Naka

Naka
Other Names	Naneru Karada (formerly)
Birthday	October 9th
Age	Ancient
Alignment	Chaotic Good
Height	5'5" (165 cm)
Race	Half-Elf
Element	Light, Lightning, Fire

Naka, Goddess of Destruction (and later also capital G God of Rutania), is perhaps one of the most central and developed characters I've ever written. To say she is near and dear to me is kind of selling it short. Naturally, as the writer's favorite character, she's also suffered greatly, but let's save getting into that for later.

In broad strokes, Naka is a now-divine half-elf serving as her world's Goddess of Destruction; she is generally a snarky, if otherwise friendly individual, and generally tries to project an air of confidence and drama, hence her outfits tending towards the elaborate. Part of this is an attempt to hide the fact that she's Kind Of A Mess emotionally, having a history of chronic depression, and part of it is just because she really likes being dramatic. Especially in combat. She, uh. She has some excessively flashy attacks.

As a divine being in her world, Naka has historically been associated with a few other things besides destruction- as far as Rutania's pantheon goes, she is widely thought to be a force of good, and is also commonly associated with the element of light, in no small part because of her history with fellow god and basically-archnemesis Noctus. Her partiality towards massive lasers also helps in that department.

One particularly noteworthy aspect of Naka is her unwavering morals- she's a person who staunchly refuses to hurt innocent people, and will not hesitate to kick the ass of anyone who would. She'd sooner blow herself up than allows innocents to come to harm, to the detriment of her own health, of course. This is, of course, not completely a virtue- Naka has an extreme tendency to put her own safety... well, I'd say at the bottom of her list of priorities, but that's kind of implying that it's on the list at all. Her casual disregard for her own well-being tends to be something of a frustration for those around her, though it is thankfully something that she's getting better with.

Quick References

Just here looking for references and not really interested in doing a bunch of reading? Here you go!

This is Naka's main reference sheet, courtesy of Anini; broadly it can be considered the most completely accurate reference for her, and it's completely acceptable to work off it and only it. The only asterisk to be attached to it is two notes regarding the eyes, one of which is a matter of personal preference with respect to coloration, and the other is a technicality:

1. Her right eye's a little pink here; I typically prefer going with a full red. (This is, however, an extremely minor distinction, even to a color snob like me.)
2. Red/Blue eye coloration is specifically associated with Nakas in the relative future of her timeline; there's nothing wrong with it in this case, but it is worth noting that red for both eyes is also a valid choice.

If you're looking for other images to work off of, I also have an assortment of other images pretty much entirely created in varying character creators that can be useful references for particular things:

• 

  V-Katsu front view

• 

  V-Katsu side view

• 

  V-Katsu back view

• 

  Older character creator output; mostly an alternate outfit idea

The V-Katsu renders are currently technically the most accurate references I have with regards to Naka's proportions, though they're quite outdated at this point. I'll most likely be replacing them with ones from Koikatsu at a later date.

Personal Traits

As mentioned at the top of the page, Naka, at least outwardly, is a smartass with a heart of gold; she tends to be sarcastic and snarky, and is quite informal most of the time, but despite her sass is usually fairly friendly. She's very much a social, talkative person, often erring on the side of loud, and quick on her feet, both literally and figuratively. Naka also has quite the flair for the dramatic, given an extreme tendency for elaborate outfits and excessively flashy attacks.

There's quite a bit more to Naka than she readily lets on, though; though she is quite the social individual, she's also paradoxically someone who generally keeps to herself, for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being a history of depression and self-esteem issues. This has ultimately resulted in Naka severely lacking in self-confidence, though she tries her best to keep that much under wraps. It's also resulted in her largely being either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge some of her more hidden talents; she thinks of herself as little more than a being of destruction, given her title, but she's actually much smarter than she lets on, particularly with respect to deductive reasoning and lateral thinking. She's a veritable master of improvisation, and given enough time and patience, she's also capable of some remarkable feats, most notably the creation of The Codex.

Warning!

This section gets a bit dark, and in particular gets into subjects of/adjacent to self-harm and suicide. If you're sensitive about these, I strongly suggest skipping this next paragraph.

Part of her self-esteem issues do also contribute to another thing: Naka's complete disregard for her own safety and well-being. She has an extreme tendency of pushing herself harder than she should, to the point where she's very acquainted with the concept of mana overload, and has wound up with numerous scars over the years from it, though many have since faded with time. Put simply, she does not care if she herself gets hurt, and consequently is self-sacrificial to a fault. This has almost gotten her killed multiple times, both pre- and post-ascension. A small part of her laments the fact that it's only 'almost'.

All clear!

If you heeded the previous warning, you can safely continue reading from this point forward.

Likes/Interests

Though Naka's title of Goddess of Destruction is certainly well-earned given her penchant for excessive drama in her attacks, and basically being able to annihilate most things that get in her way (even if at risk to herself sometimes), there's certainly a lot more to her than just that. The attentive among you may have spotted a pair of headphones among Naka's accessories with her second outfit depicted above- this is because she's actually quite the audiophile!

More specifically, Naka is a longtime fan of electronic music of many different genres, and additionally quite the singer- though she's rather embarrassed about the latter. She definitely doesn't moonlight as an electronica singer on occasion. Her music interests also cross over a bit into the realm of metal, with her having a particular appreciation for electric guitar.

Naka also, notably, is quite fond of sushi, as well as more broadly seafood in general; when travelling, she has a tendency of seeking them both out, partially as just her general preference, and partially to sample what the region's seafood fare is like.

Travelling is also something Naka has done a lot, having been in practically every area of Rutania at some point over the million years since she was first brought to it. She likes exploring the world, seeing what changes, and in particular, this is the reason behind her creation of The Codex, as she wanted something that could catalogue Rutania's history and geography efficiently. She insists it was for other reasons, though.

Dislikes

For starters, Naka hates Noctus.

...Okay, with that obligatory joke out of the way, Naka and Noctus are very much rival gods, with them having clashed regularly quite literally since they first met. Though her exact degree of dislike for the god of shadows varies depending on when you ask her, it very much trends negative, even if nowadays their disagreements have mellowed out more into petty squabbles rather than the violent, destructive grudge matches the two are known for.

On a different note of things Naka hates, as someone who's mixed race (being, well, half-human and half-elf), it kind of goes without saying that she hates racists. This has very much earned some older elves Naka's wrath in the past, and though she refuses to take any credit for it, Naka was pointedly one of many contributors to the Human Liberation happening, having nudged Askra into acting at the time.

Naka also generally dislikes the cold. The fact that she lives in a polar region, and that she has a frost nymph as an adoptive daughter, is very much a bit of irony that is not lost on her.

History/Backstory

Naka has quite the history behind her, as just within the context of Rutania she's been around for something on the order of a million years; however, the most relevant of her history is more recent.

Pre-Rutania

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Naneru Karada. She was born to a human woman with a spear and supernatural senses, and an elven man from another world, who had once helped locate an omnipotent blade. Though these two were unable to have a child normally, due to genetic incompatibilities, they didn't let that stop them, using magic to conceive their half-elven daughter. However, given the unnatural way it happened, it came with unusual effects.

Naneru was born with a couple odd mutations- one, partial albinism, resulting in her crimson eyes, stark white hair, and pale skin. The other, was one much more unique... her mana pool was malformed, and had somehow wound up with no upper limit whatsoever. It just kept filling, and filling, and filling. While a fascinating development at first... it posed a problem. Within months of being born, Naneru already had as much mana as a typical adult would... and both parents knew that it would only grow from there. And that could be exploited. A living mana battery with no capacity limits would certainly be quite useful to some. Not to mention the extent to which she could wind up hurting herself if she used magic too carelessly.

The conclusion the two parents wound up coming to, in a misguided attempt to try to protect their daughter, was that they needed to discourage her using magic as much as possible, at least until she was old enough to protect herself, and hopefully not kill herself. So, as Naneru grew, and began discovering what she was capable of, her parents did their best to act disinterested, despite it hurting. Right up until the young Naneru turned 10, they ignored her attempts to impress them with increasingly-fantastical displays of magic, not realizing that in the process of attempting to protect her, they were destroying their daughter's self-esteem, leaving her increasingly depressed.

And then the armies of a certain shadow being, who would later become a god of shadows, came knocking.

An army of shadowy beings came bearing down upon their town, a tide of death and destruction approaching faster than they could hope to escape. Naneru's parents knew, adept as they were, they couldn't possibly fight off what was coming, so they turned to the girl they knew had the power to do so... only to realize, with how they'd acted, the ten-year-old Naneru was in no state to save them. No confidence to be found. And even if she had been... she had no training. She'd be just as likely to kill herself as she'd be to save them.

Realizing the magnitude of their error, the two parents thought for but a moment... before apologizing to their daughter, and telling her to run. As far and as fast as she can. We'll catch up, we promise.

As the young Naneru fled, those two waded into the incoming tide of shadow creatures... and they never came back. Giving their lives to make sure the daughter they failed survived.

Naneru, for her part, didn't stay away for long. The second the threat passed, she ran back as fast as she could, hoping to find her parents.

All she found was ruins and corpses.

Naturally, Naneru blamed herself. She had the power. She could've saved them. She should've saved them. Why didn't she save them?

Fending for Herself

The following couple years were... difficult, for Naneru. Refusing to accept help, she sought to try and make up for her self-perceived failings, and to protect people where she'd failed to protect her parents. So, with no training whatsoever, she went charging out into the world to fight monsters with magic she had no idea how to safely use.

It didn't go well.

With no concept of her limits, and more mana than an entire country's worth of people put together by this point, the result was Naneru immediately almost killing herself with magic. She recovered... and then proceeded to do it again almost immediately afterward. Repeatedly. With a total lack of regard for her own well-being, she pushed herself, hurt herself, in hopes of figuring out how to use all of this power she has to fight.

Her stubbornness did eventually win out; by the time she turned 11, Naneru had figured out how to fire bolts of mana from her being. An inefficient use of the mana, but when you have an ever-growing supply of it that's gradually approaching practically-infinite, you stop caring about efficiency as much. From there, she started figuring out more nuanced ways to use that mana... and eventually, in a particularly bad depressive episode, a way she could put all of it to use at once. She realized she could channel and release all of her mana at once, producing an immensely powerful blast. Needless to say, this would almost certainly kill her instantly. Given the amount of mana she had at this point, it'd also be guaranteed to cause substantial collateral damage, so she opted not to try the idea out.

Shortly afterward, Naneru wound up encountering an odd mage by the name of Aurelia Haronze- a formerly-human woman now occupying a golem body. Aurelia immediately took Naneru in, despite initial protests, seeking to teach her proper magic, in no small part for the girl's own safety. With time, she managed to teach Naneru magic ranging from energy redirection to self-enhancement, allowing her to truly grow into her own as a powerful mixed-range magic specialist.

The Return of Noctus

A few years later, not too long after Naneru turned 15, a certain being of shadow returned, intending to finish what he had started five years prior. He had no idea Naneru even existed, but she certainly knew he did. And boy, did she have a score to settle.

Noctus arrived, bringing with him a set of five supermassive beings of shadows he dubbed his Abysswalkers- towering colossi each specializing in different things, each built to destroy entire armies. They walked over pretty much everything in their path.

But they weren't exactly intended to deal with a powerful golemancer and her apprentice with a grudge. Two small targets, and very powerful ones at that. Aurelia and Naneru responded to this crisis, and took down all five Abysswalkers together. Seeking to drive the shadow from their world once and for all, the two cut through the armies that followed, eventually reaching his base of operations- a large fortress of shadows built into a mountain pass.

Aurelia and Naneru went in, splitting up to attempt to locate Noctus, hiding somewhere within. Aurelia didn't end up finding anything, instead winding up lost in corridors hidden deep underground. Naneru, on the other hand, got to find him... in a heavily-reinforced dome, that proceeded to lock them both in after she entered. The two had been lured into a trap, the perfect shadow having opted to eliminate the unexpected problems himself. And for his part, it probably would've worked. Naneru put up one hell of a fight, but even she recognized that she couldn't possibly win. Backup wasn't going to come, given the dome was clearly built to withstand pretty much anything short of a nuclear explosion, and fast as she was, she couldn't avoid getting hit forever.

So she decided, if she was going to go out, she was going to take this shadowy asshole with her. And so, that hypothetical idea from so long ago- channeling and releasing all of her mana at once- came back. Given the isolated nature of their location, not to mention the extremely sturdy dome they were in, she figured the blast wouldn't hurt anyone. At worst, it might destroy Aurelia's current body, but she knew the mage had extras. Always.

And so, with some taunting and some time to charge slightly less than 15 years worth of mana... Naneru blew herself and Noctus to kingdom come in spectacular fashion, releasing a colossal blast of mana that, had it not been contained the way it was, very well could've cracked the planet. And so that spelled the end for both of them...

...or did it?

Apotheosis

Not too long after, Naneru found herself waking up in an odd, almost eldritch place- a realm in between realms that would later come to be known as Artaneous. There, she met an unusual being, who called themself 'the Precursor', a god created from three beings who had taken up the Blade of Genesis. They had witnessed her heroic sacrifice, and decided to revive her, to serve as a goddess for a world they had just created. Naneru, though initially quite surprised, opted to accept, thinking it'd be a nice change of pace... not to mention a small part of her being somewhat glad blowing herself up wasn't her end.

And so, she became Naka, Rutania's goddess of destruction. And then shortly thereafter found out that Noctus had also been picked up, and so began a vitriolic rivalry between gods that would last a million years.

The Edanan War, and the Abysse Invasion

For more general details about these events, please see Edanan War and Abysse Invasion.

In the year 1261 of Rutania's local calendar, Edana, a large, technologically-advanced country in Rutania's northwest, declared war on the rest of the world, launching an assault first on the capital of Vulcania, and then later attacking any nation that dared to use magic. Two months later, Noctus, the God of Shadows, launched his own invasion of Rutania, bringing his Abysse Army to bear in hopes of systematically demolishing everything in Rutania, motivated almost entirely by spite for Naka.

At this time, the goddess in question was in a bit of a difficult situation- approximately a decade prior, after a particularly vicious clash with Noctus, some carefully-orchestrated gaslighting on his part resulted in her being expelled from Artaneous, thus losing her divinity and being forced to wander the surface. Not too long later, Noctus captured her, and proceeded to imprison her in a fortress located deep in the wastelands of Torus, intending to keep her there until his plan, to destroy Rutania, was successful.

This didn't end up quite lasting, as a task force assembled by a noble of Auronia to combat Edana, and later the Abysse Army, caught wind of Naka's imprisonment, and, knowing of her history with the god of shadows, quickly sought to find and free her. At the time this task force, formally known now as The Legends, was made up of six people- Samui Ryuusei, Kage Tamashii, Henix Aurorus, Corona Brightheart, and Ein and Zwei Blitzschnell. They stormed the citadel Naka was imprisoned in, and proceeded to retrieve her, as well as a device of her creation dubbed The Codex.

Shortly after being freed, Naka identified the group, and immediately came to the conclusion that Samui was the leader, despite, at the time at least, it actually being Henix, and refusing to hear otherwise. Then, ten minutes later, she proceeded to curbstomp a trio of robots sent in by Edana, of which a single one had given the Legends trouble before.

Naka would then go on to accompany the party for the following seven months as they traveled Rutania fighting off Edana and the Abysse Army, acting as their designated glass cannon, as well as their metaphorical sandpaper. She had opted to hide her worse-than-usual emotional state after being defeated by Noctus under a veneer of abrasiveness and bitterness, intending to push the rest of the party, and Samui in particular, to better themselves, even if it meant making them hate her. She also, of course, went out of her way to keep the empath of the group, Corona, from picking up on her actual feelings.

Naka would later be instrumental in both the recruitment of a living Edanan superweapon, and helping Samui come to terms with her half-Titan nature, and by extension her anger. She was also the one to give Shimo Kawa, a frost nymph who manifested from ancient ambient mana left over from a fight Naka had gotten into near the north pole, her name, and would later go on to formally take the nymph in as her daughter. And, of course, over the many trials and tribulations the group would go through, she provided a significant portion of the group's firepower.

A couple noteworthy things happened towards the end of the war- the group encountered the pinnacle of Edana's cyberweapon engineering, dubbed the Type Omega, and handily lost against it, with Naka having to teleport the entire group, now at 12 people including herself, to safety, almost killing herself in the process. Though she played it and the subsequent shorter-than-it-should've-been hospital stay off as no big deal, the group's general concern about her well-being and at this point rather obvious disregard for her own safety prompted them to take things to Edana directly one last time, assaulting the nation's seat of power. They dismantled Edana's leadership, so-called 'Olympus', with Samui killing its leader, Korcynthus Andra, in the process, and ultimately ending the Edanan War.

From that point, there was still the matter of Noctus, who'd shown no sign of letting up in his assault. After some discussion, the Legends ultimately came to the conclusion that they were simply too exhausted after all the fighting to be able to take him down too. Not without help. Begrudgingly, Naka floated the idea of enlisting the help of Prisma, who could restore her to full power; determining that this was the best option they had, the group made for the Runic Archipelago, seeking out the clergy of the temple of Prisma located under the Omniwood.

The results of this expedition were... less than promising. The group found out that the head priest there, who typically had some relatively consistent contact with the Goddess of Power, hadn't heard from her at all for just under a decade. Naka, for her part, tends to be quite good at deduction... and very rapidly comes to the conclusion based on that timeframe, that Prisma was most likely captured by Noctus, likely using Naka as leverage. This revelation, along with the realization that Noctus would most likely have gone to much greater lengths to keep Prisma from being located, given her value, caused Naka to crumble. She broke down completely, having lost all hope of being able to stop Noctus in time, and fell into a deep depression.

The rest of the party, for their part, refused to give up, even if it seemed like there was no hope, and even if seemingly the most unflappable member of the party had completely fallen apart. They hunted down potential locations as fast as they feasibly could, and due to a minor oversight in Noctus' measures, managed to locate and free Prisma, rushing back to the group's base in Auronia just in time to find the Type Omega, likely sent by Edanan remnants, on their doorstep, being fought alone by a half-hearted Naka. The rest of the group quickly grabbed the massive bot's attention, and proceeded to distract it while Prisma made her way to Naka, making up with her and giving her full power back.

At this point, the now-restored Naka intervened in the ongoing fight with the massive Edanan robot, and proceeded to absolutely stomp it into the ground. While blasting music, at that. The Type Omega attempted to fight back with the use of a dark crystal that transformed it into a robot-shadow hybrid, but the response from Naka was simply to transform herself in Omega Form and promptly curbstomp it again.

With the scrap made, Naka could've gone on the fight Noctus herself, but after a moment of thought... she decided against that idea. Instead, she returned to the Legends, and transferred a huge amount of mana to Samui, with the intention of having her fight him instead. Though there was some resistance to the idea at first, the half-titan complied, and using that mana, took on the form of her ancestor, the titan of fire, Ignis, thus becoming an utterly massive being of fire. And then she proceeded to get into a fist fight with an equally-massive and very much unprepared Noctus in the middle of the ocean, and beat the absolute shit out of him. With Naka of course providing backing music.

Relationships

Bear in mind that, for the sake of avoiding confusion, this section will only be discussing relationships that are canonical in all timelines. If we get into timeline-specific things this'll get way more confusing.

The Legends

Having spent an extensive amount of time fighting alongside them, Naka has formed quite a strong bond with them, having taken to thinking of them as family to varying degrees.

Shimo Kawa

Despite her initial reservations about the subject, Naka has since taken in Shimo as her daughter, given the fact that she's as close to her biological daughter as a nymph can typically be.

Samui Ryuusei & Kage Tamashii

Naka has become quite close to these two in particular, having nudged them along in their relationship earlier on, and at this point has effectively wound up as an unofficial third member in their romantic relationship. As the two are both incapable of having children (Samui for biological reasons related to her Titan ancestry, and Kage due to injuries from early in life that left her with permanently-nonfunctional reproductive organs), Naka has used magic to act as a surrogate mother for them, thus bearing Ignia Tamashii.

Ignia probably won't be the last.