Mana Shirogane

"Sledding down a snowy mountain is as fun as it is dangerous, so is using a bulky and unwieldy shield as your sledboard. But that's not as extreme when a countless bunch of Grimms of different sizes is chasing you as you slide down the slope. That's what she thought about while all this is happening. And she was never been this ecstatic for the rest the day."

Mana Shirogane is a student of the Beacon Academy.

Appearance
Mana is an slightly-bulk built young woman with fair skin, gray and white hair, and dark gray eyes. Her most remarkable feature is her very long gray hair that becomes white as it grows longer which is all tied to the right side of her head.

Her hunting attire includes steel-colored hauberk with steel shoulderguards, greaves, shinguards, and boots. Beneath her hauberk is a dark one-piece sleeveless dress. She also wears a pair of thigh-high stockings.

Personality
Mana is a very jovial and optimistic girl with a thing for death defying hobbies. While she's quite docile, she could become very stubborn when needed be. She's not particularly bright, but she's not illogical. And when something difficult comes up, she'll just charge in screaming on the top of her lungs with her shield, and her smile, up. For her, every problem is easily solvable, as long as she has the outer side of the shield she wields to bash it with.

But under the thick candy-and-rainbow coated outer shell of hers, is her self-induced amnesiac tendencies and its root causes yet to be unraveled.

Weapon
Mana's main weapon is the Refurbished Chrome Templar - A huge thick shield that is hollow and allows Dust to be stored in its hollow spaces. Aside from the handle and the dust controller added by the latest upgrade, it has two main components, the Tank, which has silver-colored surface, is a hard and sturdy shell where the dust is stored, and the Business End, which has dark porous surface, specifically the edges and the cross, is where are the dust released and activated.

Aside from her shield she can also maximize the abilities of her armor pieces such as blocking attack with her gauntlets or kicking them with her greaves if she can't use her shield at that moment. She's also strong enough to eliminate a weakened Grimm with a headbutt.



Semblance
Penitential Martyrdom - This allows her to switch positions with someone she's attuned enough with within her line of sight. This Semblance allows her to put her allies out of the bad spot by using herself as the scapegoat.

This semblance's target can also resist the effects just by will and the use of this semblance will also consume energy equals to how much energy Mana has to use to run the distance between her and the target

Fighting Style
Mana is defense-based bruiser that excels on support and survivability in the Hunting grounds. Her attacks focus more on disabling enemies than killing, while offering them little to no chance to counterattack, giving her allies opportunities to strike without retaliation. Her shield's high Dust storage allows her to share and give Dust for her allies to use in case they run out of it in battle.

On the start of a chase, Mana will pre-emptively attack from a range with her shield up by activating the Dust through the cross of her shield. This allows her to freely attack the enemy without being counterattacked. And once the melee starts, she will start hitting enemies with either the edge or the front of her shield which is further bolstered by using Dust to gain more attack speed and damage. Her attack combinations will always end with a swing down with the edges to disallow any counterattacks done by the enemy. And once the enemies starts to run away, she will now throw her shield ala-Cap-Rogers-style.

And with the new upgrade she was given by the school, she can now pick which type of dust on her vast reserves to use for her next trick.

Backstory
One snowy night on a small walled town atop a plateau quite far away from the capital, a pair of aged Hunters who were patrolling for the night found a pale-white girl, face down unconscious on the gates of the town. The girl was still covered with her robes and a huge shield was still in her back. The elder chief of that town, which was among the group of Hunters, decided to end their patrol duty for that night so that they could bring the girl to the group's abode. After they brought the girl to their home and stabilized her condition, they took her shield and started to talk about what to do with the girl once she gets well.

The group was composed of Hunters who retired from active duty and decided to defend their hometown by themselves. While their ages still doesn't taking it's toll to them that much yet, their weapons and their methods screams "ancient". The elder chief wields a longsword and a staff, his wife, which is also among the old hunters of that town, utilizes her clothes with the "Dust", while the other hunter who where patrolling along the chief uses a Dust-powered Double-barrelled shotgun.

Strangely, the girl has a shield which was dated from the times even older that the elders have. This baffled the some of the old Hunters since the young girl had a weapon even older than theirs. Despite that, the chief decided to take her in even if some was suspicious of her and was against it.

The next morning, the girl woke up with no memory of herself, aside from her name, "Mana Shirogane". She also seemed to look for the shield she had on her back as her consciousness kicks in. After she had fully recovered, she decided to help out with the aged Hunters, "I'm earnin' my keep, Gramps!" she said.

The fighting skills and method with her shield she displayed seemed like a second nature to her, despite her amnesia. Her helpful nature and her perky attitude on the field helped a lot on making the other aged Hunters open up to her. Everyone treated her as a family in no time.

Then one day, an emissary from the Beacon Academy and their escorts, who were traveling from town to town, arrived to accept applicants who want to be admitted to the school. The elder and the rest thought that Mana is still young and they don't have much to offer to her. And with that they've decided to let her enroll for the Beacon, as she trusted her family's advice and promised to come back someday.

And that's where Mana's life at the Beacon starts.

Etymology
Mana Shirogane (Kanji/Hiragana/Katakana: 白金マナ  Romaji:Shirogane Mana)   
 * Mana - English lit. supernatural or magical powers
 * Shirogane - Japanese lit. Platinum; from two words: 白 (shiro) - lit. white; and 金 (kin) - lit. money or metal

Original Inspirations/References
Along with her teammates, their recurring theme is metals of the periodic table. Mana has Platinum from her surname, Shirogane, which is the Japanese name of the metal.

Her weapons and armor were derived from the medieval European knights.

Mana's jolly and supportive disposition and her defensive play was heavily inspired by Braum of League of Legends. While her offense and fighting style was drawn from Marvel's Captain America.