Moriko Halfwolf

"Maika’s mother, an Arcanic, whose obsession with uncovering the secrets of the greatest Arcanic ancestor, the Shaman-Empress, led to her betrayal and murder. Her reputation as a woman of single-minded drive and intellectual brilliance has only grown since her death."""Moriko Halfwolf was the mother of Maika Halfwolf and former warlord of the Dawn Court, known as the Blade of Dawn. She was a brilliant scholar notorious for her obsession with the Shaman Empress and behind one of the greatest archeological discoveries regarding the Empress. She was murdered by Yvette while trying to protect Maika prior to the start of the series.

Personality
Moriko was respected and feared by both the Cumaea and the Arcanics alike. She was a strong, dangerous woman who clearly valued knowledge, independence and power. Her fascination with the Shaman Empress bordered on obsession, and she seemed willing to go to any ends to achieve her goals.

Seizi Imura remembers Moriko as a fearsome and determined woman and Maika remembers her mother as a woman who never said please, undoubtedly due to her upbringing as the daughter of the Queen of Wolves.

It was said that she was powerful of mind, impossible to fool, and a ruthless strategist. She was also favored by the Ancestrals and her mother.

Moriko initially planned to use her unborn daughter as a weapon, but at some point gave up her dreams of controlling Maika. Despite fiercely loving Maika, she was not above brutality in teaching her daughter lessons about the realities of combat and war. Moriko normalized murder and punished Maika harshly for showing any weakness.

Appearance
Moriko was a wolf Arcanic with a remarkably human appearance. She closely resembled her twin sister, the Warlord––sharing her long, straight, black hair and olive skin. Moriko wore a signature red lipstick and was often depicted wearing practical expedition gear when at the tomb of the Shaman Empress, but otherwise wore fine clothes, typically emblazoned with the eye motif associated with the Shaman Empress and the Old Gods.

Background
Moriko was the favored daughter of the Queen of Wolves and the older twin sister of the Warlord. She was the first blessed and chosen by the Ancestrals to command Arcanic armies in the Dawn Court. At some point in her history, Moriko discovered something in the Dawn Court's hidden archives that changed the trajectory of her life: she became estranged from her family and left the Dawn Court––never to return––to pursue her fascination with the Shaman Empress, earning the enmity of her sister.

At an unspecified time, Moriko set up a small base in the coastal city of Thyria where she befriended the infamous Imura Brothers, even naming Seizi Imura as Maika's goddess-father. During this time, Moriko made the perilous journey to the Isle of Bone in pursuit of answers about the Shaman Empress. Upon her return, Moriko stole a bone from the island's Ferryman and concealed it within the walls of her apartment in Thyria.

With her knowledge learned from the Isle of Bones, Moriko sought to conceive a child with the Lord Doctor, one of the last living descendants of the Shaman Empress, in order to control the power in the Empress's blood. Maika was this child, born at sea in Seizi's ship. Moriko initially raised Maika with the Lord Doctor until they came at a disagreement on how the infant girl should be raised. Moriko would later take Maika away from the Doctor and the Blood Court and raised her in isolation for many years, teaching her survival skills and combat to prepare her for the war to come.

When Maika was a young girl, Moriko lead a research team composed of Maika, Yvette Lo Lim, Arekanara'el and Leu Han on a fateful expedition to the tomb of the Shaman Empress. Within the ruins, the party found a mysterious mask of immense power, later revealed to be an artefact created by the Shaman Empress to control monstrum. Although the events that occurred after the discovery of the mask remain unclear, it seems apparent that Yvette betrayed Moriko and the others in order to keep the mask for herself. Arekanara'el and Leu Han suffered an unknown fate, Maika was captured and taken as a slave, and Moriko was killed; though the exact nature of her death remains unknown.

Volume 1
Though Moriko never appears physically, Maika often reflects on her mother and remembers her in fragmentary episodes, though she remains unsure of Moriko's intentions surrounding the Shaman Empress or whether Moriko would actually approve of her actions. Through these memories, Moriko often indirectly provides advice, important information and assistance in times of crisis for Maika.

Moriko's untimely death is one of the many mysteries that drives Maika in her pursuit of answers. Maika frequently retraces her mother's steps to attempt to piece together the past and consults her memories of Moriko when faced with adversity or considering her next move.

In a critical confrontation with the Mother Superior, Maika was almost defeated until she remembered Moriko whispering the name of the monster within her. This enabled Maika to convince the monster, Zinn, to fight alongside her and temporarily defeat the Mother Superior in combat.

Volume 2
Maika continues to experience more memories of her mother, though these tend to be harsher, crueler memories that present a darker, more manipulative impression of Moriko's character. In one such memory, Moriko asks the infant Maika to select a suitable makeshift weapon from an array of common objects. She then punishes Maika through a demonstration of strangulation with a scarf when she chooses wrongly.

In another memory, while Moriko was travelling with Seizi, she was beset by a party of assassins sent by her sister, the Warlord. Moriko killed every assailant, leaving none alive to reveal Maika's existence to the Warlord. Thus, Moriko managed to temporarily protect her daughter from the Dawn Court, even after her death.

It is also revealed that before Maika was born, Moriko traveled with Seizi and his crew to the Isle of Bone, the prison of an insane ancient known as "the Blood Fox" who was said to possess incredible knowledge. When Moriko arrived, she demanded information about the Shaman Empress. The Blood Fox, swayed by a vision of Moriko's future child releasing him from his chains, decided to give her the information she sought and divulged the whereabouts of the last living blood relative of the Shaman Empress.

The Blood Fox reveals that Moriko deliberately conceived Maika with the intentions of controlling the power of the Shaman Empress. However, it is revealed through Maika's memories that Moriko soon found it futile trying to manipulate Maika and came to love her, despite her initial dark intentions.