the Hojo had tried to stop the aggression against the Chinese people and how some of them had even been assassinated by the Black Lotus -which had supported the expansion into Korea, China and the Southern Pacific.

When Rika returned to the Hojo family in Kamakura in early 2010, she was finally thrust into the conflict over who would be in charge of the Nikaidô family. Two further attempts on her life were foiled by both Hojo and Nikaidô bodyguards. It was not the first time. The accident that had almost killed her and cost her father's life and the attack on her in Hogwarts had been planned by her uncle Yoshitaka, who had been under the influence of his wife Kyoko for a while. She was the mastermind, he was only a tool. Kyoko was also his second wife, and significantly younger than Yoshitaka.

Rika later found out that Kyoko had poisoned Yoshitaka's first wife Yukiko to get her hands on Yoshitaka's position and power. Kyoko successfully poisoned the Lady Reiko, who was, up to this moment, the leader of the Nikaidô family and Rika's grandmother. Kyoko feared that Rika would be competition on the long run and she was right in the end. But Rika proved to be smarter than Kyoko. First Rika managed to poison her uncle and his wife. Then she manipulated her three cousins from her father's side of the family into killing each other over her. Men were sometimes... stupid and, quite frankly, an almost perfectly mixed love potion helped the effort a lot. Rika wasn't interested in them, certainly not, but they had been involved in Kyoko's schemes and it had been them, who had tried to kill Rika twice, and who had also organized the poison for the Lady Reiko. Reiko had welcomed Rika into the family without any hesitation. From all the Nikaidô that Rika had met, Reiko was the one she had gotten to love most. Power and money were not Rika's motivation. It was, pure and simple, revenge. Bloody vengeance.

After this war of succession Rika learned of how things in England were going down the sewer. The outside world had not mattered to her for almost two years, the seclusion in China had only strengthened that. Maybe it was time to finish the business with the Lefcourts.

Thus, in July 2010, after preparing herself for the journey and barely two months after passing her apparation exam, she set out to England using a muggle transport named aircraft, after all, who of the Death Eaters, in their madness for pure blood, would check a muggle airport?

Her return to England, however, was short lived. The country had changed a lot under this strange Lord Williams. Rika didn't remember anything about him. A startup? It had happened before and on many different occasions throughout history.

Whatever.

The British problems were British problems. Rika had just returned to sort out a few things. However, her plan didn't quite work out. In fact the only thing she managed to do was present a claim for Lefcourt Castle. She didn't really want it, thus Rika had decided to sell it, after setting the house elf, Sparky, free. But none of that actually worked out. She had a short encounter with Lance Ulrich and concluded that certain people certainly had not changed. News of Annabelle spending some time in hospital because people thought she was crazy... Now that was actually quite amusing for Rika. She felt no pity or mercy towards her ex-cousin.

Surprisingly she was recalled to Japan before she managed to finish her business in England. The issue over Lefcourt Castle remained unsettled, just like her business with Annabelle.

But more trouble awaited her back home. At first nothing much happened. It was all routine. Rika spent most of her time sorting out the clan, trying to figure out who she could trust and who would betray her at the first opportunity. It seemed that the number of loyalists was really small. Two factions had remained in the Nikaidô family, the rest were individuals far removed from the family tree, unimportant to the succession. She returned to China, but only to be told by master Chen Li Yue that there was nothing more for her to learn from the former headmaster of the Chinese academy for wizardry and witchcraft.

Soon Rika was once again pulled into the battle for control of the clan. This time another uncle of hers, Nikaidô Kojiro had decided that he was the better leader and had taken her best friend Fujimoto Akemi as hostage.

Bad move.

Akemi was like a sister to her, attacking her was a lethal mistake. Rika's wrath was terrible, her retribution swift.

In her wake she left dead the Japanese minister of magic, her uncle Kojiro, Harada Ichiro (a former auror who had gone down the deep end and had been wanted for several murders), and pretty much every Nikaidô family member and retainer who had sided with Kojiro. Akemi, on the other hand, was saved.

It was then when Rika realized that she could no longer push her own selfish desired above her duties. The Nikaidô would not survive another incident like Akemi's kidnapping.

Thus she made a decision.

Her cousin Shiori, and the leaders of the Fujiwara and Tokugawa families, supported her request for reestablishing the Nikaidô as one of the great clans. Rika was fully aware that such a move would spark concern and most likely upset the fragile balance between the great clans. There was resistance, mainly from the Nakamikado and Uesugi families and since, at that time, a new minister for magic had yet to be appointed, Lord Nakamikado called for Rika to go through a ritual only known as the Harrowing. His motion was supported and seconded by the leader of the Uesugi and the Mori.

Thus Rika was forced to go through the Harrowing, despite Shiori's protests.

The Harrowing was an old, almost ancient ritual. It hadn't been performed for centuries and the stories surrounding were usually used to frighten children in the wizarding world.

But before Rika went through it, she finally met her last uncle Takeshi in Osaka. After talking with him Takeshi sided with Rika and the civil war within the Nikaidô had finally come to an end.

Later, and much to the dismay of Lady Uesugi, Rika survived the Harrowing and the Nikaidô were officially reestablished.

The weeks before her return to Britain Rika had spent with tons and tons of bureaucracy. Restoring an old clan brought with it a lot of paperwork. Still, there was some unfinished business to be dealt with in England. Her attitude towards dealing with Annabelle had changed though. She had once been convinced that Annabelle could be dealt with peacefully, but that had changed. Rika had realized that some people would simply not stop and she knew that Annabelle Lefcourt was exactly like that. Annabelle would not stop, thus the only solution was confrontation...

And then there was still the issue of Lefcourt Castle. Rika still wanted to sell it, but the money from it was now needed in Japan for the Nikaidô, since the clan was bankrupt.

As Rika prepared herself to return to England once more, she put her uncle Takeshi in charge of the family for the time being, after all she had learned to trust him by now.

Before heading off to England, however, Rika did something else. She changed her first name. Following an old tradition, under which samurai boys, who were becoming of age, would drop their birth name and would either pick or receive their real name, Rika dropped the name Rika. She chose to name herself Sayoko, which was inspired by Nikaidô Osae, who had protected the Nikaidô from certain destruction during the period of the warring states in the 16th century. Now Nikaidô Sayoko was about to leave Japan for England.

When she returned she found herself promptly with a significant problem: Annabelle Lefcourt. It led to a confrontation right on the steps of Gringotts, which left Annabelle dead and Rika in custody of the local authorities. She was quickly released however and returned to Japan to face even more problems, primarily what she considered to be more stupidity from her cousin Shiori. Apparently Shiori had decided to marry their cousin Mayumi off to the Tokugawa, which Mayumi of course didn’t.

Though, before she had to deal with the marriage crisis she had to deal with Shiori’s attempt of reforming Japan’s wizarding world, or better said Shiori’s coupe from the top. Rika turned against her, in the open, in the council chambers of Osaka.

It was pretty much the final straw for their relationship, at least from Shiori’s point of view. Afterwards Shiori saw Rika as some sort of enemy.

The incident of Rika standing up against Shiori’s plan made the whole affair around Mayumi’s forced political marriage worse. However, that wasn’t all of it. Against her better judgment Rika went to Niigata and ended up seeing the leader of the Uesugi and Nakamikado. There she found out something she initially didn’t believe.

Apparently, so those two claimed, Rika was a gotoku neko as well. And yes, it made sense. Her mater was a half-blood, her father however... a pure-blood. It all made sense. She had simply ignored this fact in the past, had simply been too busy with everything else. It had never crossed her mind.

And it made things even worse, after all if those two could find out about it, the Shiori had found out as well... and then... hadn’t told Rika about it. That pretty much did it for Rika.

When Mayumi finally arrived in Monbetsu and asked for sanctuary to get away from the political machinations it led to a confrontation between the Hojo and the Nikaidô. It was solved by Rika disarming Shiori and Mayumi being granted sanctuary.

Rika finally returned to the British Islands almost at the beginning of autumn 2011. This time she didn’t come alone, she brought Mayumi with her, after all the girl needed proper education and Shirasagi, at this point, wasn’t as save and secure as it was meant to be for her. So Mayumi entered Hogwarts under the name of Yuki Adams while Rika was slowly getting dragged into the political banter between the so called Williams Regime and whoever opposed them while trying to train in her skills as a gotoku neko. The problem is, since she had never received any training and, by the time she found out was already fully grown up, it’s more of a learning by trial and error.

---

NAME: AK
EXPERIENCE: 23 years
CONTACT: you know where to find me
HOW'D YOU FIND US? I’ve always been here

CHARACTERS: Yuki Adams, Rufus Camoynes, James Blackwold

RP SAMPLE:

Shattered Fate, Rika Lefcourt in “Mop Girl”

Wandless. It felt strange, to say the least. However, this was just the first day, and one thing was for sure: many other days would follow. Ironically, the Ravenclaws had been too shocked to deal with her, for now. Things would certainly change sooner than later. The other Ravenclaw students would get over their initial surprise and then it was likely that they would start paying her back. Though, what did it matter? They were just Ravenclaws, just another bunch of Hogwarts students. Annoying, at best.

Rika was now on her way to the office of William Travis, the squib, the janitor. But Rika didn’t care about that part. Whether he was a squib or a janitor or a muggle didn’t matter. As it was, she often found muggles to be more interesting than other wizards. Curious how this would be working out she continued down the corridor.

Only to bump into Annabelle and three of her friends. Four against one, four with wands, one without. Her chances weren’t too good in this one.
“Rika!” Annabelle exclaimed cheerfully.
It made Rika raise a brow. Why was she like this? Was this just the opening for an attack on her? “What do you want?” Rika eventually asked, while readying herself mentally for any possible assault coming from one of the four Slytherin girls.
“I wanted to thank you for yesterday! What else, dummy!” Now Annabelle was grinning. “Rika Lefcourt, the first one of the family who took down an opposing house single handed!”
So that was it. Though, why was she so happy about it?
“With your help yesterday Ravenclaw lost all points. They’ll never win the House Cup now. That’s one less opponent for Slytherin! Thank you, cousin!” And, of course, Annabelle said it loud enough for everyone to hear. “Now we’ll definitely win the cup this year.”
The House Cup. The retarded popularity contest. Oh great. Of course Annabelle was into such ridiculous things as well, not much of a surprise.

Then Annabelle suddenly threw her arms around Rika and hugged her older cousin. “Thank you cousin,” the younger Lefcourt added while squeezing Rika. “I love you!” Eventually she let go of Rika and grinned. “You’ve done well. So damn well. Dad and uncle will be proud of you. And don’t worry about the detention or whatever Winslow gave you. You’re a Lefcourt, you’ll sit that off easily. Those blood traitors and muggle lovers won’t break you, I know that.”
Rika was at a loss of what to say and then it got worse. The other three girls hugged her as well and praised her actions against Ravenclaw and the idiotic Gryffindor. Great. Now she was some sort of hero for Slytherin? But of course, trusting Annabelle to be honest would have been stupid. There was no way that Annabelle would tell the truth. She was a true Lefcourt after all. Eventually Rika managed to say something. “I have to go. Detention with Mr. Travis.” And she wanted to get away from them. But before she managed to get away, Annabelle hugged her once again. This time it felt differently. Once Annabelle had let go of her and had left the scene with her friends, Rika took a deep breath. Had her cousin just groped her butt in that last hug? Oh merciful...

A shudder across her body. Annabelle was really good at being annoying. And if that had really been her cousin’s hand on her butt... Oh merciful Buddhas... Rika shook her head. And even if Annabelle was more interested in her own shore, what did it matter for Rika. Just another annoying Hogwarts student. The only problem was, that Annabelle had thanked her for what had happened and it seemed that she was right. Ravenclaw would not win the silly contest now. Not with losing all points and maybe even getting into the negatives. But what did it matter? It was just a pointless contest and certainly not a display of teamwork, no matter what Winslow had claimed.

She shook her head. Annabelle had managed to make it look as if Rika had done all of this on purpose, as if she had wanted to sabotage Ravenclaw in order to help Slytherin. After all, Lefcourts always made Slytherin, right?

As she moved on that thought didn’t leave her mind. There had been Ravenclaws who had heard this little exchanged. They would certainly tell the story to the rest. Just like the other students would do it in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff.

“Great,” Rika muttered when she stopped in front of Travis’ office. Oh well. It wasn’t really her problem. What could they possibly do? With that thought Rika raised her hand and knocked against the door.

ANYTHING ELSE? Since she has never been trained in her gotoku neko skills, she’s lacking them. However, she’s trying to learn them by herself, which is basically learning by doing and trial and error. She is, however, a qualified shot with both assault rifle and pistol due to SWACSOG training.