Kikuta Momiji

-Food: Rice-ball
-Animal: Cat and Rabbit
-Colour: Maple-leaf red and white
-Past-time: Cooking, Helping Megumi with her patients
-Thing: Relaxing and watching the maple leaves fall, playing the koto
-Sayings:

"Fallen blossoms don't return to the branch, a broken mirror can't be made to shine; what's done is done; there's no use crying over spilled milk", "The more you resist, the more they persist"

Momiji has experienced the pain of war and the suffering beyond death. During the war, Momiji, at a young age, saw more than half of the villagers die under the blades, including her parents. Because of this experience, she hesitates to fight, unless necessary. This uncertainty causes her to hold back sometimes and may prove fatal if she wavers too much. Also, sometimes she can't hold back her emotions and some of her attacks depends on her calmness.

-Food: Onions (allergic)
-Animal: Rat
-Colour: bright yellow
-Past-time: Listening to Sanosuke sing
-Thing: People without any morals

To protect the people she loves, To find a person who will care and love her, To fight for what she believes in

-Name: A pair of kodachi name "Kakeru" and "Kaede".
-Type: The pair of kodachi, made by Master Sakurazawa, are a little more blunted than normal ones. This is because of Momiji?s wish of not killing anyone.
-Attacks:

Momiji No Dansu (Dance of the Maple-leaf)-
She will move quickly around the enemy until she's nothing but a whirl of colors. Her movements are very quiet and she hides her emotion when performing this technique so that the enemy cannot detect which direction she will attack from. She will attack from all direction so it is hard to defend against without a very sensitive self-defense technique.

Sakura No Dansu (Dance of the Sakura)-
She will move quickly around the enemy and attack with both kodachi alternatively.

Sakura No Tatsu (Dragon of the Sakura)-
She will hide her emotions and moves swiftly around the enemy. Then with a sudden jump, she will jump over to the enemy and attack with both kodachi, leaving a big X-marks on the chest of the enemy. The action is so quick that the enemy has no time to react or defend.

Kaze no Ryuu(Dragon of Wind)-
This attack is used to disarm opponents. She whips past the opponent, attacking the arm and leg on one side, them comes around and finishes with the other side. If her kodachis were sharper, they would have made deep cuts.

-Age: 16
-Height: 162cm
-Weight: 48kg
-Hair Colour: Brown
-Eye Colour: Blue
Description:
She has shoulder-length brown hair. Her skin is white. She has a rose-shaped hairclip, which was given to her by a boy when Momiji was 10, but she does not remember him. She wears a ninja outfit, similar to Misao's, with dark purple and sakura-pink.

She does not trust strangers completely until they have proven themselves. She is a good listener when needed. She does not like to show her feeling to others, but she is lonely deep inside.

She is the only daughter of the Kikuta family. Kikuta is a rich clan in Tokyo, but Momiji is not recognized by it. Momiji 's father is the son and official heir of the Kikuta's, but he fell in love with a poor girl, so Momiji?s father was disowned. Later, the couple moved to Hokkaido and Momiji was born there. Because Momiji was born on a day when red maple-leaves falls beautifully, she was name after that (Momiji means maple leaf in Japanese). When Momiji was 9, there was a war in Hokkaido and her parents died in the war. Master Sakurazawa of Sakura-Ichimon adopted her, and she went under his training. When Momiji was 16, she re-visited Tokyo. On her way to Tokyo, she was attacked by an assassin, who was ordered by the Kikuta to murder the official heir of the Kikuta?s inheritance. The assassin was too strong for Momiji to handle and she was no match for him. Luckily, Harada and Shutani were quick to come to her rescue. Momiji decided to follow them to Tokyo. Momiji treats Harada and Shutani like her brother and sister since Momiji does not have many friends, except her surrogate family. Through their conversation, Momiji learned some things about Kenshin. She is very impressed with Kenshin's sword technique, and hoped she could meet Kenshin in Tokyo. While in the streets of Tokyo, she sees a familiar figure out of the corner of her eye. This brings back to her memory of a day when she was 15. She met Soujirou somewhere in Kyoto and she ever since, couldn't forget him. Could that shadow have belonged to Soujirou or was it just her imagination? She wished that fate would have their paths cross again, but under what circumstances?

**Additional Information:

• She currently stays in the Kamiya Dojo.
  
• When Momiji has spare time, she likes to stay in the dojo to watch Yahiko practice. This reminds her of her childhood memory when she was practicing with Master Sakurazawa.
  
• Momiji?s childhood dream is to be a doctor, but the war seems to made it impossible until she meets Megumi. Momiji sometimes goes to Megumi?s clinic to help and learn to be a doctor and Momiji is a fast learner.

Writing Sample for Kikuta Momiji:
The Quiet Life

The flames were everywhere... Her breath came in quick gasps. The smoke burned her throat, making breathing and not breathing impossible at the same time. Fear clouded her mind just as the smoke blinded her eyes. Her only lifeline was her mother's hand, which she clung on to desperately. Her father was somewhere ahead of them, an ambiguous figure in the billowing flames.

The fire glinted off of shining metals. The swords flashed, and with each stroke...a life. Her lifeline came loose, she was now lost in the churning sea of fire. However, even the screen of smoke wasn?t enough to shield her eyes from the massacre of everyone she had ever known.

Scream

Momiji tore out of the nightmare, gasping for air. She had to remind herself that she was in Tokyo, in her bed, safe, and sixteen. The moonlight bathed her in its serenity and her breathing slowly returned to normal.

Those dreams were less frequent now. The first years after the war had left her a ghost in the night, not being able to rest. A bead of perspiration ran down her cheek to be joined next by a drop of tear. She wept silently. Even if those left living were more painful than those who were dead; the living had to keep on living. With the rising of the sun, she laid to rest the demons of her past. It would never do to have Kaoru-san worried about her.

"Ohayou," she greeted everyone with a smile when she joined them for breakfast.

"Ohayou-degozaru," Kenshin smiled.

Sano and Yahiko, as usual, were busy competing for food. The rest of the strays who had wandered into Kamiya Dojo settled in after her. Momiji couldn?t help but feel at ease. This was a new life, a new era, new friends, and a new family.

Momiji looked at the faces around her. Everyone had their own demons to battle, and some were still battling them. She wasn?t alone...

For now though, there was peace. Whatever life they led before, for the moment they all lived in harmony. For this quiet life Momiji will give all she had.

"Ara, Momi-chan?s off in her own little world again," Mizumo teased.

Momiji didn't seem to hear for she was off in her own little world.

"Your food is getting cold," Kenshin snapped her out of her trance.

"Hai," Momiji smiled in return.

For these people, she would give all she had...

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