Kokonoe Mercury

Kokonoe Mercury is a scientist at the 7th Agency, and the daughter of Jūbei and Konoe Ayatsuki Mercury. Kokonoe appears as a fairly young adult catgirl with a slim build. Her eyes are a golden-amber with visible bags under them, due to working overtime in her lab. She has pink hair which she keeps tied in a specialized style consisting of a long ponytail backing up longer tufts resembling large cat ears, which tend to overshadow her actual animal-like ears, which fade into white at the tip, these ears are bent forward slightly. Her attire consists of an altered, scientist version of the usual Kaka jacket with a white coloration. A hole at the lower base provides room for her twin, cat-like tails. She also wears a pair of small spectacles, and is never without her trademark lollipop. The oversized sleeves are cut at the sides to make it easier for her arms to slide in and out of them. She wears a pair of red capri pants lowered enough to reveal black underwear, with a black belt adorned by a large cat bell. The attire is completed with a pair of white mules with heels similar to the boots the Kaka tribe wears, but with no vamp, allowing her to take them off almost reflexively as her story mode render shows her barefoot in one of her feet. Kokonoe is a rather serious and cynical woman with no regard for emotions, and always strives for Tager to complete his missions without fail; however, she can on rare occasions be quite personable, mostly around her creations. She is displayed and perceived as cranky and foul-mouthed most of the time. She and Taokaka possess a few similar personality traits, something that most note as “more in common than they realize”, due to their impatient nature and short attention span. She has some traits of her father and her mother, even though she tends to be bitter at both of them deep down for them not being a part of her early life. She also displays signs of being aware of the racism displayed to her heritage as a half-beastman; believing that people will show prejudice against her, it’s for this reason that even her potential new students and apprentices aren’t aware of her species, as displayed by Litchi in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma. However, as Celica points out, Kokonoe is a good person at heart. Without Litchi’s knowledge, she became Arakune’s Observer despite the risks entailed to prevent the Boundary from consuming him and is trying to figure out an effective solution for his depraved state. Also, she repeatedly shows that she will only resort to mass destruction in a worst-case scenario, preferring to minimize the casualties caused by her war against Terumi or not have any at all. She was also willing to use an alternative method to activating the Lynchpin where Celica wasn’t sacrificed despite her being merely a clone and even took the initiative to create the Ex Machina: Minerva so she could defend herself. Tager has described Kokonoe as being selfish, foul-mouthed, having an addiction to Silvervine candy and having the belief that the entire world focuses on her and her alone. Overall, Tager gives a very negative outlook on her when first describing Kokonoe to Noel Vermillion; however, at the end of his “frank opinions” on his superior, he states that she is actually a very kind and good person, something that Makoto Nanaya immediately calls out on, calling it contradictory to his previous sentiments. Her anti-social behavior and lack of outdoor activity implies that Kokonoe is a hikikomori. Lotte Carmine also introduces his opinions about Kokonoe to Litchi Faye Ling when they first met. Despite his numerous complaints about her lack of ability to congratulate people, he points out how she possesses the trait of not paying much attention to detail; but compliments her abilities as a scientist. Tager’s and Lambda’s superior at the 7th Agency, and also formerly Litchi’s and Lotte’s. She is a half-breed and the daughter of Jūbei and Konoe Ayatsuki Mercury, two of the Six Heroes, though she shows disdain for this fact, supposedly “staying angry for weeks” when Jūbei is mentioned. The reason behind this is that Jūbei left her in the care of the World Void Information Control Organization for a great deal of her childhood, apparently not staying around to act as a father figure to her. She has a deep hatred for Terumi, because he killed her mother, Konoe, and her aunt, Celica. She also has a strong dislike of Hakumen, but cooperates with him because she needs the Susanoo Unit to defeat Terumi and cannot figure out how to separate him from it. During the events of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, it is revealed that Kokonoe has created and stockpiled hundreds of nuclear warheads in her lab. Hakumen mentions that it was weapons like those that decimated the world a hundred years prior. In the end, after Ragna the Bloodedge successfully turned Noel Vermillion back into her normal state, his left arm was destroyed. Kokonoe was able to make Ragna a new mechanical arm, stating that a man who has not been in the habit of asking for favors asked her a favor. This man was Jūbei, and she agreed to do that favor, while also mentioning that they had not seen each other in 20 years. In the past, she worked alongside Relius Clover under a group known as the “Sin Architects”. The story behind this was further explained in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift II’s second Extra Story – that which is inherited. Kokonoe was offered a job by Relius to work on the Event Weapon; however, she refused. Relius then showed Kokonoe the then-newly created Ignis and Nirvana, after which they left to open the Kiln. After Relius opened the Kiln, the Black Beast was released, and Relius proceeded to tell Kokonoe that the only way to stop it is for her to use magic inherited from Nine. Relius explained that the very core of Event Weapons are created through part of the Black Beast, and Kokonoe’s mother Konoe was the one who created the Arch-Enemy Event Weapons. She is skeptical of using magic, but after hearing Tager’s scream, she no longer hesitated and unleashed Konoe’s power – Infinite Gravity. She became exhausted afterwards and Relius decided to show his true colors; at this, Kokonoe became enraged and Nirvana (under her control) strikes Relius down, supposedly killing him. Kajun Faycott was sent by Kokonoe to the Military Academy as an undercover spy in order to find and retrieve the Burning Red. The reason behind this was to find a power source for Tager that would be more permanent. Monitoring the Academy allowed Kokonoe to see that the ninth level was reacting strangely, which lead her to sending Kajun down to investigate. It wouldn’t be long until Kokonoe was asked to examine the remains of an alchemy based life-form by Kajun; Kokonoe quickly realized that the core of the creature belonged to the 7th Agency, which lead her to deduce that the creature itself must of been made by Cypher Albar, a former defected colleague. She noted that it would be difficult to smoke him out of the area, and that he had most likely changed his appearance since his time in the organization. Kajun would eventually deliver the news that she was unable to retrieve the Burning Red. Kokonoe revealed her motives for wanting it, and that her mother researched it thoroughly, finally adding that the one created by Cypher was likely a failure. Realizing her plan of being able to bring Hakumen out of the Boundary and back into the real world, Kokonoe begins to explain the details of the hero’s existence, stating that it is 'wonky' due to him being pulled straight out of the narrow space. The two converse, with Kokonoe revealing that she’s his Observer, with her Observing being mechanically amplified due to Hakumen being almost too much to handle, however, Hakumen’s temporal existence faded out of the headquarters and into another location; in response, Kokonoe immediately called up Tager to return to her so that she may send him out onto another mission – this time to detain the leader of the Six Heroes. Kokonoe helped Tager navigate through the 13th Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi until Noel Vermillion came to arrest Tager for trespassing on a city that was on Level D Alert Warning. Noel ordered for the communications channel to shut, however, because of the modifications made on Tager, the scientist still witnessed everything that happened. When the fight ended in Tager’s favor, Kokonoe gave him a lecture on the Event Weapon that Noel wielded during the brawl – this quickly changed into berating her subordinate for going soft on the lieutenant because of her gender. Much later on, Kokonoe attempted to mechanically teleport Hakumen back to the 7th Agency headquarters, but she failed to as Hakumen nullified the intervention. She immediately commanded Ragna to run out of the area, while failing to get a hold of Tager as he was already too busy to intervene. In BlazBlue: Chronophantasma, she and Tager are allied with Kagura Mutsuki in helping to overthrow the Control Organization, which is that she had a chance to eliminate Terumi/Hazama as well. After her father fought Phantom, she is informed that Phantom is actually her own mother, revealed to be alive, but brainwashed by a spell. Despite being as capable on the battlefield as much as any character, Kokonoe doesn’t participate in combat a great deal. Her forte comes in the form of her grand knowledge of magic and science and being the daughter of Konoe supplements this. While she has not shown any of her own creations, her prowess as a scientist is frightening, her alterations to organic and non-organic matter being second to none, even causing the normally ruthless and intimidating Hakumen to shudder at the promise of an 'upgrade' from her. Her prominent works thus far have been the revival of Tager through cybernetics and the activation of Lambda by bonding Nu’s soul to the empty homunculus. Due to comments dropped by both Hakumen and Hazama, and also being the daughter of both Jūbei and Nine, Kokonoe could be one of the most powerful individuals in the BlazBlue universe, though she refuses to admit it as it greatly angers her. Owing to her cat-like heritage, Kokonoe is known to possess cat-like reflexes, landing on all fours after falling from relatively great heights with no damage whatsoever. When forced to take a direct hand in the battlefield, Kokonoe proves to be a very capable fighter. In battle, Kokonoe brings forth her many creations and tools such as using robots, a wrench, a specialized “drill hammer”, a freeze ray, rocket fists, and a gigantic Mecha-Tager. It should also be noted that she is not above using magic in battle, using it to summon a giant meteor in her Astral Heat. she is physically in her 20 but she is older then 85-90.