In “Shattered Will: Ayane’s Plaything,” Honoka finds herself lured to an abandoned dojo, where her half-sister and tormentor, Ayane, awaits.
Trapped in a twisted psychological game, Honoka is forced to confront the dark, sadomasochistic bond between them.
As Ayane revels in her cruel dominance, Honoka’s spirit crumbles under the weight of fear, humiliation, and a twisted desire she can’t escape.
No matter how much she tries to resist, Honoka realizes she is bound to Ayane—forever trapped as her helpless, broken plaything

She later becomes an important character in Dead or Alive 6 due to her connection to Raidou.

Honoka is the daughter of Raidou, the biological niece of Shiden and Ayame, the cousin of both Hayate and Kasumi and the cousin and half-sister of Ayane.

History

Early life

Full details of her early life are unknown, other than that her mother conceived her with the infamous ninja exile Raidou around five months prior to his raping Ayame, which also resulted in the conception of her half-sister Ayane. She ended up being raised by her grandmother since her birth.

The Fifth Tournament

Honoka acted as a participant in the fifth tournament. She had gotten as far as the second match of the fifth division of the Asian qualifiers when her secret powers kicked in, releasing a burst of energy from her right hand that caused her opponent, Thomas Blake, to be knocked over, leaving both with minor injuries and interrupting the match. She was disqualified as a result, and Honoka herself was left with no memory of the incident. It was this event in particular that piqued Victor Donovan’s faction of DOATEC, MIST’s interest in her.

Arrival at New Zack Island

Honoka won a raffle (although it is implied that Zack had been involved ensuring in her win, as she mentions that she recognized the guy who gave her the winning ticket to the island from somewhere), and although hesitant due to it meaning leaving her grandmother behind, she ultimately went to the island for two weeks.

On the last day, she talked with her “friend”, Mr. Moo, about how she had several firsts during her vacation and expressed interest in taking another trip, before making sure to thank the Owner for their hospitality during her time on the island.

The Sixth Tournament

Due to her similarities to Raidou, Honoka is wanted by MIST to complete Raidou’s revival. Thus Helena orders Marie Rose to protect Honoka. Ayane, too, is assigned to keep an eye on her. After Marie Rose and Honoka meet, they are attacked by a pterodactyl in Lost Paradise. Marie Rose dodges the attack, impressing Honoka enough for her to decide to have a friendly fight with her. Although Honoka was defeated, she is able to copy Marie Rose’s dodging moves, with Ayane observing in the distance. At some point later, Honoka ended up doing something that concerned Marie Rose enough that she was forced to prematurely end a scheduled report to Helena in an attempt to stop her.

She later meets Eliot as he is reading his scroll from his master, Gen Fu. She was curious enough to try and read it but was stopped by Marie Rose for being too close to Eliot. She challenges him to a fight and uses his master’s stance, but it is unknown who won the fight. She later encounters Leifang and after recognizing her style as taiji quan, challenges her to a fight. Leifang refers to Honoka as “an airhead” but fights her due to her curiosity of Honoka. Honoka wins the fight.

Honoka later finds the runner up to the fifth tournament, Hitomi, about to train for the current tournament, and despite Marie Rose trying to stop her from butting in on her training, requests that they spar since she plans on entering the tournament as well. Hitomi accepts, although she makes clear she won’t hold back. Hitomi wins the encounter, although Honoka is nonetheless satisfied and politely thanks her by bowing and vowing to train harder.

She later watches Bass and Tina fight and even attempts to mimic the latter. Upon Tina defeating her father, she notices Honoka and invites her up for a round, with Honoka eagerly accepting. Tina bests Honoka in battle and Honoka remarks on Tina’s strength. Tina offers her another match in the future before continuing to fight her father. Unbeknownst to everyone, however, Ayane and Hayate observe this from the rafters, and are shocked at Honoka’s ability to perfectly copy other fighters, which they’ve only seen once before.

Ayane subsequently ambushes Honoka and proceeds to fight her. Marie Rose scolds Ayane for hurting Honoka, but Ayane simply acknowledges that her abilities were indeed what she suspected. Afterwards, Honoka directed Marie Rose to a confectionary shop and implied that a ninja often frequented there before admitting she had been joking. Unbeknownst to her, however, said ninja, Kasumi, was present and had overheard them. Ayane later ambushes them again, intending to take Honoka into custody, and is forced to fight Marie Rose. Unfortunately, after Ayane defeated Marie Rose, both realize that Honoka has been abducted by Christie during their fight.

Resisting Christie, Honoka breaks her bonds and insists she be let free. After a hard fight, Christie, manages to subdue her. She is then placed in the machine next to Raidou. However, not even her powers are enough to revive Raidou, forcing NiCO to find Raidou’s other offspring, Ayane. Christie then uses Honoka’s confiscated cell-phone to send a text to Marie Rose (who tried calling her multiple times out of panic), knowing full well that Ayane is in the same vicinity.

After Ayane is captured trying to rescue Honoka, both girls are forced by NiCO to revive Raidou. Honoka is later about to be “disposed of” by NiCO with the help of Phase 4 clones, but Hayate manages to rescue her, while Kasumi is forced to fight a brainwashed Ayane. Honoka, according to Hayate, ultimately survives the ordeal, although with severe enough injuries that she is left unconscious.[1] She is then left with Marie Rose, Ryu Hayabusa and Bayman, the latter two vowing to watch over the girls while the others deal with Raidou. Honoka is still unconscious and carried out by Bayman when Helena arrives at the facility.

Arrival at the Venus Islands

Sometime later, Honoka won another vacation prize in what was presumably another shopping raffle she participated in when helping her grandma with her groceries. She then pondered upon her luck before deciding she might as well enjoy her vacation to the fullest, although not without feeling slightly guilty for having fun. She eventually met the owner of the island after an accident aboard an inflatable orca on the beach, when the owner helped retrieve her swimwear. She then became his partner in terms of helping with the local Venus Festival as a way to repay him, citing that she has had prior experience with both manning food stands as well as setting up festivals (the latter due to local Japanese festivals).

Character

Appearance

Owing to her status as a Japanese schoolgirl, her default outfit consists of a school uniform including a blazer, as well as a glove that has a winking skull and crossbones logo on the back of the hand.

She has light red eyes, similar to her half-sister, and somewhat tanned skin, along with shoulder length salmon pink hair that is tied into a half ponytail on the left side using a ball with the same winking skull and crossbones motif as her glove, or some variation thereof, save for certain DLC costumes like Last Getaway and New Challengers outfit, which use a flower instead. Honoka currently possesses the largest bust out of all the female characters in the series, a direct contrast to her friend and rival, Marie Rose who possesses the smallest bust, which was even the subject of a pun for their Japanese tag team intro. Her bust size had been hinted at in Famitsu prior to her official announcement, where it mentioned that the new girl had “the biggest.” She also has a more curvaceous and voluptuous figure than most of the other younger girls, having very curvy hips, and short but rather shapely legs. She is also one of the shortest characters in the series (with only NiCO, Marie Rose, Kanna and Luna being shorter than her). It is also implied that her massive bust acted as a hindrance towards her wearing swimwear, having them break off multiple times when trying them on (although Honoka herself seems to believe it’s due to her eating a lot).

Besides her swimwear, she dresses relatively modestly, which could be due to her innocent nature and grandmother’s influence. Some of her outfits also contain a cow motif, such as a cow face print on a t-shirt with “milk” written under it, as well as clothes with a cow marking-print and an attached stuffed cow. In Xtreme 3, she is able to wear her hair fully down, and in Last Round, she wears Hitomi’s bob cut in pink on certain collaboration DLC such as her Schoolgirl Strikers and Arc Systems DLC with a white hairband in the former.

Personality

Having been raised all her life by her gentle and loving grandmother, she is, in contrast to her father and half-sister, a sweet, easygoing kind of girl, but when she sees a fight, she cannot contain her excitement or the mysterious power surging within her. Honoka has a strange knack for instantly learning any fighting move she sees. She has kept this power hush-hush, but has been itching to test it out in secret.

Her victory quotes indicate she doesn’t even know the origin of her powers and seeks to find out about it. She also gets apologetic and offers to help her opponent up after defeating them, implying that while she does want to test her powers out, she cares for others’ well-being and doesn’t want to injure people. She believes in helping others, and especially in that doing so nets a reward. However, she isn’t above lightly teasing her friends, such as Marie Rose. She also loves to eat, especially during festivals, and has a tendency to overeat during those times.

Honoka is depicted as having a very child-like demeanor (although not to the same extent as Marie Rose). In the Japanese version of Dead or Alive 6 and Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation, Honoka, similar to Marie Rose, sometimes refers to herself in the third person, although not nearly to the same extent. She seems to be quite naive and oblivious, irritating other characters at times with her lack of perception. During the sixth tournament, Leifang remarks outright that she thinks Honoka is an airhead. Furthermore, Honoka’s naivete was such that Misaki would often screen the photographs Honoka sent to her grandma to make sure she didn’t send a risque one, being too naive to tell the difference. However, she does at least seem to be aware of these shortcomings, as she thanked Misaki for helping her stay on track for the first covergirl event, citing her own airheaded nature as why she couldn’t have done it otherwise. She also has a habit of forgetting people she has met before, such as Ayane and Zack. She talks to animals as if they are people, greeting a dolphin on New Zack Island as “Mr. Dolphin” and proceeding to bow to it while asking if they’ll hang out for a couple of weeks. She also often talks to her stuffed animal Mister Moo/Momo (Momo-chan in the Japanese version) as if it is alive, and in Xtreme Venus Vacation has referred to the doll as her “best friend”, even sleeping with it when she’s away from her grandma. In Warriors All-Stars, she is seen to be quite upset that she doesn’t have Mister Moo along with her. Lastly, while proficient with learning various fighting styles, she is not quite as good regarding academics by her own admission. Once, she even requested that Marie Rose tutor her in a subject due to failing a test.