Litchi Faye-Ling

"I don't suppose you're here for... a checkup?"

- Litchi Faye-Ling

Litchi Faye-Ling is a renowned doctor living in Orient Town, located in the 13th Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi. She is a playable character in the BlazBlue series.

Information
Litchi Faye-Ling owns a clinic in the main throng of Orient Town, and is helped by her assistant Linhua. For a time, she worked with Tager and Kokonoe in Sector Seven, until an incident, where a man by the name of Lotte Carmine, who seemed to hold much importance to Litchi, became Arakune. She defends the local townspeople from Arakune's assaults, and seeks to restore him to his former self through any means necessary; even through death. She also seems to respect Bang, apologizing to him if she defeats him in a match, although she remains unaware of the true extent of his feelings for her. She is often subject to adoration for her noticeably large breasts, and can be quite persistent when inebriated.

Calamity Trigger
She is well-known and trusted by the Kaka Clan living beneath Kagutsuchi, often bringing them food or teaching their members. At some point, she took an object from the Boundary, her panda hairpiece named Lao Jiu. It acts as an amplifier of Seithr, and seems to allow her control over her staff. She is also the host of her own Fourth Wall Mail show, "Teach Me, Miss Litchi!", drawn in chibi-fied form, where she teaches about the not-so-canon plot of BlazBlue and answers questions from various other characters, ranging from Taokaka, the NOL students, to Ragna.

Continuum Shift
In Continuum Shift, Litchi reconsiders returning to Sector Seven to get help from Kokonoe in regards to curing Arakune. However, an encounter with him left her in shock, realizing he could still speak normally after he warned her to cease her attempts to cure him. The reason he gives is that she is drawing power from the Boundary, which has since corrupted her (to an unknown extent). Unlike him, Litchi has yet to cross a certain thin line and be completely corrupted like him; therefore it's not too late for her to turn to Kokonoe and be cured.

In the Story Mode, she started having fits of blackouts and witnessing events of other versions of herself, as well as having a desire to obtain the Azure Grimoire. However, she was warned by Torakaka to not be addicted with it. While asking Kokonoe for the cause of this, Kokonoe instead brushed her off and told her to stop fighting, since the corruption of the Boundary was starting to take place, increasing her strength as well. Still determined to be able to cure Arakune while fighting, as well as frightened with her current condition, Litchi retreats. However, all the time, she has been harassed by Hazama, who seemed to know more than he lets on, including discovering her unpublished work about seithr, as well as quite detailed information about Arakune, although Litchi considered him highly suspicious. She saw Arakune speaking normally later, and begged her to kill him. Thinking more thoroughly, Litchi suddenly discovered that such corruption in her body would've transformed her into something like Arakune, but she stayed normal. Realizing that there's much information in the Novus Orbis Librarium that she has yet to know, and some of them may be beneficial to her current state and Arakune, Litchi made the heavy decision to leave her former life behind and joined the NOL.

Although her Story Mode ended there, it is implied that in other stories, Litchi has appeared as a member of the NOL. In Rachel's story, she attacks her for barging into the NOL headquarters. Instead, Rachel admonishes her decision to join them, calling her filthy. Litchi defended herself by revealing that her joining wasn't due to mere temptation, but due to a state of desperation that nobody seemed to care about Arakune and would rather leave him dead, and if there's the slightest glimmer of hope, even in the likes of the NOL, she would try to reach it. Rachel soon defeated Litchi, and warned her to think about her decision thoroughly.

Her other appearance is during Carl's storyline, whereas Carl caught up to the NOL base in pursuit of Relius. After seeing Litchi hanging around with NOL, he starts berating her for being the same as Relius and the other adults, only caring for things when they are beneficial for her, and attacks. After the battle was over, Litchi realized that Carl took a dangerous drug to make him stronger and he ended up bawling. Litchi decided to comfort him with a hug, but soon after Relius appeared and attempted to kill Carl; this action shocked her, and she referred to him as 'evil'. Nirvana eventually teleported the two to another place, where Litchi learned the identity of Relius' puppet Ignis, Carl's mother. Carl went off to Ikaruga soon after, thanking Litchi for comforting him.

Shortly after, Litchi managed to arrive back to the top of Kagutsuchi and blocked an attack by both Jin and a weakened Hakumen directed towards Imperator Saya. She is last seen heading to Ikaruga along with Saya, Hazama, Relius and Tsubaki.

Chronophantasma
Even if she didn't take joy in joining NOL, Litchi had no choice. Hazama told her that in order to save Arakune, she had to become an Observer. While learning to become one, she was sent to Ikaruga to help him complete the Azure Grimoire. She tried her best to not look suspicious against her former friends.

However, an encounter with Bang Shishigami, and hearing that her apprentice Linhua would be deeply saddened if she learned her allegiance, along with Bang's urges for her to leave NOL caused conflict in Litchi. Claiming that she could never go back, she resisted the attack against Bang, knocking him out. Realizing that she hurted her friends, Litchi ran off in tears and anguish. Around that time, Rachel reappeared again, once again reprimanding her. Still claiming that becoming an Observer was the only way to save Arakune, Litchi attacked her in rage.

Although Litchi won the fight, she was exhausted and Rachel was still standing, unfazed and this time told Litchi that what she's doing was merely pushing her thoughts to everyone else forcefully, that she is weak, egotistic and selfish. Rachel, as an Observer, then told her that an Observer must be able to keep a form of themselves, which mostly require them to distance themselves from the world, Kokonoe has been doing so as well in her efforts to actually observe and save Arakune, failure to do so would cause their body to disintegrate, such was Litchi's corruption symptoms. Unfortunately, as Lotte became aware of Arakune's form, he gave Arakune a link to the world, thereby ensuring his existence and deleting Lotte, making all of Litchi's efforts from that point on futile.

As Rachel left and Litchi learned the truth, she fell onto her knees and wept remorsefully.

Personality
Litchi, at first glance, can be perceived as the perfect woman - courteous, sexy, and intelligent. Being a doctor and former scientist, she is a kind person who is willing to help those in need. She is good friends with the Kaka Clan, acting as their teacher both mentally and, in Taokaka's case, physically. She has a one-sided, rather awkward relationship with Bang: Litchi likes him as a friend, while Bang is infatuated with her, but does not know how to express his love.

In her heart, however, Litchi hides a deep guilt for not being able to help her colleague Lotte, who became the being known as Arakune. In secret, she has searched for a way to cure him through any means necessary. It is through this that she is manipulated by Hazama to work for the NOL.

However, she didn't take any joy in the act, only taking such path because she has tried other paths to no avail such as asking Kokonoe, but was refused. She also realized that she had to use the cure for herself, as leaving it alone will not make her own corruption go away by itself, as seen in her Bad Ending. It also shows her unwillingness to give up or taking the easy way out to live in ignorance of her own condition when there's so much she could do for the benefits of others.

Despite working with NOL, however, she never did became as low as her other co-workers are nor completely focusing on saving Arakune and forgetting everyone else. Litchi remained a kind, courteous soul with a kind heart.

Her emotion is said to be a mess. This makes her unfit to be an Observer, as it would destroy her. On the other hand, because of her messy emotion, Relius Clover saw her as a liability and consider her unworthy to even become his experiment.

Appearance
Litchi is a young beautiful, sexy woman with long black hair tied into a bun, pink eyes, pink lipstick, and large breasts. On top of her hair is her pet panda, Lao Jiu. She wears a stylish Chinese doctor uniform with long white sleeves, a yin and yang brooch ribbon, a red vest, and a skirt dress that exposes her thighs. When in battle, she wears a slightly similar outfit: her hair is tied into a ponytail with Lao Jiu sitting on top with a yin-yang hair accessory at the end of the ponytail. She also wears an unbuttoned red vest that shows her black bra and breasts with separate black sleeves, a long red skirt, and red shoes which are in a Chinese sort of style.

When she used to work for Sector Seven, her hair was styled the same way as the style she uses for combat. While performing medical work as a doctor she used wear China-red glasses with a styled white lab coat.

When she was younger, her hair was as long as her back, and she kept it tied with a deep green bow. She also wore small glasses, along with a sleeveless red shirt, white tights, and red slippers. When Amane Nishiki uses his Astral Heat on her, this look is retained, but Litchi is with Lao Jiu.

Powers and Abilities
Litchi has the ability to mentally control her staff from a distance. Her staff is usually seen floating behind her and it will thrust forward as she punches and kicks before returning to its neutral position. She can also throw it so it lands, erect and upright, far away from her, and she can later make it fly back to her, twirling rapidly like a wheel so that it hurts anyone in its way. The staff seems to be able to do some small amount of shape-shifting. Her staff can split into three parts or briefly double itself to attack from two angles or even become a strange "stick man" that marches forward as it wildly flails at an opponent.

Litchi herself is clearly skilled in martial arts, even without her staff, and is a skilled athlete. Many of her attacks involve split kicks or ornate gymnastics, and she can easily balance on one leg on the tip of her upright staff and still generate enough power to kick downward at an enemy. She also can perform what appears to be some chi-based attacks as well. Her formidable fighting skills, combined with her independently attacking staff makes her capable of attacking from many different angles at once.

Most of her powers come from her Panda hairpin Lao Jiu, by siphoning the spirits of the dead from the Boundary. This is actually a double-edged sword, as while it gives her great flexibility and control over her staff, it slowly erodes her mind, and overusage may end with her turning into something like Arakune.

Trivia

 * Her name and normal color scheme seems to be a pun on a Chinese fruit (lychee). It should also be noted that many of her moves are named after Mahjong hands, and her name is an English name for a Mahjong rules system (Riichi), reflecting her interest in the game. Her name in Chinese also can be read as 來吃菲玲, Láichī Fēi Líng.
 * Litchi's theme, Oriental Flower, is a remix of Jam Kuradoberi's theme, Babel Nose.
 * Litchi's birthday, July 7, is also the date of the Chinese Qi Xi, or the Japanese Tanabata.
 * Litchi's Tsubame Gaeshi move is an infamous reference to Kojiro Sasaki, the sole creator of the Tsubame Gaeshi (Swallow Return) technique. Her Kote Gaeshi (Small Hand Reversal) is named after an Aikido technique of the same name.
 * Out of all the characters, Litchi's Continuum Shift artwork is the least drastically changed from her Calamity Trigger artwork.
 * In one of her voice sets, when performing Kote Gaeshi (421/623D without the staff), Litchi will yell out "Genbu", "Byakko", "Suzaku" and "Seiryu". This is a reference to the Four Symbols in the Chinese Constellations (the Black Tortoise, the White Tiger, the Vermilion Bird and the Azure Dragon, respectively). The words that Litchi yells out are their Japanese names.
 * Her staff is a reference to Sun Wukong from the Chinese Epic "Journey to the West". In the Epic, Sun Wukong's staff can change its length.
 * Her fourth color scheme resembles the Intelligence Department's color-suits.
 * In Continuum Shift, if Litchi fights a mirror match, she is the only character to acknowledge that she is fighting herself: "Huh? What?! A... a lookalike?"
 * In BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger's arcade opening, her name is misspelled "Litchi Feye-Ling"
 * A recurring joke in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift is Litchi pulling unusual items from the space between her breasts.
 * In Teach Me, Miss Litchi!, whenever the player helps Taokaka answer a quiz question correctly, Litchi appears to bring a large stack of homemade meat buns out of nowhere. This is noted by Noel, who wonders where exactly she brought them out. In a later episode, Tsubaki appears to have discovered that they came from her "cleavage".
 * In Rachel's gag reel, Litchi has fallen in love with Ragna the Bloodedge and attempts to win his love using a "medicine" that she pulls from between her breasts.
 * Another joke in BlazBlue is Litchi's apparent cosplay fetish.
 * In Teach Me, Miss Litchi!, Litchi is seen in one episode dressing Noel in a maid costume.
 * In Noel's gag reel in Calamity Trigger she was forced to wear April's outfit, Taokaka's coat and Valentine's outfit.
 * In Tsubaki's gag reel, Litchi coaxes Tsubaki into wearing a NOL uniform similar to one that Noel wears, clothing similar to Taokaka's, and a maid uniform.