Yoko Ota

Bio

AKA: The shy one, The Confessor

Status: Alive

Birthday: Unknown

Age: 19 (assumed)

Height: 155 cm 

Weight: 47kg

Blood type: O

Likes: Oysters, inarizushi, shoujo manga, cleanliness

Dislikes: Illness, crowds, mould, herself

Ability: A light as if from Corpses

Ability namesake: City of Corpses, A Light as if from Fireflies

Job: Researcher (current), Head of Interrogation (former)

Affiliation: Paulownia Court (Tsukishinkai-ya), Seventh Order (former)

Appearance

Ota is a young woman with straight black hair in a hime cut with white bangs, white eyelashes and vacant fuschia eyes. The lower half of her face is almost always covered by a mask. Behind the mask, she has a dark patch over the left side of her mouth. 

On missions, she wears a short black dress with a high collar tied by a gold brooch on a ribbon, and tiered, flowy sleeves, with black ankle boots and lace tights. Over her dress she wears a white belt with a black triangular buckle with gold engravings. She wears several rings connected to a bracelet on her left hand, and a partial glove covering her thumb, ring finger and pinky finger on her right hand. Her hair has several dangling ornaments and ribbons pinned in it on either side, and her mouth and nose are covered by a black mask with several chains hanging across it. 

Casually, she wears a white turtleneck with sleeves up to the elbow, a black tea-length skirt and black loafers. Her hair is left down, with a black headband with a gold and pearl decal on it, matching that on a white belt worn around her waist. Her left hand has several rings on it, while her right is covered with a black partial glove covering her thumb, ring finger and pinky finger, with a cherry blossom design embroidered on it. She wears a plain black mask with embroidery along the top. 

When she was in the Seventh Order, she wore a longer version of her current black dress (see para 1) and a veil covering her whole face. 

Personality

Ota lives up to her reputation as shy, often appearing to be incredibly quiet and spacey. She is easily flustered, especially when speaking, and when she does speak, she often does so incredibly quietly in very few words. However, what she lacks in social prowess, she makes up for in observational skill, being able to read body language and tone at an impressive level in order to reach a reaction she wants.  

Behind her quiet demeanour, Ota is very kind and gentle, taking great care to help others before herself. She has a good heart, going well out of her way to help others, and often acts in optimism rather than listening to reason. This has led her to negative consequences on multiple occasions, however this has not deterred her from continuing to be kind. 

Because of her generosity, and how people have used it against her, she has a great sense of loyalty to those who return her loyalty or treat her kindly. Having sought refuge from the Paulownia Court, she nowadays provides them with her full loyalty, irregardless of detriment to her. However, she is also very secretive and has severe trust issues, wanting those who value her to only see the best in her. This causes her to hide her true past from the Tsukishinkai-ya, thinking that if they know her past with the Seventh Order, they will refuse her further refuge. 

While with the Seventh Order, Ota’s work as an interrogation officer left her mentally scarred and uncommunicative, and caused her to become mysophobic and somewhat anthropophobic. She became more and more withdrawn as she was forced to cover up various corruption scandals and the likes, leading to her current, more reserved disposition. Before, she was cheerful and held herself in high regard, similar to Masako in many ways, and while this is still true, she better hides it.  

Ability

Name: A light as if from corpses (屍のような光)

Creates balls of incredibly bright light that, upon impact, create a sensory illusion of a slow and painful death only known and seen by the victim. The illusion lasts until the ‘death’ of the victim, at which point it will stop until another impact.

Death illusion

Skills

• Social observation
  • Ota is capable of reading people with a near perfect degree of accuracy, and using that information to her advantage.
• Specialised knowledge
  • Ota knows all the inner workings of the Japanese government, as well as the Seventh Order’s hierarchical structure. 
  • Ota has significant knowledge about pain and how it affects people, as well as how to best inflict it, making her extremely efficient in combat.
• Illusion immunity
  • Due to her skill with her own ability, Ota is adept at spotting illusions- both mental and physical- and optical tricks, causing her to become less affected by them. 

Background

Ota moved around a lot as a child, but she and her family settled in Tokyo when she was six due to her poor health. From a young age, she was very sickly, going in and out of hospitals, and was bullied relentlessly and physically abused until her ability developed. Once her ability was discovered, her parents, who feared her power, abandoned her to the government, where she was forced to work with the Seventh Order, performing interrogations and torturings with her ability. After one particularly bad incident, she had enough and ran away, and sought refuge at the Paulownia Court from Seichou, lying to him about her name and background in order to ensure she wouldn’t be taken back to the government. He granted her request, making her a temporary employee while Nakai ran a background check. Lying turned out to be a huge mistake, however, as Nakai discovered that she was likely to not be who she said, and she was subsequently trapped by Togawa and Nakai before being interrogated under influence of Black Gospel. 

Having learnt the full truth, and receiving assurance from Ota that she wouldn’t lie again, Seichou decided to let her become an official member, however still keeps a watchful eye on her, just in case. 

Timeline (assumed)

• 19 years ago
  • Ota was born
• 13 years ago
  • Ota settled in Tokyo
• 9 years ago
  • Her ability developed
  • Ota’s parents gave her to the government
• 2 years ago
  • Began dating Tachihara
• 7 months ago
  • Cut all contact with members of the Hunting Dogs, including Tachihara
  • Met Seichou
• 6 months ago
  • Was questioned by other members
    • Was allowed to stay despite attempting to lie    
• 2 months ago
  • Met Tachihara for the first time since she left
  • Mutually broke up with Tachihara

Etymology

O (大): Big

Ta (田): Rice paddy

Yo (洋): Sea

Ko (子): Child

Namesake

Yoko Ota (大田洋子)

Japanese novelist associated heavily with the Atomic Bomb literature genre. Originally, she was a romance writer, however, after the Hiroshima bombing, she became consumed by the fear of radiation sickness and began to write about her experience as a survivor of the bombing. 

Trivia

• Her ability, A light as if from Corpses, is named after two of her books: A light as if from the depths (家庭のような光)), and City of Corpses (屍の町). Both books focus on the aftereffects of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.
  • She is one of three characters with an ability named after multiple works, with the others being Edgar Allan Poe and Mark Twain. 
• While the real-life author did not have mysphobia, she was terrified of radiation sickness, a fear that inspired the majority of her writing. 
• Ota’s birthday being unknown is another trait shared with her real-life counterpart. Her birthday is listed as either being 20th February 1903, or 18th November 1906. It is unknown what caused this discrepancy. 
  • The place of her birth is also debated upon. While it is commonly listed as Fukuda, Hiroshima, both Richard Minear and Jay Rubin give Kushima as her birthplace.
• Ota is the only permanent member of the Tsukishinkai-ya who is not adopted by Seichou. 
• She is also the only permanent member to have never dated a current member of the ADA (Seichou is ‘married’ to Ranpo, Nakai is dating Kunikida, Togawa has dated Dazai)
• She doesn’t sleep very much, and tends to take a lot of naps during the day due to narcolepsy. When she does sleep, she only sleeps for a few hours at a time.
• Ota is able to read and understand Latin, which she uses to read and understand law and medicine books. 

Relationships

Appellations

Masako Togawa

Ota first met Togawa the day after she was let into the Tsukishinkai-ya, and initially felt uncomfortable around her, but quickly got used to Togawa’s antics. Following the interrogation, Ota was briefly afraid of Togawa and developed temporary claustrophobia, however after they discussed the incident, they came to the mutual agreement that neither of them was in the wrong, and have since reconciled, developing a strong friendship. Togawa enjoys teasing Ota slightly, to which Ota usually responds with small quips of her own. Of all the members of the Tsukishinkai-ya, Ota is closest with Togawa. 

Seichou Matsumoto

Ota first met Seichou while fleeing the Seventh Order, but had actually heard of him before from coworkers in the government, who all spoke of him highly. Knowing of him, she sought him out and ended up collapsing on his doorstep one night. After he found her, she begged to be allowed to stay and join as a member, lying that she had run from a bad relationship. He agreed on a temporary basis, and she quickly realised just why others had spoken so well of him: he was someone who was willing to extend trust, and wasn’t afraid of the truth. Over time, the guilt of hiding her past began to consume her, however she held strong for a long time, until Seichou questioned her by having Nakai and Togawa trap her and then using his ability on her. 

After finding out the truth, he apologised for how harsh he was to her during the interrogation, however she forgave him, understanding that he was only doing what he had to in order to protect Nakai and Togawa. Having let her stay on a permanent basis, Ota is thankful for Seichou’s mercy, but still wary of his powers. They have a mutual respect, and she sees him as a mentor and teacher, but she is not nearly as close with him as Togawa or Nakai are with him yet.

Hideo Nakai

Nakai first met Ota when she joined the Tsukishinkai-ya. She was initially wary of him out of instinct, however upon realising that he knew about her past, became terrified of him and began to completely avoid him. Following her interrogation, where he used his ability to lure her into a small room, she continued to avoid him for the longest of all the members. He eventually cornered her and apologised for his actions, but warned her of the consequences next time she pulled anything similar. She holds respect for him, and they get along decently well at present, acting like siblings. Nakai teaches her about plants while she teaches him about how to spot illusions.

Michizou Tachihara

When working in Seventh Order, Ota worked closely with the Hunting Dogs, however was only close with a couple of them. Of those that she regularly spoke to, Tachihara was the only one to see her face, and the only one to refer to her without an honorific or title of any kind. They were close friends, who shared a bond in secrets, with both hiding their true identities from those around them (Tachihara by being a double agent, Yoko by hiding her face with a dark veil). Until she left, she and Tachihara were dating long-distance. When they re-met, after her official joining of the Tsukishinaki-ya, they decided not to continue their relationship, but have remained friends, and hope to one day continue where they left off. 

Saigiku Jouno

Ota dislikes Jouno due to him trying to force her to use her ability in interrogations beyond what is necessary. His penchant for violent interrogation goes beyond her personal limits, and his calm yet manipulative personality makes her uneasy. However, he is also uneasy of her, as her ability affects him more than most due to his heightened senses, and he cannot sense the illusory balls of light she creates. This created a mutual mistrust between them, which has yet to be resolved. 

Tetcho Suehiro

Of all the Hunting Dogs (excluding Tachihara), Ota gets along the best with Tetcho, as they share similar outlooks against violence in investigation, and both have sympathy for those who want to help others. During her time in Seventh Order, he initially disliked her, due to her role in interrogation, however after learning that she herself disliked what she had to do, he began to feel pity for her and the two formed a tentative friendship. After she left, Tetcho felt slightly betrayed by her, but understood why she would leave, and felt glad for her for escaping. 

Ango Sakaguchi

Ango employed Seventh Order only on one occasion, and was never in contact with the interrogation department. However, he did meet Ota while he was erasing Dazai’s past, and knew of ‘The Confessor’ from various stories and rumours. Unknowingly, he spoke to her on several occasions while she was unveiled, and she would often ask him about details of prisoners she would be made to interrogate, under the guise of being an investigator, so that she already knew the information beforehand and did not have to pry it from her victims. He found that she was good company, and she enjoyed the relative normalcy of speaking to him. Ango is also the one who told her about Seichou and the Tsukishinkai-ya, after working with them as a part of an incident, and after figuring out that she was The Confessor (several days after she ran away), he quietly covered up the truth of her disappearance, secretly glad that she could escape. He saw similarities to Dazai in her, both being raised in darkness, and knowing that she is now in the light, feels relieved for her. Ota does not know that he helped cover her tracks, but still enjoys working with and talking to Ango, finding that he is a good person to come to for advice.