Hiroko

Hiroko (ヒロコ, Hiroko) is the main female heroine of Shin Megami Tensei II.

She is introduced as a citzen of the Center, and a member of the infamous Temple Knights; with a mysterious past that, unbeknownst to even her, irrevocably tied her own destiny with that of Aleph.

As the usual partners of the male heroes in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise, Hiroko lacks the ability to recruit and summon demons, but compensate for that in the use of magic-based techniques for both offense and defense.

Appearances

 * Shin Megami Tensei II: Main heroine.

"Hawk"
Hiroko initially meet Aleph, the protagonist (who at the time answered by the name of "Hawk"), upon requesting his aid as the new Champion of the Colosseum. Hiroko is a citzen of the Center, and also a member of the acclaimed Temple Knights, the most sacred and powerful order of warriors under the service of the Center. It's her aim to find a "missing little boy" that disappeared from the Center's headquarters after an explosion that took place six months before the events of the game, and which she believes was orchestrated by two renegaded scientists named Mekata and Hanada. Hiroko believes that Hanada is hiding in the Madam's mansion, so she plans to accompany Hawk, as the newest winner of the Colosseum's tournament, in order to gain entrance to the heavily guarded estate (the Madam is know to request meetings with the Champions, in order to congratulate them for their victory).

Once there, however, they discover that not only the Madam isn't aware of Hanada's whereabouts, but that she's also under his pursuit: she asks for the help of Hawk, and both he and Hiroko, along with the Madam's "pet demon", a powerful Cerberus, venture themselves into the dangerous slums of Valhalla, where they think Hanada is hiding. According to the Madam, the mad scientist plan is to open a portal to the Abyss, which is confirmed as truth by Hawk and Hiroko when they finally manage to track him down, fighting a Mercurius that he summons (and is murdered by). Back to the Madam's mansion, they find Zayin (also a member of the Temple Knights) waiting for them. He then escorts Hawk, who is revealed to be named "Aleph", and Hiroko back to the Center's headquarters, where Hiroko is reprimanded by The Center's Bishop for her acting without the Center's consent. She thanks Aleph for his help, and leaves the party for a short while.

Rescue
Later in the game, it is revealed by Mekata that Hiroko was taken prisoner by the Center for leaving her duties as a Temple Knight on her search for the lost boy that she mentioned earlier. After traversing through the Underworld's dungeons, Aleph finds her inside a cell in the labor's camp located under the Factory district, but he has troubles in getting her out due to a psychotic trance in which she was mysteriously induced. It is only when Nadja, a demon girl that helped guiding Aleph through the camp's mazes, fuses herself with Hiroko in order to restore her senses, that she finally comes back to her usual self, joining Aleph for good in each other's quest for answers.

Since Mekata would only be willing to respond to Aleph's questions if he were alongside Hiroko, the two of them decide to arrange a new meeting with the scientist, who was hiding in Valhalla's slums. But, once there, they meet once again with Zayin, and are shocked to learn that the Center has despatch a gargantuan demon named Abaddon to swallow up all of Valhalla. Utterly disgusted by the Center's actions, Zayin, labeled as a traitor, stages a revolt, taking over the local broadcasting of Millennium News Network, and informing the people of the true purposes of the Center: according to him, the world of the Thousand Year Kingdom that the Center wants to create is a reality only for a limited number of selected people. The ones who are not chosen are cruelly cast aside, just like the citizens of Valhalla (who chose the pleasures of a free life over servitude under the Center's laws). Once the "wheat has been separated from the chaff", Tokyo Millennium will be destroyed, just like Valhalla. Finally, Zayin reveals that the Factory is nothing more than a concentration camp, where people are forced to work against their wills. By exposing the true agenda of the Center to the people, Zayin hopes to incite them into action, so that they can together stop the machinations of the Center, and fix the corrupted system that is governing Millennium.

At the Underworld
Divided by doubt on which side to align themselves with, Aleph and Hiroko meet and befriends a mysterious blonde man on Holytown who introduce himself as Louis Cyper. According to him, Abaddon's body can be found hiding somewhere on the Underworld, far below the most depths of Tokyo Millennium and the reach of the Center's influence. Hearing this, they decide to travel once again there, traversing through the multiple different layers of the underground ruins of what once was the original city of Tokyo, encountering it's various residents and gradually discovering how truly grim is the way that the Center treats those who are not considered worthy before their eyes.

First, they have to fight Daleth, a rival of Aleph, in the dungeons of the sunken city of Shijuku. Unbeknownst to them, Daleth has come up with a new plan to use a love potion on Aleph (manufactured by a prankster fairy named Puck) in order to make him fall in love with Anoon (a timid fairy girl who is the owner of a drug shop in the area), which he hopes it will put him out of commission for good. The plan backfires however, and the love potion ends up hiting Hiroko instead (who then starts to comically chase Daleth around).

After Aleph forces Puck to give him the Infidelilly Sap, and is helped by Oberon (the king of the faeries, and the benevolent ruler of Shinjuku) to break the spell on Hiroko, Daleth is the next one to suffer from the effects of the sap, falling deeply in love with Anoon (who, since the beginning, also loved him). After these events, Daleth finally abandons his grudge on Aleph, deciding to live in Shinjuku, alongside Anoon, in order to help the fairies make their lives easier. He also explains that the "Mars Pillar" Aleph retrieved in one of their previous battles is, in fact, one of the ancient artifacts needed to open a passage to Makai. He gives them a hint of where they can find the next Pillar, and then they leave, resuming their exploration of the Underworld.

Next stop is Akasaka, a city under the dominion of the Chirei, hardworking demons (and even some humans) who earn a living by excavating precious weapons and other items from ages past in a nearby site, and selling them to clients from the surface. And lastly, Aleph and Hiroko arrives on Roppongi, a town which has become the last refuge of the "mutant community," a group of humans who were grotesquely disfigured by the toxic radiations that affected the the Earth after the nuclear wars, and were sealed under the earth by the construction of Tokyo Millennium, cast out by the Center and forced to forever live out of the reach of the sunlight.

After meeting with the Mutant Elder, and hearing his story, Aleph and Hiroko are then introduced to Hiruko, who serves as an attendant of the powerful guardian of Tokyo, Taira no Masakado. Desperate to amend his past mistakes, where he foolishly betrayed the Amatsukami clan of japanese gods (and Masakado himself) when he allowed the Kunitsukami, allied with the Hebrew pantheon of gods, to defeat and imprison them, Hiruko begs Aleph to retrieve his master's body parts, which were torn asunder when he tried to mediate the conflict between the two opposing groups, and were taken away by the Kunitsukami not long after they were equally cast away by the same gods who they had aligned themselves with before.

With the help of Hiruko, the doors of different shrines scattered through the Underworld are opened: there, Aleph and Hiroko meet some of the Kunitsukami, who after fighting or being helped by him, grants the duo the parts of Masakado's body they were holding. Then, after discovering the location of Masakado's missing decapitated head (who was in possession of a digger in Holytown who wasn't aware of it's true value), and fusing it all together with Masakado's soul, that Hiruko had with him all along, Aleph and Hiroko finally revives Masakado, who, after thanking them, proceeds to teleport himself, and his servant, to a sealed grotto in the Underworld, were the Amatsukami are being held.

Not wielding the great strength he once had, a temporary consequence of the rebirth process, Masakado's current power is unable to let him do anything more than just removing the giant boulder that was put in the way of the cave's entrance; as such, Aleph and Hiroko are the only ones who can free the gods of the Amatsukami now. Once they manage to do it, they are deeply thanked by both Hiruko and the sun goddess Amaterasu herself. Leaving for the Kongokai (a celestial plane where the Amatsukami intend to heal from their wounds), Aleph and Hiroko are left once again from where they started. But this time, they made up their minds: they shall go back to Holytown, join Zayin in his quest for true justice, and storm the Center's headquarters once and for all.

Rebellion
Once reunited with Zayin, he explains to them that his first priority is to rescue the innocent workers who, according to him, are being forced to labor in the Factory area against their wills. They all rush to the camps, but there, are perplexed to find out that none of the workers, some of which are even children, wants to leave their cells (much like Hiroko once did), indifferent to the inhuman conditions they have been toiling under all this time. Knowing that something is clearly wrong, Zayin suggests that they invade the Factory's watchtower, whose last floor was being guarded by the demon Belphegor, who almost managed to mortally wound Zayin.

After Aleph and Hiroko finishes off Belphegor, they proceed to uncover the Factory's disturbingly dark secret: in the top of the tower, a demon woman named Siren is singing a sorrowful melody which is hypnotizing the laborers into mindlessly working till utter exhaustion and death on the fields. Discovering, however, that she wasn't to be blamed for her actions, and that the music was only her way of mourning the lost of her lover, from who she was taken away from by the Center's men, Aleph and Hiroko decides to finish what Hanada once started: with the dolls he once utilized in their hands, along with an other one that wasn't in his belongings (and was the main reason for the failure of the ritual at the slums of Valhalla), they successfully manage to open a gate that leads directly into the Abyss, where they start their looking for Siren's long lost lover, hoping that by reuniting the couple, she would stop her singing.

However, in the middle of their search in the plains of the Abyss, Aleph and Hiroko experience a bizarre phenomenon: a "spacial distortion" of sorts teleports them into the inwards of a srange building, where on separated chambers, they find people tied to metallic chairs, their brains plugged into computers. Further investigating the upper floors, they are shocked to discover that the responsible for the disgusting state of those people was none other than Gimmel, the ruler of the Arcadia district, who reveals to them that the Arcadia that Aleph witnessed before (at the time, Hiroko was in jail) was nothing more than the fabrication of virtual reality, and thus, not real, simply an illusion under his control. Aware that Gimmel would not let them leave that place alive, not now that they know the truth about his fake utopia, Aleph and Hiroko engage him in battle, where he is killed, and his false world of delusions and lies, destroyed.

In the end, Aleph and Hiroko tracks down the location of Petersen, Siren's lover. Bringing him to Tokyo Millennium through the same portal they once came from, they finally reunite him with Siren. The couple thanks Aleph and Hiroko for both their help and kindness before traveling back to the Abyss, which makes the spell that once brainwashed the laborers to dissolve itself; now, they are truly free.

Nevertheless, the group isn't awarded with much time for celebrations, hearing through the television broadcasting on Holytown that the Center's bishop decided to adopt more drastic measures to deal with Zayin's revolt: he states that if Zayin doesn't submit himself to the Center immediately, they will cut out Holytown's air supply, merciless killing everyone who lives in that area. Zayin doesn't intend to give himself in so easily though, heading to the Center's headquarters not to surrender, but to fight them head-on. Making their ways through the Center's corridors, Aleph, Hiroko and Zayin finally found themselves before the doors of the Center's secret chambers, which sheltered their mysterious and true leaders: an enigmatic group only known as The Four Elders. Still, appearances can be deceiving, with the assembly of senators quickly showing a glimpse of their inhuman nature while turning the rebellious Zayin into a stone slab with their ferocious supernatural powers. Seeing this, it is uncovered to Aleph and Hiroko, who rushed to his rescue, the true identities of the Elders as, in fact, archangels of God all along. Three of them, Michael, Raphael and Uriel, face the heroes in furious battles, but are all scathingly defeated and killed by them.

Notwithstanding, the danger has not yet passed: The Fake YHVH himself appears this time, in order to exact retribution on Aleph and Hiroko for killing his servants. After an arduous and difficult combat, however, they still managed to emerge triumphant, albeit with great effort. Exiting the chambers, the last Elder then appears in front of Aleph and Hiroko, revealing herself as the last archangel, Gabriel. According to her, the seraphim were all commanded in the past by the real God to look after the building of Tokyo Millennium, being instructed by him to wait for the savior that he would one day send to them. However, the government of the city, under their control, became so irreversibly corrupted, turning into nothing more than a tool to control and enslave humanity, that it simply could not shelter a Messiah of the one God as to lead the people. Unable to wait any longer, the archangels tried to fabricate their own Messiah, a pursuit that lead them led them astray from the will of God, who abandoned them in return. Now, Gabriel, who separated herself from them by the orders of God, is the only seraphim remaining. She uses her magical powers to restore Zayin back to normal, and tells Aleph and Hiroko that he is waiting for them in the Center's control room, before disappearing to destinations unknown.

At the Abyss
Now, temporary appointed as the responsible for directing the Center's activities, Zayin once again requests Aleph and Hiroko's help, stating that they must investigate an strange anomaly that their computers have detected near the area of Holytown. Once there, they are surprised to find out that a strange "drill-like" tower has risen from the surface, and that it's appearance seems to be affecting the civilians in even more bizarre ways: their natural energies, their Magnetite, is seemingly being absorbed by the enigmatic spinning obelisk, fainting and disorientation being only the primordial symptoms of what could become lethal occurrences. Reporting their findings back to Zayin, he deduces that the object is actually the tail of an even larger demon, whose body, he concludes, must be dwelling in the Abyss for such a thing to be possible. Thus, Aleph and Hiroko decide to once again travel to the demon world.

It seems, however, that the use of the gate created by the right positioning of the four dolls in a specific place and order is only capable of sending it's invokers into one of the various different segments of the Abyss, the Tiphereth district, and that Aleph and Hiroko will need to find an alternative way to get to the Abyss if they want to fully explore it. To do so, they start collecting the remaining pillars that Daleth once mentioned in their trip to Shinjuku. By gathering the remaining six artifacts, and putting them in their respective altars (which are spread among the Underworld), Aleph and Hiroko manages to summon a true portal which finally send them both into the plains of Yesod, in the demon world, where they soon discover that a demon called Moloch, following direct orders from the ruler of the Abyss, Lucifer, is the one responsible for the predicament the citizens of Holytown are currently facing. The reasons as to why Lucifer would want to assimilate the magnetite energies from the residents of the surface remain yet unknown.

After investigating the near town and gathering more information, Aleph and Hiroko discover that the way to Tiphereth is currently sealed, and that the way to next area is being guarded by a demon called Hecate which, apparently, as the moon goddess, becomes invincible when the moon is in any phase except lightless. By defeating her, they make their way into two new areas: Netzach and Hod. Since they were told that the door to the Tiphereth area was locked by two keys in possession of the rulers of Netzach and Hod respectively, those are consequently their new destinations.

At this point, it's up to the player to decide which zone he wishes to visit first. If Hod is chosen, Aleph and Hiroko must face off against Tiamat, a demoness of great power, told by Lucifer himself not to underestimate them. If Netzach is chosen, Aleph and Hiroko must defeat Crowley, a human wizard who is obsessed with the practice of Sabbaths (orgies whose goal is the gathering of sexual energy for the purpose of summoning demons). When both of them are taken care of, Aleph and Hiroko finally open the gates which were blocking the entrance to Tiphereth, connecting the four areas once again through the Yetzirah Corridor.

Once in Tiphereth, Aleph and Hiroko are suddenly approached by a demon messenger called Gomory, who works for Lucifer, and is there under his commands in order to bring Aleph before her master, in Kether (the final zone in which is divided the Abyss). In Kether Castle, the personal palace where Lucifer and his minions dwell, Aleph and Hiroko find out that Louis Cypher was Lucifer taking a human disguise all along, who then reveals to them that the God they defeated at the Elder's chambers in the Center was nothing more than a false "God", the product of the raw faith of the fallen seraphim that was so monstrously strong, and of minds so hopelessly twisted, that it actually managed give life to a fake YHVH.

Confused about the mysterious source of Aleph's unnatural power, Lucifer is considering the possibility that Aleph may be, in fact, the reincarnation of Satan, God's supreme instrument of judgement, punishment and retribution; and that is why he has summoned Aleph into his presence, so that he could ascertain his suspicions by directly seeing him. Now face to face with him, Lucifer is relieved when he reach the conclusion that Aleph is not Satan. But, according to him, several signs are still indicating that Satan's revival is only a matter of time, particularly, the fact that Seth is starting to awaken. He tells them that Seth is one of the two halves of Satan, imprisoned on a temple located in the realm of Tiphereth, and under the effects of a deep slumber, by God himself, so that he could awaken only when it came the day that Satan would be once again needed.

Satan, Lucifer states, is a toll of God's wrath: if he is revived, he will wipe out all the human race from the face of the Earth, not even sparing the residents of the Underworld or from the Abyss from complete extermination, and that is why is his wish to fight against Satan in one last battle to the death, so that he can protect his people. Nevertheless, Lucifer isn't confident that he can win against Satan alone, and that is why he desires the aid of Aleph. He says that if he and Hiroko truly wish to form an alliance with him and the demon-kind, he must reach Kether Castle, but without the escort of Gomory, and of course, by their own volition and desire to whole heartedly join him and his cause.

Gomory then takes Aleph and Hiroko back to Tiphereth, where they are almost immediately faced with another unexpected meeting: Gabriel herself is in the Abyss, and she says that Zayin wishes to see them. She transports them to a place called "Eden", a garden located at the very top of the Center's headquarters and that, according to her, was made in the same way as the paradise of old. There, the group is reunited with Zayin, who is aware about their recent audience with Lucifer in Kether Castle. He states that Lucifer's objective is nothing but to prevent the humans from attaining peace, and that is by destroying Tokyo Millennium that he wishes to achieve this goal. He, indeed, acknowledges the undeniable fact that the previous government that administrated the Center was truly rotten to the core, but he still vehemently insists that, in the end, it was thanks to Millennium that humanity managed to survive this long in this demon infested world. Finally, Zayin makes a proposition of his own to the two: he wants Aleph and Hiroko on his side once again, so that they can kill Lucifer, rebuild Millennium, and work together towards the building of a true Millennium Kingdom.

From here, Aleph (and, of course, the player) must make a decisive choice that will lead him and Hiroko on a path with no possible return: he can either join Lucifer in his quest to free humanity of the tyranny and submission of a world of suffocating order... or he can join Zayin and Gabriel in their pursuit of ridding the world of the prince of darkness and his minions, in order to leave it's fate once again under the jurisdiction of God's commands.

Trivia

 * Hiroko's outfit is accessible to players using a female avatar in Shin Megami Tensei: IMAGINE.