| “ | All those filthy, disgusting fools...should have been wiped from existence. | ” |
—Ayu | ||
Also known as Madonna for her beauty, Ayu (あゆ) is the best specialist in the plant class and also specializes in earth classes.
She is sometimes bullied by other girls because they are jealous of her appearance and the attention she attracts from boys.
Because of her bad experiences, Ayu looks down on other human beings, especially males, frequently referring to them as idiots and filthy creatures.
Will she ever meet a man who can convince her otherwise...?
Ayu means "sweetfish."
Appearance[]
Ayu as a child
Ayu isn't called Madonna for no reason: being very tall, with long smooth, silky blonde hair and a well-defined face, she certainly is a top beauty. Even those baggy clothes she's always wearing can't hide that fact.
Background and family[]
Like all the other Team Summer A candidates, Ayu has no family. She was created from carefully selected sperm and egg cells and raised in a secret facility on an unknown island in order to be reared into a survival specialist.
Personality[]
She perfectly matches the image of the "cool and clever beauty": Ayu always acts very calm and mature except for the time the full moon arises: because of her trauma she received during the final test, she always starts shivering and falls into a stone statue-like state.
Due to her being victim of sexual assaults various times, Ayu mistrusts almost every male person except for her own teammates and hates every man who abuses women. During her youth, she developed tender feelings for Ango, but when she came upon him trying to rape Hana, those feelings were utterly destroyed and she started hating Ango, too.
Ayu is always very direct and names things as they are, without any euphemism or attempt to make reality look better.
Special Characteristics[]
Like all the other Summer A candidates, Ayu received a vast range of survival skills during her training in the secret facility. When it was her time to choose her Specialist Class, Ayu joined the Plants and the Soil Class.
Ayu's specialties are plant cultivation and research.
Past[]
Ayu grew up in the training camp and was often bullied by her female companions during her childhood and youth because of her beauty. Although she liked Ango's first clumsy approaching attempts, she asked him to keep his distance for her because she feared she might be bullied even worse by the jealous girls.
When the final test started, Ayu set out together with her bullies who had her try their food for poison. Although there really was nothing harmful in their meal, the other girls died because Ayu had deliberately kept quiet about the branches the victims used for chopsticks containing poison.
But even though her bullies were gone now forever and there were no witnesses at all, Ayu stayed there for a long time, paralyzed because her guilty conscience made her believe that "the moon saw everything."
Only when another male candidate attacked her trying to rape her, she regained her wits and threw him down a cliff. The rest of the test, she wandered around the area until the teachers picked her up.
Development throughout the story[]
Ayu found Momotaro while she was searching for food and pretended to be nice to him while actually using him as her guinea pig to test out various plants' healing effects.
Her attitude towards anyone outside of her team only changed when she witnessed Ango trying to rape Hana and finally realized that even the "chosen ones" weren't meticulous and flawless at all.
Aramaki was able to gain Ayu's trust because he told her about his fury at Ango due to the rape incident and said that "men should be able to control themselves." She found out about his vast knowledge about plants and asked him to teach her more about this world's plants. Eventually, she trusted him so much that she went on a journey with him alone.
During their voyage, Ayu started to grow quite fond of a small hyper black dog named Kuroda who was bullied by the dog pack a lot. She disliked bullying a lot due to her own bad experiences, so she felt bad for it. Aramaki then suggested her to raise Kuroda as her own dog and Ayu spontaneously agreed. Kuroda grew very fond of his mistress as well, although he obviously loves to tease her: licking her all over whenever he gets the opportunity and using her as some sort of climbing tree.
Her interactions with Aramaki seem to have positive effects on her, as she is shown trying to understand Aramaki's views now, and has no doubt developed an admiration for Aramaki - much to his embarrassment sometimes.