Mio Sardis is a member of a noble group of assassins known as The Veil. Their sole purpose is to hunt down, and capture ghost orphans – a large population of lost souls who’ve roamed the Earth for centuries.
As a member of the Veil, Mio has been trained to hunt down these ghost orphans, and using a special sword called a living-blade, she can send their spirits to a heavenly afterlife. Mio has been an adept hunter, usually falling in step with her comrades, and following orders as if she were an army grunt with an insatiable, but focused bloodlust.
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Mio was born from one of the seven bloodlines of the Veil, which means she is specially equipped to hunt mysterious lost souls known as ghost orphans. She carries a weapon called a living-blade, which is infused with her blood. She is an expert swordswoman, and is trained in a number of fighting techniques. She also possesses a hyper-human healing ability.
Born in Japan, she is one of the few young hunters whose parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were all Veil hunters themselves. For some time, it was believed that this distinction made her a more effective hunter, for it is in the blood of the veil descendents that gives them the power to send ghost orphans to the afterlife. This is quite literally the case, as each living-blade’s handle has a built-in mechanism that pricks the hunter’s hands and causes his or her blood to course through the sword, as if it was an extension of their own circulatory system.
Because of this, most hunters need a few days’ time to recover from the dozen or so puncture wounds that can happen during a battle against ghost orphans. However, in Mio’s case her punctures would heal almost instantly. The elders theorized the unique purity of her bloodline was the cause of this, but the theory was debunked, when a distant cousin of hers, who possessed a similarly pure lineage, failed to show the same quick healing ability. It was, instead, discovered that Mio possessed a hyper-healing ability, which had nothing at all to do with her Veil ancestry.
Either way, that power was something that set her apart. While she never had the desire, or the skill, to lead any of the hunting parties, her hyper-ability enabled her to participate in battles more frequently than her peers.
It was during a particularly tense time for the Veil that her powers were put to the ultimate test. In recent decades – thanks to the work of legendary hunter Disa Philadelphia – Platinum City University had become a home base for the Veil, where young hunters could train in the secluded Deep Wing of the school, while attending classes free of charge. In return, a number of elder hunters served as faculty members in a variety of PCU departments, and recent Veil graduates of the school would be required to serve one to two years as campus security guards, before becoming full-time hunters.
Mio was one of the few young hunters who stayed on as a security guard, after her required service was up. She worked a few shifts a week between hunts, and kept an apartment on campus with her roommate, a graduate student named Amethyst. Mio enjoyed mingling with the students, and driving around in the little souped-up golf-cart the school provided to all of its security personnel. She was generally respected, and mostly loved by the student body of Platinum City University; even those she would occasionally have to bust for violating campus conduct policies.
Anyway, the tense time we speak of was the Seven Week Walk, which began with a prophecy from a young man named Derek Loman, who had come to campus and foretold the imminent fall of Platinum City University, and consequently the demise of the Veil. Derek was a ghost orphan, and he told Disa and the other hunters that after seven weeks – during which thousands of ghost orphans march around the Central Administration Complex of PCU – the walls of the school would literally crumble.
It had been more than four weeks since the marching began, and while the hunters disagreed on whether they should take action against the silent ghost orphan marchers,the rest of the world was speculating the possible reasons behind, what seemed like, a peaceful protest. The hunters were also split on whether or not to believe the prophecy at all. Furthermore, things had become even more complicated by the revelation that the most dangerous ghost orphan of them all, Virginia Ice, had somehow formed an alliance with Alva Devine, the leader of a malicious group of hell-spawns called reapers.
Despite all of this, Mio had one job; as a security shift leader, she was to keep the peace at Platinum City University. And for those first four weeks, that assignment was not difficult at all. Then, however, the Platinum City University Quakes football team defeated the University of Alabama in the NCAA National Championship game. And all hell broke loose.
It was PCU’s first ever National Championship, and tens of thousands of students flooded the public areas of the campus. Mio was anticipating the possibility of a campus-wide party, and had scheduled her entire team for that night. But even with all hands on deck, there was no way to anticipate what would happen when the raucous party animals and the silent protesters collided.
By the time the partiers made it to the Central Administration Complex, a large portion of the crowd was drunk. One heavily inebriated frat boy – Tye Robinsky – tried to offer a drink to one of the marchers, and when he was rebuffed, he took offense and began to berate the marchers, insisting they were “party-poopers.” Mio and her team were on the scene, and attempted to move Tye and the other partiers along. But after a few more moments of being yelled at, the up-to-this-point silent protesters began yelling back. Mio instructed her team to direct the partiers away, however, Tye grew more aggressive, and took a swing at one of the protesters! Within moments Mio had a full-out brawl on her hands!
The security teams, along with a large number of Platinum City Police Force members, did everything in their power to take control. Finally, one of the officers let loose a barrage of tear gas canisters – and that’s when it happened. One of the protesters showed her true ghost-orphan nature, and unleashed a powerful blast of ghostly energy! Several other protesters followed suit! The sudden sight of violent spirits startled the partiers. People began running and screaming – it was a full-out riot!
Several ghost orphans surrounded Tye and began attacking him, using the supernatural strength afforded by the lost souls living inside of them, to beat him relentlessly. Mio immediately jumped in and tried to break up the fight, but without her living-blade, she was no match for the ghost orphans. So she sprinted through the crowd over to her golf cart, unlatched a secret compartment under the driver’s seat and pulled out her sword.
She looked around for other members of her team, but they were already spread through the crowd, trying to regain control. Suddenly, she spotted two Veil students, Quintonice Philadelphia and Terrance Sardis, and called them over. Luckily, both of them were carrying their own living-blades inside of cases that looked, to the naked eye, like viola cases. They had not yet brandished their weapons, for the act of revealing their living-blades in a public place, even in the midst of a crisis, was strictly forbidden by the elder hunters. But it was clear that this was a unique, and dire situation. Mio order them to do so, and with that, the three of them went to work!
Mio jumped back in the fray, and engaged the aggressor ghost orphans, and after a few grueling minutes she was finally able to slay them all. A series of light blasts filled the sky, as the ghost orphans left their human hosts and began their journey to heaven; another extraordinary sight, that sent the crowd into even more of a frenzy!
Mio quickly turned to Tye, however, it was too late; he was dead. She tried to call for help, but the riot was only growing more and more fierce. Fights were breaking out all over the place; crowds were stampeding; people were getting trampled; and more ghost orphans were displaying their paranormal abilities!
Mio took a deep breath, then charged a group of ghost orphans. She took down at least a dozen more of them, before suddenly turning to see a student holding a gun! It was was one of the partiers. He was drunk, and utterly scared to death by all of the wild and crazy stuff he was witnessing. He shot bullets in all directions, attempting to hit the ghosts, but of course, he was only hitting other people!
Mio stepped and threw her blade like a javelin, impaling the shooter in the shoulder. He dropped the gun, and screamed in pain. Mio began to sprint at him, but before she could reach him he reclaimed the gun with his other hand, took aim and FIRED!! A bullet ripped through Mio’s heart…
She slumped to the ground, as the riot continued to rage out of control…