Leaf Evergreen

"You're nothing but another statistic in the world."

- Leaf Evergreen

Appearance
Leaf's face is one of a person well known in the ways of the world. His eyes, brown, flashing and intelligent, added with thick eyebrows that thin out at the end, with a mouth that is set into a straight line most of the time, he sets off an aura of experience, but at the same time, a kind of understanding in the ways of the world. His complexion is brown, very much so, and his black hair, average length and going every which way, gives off a boyish quality behind the experience.

He generally wears a black jacket overtop his clothing. The jacket zipped straight up to his neck. The jacket changes with the seasons as well. In the winter, he'll wear a blue one with lining. In the spring, a windcheater. In the summer, no jacket. In the autumn, a black jacket with fur lining to keep himself warm. His pants generally have holsters for his weapons, and for regular use, not casual, he likes cargo pants.

On occasion that he doesn't wear a jacket, he wears a shortsleeved plaid shirt that's unbuttoned with an orange beach tee underneath with jeans for causal wear. In combat situations, he goes for a bulletproof combat vest, cargo pants, fingerless gloves with good grip, and a kevlar belt. The combat vest, pants, and even the belt have clips of amunition and capsules of dust for Leaf's weapons.

Almost all the time except for when he's bathing, Leaf wears lead weights on his body. He increases the weight gradually as the weights become weightless to him to increase his strength. He wears ankle, wrist, shoulder, chest, thigh, and elbow weights judaciously all the time.

in terms of scars, Leaf has a multitude of scars crisscrossing hs body. Cuts, burns, cauterizations, and whatnot, crisscross along his body, arms, and legs, giving him a kind of worn appearance, however, his face and neck remain unscathed.

Leaf also has two holsters for his weapons on either side of his pants as well as his weapons, and across his back, a sheath for his sword, holding the sword.

Other then that, he wears a ring on his right index finger with two dragons crisscrossing on it, with a ruby eye for one, and a diamond eye for another. A wristwatch which not only tells time, but the temperature, humidity, speed of the wind, and even air pressure, a personal creation. It's main purpose, however, is a timer plus a reader that keeps track of Leaf's aura levels, and can even detect when Leaf activates his semblance and when it stops. Keeping track of how much time he has left to use his semblance. It's waterproof, bulletproof, dustproof and blastproof, even being able to take cuts from blades without even being scratched. There's also a tattoo on his left arm with the kanji for intelligence. Leaf also sports protective goggles in case he requires it, as well as sunglasses if the weather so permits.

On occasion, one will see Leaf with a guitar, violin, or cello case with him, as he is about to practise his music.

Personality
Leaf's personality is one of a philosophical, learned person. He always speaks in smooth, poetic, intelligent sentances which show years of learning as well as a sense of understanding on whatever he's talking about. Almost like he knows the secrets of the universe and is hiding the true meaning.

Generally, Leaf is kind to others, showing compassion to anyone and everyone. Unless they decide to be rude and rub him the wrong way, then he begins tearing the unfortunate person apart by sheer words, no physical violence necessary. It's quite an interesting thing to see, and it could be said that his words then have splash damage, as they affect the people around him, not only the person who he's chewing out. However, he does this calmly and rationally, not showing an ounce of anger.

Having a mode of self-training, Leaf's very meticulous about his training. Everyday, he starts the day with fifty pushups, a hundred situps, crunches, and whatnot, in order to keep his body limber and in shape. He also makes sure to buy more lead weights when the ones he's currently wearing start to feel like a part of his own body.

When in combat, Leaf becomes utterly focused in on the task, calculating modes of attack. He will make the first move, and when his opponent counterattacks, he's able to see how a person attacks based on his own attacks. His strategies include his own teammates, and he makes sure to keep an eye on them.

Once someone really gets to know Leaf, they will notice that he can have a slightly awkward sense of humour once he get's really comfortable with being around him, however, he's not really fully open, as his philosophical way of thinking and talking can cause some very awkward moments.

A hidden talent of Leaf's is that he's an avid musician. He can play piano very well, as well as saxophone, cello, guiter, and the harp. He's been playing instruments ever since he was

four and has not given up the pastime, as it is one of his true loves and one that he can always continue. Leaf does not mind playing in front of other people, but he prefers practising alone.

In terms of mental capabilities, other then being philosohpical and calculating, he also has protographic memory, being able to remember things picture perfect at any time he wants. He also always keeps a level head. No one living has ever heard him scream, and those who have, are now dead. Never getting hotheaded or angry, he's the definition of calm and collected.

Weapons and Abilities
Leaf has two pistols which he calls Hades and Chronos, and a longsword called Thanatos. Hades and Chronos are identical 9mm pistols. Both and sleek black bodies, are razor sharp around the barrel and along the sides, and have stylish gold patterns alongside the bodies, around the muzzle, near the grip, and around the trigger. Leaf uses dust bullets as well as regular bullets to give out maximum damage.

Leaf uses the following dust bullets alongside Hades and Chronos, Lightning, Fire, Gravity, Ice, and Impact. The clips are colour coded towards which bullets are in the clip. Yellow is lightning, red is fire, purple is gravity, blue is ice and white is impact.

The bullets have the following properties.

Hades and Cronos can also be used as melee weapons, and inflict cutting edge damage onto a person, but Leaf generally uses his longsword for melee attacks, as he likes to keep a bit of distance between himself and his attacked when in melee.
 * Lightning: Creates a small wave of lightning around the bullet, causing electricity to shock someone if the bullet makes an impact, or goes by a person.
 * Fire: Creates a blaze behind it, like a tracer bullet, but much deadlier and if it strikes wood, it can cause it to go up in flames.
 * Gravity: Generally used as a kind of propellant bullet. It does cause damage, but Leaf generally uses it for reflex dodges or to propell himself forward a short distance.
 * Ice: Ice forms in and around the point of impact. Almost like cauterizing a wound, except with Ice. Extremely painful and hard to melt.
 * Impact: A bullet twice as fast as normal with twice as much the damage, but with significant more recoil.

Thanatos is an Irish longsword who's effect changes with the type of dust used, very much like Hades and Cronos, except with a sword. Leaf carries Thantanos in a sheath across his

back, and it takes dust crystals on the hilt. The effects of Thantanos are as follows with the following dust. When fighting, Leaf generally keeps his lead weights on, it allows him some restraint and forces his body to adapt. However, when the stakes are serious, he will take off his lead weights. Once the lead weights are off, his strength, speed, agility, everything increases by a significant amount to an already seasoned fighter.
 * Lightning: Lightning shockwaves, like in Hades, but if a person is cut, then they potentially can become paralyzed due to the electricity coursing through their body, forcing their muscles to contract.
 * Fire: Basically acts like a very sharp lighter which can create big flames.
 * Gravity: Speeds up Leaf's swings with Thantanos.
 * Ice: Again, wound cauterization, but very painful, can also create a plate of ice.
 * Impact: Increases the strength of the blows Leaf gives.

Also, Leaf's intelligence allows him to think up counterattacks effectively in a form that he calls "Perfect Defense". What Leaf will do is that initially, he'll throw out attacks from directions in order to figure out how they fight and defend, and by factoring in the environment and style of attacking, can accurately predit how his opponent will attack due to a combination of physical, mental, and environmental factors. At its finest, Leaf can fight an opponent with his eyes closed. This doesn't work on Grimm as wild arnimals are random, whereas with humans, you can spot a pattern.

Also, having trained with his weapons from a young age has allowed him to reach the point where they are like an extension of his own body. He can use them tactile and effectively, and with plenty of experience in fighting, he's not your average joe when it comes to fighting. In fact, he's almost one of a kind. Calm, collected, rational, and makes it appear that his style of fighting has some deep roots behind it, like he knows the secrets to fighting and is willing to share in the way he fights.

However, in rare occasions he is without his weapons, Leaf will go to hand to hand combat to fight. Hand to hand combat was the first type of combat he was ever taught and he still retains his skill. Leaf, when fighting human,s will go for pressure points to force the opponent to stop moving, and then strike points on the spine and head to knock the person out. A person on the recieving end of Leaf punches have learned that he can punch really hard. However, even though he fights like this, Leaf specializes in kicking, and his limber body allows him to do reflexive and flexible dodges such as flips.

Leaf's Sembance is called "Seal Step". It can be used with or without the weights. But if the weights are off when he uses it, then it's obviously more effective.

How Seal Step works is that Leaf's aura heightens his speed, agility, and reflexes in order to make it look like there are two of him, standing a bit away from each other. When it's actually him moving very fast between two places, and the change in speed at each point creates an illusion of a person being in two places, and not anywhere inbetween. At it's maximum, Leaf can create four images of himself on a battlefield.

Having trained with his semblance from a young age, the numbers look like this. Two images - 30 minutes with lead weights on, 45 minutes with the weights off. With three images. With weights - 20 minutes, without weights, 38 minutes. And finally, four images. With weights, 10 minutes, without weights, 25 minutes. Leaf has also trained enough that after his aura runs out, he does not feel as much exhaustion as the normal person and can still continue to fight, but he will be significantly weaker. After a few hours he'll be back to normal, but he won't be able to use his semblance for the rest of the day. He also can use a timer on his watch to keep track of how much aura he has left and how much semblance time he has left.

His semblance also can confuse someone as the images can start moving at different times. One could be running towards you while the other stays back and fires bullets. The semblance at it's finest can have one image holding the sword, while the other dual wields the pistols.

Note that the term images is being used as a loose term, the images are actually Leaf, it's just his rapid movement make it look like there are more than one of him.

Another thing to note is a major weakness of Leaf's semblance. All it takes is one direct hit to break the illusion, if it can even be called that as it's literally him utilizing speed and flexibility to create what looks like multiple images of himself.

Also, Leaf's stamina is extrodinary, being able to run long distances without being winded, it comes from training in low oxygen levels to increase his overall stamina.

Backstory
Leaf was born into a lower high-class family in the city of Vale. His mother and father were both a hunter and huntress respectively, and also ran a medical business. However, since the moment Leaf could walk, he began training under his parents.

His mother and father would spend at least a few hours everyday. Building up Leaf's strength, and making sure there weren't any failures. There were harsh repercussions if he couldn't complete a task. But this didn't make Leaf bitter and reclusive, it made him strive harder to please his parents and with an "I'll show you" attitude, he persevered, his parents were satisfied.

To give a brief insight on how his parents gave repercussions, it varied based on how badly Leaf made an error. For example, not doing pushups properly meant doing twice the amount of pushups with weight on his back. Not fully comprehending something meant getting no food or water. Failure to succeed in an endeavor meant a hundred whippings on his back. He still retains many of the scars today.

When he became two years old, he got his first lead weights, a mere five pounds. But to a young child, carrying so many weights became a burden quickly. However, he made sure to stick with it, and started personally requesting that more weight be added once he didn't even feel the weight anymore. After that incident, neglect to wearing the weights for any point of time meant having to walk with concrete blocks attached to his legs, as a reminder of how light his parents were going on him, or so to speak.

When Leaf turned three, he went from hand to hand combat to weapons. He didn't like any of the weapons he picked up until he got to pistols. Then he showed an unnatural knack of being able to weild and fire the weapons with deadly accuracy, and his strongly built body was able to handle the recoil, even from such a young age. The lead weights had done their job well.

After a week of training with the given pistols, Leaf asked his father to be allowed to create his own weapons.

Leaf's father reacted quite agressively towards this suggestion and he immediately dragged his son to a coveted punishment room and proceeded to whip him twenty times. His father found it outrageous that his son, not even old enough to attend a proper school, wanted to get straight on with making his own weapons. He made the lashes with a whip that was sharp on the end so that the scars would stay forever.

After the event, Leaf meticulously trained with the pistols for three years, and he gained even more expertise with them, becoming deadlier and deadlier with each passing month. Reaction times were shortened, his quickdraw became almost non-visible, and he didn't require as much time to aim. He managed to quickly take out multiple droids without blinking an eye. His growth was spectacular.

It must be said that at the age of four, Leaf began studying. Swallowing up books whole and ingesting their stores of information. He possesed an incredible capacity to learn and tactics books were his favourites. Learning about old and new tactics and being able to utilize these tactics effectively, was not lost on his father, who trained him, his mother had taken upon the role of school.

In the few spare amounts of free time that Leaf had, he enjoyed playing instruments. Music was a passion that he had long wanted to pursure, and since his parents were punishing him less and less, and he was getting exponentially better, his parents decided to reward him by buying him a pure white piano with ivory keys. The piano was beautiful, and he always played it in his free time. In the following years to come. Leaf would pick up the guitar, violin, cello, and harp. And would divide his time equally amongst all the instruments to be able to become proficient in them all.

However, even more than training and studying and even instruments, Leaf loved philosophy. Learning about the subject and different kinds of philosophy gave him an almost singular view of the world. Seeing everything as statistics, different modes of philosophy, and different ideas or thoughts. Everything from the philosophy of faunus, to the faunus war, to humans and even war and weaponry, was not lost on him, and he became increasingly intelligent and softspoken the more he read. His favourite kind of philosophy, however, would have to be the philosophy of music. Learning about what drove the human mind with music, how music was created, how it worked, and how it enhanced a person intrigued him to no end. He made sure to study it well and ingest it, making it his own for the taking.

Finally age six, and Leaf has gained the strength to be able to handle swords. He didn't like Zweihandlers, as they were too big and unwieldly, and didn't allow him to utilize his full strength, speed, and flexibility. Katanas were too short, although they were lightweight. He finally settled on an Irish longsword. Pleased by its weight and its capabilities in slashing and being able to pierce armour. However, if any situation ever arrived.

One day, while swordfighting, his dad easily cut through his defense and create a long, but shallow slash across his son's chest, telling him that his defensive form was weak and that his offense could use refining, and left him there to try and get help for himself.

After he got his chest stitched up, Leaf decided to start training defensively. He began to tone up his strength and use his calculative and philosophical mind in order to calculate his opponent's moves and to accurately counteract them. It was a shaky start, but he slowly started to get the hang of it. Receiving fewer and fewer cuts until he was able to match his father move for move, although he still lacked in the strength department in comparison to the rest of his body.

For a solid three years afterward, Leaf split up his time evenly between everything, but having spent more time with pistols, cut back the amount of time he spent training with them. By the end of the third year, his lead weights would weigh 20 pounds each.

Leaf had a few incidents in this timeframe that were somewhat instrumental.

For starters, there was his first fight with a Grimm, a beowolf, that he barely managed to beat before it almost killed him.

Then there was that incident where he foolishly attacked a beehive, which taught him not to be so rash in decisions and not to do things because they may seem fun, they may be really stupid in hindsight.

Now, it also must be said here that Leaf had his aura unlocked by his mother when he was about four, but he hadn't discovered his semblance until the age of seven.

One day, while practising defensive maneuvers, Leaf suddenly noticed he could move fast from one place to another, and by merely changing his speed a bit, he could create another image of himself doing something. He asked his father to install a large wall to wall mirror in the training room. There, Leaf would practise at the end of each day, so that he wouldn't feel the exhaustion that came on after his aura ran out, and to be able to sleep like a log. He initially could only use his semblance for a few minutes, and once every few days, although he'd function normally the day after. But meticulous training made him able to increase the amount of time his semblance would stay active, and the amount he could use it, as well as his aura stores. Enhancing his aura gave him basic healing as well as a few regular enhancements that aura gives, but just that bit more potent as it would appear that training his aura was like working out. You get a miscroscopic tear in it, and then it rebuilds and gets a bit added onto it.

By the end of it, he was able to use his semblance once a day, although the time constraint on it was a bit daunting, he kept on plugging away at it so that he'd be able to continue on using his semblance for longer amounts of time.

Every year, Leaf would get something special for his birthday. One year, it was a huge encyclopedia set all on philosophy. The other year it was a training droid for times when his dad was busy. However, on his eighth birthday, he recieved a gift that would change his stamina levels drastically, and at the same time, assist with the aftereffects of the semblance of major exhaustion.

Leaf's stamina was not bad by any standard, but he would still become winded after a harsh brawl, and this displeased both himself, and his parents. So for his eighth birthday, they got him a specialized threadmill. The threadmill had a few special things to help him increase his stamina. One, there was a gas mask that regulated the amount of oxygen he got to his lungs, forcing his lungs to deal with less, increasing their capacity and increasing his stamina at the same time. He began alternating days between Semblance Training and Stamina Training, allowing him for a good night's sleep. Working out his stamina or his semblance wore him down hard initally and he would get a good dreamless sleep afterward. The same stil stands true for today, except instead of collpasing, he merely has to sit down, but the exhaustion still helps him sleep.

Inbetween his eighth and seventh birthday, Leaf started training with dust, using dust on his sword, and dust bullets. And although the start was slow, and his increase in expertise gradual, it was there.

There were a few noticable incidents along the way in his training in these weapons as well. His usage of dust cause some dust related burns on his chest after they backfired, or the increase in the amount of recoil would force his hand back to his chest, putting a red hot muzzle on his chest that seared through clothes.

Finally, at age ten, Leaf's birthday gift was the permission to forge his own weapons, something he had wanted to do for a very long time. He began by working on his sword. The mechanisms for a pistold daunting him slightly. He forged his longsword after many attempts, each time getting slightly better, until he had a lightweight, but sharp blade. A solid guard, and the hilt having a place for dust crystals to go. The discarded weapons were given to a weapons maker to make them into appropriate weapons.

The pistols took him much longer, but less attempts. Getting the barrel just right as well as creating it that it had razor sharp edges was very hard, as the edges would be brittle, but after plugging away for a while, he got it. The guard and trigger were relatively easy to make, and he went all out on the fashionable design, making it look classy. He soon after named his pistols Hades and Chronos, and the sword Thantanos.

He started training with the weapons immediately. It wasn't fully like learning how to walk again, but the struggle was there all the same. He was forced to get used to swinging his pistols as wellas using different movements with them for close up attacks just in case. The weight of the pistols he had made and the regular pistols he had used for so many years was also noticable. Add that to a higher amount of recoil and more weight, and it was awkward.

However, just like a bird that knows flying from the moment it is launched into the air, and a fish can swim in water from its birth. Leaf rose back to his old skills in a matter of months, and even started to exceed them, gaining a good quickdraw to the point it was almost invisible, and a deadly accuracy rate.

With the sword, the increase in skill was not as profound as it was with his pistols. He didn't add anything to the blade that made it different from the one he had previously used. It just took him some time to get used to the grip and the guard.

At around this time, Leaf also developed his watch. He required something to keep track of his aura and semblance time, while also being very handy. It had a bunch of other features added that Leaf could calculate in order to be more efficient with Hades, Chronos, and Thanatos.

On his eleventh birthday, Leaf got a chance to fight his father one on one after a long time of training with droids, and he surprised his father with his dexterity and skill. However, his father, being the hunter he was, got over the surprise fast enough to break Leaf's prefect defense through sheer strength and skill,and gave Leaf two fatal cuts to the chest, just barely missing his heart.

"You've pleased me..." his father said before taking him to the operating room to get fixed up.

After he recovered, and got back to training, one day Leaf went out on an excursion on his own to a local weapon's museum. On his way there, he was overpowered by a band of bandits and dragged back to their camp. There, he was constantly interrogated. It would appear that these bandints wanted to know why such a young boy had gotten so much experience in fighting, and did not like what they saw before them.

They began by tearing his clothes off except for his boxers. Then for the next three hours, they would nonstop injure, beat, and main the boy. Leaving his face and neck alone, but scarring, cutting, cauterizing, bruising, and breaking bones on his chest, back, and legs. His arms got deep cuts on then and in those deep cuts, they placed pieces of hot metal. His screams rang around the camp.

They then went to waterboarding the boy, in an attempt to mentally break him. However, they met their match there as his mental strength and aptitude, applied with his philosophical sense, allowed him to reach a point of meditation, where he felt the drowning as merely an ocean washing over him, getting ready to take him to the afterlife. It would appear that Leaf had indeed, accepted death.

They were about to amputate his left arm with a cleaver, when his father, worried by his son not arriving home for a while, arrived at the camp armed with a shotgun. Within moments, all the bandits lay dead, with Leaf in the centre of the bloodbath.

The event was scarring for Leaf, but it didn't leave any psychological effects. More like it was physically scarring, and it strengthened his resolve to get stronger so that he could defeat huge bands of people like that in the future. Recuperating from the event, however, and getting his body back up to full strength in order to continue. The amount of scars he had gotten from his father were dwarfed majorly by the new amount of scars on his body.

Leaf then had finally reached the age of twelve and applied at Signal Academy. They were impressed with his transcripts as well as his letters of recommendation, and accepted him immediately.

At Signal, life was alright for the most part. During his first year, Leaf found it hard to make friends due to the fact that he was very philosophical. Not only that, but his blunt way of speaking and philanthrophic and mature ways, set him off from the rest of the crowd at Signal.

During the first year, Signal students generally forged their own weapons. Leaf, unfortunately, did not partake in this task as he had already forged his weapons and thus, spent the time doing homework or studying, or building up his strength.

During classes, Leaf paid close attention, his eidectic memory absorbing information quickly and processing it. He would immediately get down to doing homework, and spending time training. During both written, and practical exams, Leaf did very well, managing to sweep through his first year through smiling.

Trivia

 * Leaf and Evergreen are both shades of green.
 * All of Leaf's weapons relate to death somehow.