Kao

Kao カオ Kao, 𤞺 Cáo

placeholder image of a shiny zorua
Technical Information
Gender	Nonbinary (She/They)
Birthday	Februrary 2nd
Height	5'00"
Species	Shiny Zorua/Zoroark
Type
Eye Color	Dark Brown (Normal), Gold Irises and Black Sclera (Using Powers)
Hair Color	Black (both hair and fur)
Biography
Hometown/Region	Unknown
Trainer Class	Dream Master Aura Successor
Traveled Regions	SPOILERS Paldea, Hoenn, Kalos, Alola

"It's a paradox... The freedom to "be yourself" can come at the expense of burdening others, that is, if you choose to selfishly impose in their lives."

Kao (Japanese: カオ Kao, Vietnamese: 𤞺 Cáo) is the protagonist in Crosslocke. She is a Zorua Therian with the powers of Aura traveling to understand the phenomena, not just with her powers, but how it's embodied in everyone and everything around the world.

In the beginning of the storyline, her Trainer class of "Dream Master" is actually an offhand title made up in a moment of panic and what she's involuntarily referred to in shame as a running gag. However, as her character and powers develop over time, she accepts the title of "Aura Successor" to embrace her powers of the obscure practice.

Appearance

Kao is a short person with black hair pulled in a loose ponytail, black and gold fox ears and tail(s), and signature fox mask on her face. She adamantly refuses to take off the mask both out of shyness and humility, though in moments of intense emotions, exposed golden eyes can be seen in the shadows of the mask.

The clothes she appears in are often modernized Việt phục, ranging from clothes like nhật bình or áo tấc, and have colors of dark black hues with gold, purple, and blue trim based on shiny Zorua and Zoroark. Kao also wears bells all over, such as at the ends of her sleeves, her hair tie (noticeably a large bell in place of a golden Zoroark "bead"), and xà tích.

Personality

Kao is a reserved individual, defined by her shy and cautious demeanor preferring to survey a situation instead of diving in head-first. With both her aura powers and self as a person, she greatly worries about hurting or burdening others, and thus keeps a fair distance until convinced otherwise. With the low opinion of herself, however, it's also Kao's motivation to improve and "fix" herself even more, especially for the sake of others.

A core aspect to Kao's personality is intense compassion and empathy for others, yet also denying herself the same care to the point of self-sacrificing. Being familiar of negative and passive aggressive/backhanded treatment though, Kao gravitates to animals and people who (seem to) be indifferent or tolerant of her, feeling more at ease without the stress of scrutinization. Positive treatment is just as worrisome as well, superfluous gratitude moreso stressing her out feeling manipulative to garner such reactions, being undeserving of the attention, or simply worried someone's pressured into being unfairly indebted to her. While these flaws manifest in small ways like social awkwardness at first, they have escalated to the point of self-sacrificial situations and being confronted over her will to fight for others, but refusing to fight for herself.

However, when taking down her walls, Kao grows more self-assurance in herself and her powers. Becoming amiable and more open with her opinions, she becomes less reserved such as light-heartedly joking, remarking her thoughts even in dry humor, and all overall becoming more casual than her high-strung stress before. Combined with her aura powers, feeling emotions strongly have her powers emanate out and influence those surrounding her, especially as an enhancement to other's aura. In rare situations though, Kao can be completely detached from her emotions and moral compunction, such as cracking open someone's "shell" to rip aura out of their mortal body. She greatly regrets and fears what can and has happened if she loses control of her emotions (both from being overwhelmed or detached), knowing either way can lead to unrestrained destruction.

Powers and Special Abilities

Kao has the standard abilities and movesets the Zoroark line (both Unovan and Hisuian) are capable of. The four moves she uses often are Night Daze, Extrasensory, Shadow Ball, and Rest, along with Bitter Malice if pushed to do so. Strangely enough though, she has issues with casting an Illusion, having to put more effort than normal into trying to take the appearance of other people or objects. Initially seen as a flaw like as her aura powers, it's later clarified such struggles are from her personal conflicts, especially "standard" powers (which are converted manifestations of Aura) between directly controlling Aura itself, along with how she shouldn't reject one or the other to develop overall as a person.

Besides her standard Zoroark line powers, she has a powerful affinity with Aura, the core life energy of all living and non-living things, which open up her capabilities to convert and manifest Aura into any usage possible beyond normal limitations.

Aura-Specific Abilities

Ability to read the minds and actions of another being, along with telepathy.
- This ability has particular limitations, as Kao is only able to read minds and actions with great exertion and/or the person "connecting" with her, such as reminiscing a memory to Kao and allow looking into their mind.
Ability to "sense" the Aura and emotions of others and view surroundings and through some objects, even with a blindfold.
- Sensing Aura is akin to the five senses receiving and processing stimuli. With how Aura is the manifestation of someone's very being, there's no specific "feeling" for specific emotions (aside from the fact everyone has unique "textures"), and more accurately described as feeling the intensity and exertion of aura! When sensing someone's aura intensify, it's akin to someone tensing their muscles; it's an exertion of energy, but can be any intense emotion being exerted like trembling in joy, shaking in rage, or quivering in fear.
Projection of one's Aura such as to create barriers or attacks. While most therians can only convert their aura into specific powers their physical body can directly conduct, Kao does not have this physical restriction due to her metaphysical Aura specialties, thus allowing her the potential to learn and use any powers.
- Mastery over Aura can also be used to transfer one's Aura to others, a method that can be fatal to the user.
- Kao can also directly manipulate the Aura of others, capabilities such as sealing away or opening up someone's usage of their Aura, "trapping" someone's Aura in place to prevent further action, or puppeteering Aura to move against their will. Due to the risks of distorting someone's very being through direct manipulation of their Aura, there's extreme caution and limited use to this extent.
To see and speak to the spirits of the dead, and allow them the ability to touch the physical world.

Trivia

Kao's design is heavily based on and symbolic of Vietnamese animism, superstition, and mythology.

Most notably, she is based on Hồ ly tinh (狐狸精), a Vietnamese fox spirit/demon. Depictions vary with no specific personality, ranging from ascending to a Celestial Nine-Tailed Fox, a belevolent spirit helping people, or a malevolent demon enacting great harm.
Miralyk has also expressed Buddhist philosophy is incorporated in Kao's (and Crosslocke as a whole's) themes, especially to subvert the cliche usage of Christian and Catholic religious imagery (instead,, deconstructing the archetypes those religions embody and are used to perpetuate).

Kao's emoji (which are used to refer to characters in shorthand for Japanese fandoms) would be a crescent moon (🌙), based on her nighttime and dreaming motifs, or a white/yellow blossom (🌼), based on her flower motif being daisies and mai vàng.
- These emojis are also one of many meta jokes lampshading Kao being a "self-insert" due to being a Trainersona of the artist, such as how in Japanese fandoms, reader-insert fanworks are called yume (夢, "dreams") and the emoji symbolizing a reader-insert in One Piece yume is a pink cherry blossom (🌸).
- The joke is furthered heightened given Kao's name and first Trainer class too; aside from being a pun on the Vietnamese word for fox (cáo), her name in Japanese is "face", a word used in yume art notifications that say the self-insert's given a specific design instead of a blank face. "Dream Master" (夢主) is also what the yume self-insert is called.
Kao shares several similarities with Riley and N:
- They're in possession of obscure powers that define their character.
- They have vague and open-ended origins, especially relevant to their desire to better understand and use their powers.
- They're reserved people that prefer to travel alone, even to the point of having/preferring company with Pokémon more instead of other people.
- Their signature Pokémon are canines, especially with designs and powers rooted in cultural mythology.
- They have unruly hair that's somewhat kept together with an accessory they never take off.
Kao's only awareness of Aura Guardians in Crosslocke is tangential, such as through ancient readings, and is under the impression they're a dead culture lost to time and incapable of contacting. She thus informally cultivates and trains herself by incorporating practices of modern combat alongside other cultures (eg the Draconids with Zinnia and the Tower of Mastery with Gurkinn and Korrina). This is also why her unique Trainer class title is "Aura Successor", acknowledging her Aura powers, but unique circumstances of being a Successor of Mega Evolution and the Draconid people honing her powers through them instead of Aura Guardian teachings like Riley.
- When asked about the hypothetical of Kao meeting Riley, an Aura Guardian in training, Miralyk has revealed that was an alternate concept for a non-gijinka nuzlocke story setting. In its respective canon, Riley and Kao are acquantainces that traveled and trained together to become Aura Guardians, and would eventually form a strong romantic or platonic relationship. Their ship name is BrilliantAurashipping, based on the Brilliant Aura mechanic.
  - With this in mind, it seems that Miralyk's answer for the Crosslocke Riley hypothetical is out of fickleness to integrate him in a story that requires his absence in the first place, ~~aside from her general concerns wanting to avoid "harem tropes" due ti the abundance of other characters with strong chemistry/character dynamics in Crosslocke.~~

References

General Info

Home & Rules • Trainer Kao • World

Crosslocke Runs