Aihana

Aihana Merka Citrus is a 14-year-old blossom princess residing in the center of Planet Blossom. The youngest of the Blossom Royalty, being the younger sister of the prince, Akaihana, and the daughter of king Wari and queen Sakura, she is extremely intelligent for her age, being taught and trained excessively in her youth and knowing a lot about weapons and technology. She was also taught about other species that reside on other planets, such as humans, sabous and sectors, as well as the ancient war between the humans and sabous, although she would not meet someone who wasn’t another blossom until her first encounter with Antcruz. After realizing that the two are both some of the most powerful beings in their respective planets, they decided to team up, aiding one another when any of their home planets are in danger.

Backstory
Aihana was born on July 28, 2007 (the blossoms also use the Gregorian calender due to the Planet Blossom's rotation rate being the same.) At this point in Planet Blossom’s history, not all was well, as the monarch was in a point of recession due to vulnerabilities that came with Sakura’s mother, the queen at the time, and the king at the time preparing to step down from nobility, as Sakura, the princess, would become old enough to become the new queen and have two children that would go on to become the next prince and princess respectively. A few years later, Sakura and her husband, Wari, would finally take their roles as king and queen, and their two children, Akaihana and Aihana, would become prince and princess respectively. While Wari was busy with work related to economics and expanding the monarchy, Sakura would train Akaihana and Aihana, alternating between the two each day. The two would generally focus on different subjects, although the two would still primarily involve craftsmanship, with Akaihana learning how to build vehicles, houses, and other architectures, starting by building emergency escape pods for him and his sister, while Aihana would learn more about blacksmithing and engineering with a bigger focus on weapons. During this time, Aihana would also learn about the war between humans and sabous that occurred long ago, and how the blossoms were a significant ally to the humans during the war due to their advanced and high-tech weapons, though the sabous would ultimately end up winning despite their efforts. Hearing of this event would leave an impact on her and significantly boost her motivation to create more effective, high-quality products (though these would be remain hidden inside of the castle walls due to them being too dangerous.) As Aihana grew older, things would start to become harder for her. While the recession was over, her planet was as peaceful as ever and all of the inhabitants loved and respected her as a princess, she would start finding more enemies as well. Akaihana would betray his family and planet by disappearing with his escape pod without a trace for unknown reasons and rumors would start spreading that Sieren, the queen of the sabous, would start attacking the blossoms, wanting to take their secret weapons in order to use them for an attack on humanity. Before the raid would take effect, Sakura and Wari would force her to blast out of the planet in her escape pod in an attempt to evacuate while Wari fought off the sabous and Sakura put the castle under protection. Soon after Aihana escaped Planet Blossom, she would crash land on Earth, in the middle of one of the forests in Miracle Island. Similar to how he and Sarah found Nia, Antcruz would be the first one to find her following her crash, though she wasn’t in much pain since the pod was durable enough to not completely fall apart with her in it. After explaining themselves to one another, Aihana would alarm Antcruz about the attack Sieren planned on both of their planets; She would also be the first to inform Antcruz about the ancient war against sabous in which Sieren won and became queen. Antcruz, being confident enough about his abilities at this point to do so, would then offer to help her stop the raid, and from then on, the two would become allies.

Personality
Even with the fact that blossoms are more intelligent than humans considered, Aihana is very precocious, as she was educated excessively in her youth by Queen Sakura herself, and knows a lot about weapons and technology. Aside from this, she is kind, classy, and clever, just as any princess should be. She cares deeply about the citizens and life in her home planet and usually uses her skills for the benefit of others rather than herself, generally putting others before her, although she isn’t afraid to seek help when she needs it. She also doesn’t use her intelligence and her role as a princess as an excuse to put herself on a higher pedestal than others. When it comes to her higher-class role, Aihana is very humble about it. Although Aihana is cute and has a charming personality to go along with it, Aihana does tend to get very aggressive towards her enemies; specifically those who try to harm her world. Although this mostly leads to her being stronger and more confident as a fighter, this can be a downside in some instances where she can use up too much of the power of her weapons at once due to sheer rage rather than saving it up for something more dangerous. Because of this, she is generally a rather useful source when it comes to fighting, but can be quick to lose energy.

Appearance
Aihana has white, fuzzy skin with spiky and silky cyan hair, oversized pointy ears, and very wide eyes with dark blue irises and massive eyelashes. She also appears to have two very short whiskers on her face. Her attire includes an orange flower worn on her head, a fleece, dark blue dress with white, cottony cuffs and a collar, as well as two golden buttons and yellowish-orange feejays. According to Aihana, she prefers to wear blue during most occasions because her assigned element is water; This is because on Planet Blossom, elements are seen as an equivalent to how star signs are seen on Earth, except elements are seen as much more significant.

Trivia
- Aihana was created in early 2019, but was scrapped for a while and was never used again from that point until mid-2021. This is because she was originally meant to be a character that was exclusive to Antcruz Adventures, which ended up being scrapped, but I brought her back as a mainline character since I would begin to think she had lots of untapped potential looking back.

- Aihana has gone through one of the biggest design changes out of any character; Probably her biggest design change was her original 2019 design being a lot shorter, having a Chibi-like look that has practically no legs and feet similar to that of Kirby’s, while her 2021 design sports full-grown legs and an overall more realistic anatomy.

- Aihana’s first name is a play on the Japanese phrase “Aoi Hana”, which roughly translates to “Blue Flower.”

- Her last name, Citrus, was chosen due to her color scheme being similar to that of a box of tangerines.

- The previous fact is ironic because, while she is a flower-themed character whose appearance prominently features the color blue, the actual flower that appears on her is orange.

- Aihana’s name was not revealed until her re-introduction in 2021. She has always had the name “Aihana” ever since her conception in 2019, but her name was never formally stated around the time since it was originally meant to be revealed during her introduction in the webcomic.