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 trim, accompanied by white gloves.

In BlazBlue: Centralfiction, he wears a different outfit which consists of a standard “jolting sapphire”-colored poncho-like jacket over a military collar shirt, black leggings with three golden buckles on each leg, and matching attached black shoes.

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 has a strict, no-nonsense personality, and he tends to take the most logical and practical approach to situations – such as making Kagura pay for the damages he caused to the branch when he fought against Arakune, or making Kagura pay the massive electricity bill when Kokonoe used 80% of the branch’s electrical power to repair TR-0009 Tager. One of his mottos is: “A man with confidence shall not lose; only doubt will bring defeat”.

Furthermore, he is an excellent cook, and even Rachel Alucard highly praises his cooking.

In BlazBlue: Centralfiction, it is shown that he is actually rather unstable, and his only desire is to become a completely emotionless tool of killing.

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

As a 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 train for silent assassination and avoid being mentioned in historical books.

BlazBlue: Centralfiction
In Act 1 Nine reveals that Hibiki’s true desire is to become emotionless so that he can be the ultimate tool of killing. 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 he can kill Noel for real.

Powers and abilities
As a member of the Kohaku family, Hibiki is skilled in assassination and stealth arts. He is extremely capable of moving without being detected, managing to sneak up behind both Tager and Jin’s backs on multiple occasions without being noticed until he announced himself. 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.
 * 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 the game files of BlazBlue: Chronophantasma Extend’.
 * When Hibiki is pitted against Kagura, an easter egg causes his Senba special move to throw document papers instead of knives.