Hibiki Kohaku

Hibiki Kohaku (ヒビキ＝コハク) is a character in BlazBlue: Chronophantasma who appears mainly in Kagura Mutsuki’s story scenarios, providing support and back-up for him from a nearby distance. He is a playable character in BlazBlue: Centralfiction.

Appearance
Hibiki is a young man of Asian descent with small, delicate, and feminine features, earning him the moniker of “Pretty Boy”. He has black hair in a styled bowl cut that reaches his cheekbones, and he stands only a few inches shorter than Kagura. He wears a standard Controlling Organization uniform, with a tight-fitting jacket. The uniform consists of a small red tie over the standard blue jacket with yellow rims and black shoulder pads, accompanied by white gloves.

In BlazBlue: Centralfiction, he wears a different outfit which consists of a standard “jolting sapphire”-colored poncho-like jacket with one de-attach long military cloth, underneath is military collar shirt, black leggings with several black straps with golden buckles and with matching attached black sneakers.

Personality
Hibiki is described as “a pretty boy with a poison tongue”. His attitude towards the normally laid-back Kagura is often critical, being quick to belittle or insult him. However, in reality, this covers up his actual admiration for the Black Knight. He also has a strict personality, such as making Kagura pay for the damages he caused in the Headquarters when he fought against Arakune, and making Kagura pay the electricity bill through his personal bank account for when Kokonoe used 80% of the headquarter’s electric power output to repair TR-0009 Tager. Furthermore, he is an excellent cook, making even Rachel Alucard highly praise his cooking.

One of his mottos is: “A man with confidence shall not lose; only doubt will bring defeat”.

In BlazBlue: Centralfiction, it is shown that he has hidden desire to kill Kagura and to become an emotionless killer. In his Act III scenario, he is shown to be mentally unstable and his loyalty to Kagura is revealed to be a mask to hide his desire to kill him.

History
Servant of the Mutsuki Family and captain of the World Void Information Controlling Organization.

As the servant of one of the Twelve Originators, he is well acquainted with their members, such as Jin Kisaragi.

The Kohaku family is one of the Mutsuki branch families. They are trained for silent assassinations and so are rarely mentioned in historical books. As a member of this family, Hibiki was also trained in the assassination and stealth arts, proving it multiple times by appearing undetected behind backs of characters like Jin or Tager.

BlazBlue: Centralfiction
In Act 1 Nine reveals that Hibiki’s true desire is to murder Kagura and become the ultimate killing machine. In Act 2 he fights Izanami who tells him to go after Noel. Hibiki’s actions and words become increasingly insane as his Act 3 story progresses, to the point where his stated purpose (enforcing Kagura’s will) no longer falls in line with what he’s actually doing (betraying Kagura’s will). Kokonoe tells him that he can’t kill Noel, but Hibiki answers that he will become an Observer to do so. When he finally encountered Noel, it turns out that all of his attacks are just going through Noel’s body without affecting her, but then Hazama explained to Hibiki how to kill Noel for real.

Powers and abilities
As a captain of the Controlling Organization, it can be assumed that Hibiki is efficient in fighting.

He is extremely capable of moving without being detected, managing to move behind Jin’s back without being noticed until he was too close. His abilities are recognized by Jin, complimenting him on his stealth; Jin also mentioned an unknown ability possessed by Hibiki, which is implied to put him at Jin’s pace and level.

Hibiki’s Drive is Double Chase (ダブルチェイス), which allows him to make a duplicate of himself and teleport to his duplicate’s current position. His Overdrive, Schwarz Wraith (シュバルツレイス), accelerates his Drive. His fighting style focuses on agile ninja-like movements and clean-cutting motions with his swords.

An interesting thing to note about his weapon is that their hilts/grips have detachable, expendable and reload-able blades. With this in mind, said blades are also used as skillfully-thrown projectiles.

Trivia

 * Many of Hibiki’s techniques possess a bird/avian motif, making him a direct “phoenix” foil to his superior Kagura’s dragon motif.
 * Only one of his special moves, his Exceed Accel, both of his Distortion Drives and Astral Heat are named after a species of bird:
 * Misago Kudaki: 鶚 (misago) is a term for the Osprey/Fish Hawk.
 * Sakuōgi "Haraebina": 雛 (hina/hiyoko) is a term for a chick/young bird, and not for any specific species of bird.
 * Tsugaimai “Oboro Ōtori”: 鳳 (hō/ōtori) is a term mainly for the male Chinese firebird known as the Fèng (pronounced as “Fuh-ng” in pinyin/Mandarin), which makes up one half of the Fenghuang/Hō'ō entity. It is often mistranslated as an Asian phoenix in that case.
 * Kuremi Kazuchi “Nue”: A 鵺 (nue) is said to be a Japanese chimera that is said to have a monkey’s head, tanuki’s body, tiger’s limbs, and a snake tail. It may also however refer to either a “fabulous night bird” (which is the reason for its relation to Hibiki’s bird theme) or a term for “a man of mystery”.
 * His Astral Heat is named after a raven/crow, especially via their close association with misfortune and/or death in some superstitions.
 * Win quotes against Hibiki in Arcade and/or Versus mode exist inside BlazBlue: Chronophantasma Extend’s files.
 * When Hibiki is pitted against Kagura, an easter egg causes his Senba special move to throw document papers instead of knives.