Saeko

"T-this pressure! Is he the rumored "Shouting Black" Han, leader of the dreaded Phoenix Corps?!"

- civilians

A freshman at the National Academy, Saeko can be easily mistaken as a veteran due to his mature facial structure and imposing height. When he officially registered for the corps, pretty much all of the members assumed Saeko is a big shot veteran, only to realize later that he is not.

Saeko enrolled to the corps to seek real combat experience, something that he lacked despite his sharp looks and background in ancient sword arts. He displayed a high aptitude for frontline combat and commando missions, but suffers from his tendency to get cocky and over aggressive, often acting independently despite of dangers. Rui scolds him for his actions, but most of the corps leaning for him to learn the ropes himself.

Saeko is a half-surajan, born and raised in Suraja before his parents moved to Logenia. He is quite close to Eli and Monika due to their Surajan heritage and can often be seen hanging out together. Outside of the academy perimeter in the eyes of general public, Saeko often gets mistaken as Han or Kang due to his mature appearance with his typical longcoat wardrobe.

Appearance
Saeko's defining trait is his mature facial structure, making him look like he is in his mid 20s when in fact, he is fresh from highschool. Combined with his similar dressing style as Han, sporting variations of longcoats and jackets of dark colors, Saeko is often mistaken as the leader of Phoenix Corps.

He can always be seen with a katana on his side

Personality
Although he has a very mature face and sometimes seems menacing, Saeko is actually quite the chatterbox. His upbeat and positive attitude is contagious.

This tryhard behavior however,

Fighting Style
Saeko is a full blown melee combatant. His family practices Musougen'ei Battojutsu, an ancient Surajan sword drawing technique that focuses on damaging quickdraws and instant counters. Utilizing this skill, Saeko

Saeko can fight both defensively using his Battojutsu counter moves, and offensively using aggressive Sword Arts, making him a potential mind game horror. Sadly however, he lacks the composure in major to and will often enter rushdown mode.

Strengths

 * Above average DEF combined with his Battojutsu counters enable him to handle quite a number of punishment.
 * Battojutsu: Saeko's unique skillset, Battojutsu has priority over anything else given the same startup time. This maximum priority often comes with sneaky instant effects and can easily nullify barriers.
 * Ridiculously good Battojutsu skills, some of which grants him momentary invulnerability and completely counter incoming physical attacks.
 * Access to very damaging sword arts on top of his Battojutsu.

Weaknesses

 * Low stamina. More often than not, Saeko would be the first one to run out of gas in the battlefield.
 * High energy consumption. This, combined with the above low stamina problem, further aggravates his weakness.
 * Underdeveloped magical affinities. He has a hard time manifesting spells and is weak to magic bombardment in general.
 * Little to no ranged options, Saeko needs to get up close and personal to deal significant amount of damage.
 * Lack of mobility for a close range combatant. Saeko can easily get peeled by mobile opponents with ranged attacks and suffers high sustained damage before he can even get into action.

Leitmotif
