Ouka

"Wolves... do not obey you 'dogs'."

- Ouka

Ouka (凰花) is a female Werewolf with the title "Ouka of the Divine Fist" (神拳の凰花); she is known as one of the strongest characters within The World during .hack//Legend of the Twilight.

Appearance
Ouka wears little actual clothing save for a bikini (made into a one-piece in the anime) and a fluffy white shawl around her shoulders. Due to her special werewolf class she has many wolflike features, such as a large furry tuft of hair around her neck, boots shaped like paws, and wolf ears. She always wears a collar, given to her by Shugo. Her class also allows her to assume a wolf form. Her wave symbols are on her thighs and upper arms, and appear on both her human, and wolf forms. Despite not having human ears, she wears earrings in the normal location. An omake in the 3rd manga states that they are attached to very long strands of hair.

Personality
Ouka is obsessed with getting stronger, and constantly seeks out strong opponents to test her skills against. She is one of the strongest characters in The World, and has gained the title "Ouka of the Divine Fist". Despite this, she is very friendly and helpful to those she considers her friends. Mireille and Shugo are especially fond of her; both because of her rare character class and because she's very beautiful. She herself is very fond of Shugo.

Base Info
Ouka's player is a college student named Sakura Ootori (鳳桜). She is a private tutor for Mirei Kurosawa, who calls her "Sakura-sensei".

Flower of Wolves & The Red Lightning
Sometime before the events of Legend of the Twilight, Ouka met Crim who saved her from a monster, she would insist on becoming his apprentice in order to become stronger. While Crim lacked any interest in taking Ouka on as a student, the two did fight and play together. Crim would ask Ouka why she wants to get stronger, which she would become unable to answer. Later on a high level monster would attack a Wavemaster, who Ouka would come to protect, more monsters would show up after, only for Crim to come and assist them. Ouka would realize she wants to get stronger in order to protect others, and as a gift the Wavemaster she saved would give her a rare item that allows her to "Class Change" into a Werewolf. Crim would disappear right before her "Class Change," but not before giving her the message to become stronger and that he's sure she'll make real friends.

Anime
As a friend of Mireille Ouka was introduced to Shugo and Rena at a special Cherry Blossom event designed by Balmung. First appearing in her wolf form Shugo mistook her for a dog and decided to raise her as an online pet. Unfortunately the event soon turned dangerous after a hacker released a powerful data bug into the crowd. Ouka was forced to assume her fighting form and helped Balmung hold off the monster while Shugo defeated it with a data drain. She soon became a regular member of the party, and joined Shugo and the rest in many other events.

After Rena was placed into a coma by the hackers, Ouka took it upon herself to help Shugo save her. She kept him hidden from Kamui and her Cobalt Knights and traveled with him to a closed off server where they had their final confrontation with the hackers and the Vagrant AI Morti. During the final battle Ouka was transformed into a puppy by Shugo's Drain Arc, rendering her useless for most of the fight.

Manga
Ouka's first appearance in the Legend of the Twilight manga was at the annual Cherry Blossom event, which she was invited to by her friend Mireille. As a joke she was introduced to Shugo and Rena while in her werewolf form, which caused the two to mistake her for a dog AI. Thinking that she was actually a dog, Shugo wound up giving her a dog collar as a gift, and only realized his mistake when she transformed into her human form in order to save him and his sister from a powerful skeleton monster. The resulting fight wound up destroying almost all of the cherry trees in the zone, and forced the event to an early close. Always the flirt, Ouka decided to keep wearing the dog collar even in her human form, as proof that Shugo was her "owner".

Soon afterwards, the Vagrant AI Zefie appeared and attached herself to Shugo. Though Ouka wasn't too fond of the young AI (who insisted on calling her "Poochie") Ouka agreed to help out in Zefie's search for her mother, the AI Aura. When Shugo and Zefie became the targets of Kamui and the Cobalt Knights, the debug team of The World, Ouka was arrested along with the rest of Shugo's party for "aiding an illegal character". Though released on probation, Ouka was unable to concentrate with her friend in trouble, and returned along with the rest of the party to help him out. With the help of the .hacker Kazu, Ouka was able to successfully hold off Magi and several Cobalt Knights while Shugo and the rest managed to escape to Net Slum. Though fully expecting to have her character deleted for defying CC Corp, Ouka was quite surprised when Kamui gave her a full pardon. Ouka's actions following this event are unknown.

.hack//Rumor
Ouka makes a brief appearance at the end of Rumor when Rena shows Brigit, the PC she played before Rena, to both Ouka and Mireille. Rena asks Ouka what her reason for playing The World is, and Ouka responds that it's "To test my strength". Shugo arrives soon after, causing Rena to log onto her normal character so they can go onto an adventure.

Trivia

 * Tokyopop mistranslated Ouka's name as "Orca" on several occasions, which confused many people, who got her mixed up with the legendary player Orca of the Azure Sea.
 * The anime romanized her name as "Ohka", but it's slightly harder to spot, since it's pronounced the same as "Ouka".
 * The Werewolf class that Ouka has is a rare class that only Knuckle Masters can upgrade to.
 * An Apkallu thread about Ouka (misromanized as "Houka") appears in .hack//Reminisce. Several players post various messages. Some say that they knew her from the previous version of The World, while others are there to simply post messages about her "attributes."