Shizuka Hayashi

Shizuka Hayashi (早志はやし 静香しずか) is a secondary protagonist in Twelve Thousand, living in the Modern World in 2018. Shizuka works as a call-centre employee for the local ISP, but largely at the behest of her guardians whom own the company.

Her counterpart in The Tower is Kit. Despite the spiritual connection, her job is put first and she doesn't have as much time as she would like to make use of her daemon self.

Personality

Shizuka is passionate, imaginative, and outgoing. She enjoys spiritual and fantastical concepts, learning about other people's own ideals and what drives them, such that she can compare and understand her own experiences.

Doing this, she gives the impression she wants to grow as a person through different perspectives, however Shizuka is something of a social chameleon. If at any point she feels threatened, she'll simply adapt how she's presenting her feelings so as to not tread on anyone's toes.

Development

Shizuka was written to be a foil of Gwen, being the spiritual and outward to a more inward and intellectual. However like Gwen, this can be reversed for Shizuka. In early concepts, she had something of a reserved but inquisitive personality. She was interested in the world and other people, but was shy about reaching out too far in case she drew attention to herself. This extended to Kit, where she felt unworthy of being a kitsune.

Shizuka's design was influenced in part by Phi from Virtue's Last Reward. Previously, she wore a white dress and had long white hair, to give off a mystical quality and reference Kit. This however resembled Mea Atsuki (at the time) a little too much, so Phi was used as inspiration for more casual-wear, along with a natural hair colour. Her ribbon and boots were chosen to add a certain playful nature on top of this.