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Backstory

By the time Misaki was born, the world was well on its way to recovering from The Tragedy. Her parents did their best to create a healthy environment for their child. They lived in a rural town, far from the noise of the city and reminders of the events that had taken place there. Other than what she learnt in school, Misaki grew up ignorant of the Despair the world had been thrust into in the past.

Her grandparents ran a small medicinal store in town, and any time her parents were working and no one was home, she would wait there. Whether the visit was for a few hours or a day, her grandparents diligently taught her about herbal medicine; what each plant was, what it was best used for, how to prepare it and so on. At some point she begged to help out at the store, her mother protested. It was easy to see Misaki had an unusual talent for the craft despite her age, but everyone else was fine with it. She's young, it's nothing, it will be a good chance to build character. She spent every minute there reading and practising the craft, and began to outpace her grandparent's years of knowledge. Her mother never explained why she was so against Misaki’s continued study, but one night she overheard her parents in a heated argument where her mother cried that if it ever happens again she couldn’t watch another family member become some kind of psycopath, an agent of despair or whatever they fucking called themselves. Misaki would have stopped in an instant if it had meant her mum would be happy but everyone else encouraged her to continue. It took a few weeks, but her mother started speaking with her again.

Misaki was a cheerful child, as she grew more confident in her skills as a herbalist she started showing off at school, offering to make tinctures and balms for tummy aches and scrapes. Her peers thought it was cool too but her teachers saw it otherwise. Conformity had always been preferred in Japan but doubly so in the years after The Tragedy. As the students aged and learnt the fate that became Ultimates, their attitude towards Misaki soured. It was hardly noticeable at first, whispers in the hallway, friends brushing off plans. It continued to escalate until it spilled out into aggressive verbal and physical attacks. The teachers stepped in, no longer able to turn a blind eye, and gave Misaki a one-month suspension while things calmed down.

She was cut off from any friends that she might once have had and forced to deal with the psychological onslaught of her experiences at school alone. She both could and couldn’t understand the logic behind it all. It was Ultimates that fucked everything up! But that was so long ago- before any of them were born? She wasn’t even an Ultimate.. yet. Misaki turned to the one thing she knew best, work. It was the only thing that helped give her any structure or purpose to her life. It gave her a reason to get out of bed and to eat. To study more and maybe even become the thing they all hated so much. In her month off school she spent every single day at her grandparent's store or studying in her room back home. Her understanding of herbalism expanded exponentially as she spent hundreds of hours reading everything she could get her hands on.

It was around this time Misaki's mother fell ill. She had Remnant Fever, which is a lethal virus believed to have been created by a Remnant of Despair and has no known cure. She was bed ridden, feverish and in constant pain. The doctors gave up shortly after they made their diagnosis, Misaki did not. She couldn't bear to see her beloved mother in so much pain. She spoke to her father about getting better treatment but he only got angry and said there was nothing else that could be done, especially nothing that they could afford after the first round of failed treatments. She begged her grandparents so help in some way but they insisted that nothing they could make was more potent than what the doctors had prescribed for pain. All unacceptable answers, she couldn't understand why they would stop trying. It was like her mother's pain didn't even phase them. Misaki ignored the call to return to school, working instead day and night on something, anything, that would help her mother. It took some time, she gave her mother pill after pill, day after day. The woman was too exhausted or delirious to object. If she wasn't working, Misaki stayed by her mother's side. They spoke little but passed the time together. Only when her mother slept would Misaki spill her soul of her worries and pain, spurring herself on to continue her work. Eventually the treatments began to work, her mother was more lucid and in less pain. Misaki continued to work on her creations, tweaking them ever so slightly in each batch to make them more effective until her mother was cured. The doctors said it was a miracle at first, until they learnt of Misaki's hard work.

The news of Misaki’s accomplishment travelled quickly through the medical world. That a child had cured the incurable Remnant Fever, doing what the world had failed to do in a decade in only a matter of months. Reporters came to speak with the Fujioka family and Misaki was given a formal request to document her research and medicine so the process can be trialed with other patients.

There was no 'normal' for Misaki's life anymore. When she returned to school the outright bullying had stopped, many students clamoring to befriend someone so famous. But she was always uneasy around her peers, as if the slightest wrong move would make everything explode again. She didn’t really care if they were only being nice because of what she’d done or not, being helpful, needed even, was more important. She smiled her way through every interaction, offering to bring some kind of tea or balm for every little ailment her peers had to try and win them over. For the most part it worked, things never exploded, but she never felt safe either.

Her father never quite recovered from the ordeal, when he finished work he'd drink and pass out. Then back to work, with overtime, to try and recover some of the family's debt. Misaki and her father didn't really see much of each other anymore, the last ‘conversation’ she remembers having was a drunken thank you as he held her and cried one night.

In contrast, Misaki and her mother grew closer than before. Her mother's unease at her child's overwhelming abilities now replaced by pride and gratitude. She got a job at a local grocer, light work that would bring in enough money to help with the bills. The pair met up regularly after school to walk home together, Misaki would sheepishly talk about her day while her mother listened. For a brief time in Summer, these were Misaki's happiest memories. Unburdened by sickness and fear, a few precious moments of the day where she could chat with her mother. But it didn't last.

One sunny afternoon Misaki had arrived a few minutes early to meet her mother, who'd waved from across the road while she finished up. Misaki waited on a nearby bench and soon started to doze in the summer sun. She woke to the sound of a crash and screams from all around her. When her eyes finally adjusted to the light she saw her mother's body crushed between the totalled car and the shop front. Her father hung himself a few days later.

Naturally her grandparents took her in. Most of her belongings, along with her family home, were sold off to debt collectors. Her grandparents were good but detached people, Misaki saw them more as teacher's than family. She had no one, and lived in a cramped windowless room that she never left. The one person she had back in her life who'd shown her affection, gone. The one thing in life that she was good at and it was worthless in the face of chance and causality. Years of anguish had been building up and she had ho means to process it or ease her own pain. She was in the throes of depression and had stopped eating entirely. Her grandparents had been mostly absent until the food they bought started to pile up at her door. They had one card left to play, something they’d been keeping from her because it seemed the kinder option. A dozen or so letters that had been addressed to her grandparents’ practice but were in fact intended for Misaki. She opened each one with caution and care, they were all different but essentially asked for the same thing, Doctors around the country humbling themselves, asking if Misaki would see to their most troubling patients.

It took a while but her grandparents convinced her to follow the work, that she can keep doing what she’s best at and help other people. They gave her some time to recover her strength then began replying to the letters together. The work was somewhat lucrative and, more importantly, challenging. She was flown around Japan to act as a consultant or to create medication for all kinds of patients. The work was time consuming and the travel kept her mind off other things. The people she spoke to while she worked respected her or even needed her. It kept her sane, knowing she was helping people as she did her best to suppress the pain of loss that she didn't know how to resolve.

Jabberwock Island

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Skills

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