♠Theme
Undisclosed Desires | Muse
♠Image Song
Roses | Poets of the Fall
Undisclosed Desires | Muse
♠Image Song
Roses | Poets of the Fall
♦ GENERAL INFORMATION ♦
♠Role The older of the two Watcher siblings. Kazehana is immensely powerful in her gift, but she’s chosen to ignore it most of her life, so she doesn’t know half as much about it as she should.
♠Race Human/Watcher
♠Gender Female
♠Nickname(s)/Alias(es) Often goes by Kaz. A few people have ventured ‘Hana,’ but she’s not too fond of it, honestly. It’s way too girly for her tastes.
♠Age 23
♠Love Interest Asmodeus or Morgan? Who knows? Kaz sure doesn’t, especially considering she hasn't met either of them yet.
♠Face Claim Hitagi Senjougahara—Bakemonogatari
♦ APPEARANCE ♦
♠Height 5’10”
♠Weight 135
♠Build Athletic, a bit curvaceous, especially in the bust. “My face is up here, asshole.”
♠Hair Color Dark Purple, and that’s the hue she was born with. So sue her.
♠Eye Color Dark Blue
♠Scars/Tattoos/Piercings Uh, well… there’s this weird birthmark shaped like a lotus flower on her wrist. It’s a reddish-purple, and lots of people mistake it for some kind of body art. Her ears are pierced twice each, and if you look close enough, you can tell that her left eyebrow used to be as well.
♠Description As one of her guy friends from college once told her, she has the body type of the star in an unrealistic porno. She clocked him in the face for saying it, but there’s not really any denying that she does look kind of… well… the delicate word is voluptuous. There have been less-polite words used, but never by the same person twice… unless said person is into pain, anyway. She’s definitely an eye-catcher, though as she’ll often lament, the kinds of people who stare are never the good ones. Better her than her innocent little sister, though.
Kaz was born with plum-purple hair and eyes the color of twilight. It combines with her pale complexion to give her a very exotic sort of look about her, and part of her college tuition was paid with modeling contracts that took advantage of this. The other part was, surprisingly, funded by scholarship. Her skin is blemish-free save for her birthmark, and she usually wears long sleeves to cover that up. Her whole manner of dress is pretty modest actually—she rarely if ever shows much skin. Kaz has a fair amount of natural athletic grace in her movements, but there’s enough swagger to her walk that she’s nobody’s porcelain doll by any means. Her voice is in a lower register than most women, and a little bit rough around the edges, but pleasant enough to hear. At least she’s not one of those nasally, screechy girls. She can’t stand them.
♠Preferred Clothing Kaz prefers things with sleeves, and if she’s going to wear shorts or (very, very rarely) a skirt, she’ll usually include leggings underneath. It’s a strange kind of modesty for a girl who’s modeled before, but then again, maybe that’s why she dresses so conservatively now. Her thick, shiny hair is usually pulled into a ponytail, but occasionally she’ll let it fall loose down her shoulders. Some days, especially when she has clinic shifts, she’ll wear a pair of square, black-framed glasses instead of contact lenses, which tend to make her head hurt after a while.
♦ MENTALITY ♦
♠Oddities Kaz has a tendency to swear a lot, even when she’s not particularly angry. She just has a pretty loose vernacular that way. Despite her looks and the attention they’ve earned her in the past, she can be pretty slow to catch on to things like flirting or advances of any sort. Though far from stupid, she’s a little bit people-dumb, not always able to tell things like when she’s being played or lied to, and generally not always handling the emotions of other people very well.
♠Skills Kazehana is a very skilled martial artist, something she picked up from her dad mostly, since he’s a practitioner himself and used to drill both his girls on it pretty much daily. It’s gotten to the point where her natural reaction to some things is punching when it should probably be using her words instead. She’s also surprisingly good with things like logic puzzles, and seems to be able to think outside the box pretty well. She’s not a half-bad sketch artist, either.
♠Likes Kaz has a lot of completely random preferences, such as for spicy food, the color red, rain over sunshine, and cold over heat. Really, though, the core of her personality is such that she appreciates the straightforward and honest over the subtle and deceptive. She also tends to like people who don’t mind going toe-to-toe with her, either in a battle of wits or a sparring match. There’s nothing quite so fun as someone who just gets that her need to blow off energy isn’t some childish compulsion, but a real thing, you know? Maybe oddly, she tends to get along better with animals than people.
♠Dislikes Kaz will give just about anybody a hard time, but it’s usually in fun. There are only really a few things she dislikes badly, and those include people making assumptions about the kind of person she is based on her looks. More than anything though, she can’t stand anyone picking on Tsuki. That is her number one pet peeve, and it’s likely to get the offender laid facedown in the pavement before they know what hit them. She pretty much defines “overprotective big sister,” but she knows Tsuki looks out for her, too. They’re a team, dammit, and she’s the muscle of that team, which means that she’ll get physical if she has to. She doesn’t really like being a Watcher, and unlike her sister, will usually try to go about her day as though the creepy supernatural stuff she sees isn’t there.
♠Weaknesses Despite her sass and her bravado, Kazehana has her moments of vulnerability. She often worries that nobody besides her family will ever bother getting to know her for who she is, or will accept the fact that she sees all kinds of supernatural whack jobs wandering around and had to work daily to keep herself sane. Her powers have always bee extraordinary, even for a Watcher, and so she finds herself plagued by errant spirits, angels, and the occasional demon more often than she would like. Trying to deal with it can wear on her a lot. Due to constant nightmares, she doesn’t ever really sleep easily, either. Trying to ignore what she sees has made her a bit unaware of the finer points of nonhuman entities, and so her development of her prodigious powers has been… well, almost nonexistent, if she’s being honest. Without a doubt, though, her biggest weakness is Tsukiyo. Though her sister is more subtle than Kazehana, it's the latter who deals with the bullies and the jerks who try to tease her sibling. Kaz would jump in front of a bullet for her Tsu-Tsu, no questions asked, no regrets considered.
♠Phobia(s)
Atychiphobia | Fear of Failure
Arachnophobia | Fear of Spiders
♠Sexuality Heterosexual
♠Personality
Sassy | Sarcastic | Crass | Compassionate | Oblivious | Educated
Kazehana Fuhen has never been afraid to be who she is and say what she feels. She firmly believes that the people worth keeping in your life will love you for your flaws and your strengths both, and anyone else can go take a long walk off a short pier. Though that may seem a bit… harsh, to say the least, she practices what she preaches, accepting other people for who they are and who they want to be, regardless of where they might have come from or what they might have done. She doesn’t get to decide who is condemned and who is forgiven, and she’d never presume to act like judge and jury. Though honestly, the one thing she can’t stand is people picking on Tsuki, and if someone does, she’ll go judge and jury, all right—executioner, too, though thankfully mostly in the figurative sense. Family is the one absolute in her life—you love your family, and you take care of them as well as you can. And you don’t act like a stupid baby when they do their part to take care of you, too.
She tends to take well to the protector role, and from an early age in life was always dragging home injured animals or bullied kids and making friends with them. As a kid, she was a bright spot in her neighborhood, always out and about outside, getting into all sorts of silly trouble and coming home with scraped knees and the world’s biggest smile. It drove her mom crazy, but her dad encouraged it—probably a little too much.
After her mother died, she became a bit less happy and a bit more cynical, but her energy didn’t seem to falter much. She developed quite the flair for sarcasm in her teenage years, which coincided with some of her peers starting to target her, especially with accusation of promiscuity, primarily due to body type. She never was, however, and to this day, she has yet to have a serious relationship of any kind—she generally thinks of herself as too busy for them. Aside from bringing her sass to life, those high school days saw the development of her compassion—she was friends with the misfits, always, and they were the coolest people around, issues and all. Of course, for a girl who could see ghosts, it was hardly a big deal that someone’s parents sold drugs, or that someone else was weirdly into kids’ cartoon shows or whatever.
Her attitude towards her own powers is a bit strange. For the most part, she’s never wanted anything to do with her talents, and since the Watcher blood in her family is probably from her mom’s side, she never really had the opportunity to be taught much about it. Unlike Tsukiyo, she didn’t particularly want to do any independent research, either. Most of the time, she’d rather not have her powers at all, but there’s no way she knows of to get rid of them. On the other hand… she does sometimes sneak a look at one of Tsu-Tsu’s books. Kaz isn’t a stupid girl by any means—she’s smart enough to be in the country’s best medical school studying to become a doctor, after all.
Overall, for all her apparent confidence and self-assurance, Kazehana is a woman undefined, unsure of where she stands in relation to the two worlds she occupies, and strangely vulnerable at the oddest moments, a combination of her social stupidity and residual self-esteem issues from being teased as a teenager. She isn’t sure what or where her place in the world really is, so she sticks close to what she knows, and tries not to think too hard about the things she doesn’t.
♦ BACKGROUND ♦
♠Relationship Status Single
♠Family
Kazehaya Fuhen | Father | Living | Age 45
Chiyo Fuhen | Mother | Deceased | Age 32 (upon death)
Tsukiyo Fuhen | Younger Sister | Living | Age 20
♠Personal History Kaz was the first child born to Kazehaya and Chiyo Fuhen, just outside of Tokyo, Japan. Named after her father (in a more feminine fashion, naturally), it seemed pretty much determined from the beginning that she would take after him more than their quiet mother. Indeed, she was a boisterous child, always energetic and running about everywhere she went. Her dad trained her in martial arts from a fairly young age, springing “surprise attacks” on her at random intervals. This is something he still does, actually, though she finds it more annoying than fun nowadays.
When Tsukiyo was born, Kaz immediately took to her sister, inspired by her dad telling her that she needed to be strong enough to protect her. She trained much harder, and as Tsukiyo grew up, the two were only apart when they had to be. Even in those awkward teenage years when siblings usually fight a lot, the two of them scarcely disagreed. This was, perhaps, helped along by the tragic circumstances of their mother’s death, which happened when Kaz was ten and Tsuki only seven. It depressed their father for a few years, during which the girls had to learn to take care of him as well as each other. Kaz reacted to this and tough circumstances at school by becoming a bit cynical and jaded, though she never really did learn to read the people outside of her small social group. This resulted in her trusting people she shouldn’t have on more than one occasion, and she got pretty burned for it, so to speak.
That said, she refused to let it change her, and though she eventually learned to take Tsuki’s advice on things like that, she slipped easily into the roll of smart-mouth and muscle for the sisters, content to let Tsuki to the research and social analysis stuff. Kaz was never dumb by any means, and always did well in school, but Tsuki just had way more patience and interest and talent for knowing what people were up to. It makes them practically unstoppable as a team, whatever the task before them might be.
Though Kaz has been able to see ghosts, demons, and so on for her entire life, she’s mostly chosen to ignore them. She was already a ‘freak’ at school, and then less kind things later in her education, the last thing she wanted was for anyone to find out that she could talk to spirits, of all things.
When she went to college, the family clinic was only just recovering financially as their dad bounced back from a protracted period of grieving, and so Kaz paid for her education herself, adamant that what they made from the clinic should go to Tsuki’s education, so she could go to any college she wanted, and be whatever she decided to be. Though Kaz got more than a few scholarships over the years, she also needed to pay for an apartment in the city, so she took up freelance modeling for a few years. When her undergraduate degree in biochemistry was done, she started medical school, but this time, the place is close enough that she can live back at home with her dad and sister, so she helps at the clinic and quit fashion. She’d never really liked it, so she wasn’t all that torn up about it.
Her dad’s back to his usual self, Tsuki’s in college, and Kaz is happy with medical school. Life’s looking up—but it would be better if she didn’t keep getting harassed by ghosts. It only seems to get worse as she gets older, and it’s been especially bad lately. She doesn’t know this, but it’s because she’s about to come into her full power and heritage as a Watcher, something that Tsuki’s already done, thanks to being way ahead of the curve and studying a lot. Kaz, on the other hand, is more than a little bit in denial about this.
It might take meeting a couple of fallen angels and a demon to convince her that she really has no choice in the matter.
♦ OTHER ♦
♠Theme
Invincible | Adelita's Way
♠Image Song
The Red | Chevelle
Invincible | Adelita's Way
♠Image Song
The Red | Chevelle
♦ GENERAL INFORMATION ♦
♠Role
♠Race Angel
♠Gender Male
♠Nickname(s)/Alias(es) Well, once upon a time, he was Michael, sovereign commander of the armies of God. That was… a long time ago now. He’s totally cool with you calling him Cass, though. Momo and As both do it.
♠Age Older than dirt. No, seriously. He was around pre-Creation. It was pretty boring.
♠Love Interest
♠Face Claim Renji Abarai | Bleach
♦ APPEARANCE ♦
♠Height 6’1”
♠Weight 225
♠Build He’s got a fair amount more muscle on his frame than either his brother or Asmodeus. It’s part of being… ex-military, if you will. He doesn’t look like a bodybuilder or anything ridiculous, but soldier would be just about right… though the rest of his appearance kind of ruins it.
♠Hair Color Red… like really red.
♠Eye Color Sort of a honey-cinnamon color. Definitely not an ordinary brown, but not ridiculously uncommon, either.
♠Scars/Tattoos/Piercings Like Momo and As, Cass has his fair share of scars, earned both before and after his fall. He has no piercings of any sort, but he does have obvious tattoos over most of his body—forehead, arms, back, chest, and legs. They’re all black, and part of an overall pattern. If asked, he says that they’re his stripes, and like any good tiger, he’s earned them.
♠Description Somewhat taller than average for a male, if not egregiously so, Cass stands out for his presence. He’s not precisely intimidating, but being in the same room as him tends to make people feel oddly guilty for the less-than-stellar things that they’ve done… and maybe a little bit afraid that the very muscular redhead over there will somehow find out. It’s a relic from his time as an angel, as he didn’t quite lose all of his divinity when he fell, unlike the other two. His features are sharp and angular, only emphasized by his choices in body art.
His complexion is a middling tan, but his most noticeable feature is his cherry-red hair. It’s longer than it looks pulled up, and will fall midway down his back when loosed. It’s thick and soft, though it tends to look kind of like a bundle of feathers when it’s all pulled into a tail, as it usually is. There have been a fair number of birdbrain jokes, obviously. Cass has a wicked grin on him, and it makes him look a bit like trouble—as does his general choice in wardrobe. Despite that, there’s something about him that just feels trustworthy, though it’s hard to put a finger on, so to speak.
♠Preferred Clothing Cass doesn’t really go in for anything fancy, though he can look damn good in a suit f he wants to. More often, he’s in somewhat-loose jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, or a t-shirt when it’s warmer, probably with some colorful graphic design or another on it. He couldn’t really care less about what’s stylish or anything. When it’s time to work, so to speak, he still has the old armor, and though it’s missing the holy light these days, it’s pretty ridiculously shiny. He usually goes for leather and Kevlar instead, outfitting himself more like a cobbled-together version of a SWAT unit, military surplus enthusiast, and outdoorsman. It’s functional enough for his purposes.
♦ MENTALITY ♦
♠Oddities Cass’s voice is a really deep bass, on a register so low that it’s occasionally difficult to hear him. His mumbling is incomprehensible, but when he enunciates clearly, it’s fine. He’s also weirdly-fond of domestic chores, like cooking and laundry. He usually takes care of all that stuff for the other two without complaining, though he might nag them if they get too gross about their habits. Rather neat by habit, his room in the apartment the three of them occupy is always pristine. It’s not like he can’t handle getting dirty—hell, he spends half his nights covered in demon guts. He just prefers order in his personal affairs when possible.
♠Skills In addition to being pretty fantastic with a sword or a halberd, Cass is a pyrokinetic of no mean talent. He can also manipulate light, though not to the extent that Asmodeus can do with shadow. He can’t make it solid or anything, but he can bend it around objects to render them invisible, for instance. Given his history as military commander of the armies of Heaven, he’s considerably stronger and more durable than even the average archangel, able to tank absurd amounts of damage and shrug off attacks that would kill a lesser angel. On the less-combative end of things, he’s a damn good cook. He also managed to retain one of his divine powers despite his fall: Cass is a breathing truth-serum, making it literally impossible to lie in his presence. The words will literally fail to escape someone’s mouth. This same fragment of his divinity allows him to cleanse evil via channeling holy energy, and also to heal people other than himself.
♠Likes Though he loves a good fight as much as or more than his current comrades, he has interests outside of fighting demons. Actually, he’s managed to integrate pretty decently with the human world, and makes a living working in the history department of the nearby university. Somewhere in the span of years he’s been on the planet, he managed to get himself a degree in history, which is pretty pointless since he watched most of it happen. Nevertheless, he enjoys teaching, but generally functions only as a guest lecturer, since he needs to keep his schedule flexible and all. Has a strange fondness for kites and other flying contraptions.
♠Dislikes Cass doesn’t like talking about his fall, which is pretty understandable—none of them really do. Other than that, his sense of justice is still strong, and he really, really hates demons who prey on the innocent, and criminals who do the same. Incidentally, though he likes to clean, he can’t stand doing dishes. If he cooks, someone else washes those.
♠Weaknesses In one sense, Cass’s loyalty is a weakness. It could be considered the cause of his fall, actually, showcasing the fact that he’s willing to go to absurd lengths for the people he holds closest. While not precisely gullible, he definitely tends to believe the best of people, unless those people are demons. Asmodeus is a very notable exception to this rule.
♠Phobia(s)
Achluophobia | The fear of the dark
♠Sexuality Heterosexual
♠Personality
Stubborn | Humorous | Introverted | Awkward | Neat
Cass is one stubborn sonuvabitch, as more than a few people would put it. His will is pretty much indomitable, and he doesn’t back down from a challenge, especially not the big ones. He can be incredibly hardheaded, sometimes to his own detriment, but it usually works out all right for him. As the “tank” in the trio, so to speak, it helps to be able to ignore damage on sheer willpower, and to a degree, this translates into his everyday life as well.
An extrovert on the surface, he does enjoy laughing and joking and generally having fun, but this is only his behavior around those he knows well. He’s friendly enough to strangers, but can come off a bit awkward, mostly because he’s still a fraction out of his depth with humans. Even so, he’s fundamentally good-natured, and doesn’t seem to mind being the butt of friendly jokes if it makes someone else smile.
When someone knows him really well, he doesn’t mind being more introverted around them, as well. Most people would never guess that Cass is a reader or a scholar of any kind, and yet, he’s surprisingly intelligent for a fellow of his stature and professed interests. Morgan and As have accepted him for both his sides, and for this, he’s always been grateful to them. As Michael, most people expected him to be the righteous, unfeeling soldier, but that’s never really been him. Since his fall, he’s been more able to live true to the way he sees himself, and the fact that he honestly cares about everyone he meets is perhaps the most surprising thing of all. He’ll go out of his way to help someone in trouble, and would give the shirt off his back to a complete stranger. Occasionally, he gets flak for being the “good” one of the group, but he knows that his brothers accept this fact and he rolls with it, like he rolls with all the crazy shenanigans they get him into.
♦ BACKGROUND ♦
♠Relationship Status Single
♠Family All those he considered his family are no longer so. The only familial ties he recognizes anymore are those towards Morgan and Asmodeus. They are his brothers, and they always will be.
♠Personal History Michael was one of the oldest angels in the divine sphere, and one of the most powerful as well. It was really only logical to make him commander of the holy army, and so it was done. For eons upon eons, he led them into battle against demons and similar foul beings, though neither side made inroads against the other for long. There were simply too many powerful beings on both sides for that to happen.
It’s uncertain what caused his fall, or even exactly when it happened, but it was some relatively short time after Morgan’s, and when he made it to earth, the newly-dubbed Caspar hunted down his brother-in-arms and took up the mission he and Asmodeus had devoted themselves to. The rest of his history, he thinks, is honestly mostly irrelevant. War is hell. War in Hell is infinitely worse. He doesn’t like to think about it much, and he never talks about it, but he’s seen more than most angels ever will, and he can’t really bring himself to be thankful for his former rank given that those were the consequences. It’s a minor miracle that he’s not a raving lunatic at this point.
♦ OTHER ♦
--Caspar fell last out of the three, and for this reason, nobody’s really sure what prompted it, as he used to be among the most loyal of angels, and undoubtedly one of the favorites for his strength and abilities.
--His tattoos were something he only got recently, after the slaying of a particularly troublesome archdemon that was terrorizing the Romanian countryside. What exactly they’re supposed to symbolize isn’t really certain to anyone but him, but there’s a grain of truth in the joke about the tiger and the stripes.
--When he fell, Michael took a human name, and chose not to just use his own. It's not who he is anymore, anyway. So he gave himself the last name 'Falls' to remind himself about what he used to be.
Nickname: None that he endorses, though given who he is, a few people have developed monikers for him anyway. Most of them are caught somewhere between flattering and embarrassing. Generally speaking, one can refer to “The Prince,” and it will be understood that one refers to him. Ava occasionally calls him “Jazz.” He puts up with it.
Age: His school records indicate that he’s around three hundred years of age.
Gender: Male
Race: Vampire
Role: Pure-Blood, Student Council President, Captain of the fencing team.
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Crystalline silver—though they have the odd effect of seeming to reflect color on many wavelengths of light, and can thus take on a slight hue of any other shade depending on light conditions and refraction.
Skin Tone: Fair
Height: 6’4”
Weight: Approx. 195
Physical Description: As far as humans are concerned, vampires are beautiful. As far as vampires are concerned, pure-bloods are beautiful. Somehow, Jasper manages to outshine them all, at least by most accounts. It is no singular facet of his appearance that does it, exactly, but rather the harmonious combination of all that he is. His features are perfectly-aligned, not one of them too large or small for his face, and this alone would be quite something. His hair, which manages to look both disheveled and orderly, falls over his face in soft black locks, with an effortless shine to it. His eyes, peculiar as they are, work very well with his overall aesthetic, and though they shift with light conditions rather than something as telling as his mood, their mercurial nature and odd coloration, to say nothing of the thick, dark lashes surrounding them, make them the most striking feature in a visage seemingly wholly composed of striking features.
He is quite tall, but his build is far from lanky. Rather, his muscular structure is akin to those lauded in warrior cultures, where one must be strong enough to lift not only heavy burdens, but the entirety of one’s own weight, without sacrificing speed and endurance for strength. It is balanced, honed, though of course his species does not need to be so—they are supernaturally strong without the muscle humans need. Nevertheless, Jasper maintains them, perhaps as a measure to ensure that the ordinary exercise he does in front of humans looks plausible.
In motion, he has a sort of liquid, predatory grace that is impossible to replicate, seeming to flow rather than walk like everyone else has to. His feet make little noise on any surface—though of course even he wouldn’t be able to step on bubblewrap without a sound or anything like that. Though he might try, just for fun. While his appearance could very easily be used to intimidate, Jasper seems disinclined—he’s more likely to flash his toothpaste-commercial smile at a person than try and scare them away. He doesn’t see much use in the latter, though even despite all his outward friendliness, there’s something a little reserved about him, a mite mysterious, as though one can’t quite put one’s finger on him. His friends profess to feel this even more acutely than his fans. There’s depth to Jasper, and if you look closely, you can just barely make it out in his eyes.
When nobody else can see, the smile fades, his perfect posture slumps a little, and he takes on a strange appearance of melancholy. None have seen him in this state save his personal servant, and he would have it no other way.
Potential Interest: None, at the moment. Jasper has what he would consider to be an unfortunate number of “fans.” Most of the Night Class does, really, but his set might well be both the largest and the worst. If he were ever to show romantic interest in someone in particular, that person would have to be quite able to stand up to what would doubtless be a nonsensical amount of backlash. He values spirit, honestly, and intelligence in other people, and personally does not discriminate between humans, nobles, and pure-bloods.
Skills and Abilities: As a Pure-Blood vampire from one of the world’s most powerful and influential clans, Ian has inherited everything you’d expect of such a person, including the ability to make vampires, erase memories, compel lower-class vampires, and so on. In addition to this, it is speculated that he must surely have his family’s power, and probably a personal one as well, but nothing is certain regarding this matter, as he has not disclosed any such information to anyone else in the past. Other members of the German-born von Nacht clan are known gravity-manipulators, so there’s a good chance he can do that, as those “in the know” could tell you. Beyond that, his vampiric skills are a mystery, including the form of his familiar and the nature of his shapeshifting ability.
Aside from that simply granted to him by his blood, Jasper is a champion fencer, specializing in the use of bladed weaponry wielded in one or two hands. This trait earned him his spot as Captain of Cross Academy’s very competitive fencing team, a club which often competes against other prestigious academies for the young and wealthy. Outside of this, he has notable skills with the piano. It was all part of what his guardians considered to be a well-rounded education, and he was certainly not allowed to neglect any of it.
Other: It has been noted by friend and fan alike that Jasper smells particularly tasty, if one is inclined to drink blood, that is. It’s a rich, masculine sort of smell, like incense and sandalwood laid over the usual copper-iron tang of the stuff. He seems to have an innate resistance to anti-vampire weapons. One could still kill him, of course, but they won’t injure him near as badly as they would someone else.
Habits:
--Tends to address women as ‘milady’ or ‘miss,’ and men as ‘sir’ or ‘mister.’ This is part of a general habit he has for polite, formal speech that seems a few centuries behind everyone else’s.
--Has a particular fondness for human cuisine. However it came about, his digestive system is able to process such things, though strictly speaking, he does not need them. It certainly helps him blend in a little better with humans.
--Jasper will often self-deprecate when given a compliment or something of that nature. He is not his own biggest supporter, and tends to deflect when he feels that undue praise is being directed at him.
--Several aspects of social relationships seem to escape him. There’s something a bit… sheltered about him. It’s not as though he doesn’t know how to talk to people, more that he’s always very cautious around them, as though they were made of glass, and he sometimes does not understand references, slang, idioms, or sarcasm. This can lead to the occasional misunderstanding.
Likes:
--Fencing and sport in general are favored activities of his, as they help him release excess energy or frustration without drawing too much attention.
--Spirited, intelligent people tend to be his favorite kind, though he can appreciate quieter folk as well. More than anything, he values honesty. Perhaps it’s a side-effect of growing up amidst so much hidden truth and so many lies.
--Oddly enough, Jasper actually enjoys going to class and learning. He believes that it’s impossible to know too much or be too curious, and often reads thick books in his free time, in a multitude of foreign languages, for no other reason than that he enjoys absorbing the information.
Dislikes:
--There’s really no excuse for being needlessly rude or disrespectful. Bluntness, he understands, but rudeness is another matter entirely. That said, he treats even the rude people with utmost respect, personally.
--His family is something of a nonstarter topic with him. Though he’ll never shut down an inquiry in a mean way, he will deflect until the asker gets the point and asks about something else.
--The fans are a bit… overwhelming at times. He is always kind to them, of course, but… sometimes he finds himself desperately seeking some space to just be alone or with his friends. It can be difficult, feeling all that pressure to be perfect at every turn.
Personality: If ever there was a gentleman, Jasper von Nacht is that gentleman. Everything about him, from his perfect posture to his disarming smile to his well-bred manners, speaks of a childhood brought up in wealth and privilege almost beyond the common imagination, but his politeness and humility make it difficult to hate him for any of it. Indeed, he seems not to really register the difference in status between himself and other people, even when the other people are humans. That he is called the Prince is certainly not a choice he made, but a moniker bestowed upon him for his demeanor and his family name.
There’s something a little bit innocent about Jazz, as though he were not quite aware of all the wrong in the world, or was at least quite distant from it. This is not to say that his life has been untouched by suffering—quite the opposite, actually, but this is something that most people will never come to know about him. The melancholy behind his eyes is well-hidden by his earnest, sophisticated, expressive demeanor. He is the kind of person to whom everyone feels comfortable speaking, but to whom most will also defer. There’s something about him that gives off an impression of authority. Gentle authority, to be sure, but all the same, it is easy to tell when he’s had enough and will be pushed no further. He’s willing to go to great lengths for people, even complete strangers, and as a result, often overtaxes even his considerable resources. Often, he forgets to do things like sleep or take his ‘medicine’—what he calls the blood caplets his kind takes to receive nutrition in the absence of a family member or lover to feed from.
His leadership style, often showcased in Student Council, is a pragmatic, but soft one, wherein he gauges each member’s talents and puts them to use appropriately, though never without considering what they want. He can be quite persuasive when he wishes to, as his demeanor is often disarming and hard to take issue with, and when he argues at all, he does so with a mix of logic and mild concern for the welfare of others that is generally irreproachable. His conduct and grades are both impeccable, making him a model student of Cross Academy.
This isn’t only a mask he wears, but it does conceal a lot more than he lets on. Despite his apparent friendly, courteous openness, there is a dimension of mystery to Jasper. He never discusses his home or family life, nor does he seem inclined to participate in any of the more political maneuvering sometimes undertaken by the vampire students. He pretends to be oblivious to advances or romantic overtures, when in fact he is most often quite well-aware of them. He never makes any towards anyone, and his fairness is such that he’s hard pressed to even show favoritism to his friends. He’s one of the few students attended by his own servant even during the school year. The official excuse is that this is due to an illness, but the reality of the situation remains to be seen. He will sometimes disappear for days at a time, and though the Headmaster knows where he goes, nobody else really does at all. One is only left to guess what he’s hiding, and if it might have something to do with the occasional glint of something other than contentment in his moonsilver eyes.
History: Jasper was the first and only child of Heinrich and Elsa von Nacht, themselves a rare marriage between pure-bloods not directly related. It was the union of two of the most powerful houses in history, and so naturally smiled upon by both sets of elders. In an unspecified incident some years ago, Elsa disappeared, and Heinrich was never the same afterwards. Though he is still head of the family, Jasper has taken over many of his father’s responsibilities, including his seat on the Vampire Council.
His upbringing was both sheltered and strict—Jasper was expected to live up to his stellar pedigree in every way imaginable, from things as basic as conducting himself on a dance floor or in conversation to those as complex as learning how to balance the political interest of his family with what was best for all. Fortunately, the boy had a knack for much of it, though he did not suffer for lack of tutors, either.
Still, his world was a lonely one, and the only person he was well and truly able to call a friend was his personal attendant, Ava, and that only in very recent years. She serves him to this day, and he leans on her for advice when his own wisdom seems to run dry. He has a few other friends, and counts among their number Vincent Kuragari, one of the sparsely-numbered other people in the world who really knows what it’s like to juggle all the responsibilities at once. His father can scarcely be relied upon any longer, and so Jasper has assumed those burdens with some difficulty, but mostly grace. They occasionally require his absence from school, something which the Headmaster thinks is best kept mostly secret. Jasper is willing to accept this—the man has been more than kind and accommodating to him, almost like an uncle, and so the other vampire is willing to defer to him in this.
Jasper began attending Cross Academy only about half a year ago, but his distinctive appearance, pure-blood status, and chivalrous manners made him a quick hit with the human population of the school and the vampire one alike. Nobody is universally liked of course, and he would hesitate to say that many of these fans even understand the first thing about him, but they’re there all the same, and there isn’t a whole lot he can do about them except smile politely and go along with it as far as possible. He’s not exactly lonely, but he’d admit he could use a few more genuine friends, be they vampires or humans.
“My mother used to say that we cannot control other people or our circumstances, only our reactions to those things, and that our reactions, not our circumstances, make us who we are.”
“Just be yourself—because those who matter won’t mind and those who mind don’t matter. That’s how it goes, right?”
Nickname: Well, “Ava” is already a nickname, as it’s actually her middle name. Her first name happens to be Esther, but this is a well-kept secret. She’s just not all that fond of it, and thinks Ava suits her much better.
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Role: The one and only student dual-enrolled in both the Day and Night Classes. This is to facilitate her duties as Jasper’s personal servant. She can attend classes at either time, which makes it easier to fit her schedule around his.
Hair Color: Ava’s hair is a soft, honey-gold.
Eye Color: Amber, like a well-aged scotch. Well, at least, Heinrich told her that once.
Skin Tone: Her complexion is a bit seasonal—she tends to tan to at least a mild amount during the summer, but due to the lessened exposure of the winter, she’ll often regress back to a peach-pale tone at that time of year.
Height: 5’3”
Weight: A healthy 115lbs
Physical Description: Ava looks like someone who enjoys life to the fullest extent possible. She never seems vain or overly-concerned with her appearance, and doesn’t take care to do anything to make herself prettier or more flashy, only well-maintained and (usually) neat. Her hair is perhaps her most noticeable feature, given the distinctive color and shine to it. She doesn’t do anything special to it—it’s long, but not an incredibly-high-maintenance length, pulled into ponytails during strenuous activity and braided into plaits when she goes to bed. Sometimes, she’ll wear colored ribbons in it, but not always.
Her face is very expressive, generally comprised of small, delicate-looking features set into a face with a bit of childish roundness still remaining. Her eyes are larger than most, and the color’s a bit unusual, but certainly nothing to write home about. It isn’t the kind of gaze that “pierces,” being generally soft and understanding more than anything. She’s often smiling, her lips pink, well-defined, and a smidge thinner than average. She takes good care of her teeth, and her smile is sometimes catching—as though her happiness were a disease and she inclined to spread it around as much as possible. That… might not be too far from the truth, actually.
Her figure is a middling point between slender and curvaceous, and she’s generally trim from exercise, though she never skimps on the food, either. Ava attacks cooking and eating with the same gusto she shows everything else, which is to say quite a lot. She’s not fat by any means, but she doesn’t feel any pressure to be stick-thin, either, and so she’s soft and round in the hips and bust and bum, and she doesn’t mind. She’s not overly concerned with being beautiful—as long as she’s comfortable with herself, she sees no reason to care what anybody else thinks. Her hands and feet are on the small side, and she laments that her fingers were never suited for piano, which was something of a disappointment for her.
Her uniform is the slightly more modest knee-length skirt, and she always looks neat and tidy. Her hair usually smells faintly of cherry blossoms, due to the shampoo she uses.
“Helping is underrated. Nobody wants to be the one who helped somebody achieve something great. But me, I think that helping others reach their potential is the greatest thing that we can do. My job’s not degrading, it’s wonderful.”
Potential Interest: None at present, though part of Ava is certainly a closet romantic. She’d never say so, but she has a bit of a secret fondness for the “bad” boy (or girl, she’s not going to rule anything out). Of course, she’s far too sensible to ever act on that, but all the same, it’s where her preferences are. A bit of a shame, because those are the kinds of people she’s quite likely to annoy. Still, she can’t help but want to make someone grumpy a little happier, so maybe that’s to be expected. Of course, there is that tiny little crush she's been nursing for Vincent Kuragari, but she's pretty sure he doesn't even know she exists, so... she's not going to push anything on anyone.
Skills and Abilities: Though she is no vampire, Ava has a number of necessary skills to be Jasper’s personal assistant and bodyguard while still maintaining her status as a student at Cross herself. Her time management is excellent, and she has a deep empathy for just about anyone, enough that she can usually tell when something’s wrong with even the most reserved of people just by looking. Additionally, Jasper has trained her in combat, though interestingly enough, Ava prefers polearms and similar long-reach weapons. She carries an anti-vampire weapon with her at all times, a collapsible spear, called Brynhilde, which she hides under the skirt of her uniform (she wears the knee-length style rather than the shorter one). Ava can move incredibly quietly, a skill which has its uses. She’s a concert-class violinist, something she picked up when she realized she’d always be hopeless with piano.
Other: She’s not sure why, but apparently she doesn’t smell like other humans, nor like a vampire or dhampir. There’s something very unique about her scent that one can’t quite pin down. There’s none other like it out there, but of course, she thinks the fact that Jazz is sometimes concerned over this a bit silly. He’s warned her that some of his kind would target her for that, but so far, she’s only had a bad run-in with a couple of mad vampires, and she put them down handily enough.
Habits:
--Ava loves to run, and she’s a member of Cross’s track and field team. She also throws discus and participates in the fencing club, though that’s more to stay near her boss than anything. She takes a run early every morning around the Academy grounds, and knows them better than most because of this.
--When thinking deeply about something, Ava will chew her lip, sometimes aggressively enough to bruise it a bit. She doesn’t often notice she’s doing it.
--Tends also to play her violin or even just pluck absently at the strings when she’s trying to find an answer that eludes her.
Likes:
--Organization is certainly a requirement in Ava’s life. She’s so good at organizing that she does most of Jasper’s as well. This isn’t just scheduling or cleaning, either—she’s very good at retaining information due to an orderly mind, and remembers almost everything she ever sees or reads.
--Ava adores both food and cooking, and is quite skilled with the latter. She used to joke to Jazz that one day she’d leave him and become a professional chef. She stopped making that joke the first time he took her seriously.
--People are wonderful, as far as she’s concerned. She endeavors to get along with all kinds, vampires, humans, what-have-you. Her good nature makes it hard to dislike her, but her jubilant personality might make it easier. Some people find her too much, but she’s just trying to squeeze everything she can out of the years she has in the world. She doesn’t have forever to do all her living, unlike some people.
Dislikes:
--She’s unfortunately allergic to dogs. She doesn’t exactly dislike them, she just can’t stand to be near them for too long.
--People with too much vanity rub her the wrong way. She just doesn’t see the importance of looking perfect. Nobody is perfect, so it’s almost like lying. Of course, she sees the value in looking neat and professional, but that’s different.
--In the end, she’s quite sensitive, and while she may be able to brush off an insult or rude comment in the moment, she’ll dwell on them later. Her self-confidence is strikingly-fragile sometimes, and if someone goes out of their way to make her feel bad, she definitely will.
“If I can bring just a little more happiness to the world by the time I’m gone, light up one life that would otherwise have grown dim, than I’ll be able to leave it in peace.”
Personality: Ava is a good compliment to the man she serves, acting as the cheerier, brighter side to Jasper’s polite decorum. Of course, her manners also are impeccable, but she “gets away” with a bit more than he’d be able to, perhaps on account of her gender or lower social status, it’s hard to say. Whatever the case, she’s good-natured, humorous, something of a practical joker, and bright as sunshine in summer. Of course, she’s also a very good assistant, and knows much more about the world of vampires than most humans do.
Her organizational capacity is extraordinary, helped along by her nearly-eidetic memory and her ability to read people. She’d very good with body language and expressions, even with those who are long-practiced at concealing how they really feel. She usually knows the right thing to say to cheer someone up, and it’s hard to miss the fact that she cares—a lot—about everyone she meets, even the complete strangers. While she can be brisk and efficient when she needs to be, she prefers to be warm and inviting instead, using her ‘assistant face’ only at important events and meetings. Around her friends, she’s energetic, vivacious, though also easygoing—at least in the sense that she’s flexible and not likely to judge. People will be people, and that’s okay by her. She won’t try to force anything on anyone, least of all her own lifestyle or opinion. This gives her the ability to get along with a wide range of personalities.
Ava loves giving gifts, and has a knack for picking ones that really suit their recipients. Though most of her personality is very much a summery thing, it’s obvious that Christmas is her favorite holiday, just barely beating out Halloween—because costumes and candy are both awesome. She seems to be at home no matter where she is or who she’s with, and there’s a natural easiness and pleasantness to her demeanor that makes it seem as though, when she’s with you, you’re the only person that matters just then. She gives the full force of her focus and attention and devotion to everything she does and everyone she cares about, making her easy to trust and obvious to rely upon.
“To those that made me who I am, good and bad, I can only say ‘thank you,’ because right now, I’m exactly who and where I want to be.”
History: There’s nothing particularly tragic or extraordinary about Ava’s history, but it’s managed to be an interesting seventeen years (in her humble opinion) nevertheless. She was born to parents that were both members of the Hunter’s Association, though they’d retired from the business by the time they decided to have her. Still, they trained her a little bit in the skills they had, if not a lot. They wanted their daughter, born to an era of what looked like permanent peace, to have the skills and talents of peacetime children, not those born to war.
They kept friends mostly among other hunters and a few vampires, though, because it was difficult to know about an entire world and never be able to talk about it with those close to you. So from an early age, Ava knew exactly what vampires were, and grew up surrounded by them. When her parents had finished hunting, they’d both been hired by Heinrich von Nacht, one of the most powerful and influential names in the vampire world, to work as aides to his son, Jasper. Ava, therefore, grew up beside the ever-unchanging Jazz, who taught her more of fighting when she wanted to learn, and much also of history, astronomy, and music.
She grew up idolizing him, in a sense, and he was always gentle and courteous with her. Ava sometimes helped her parents with tasks for Jasper, and in time, he offered her the post of his personal assistant. He was going to be attending Cross Academy, he said, and he would like very much for her to come with him. She knew then that she was the only friend he really had… well, aside from Vincent, but both men had business that often kept them far too occupied to do the kinds of things that friends did. Understanding this, Ava agreed, and to accommodate Jasper’s schedule and unique status, was granted dual enrollment in the Day and Night Classes.
Before she left, Jazz and her parents gave her a warning: she had a smell unlike any normal person, vampire or human, and so she would have to be careful with herself. She’s never without a weapon, but honestly, she expects to use it more for Jasper’s sake than her own. One day, he’ll let her beat off those atrocious fans of his, maybe.
“I’m not sure where I’m going or how to get there, but as long as I’m walking beside the ones I love, I could journey my whole life and never ask if we were there yet.”
Light | Radiance ; Source | Origin - Translates to Origin of Light, or Source of Radiance
⌈I have never been the source of anything but darkness. Do not mistake me for someone who will save you.⌋
⌈I have never been the source of anything but darkness. Do not mistake me for someone who will save you.⌋
♠Theme
30 Seconds to Mars - The Kill
Sixx AM - This is Gonna Hurt
Anberlin - To the Wolves
Natalie Merchant - My Skin
⌈Don’t look too closely—you won’t like what you see.⌋
⌈Nickname⌋
Those rare few people close to Hikaru are allowed to call him Hiki. Most people use his surname, which is also fine. Anything else is bound to end badly for the speaker.
⌈Age⌋
Appears around 18-19; factual age is close to four hundred years.
⌈Gender⌋
Male
⌈Race⌋
Hybrid
⌈Role:⌋
Hybrid | Son of the Ancestor and the Creature
⌈Face Claim:⌋
Toshizo Hijikata | Hakuoki
⌈Trust me when I say it’s not the eyes that see beauty. If they did, nobody would be able to look at someone as ugly as I.⌋
⌈Hair Color⌋
Black; appears purple in some light conditions.
⌈Eye Color⌋
Violet | Wisteria
⌈Skin Tone⌋
Porcelain | Marble
⌈Height⌋
6’4”
⌈Weight⌋
195
⌈Physical Description⌋
Hikaru is quite the specimen, and it’s not hard to tell that just by looking at him. It’s not quite the same thing as with most pureblood vampires, but that’s partly it. It’s like… half of him is that sort of refined, cultured, fine-featured beauty they have, but the other half is something… else. There’s an edge to him, a hint of something dangerous and predatory and threatening—but that holds its own kind of appeal. Hikaru wears his hair long, usually, often tailed so as to keep it out of his way, but he’s not averse to changing it, and will occasionally cut most of it off when he feels like it. The individual strands are quite fine, but there are so many of them that overall, his hair is thick. This leads to a rather soft texture, like silk threads. The sheen to it is vaguely purplish, especially in full sunlight.
He’s tall, and well built rather than lanky or slender, his muscles apparent even under the loose clothing he favors. It’s clear that he does a lot of exercising, and a fair mixture of running and lifting, perhaps, because he’s balanced to be both strong and fast. He has a fair amount of small scars on his body, evidence of a lot of time spent practicing with things that can cut and slice.
His eyes, exotically shaped and framed with thick lashes, are an interesting shade of purple, often narrowed in thought or with irritation, and could perhaps be described as foxlike, if one were so inclined. There’s something canny and clever about them, as though he were reading your very history off of something as small as the way you moved. He gives them impression of being very perceptive, and this is not far from the truth.
Strangely, the manifestation of his powers tends to cause a physiological transformation in him quite different from that of a pure werewolf. On nights when the moon is full, Hikaru’s eyes turn ruby-red, and his hair the same white as the moon herself. The aura he bears around himself in either form is one of equal parts attraction and danger—the weak-willed can become “drunk” off his presence alone, and even the strong find it to be captivating if they’re caught unawares.
⌈The truth about love is that it’s all a lie.⌋
⌈Potential Interest⌋
Presently None: It can be said that Hikaru is rather… experienced with certain aspects of relationships, mostly the physical dimensions. He has no shortage of willing lovers, and if someone for some reason catches his attention, he will pursue them with all the intensity of a shark that’s smelled blood. But he would never do something so ridiculous as actually getting attached… or so he thinks, anyway. For now, however, the chase and conquest is much more interesting than anything that follows, and he doesn’t tell lies about that.
⌈Skills⌋
- ★ Manipulation || Hikaru is quite skilled with the reading of body language and faces, and, moreover, he usually knows exactly what to say or do to get what he wants from someone. It’s not a talent he hesitates to use, either. He sometimes enjoys toying with people, and will push the buttons he knows they have in order to make them angry, flustered, or embarrassed. He’s also quite adept at seduction, and doesn’t have many compunctions about the consequences. At least not sometimes—it’s a little bit complicated.
★ Memory || His memory is fact-perfect: anything he’s seen or been told even once will be stuck in his head for the rest of time. Granted, it sometimes takes him a little while to recall, given how much time he’s been alive, but he’ll always get the right fact eventually.
★ Piano || He doesn’t really even like it, but it’s a skill his mother wanted him to learn, so he did. He doesn’t play for fun, though, and rarely can he be coerced into doing so.
★ Swordsmanship || His house was traditional like that. He’s quite good, and a frequent sparring partner of Sora.
⌈Abilities⌋
- ✠ Blood of the Wolf || Hikaru is not a full-blooded werewolf, so he doesn't have all the abilities one of them does. He does however, have that extraordinary strength and durability they are known for. On the nights of the full moon, he transforms, but not into a lupine creature. His hair turns white, his eyes red, and his senses expand while his control of himself decreases. He’s just as strong and durable as the wolf, but smaller and faster. He’ll also grow ears and a tail. He is also passively immune to vampiric abilities, as a werewolf would be.
✠ Blood of the Ancestor || Though not a pureblood, Hikaru retains most of the properties of one. He can’t compel lesser vampires, nor can he summon a familiar, but he is immune to compulsion from anyone else, and he can shapeshift—ironically, into an actual wolf. He doesn’t find it funny. He also has a unique personal ability and the ability of his father’s house, though what these are is uncertain, as he’s never publicly used either.
⌈You want to take my measure, do you? How quaint.⌋
⌈Other:⌋
All appearances indicate that Hikaru is a pureblood vampire—very few people know his secret. He has a deep dislike of this facet of himself, though it does come through in his personality from time to time. In fact, one could say that he has something of a Jekyll-and-Hyde syndrome—while part of him is very mild-mannered, if a little distant, the other part, which tends to appear at inconvenient times, is sadistic, seductive, ruthless, and dangerous. Fortunately for those in need of warning, the difference is obvious: the red eyed, snow-haired Hikaru is the one to guard against.
If ever there was a peculiar scent, it would be his. Purely on the level of olfaction, it could perhaps be likened to the blood version of honey and chocolate--decadent and perhaps even a little bit sinful. That's probably what one gets for being half the direct offspring of an Ancestor and half a werewolf.
⌈Habits⌋
- ♈ Meditation || If Hikaru doesn’t get a certain amount of daily meditation, the chances of his darker side surfacing become much greater. He tends, in fact, to do things to keep himself very calm at all times: he drinks lots of herbal teas, meditates, and occasionally even resorts to playing music to keep himself as tranquil as possible. He tries to surround himself with genteel people rather than crass ones, because there’s less chance of losing himself that way.
♈ Sewing || It's basically the last thing you'd expect of someone with an image like his, but Hikaru is quite skilled with handicrafts, and can make anything from small stuffed toys to elaborate gowns and suits, all by hand. Tangentially, he's very good at estimating people's measurements.
♈ Reading || In line with his tendency to do as many calming things as possible, Hikaru quite likes libraries and such. Reading and quiet are both good ways to set the mind at ease, and so he will often partake.
⌈Likes⌋
- ღ Peace and Quiet || Even total solitude won't go awry as far as he's concerned. It's not that Hikaru disdains people at all, but rather that it's harder to be around them without succumbing to certain tendencies of his darker self. So when possible, he tends to keep the exclusive company of very few people he can trust completely, and no one else. He's a bit of a recluse that way.
ღ Rain || The water tends to dampen most of his senses to a degree, something that is welcome when you have a canine nose and vampire ears and eyes. All the data can be a bit overwhelming at times, so he likes the break that standing in the rain gives him from all of that mental noise.
ღ Winter || His favorite season, closely followed by fall. A little extra chill never bothered him, as he tends to run hotter than the average person due to his condition. By contrast, he's really not fond of summer at all.
⌈Dislikes⌋
- ✘ His "Other Self" || To put it more accurately, the Hikaru that is not actively trying to control himself thinks that the one that is is a weak fool, and his more rational half thinks that the rest of him is an irredeemable beast. It's not a happy balance, ever, and there seems to be no middle ground to be found between them. It's led to a lot of self-loathing and guilt over the years, as well as a serious dislike fr both of his parents, who were not there when he needed them to help him learn these things about himself.
✘ The Full Moon || Normal Hikaru hates anything that makes him more likely to lose control. The "other" Hikaru just can't stand being told to do anything, and the full moon gives neither of them a choice about whether or not they want to transform.
⌈Strengths⌋
- ♦ Combat || Put simply, it's hard to beat the combination of his genetics in a fight situation. He basically got the best of both worlds in terms of powers, but the downside to this is that he's often just as dangerous to his allies as his enemies. Unless someone is nearby that is capable of quelling his rage and fighting instinct, chances are pretty bad that he'll be able to control himself in a situation where he's forced to go all-out. That could end badly for a lot of people, himself not least of all.
♦ Politics || Assuming he currently has possession of his rational faculties, it can be pretty hard to resist Hikaru. He's just that perfect combination of genteel and decadent. So, if the way to his goal is by convincing someone of something, chances are pretty good that he'll be able to do it.
♦ Tolerance || It's kind of hard to judge people when you yourself are an abomination. Though he dislikes people easily enough, and rarely ever trusts, these attitudes are never on the basis of how you were born. The average human is worth just as much as the average pureblood-- though that may not be much, you know?
⌈Weaknesses⌋
- ☯ Bitterness || Hikaru, though generally mild in demeanor, has difficulty believing the best of people. This is mostly because they've usually shown him their worst. He's deeply cynical, and there are very sturdy barriers preventing him from genuinely getting to know people. Of course, these are well-hidden beneath his layers of sociability and allure, so it's not obvious. Only a few people know how much he really struggles with these matters.
☯ Control Issues || There are unique trials to being a vampire, like bloodlust and that sort of thing, and others that result from being a werewolf, like trying no to rip everything in his path to shreds. Even one of these issues takes a great deal of willpower to deal with. Having to cope with both is incredibly difficult, and would be entirely impossible for most people. Even Hikaru struggles, no matter how much mediation he does. Sometimes, he has to let out the "other" Hikaru, because if he doesn't do so periodically, things are much worse when he does.
☯ Self-Loathing || Part of the reason for Hikaru's trust issues is the actions of other people in his past. But by far, the most major obstacle to his coming to function like an ordinary person with decent relationships and friends is himself. Hikaru hates himself, at basically all times. He views his nature as an abomination, something that was never meant to happen, and he thinks that vampires and werewolves should not be together, nor himself with anyone, at least not in any deep sense. If the children are all as screwed up as him, he sees that as just further reason to think as he does.
⌈The most violent and vile wars are fought within ourselves. Mine never ends.⌋
⌈Personality⌋
Conflicted | Moody | Violent | Loyal
Hikaru is a man with a split personality, so to speak. He wasn’t always this way—in childhood, his halves were more or less harmonious, but his life has not been easy, and he developed this sharp divide within himself mostly to cope with his more violent tendencies. There is a chance that, should he come to terms with his nature and his history, that a harmonious blend might once again be possible, but that does not look to be in his future unless some drastic things occur in the meantime.
On most days and at most times, Hikaru is rather mild in terms of personality, at least by comparison to what he can be. He tends to spend much of his time on his own or with those few people he trusts, and generally occupying himself with calming things like meditation, reading, or even moderate exercise. As such, he has an aura of reservation around him, though the perceptive can still definitely sense that he is dangerous. Just because the tiger isn’t hungry doesn’t mean it can’t still kill you, after all. That said, he does his best not to make this so obvious.
He will generally behave in a way that is personable but not too familiar, and show deference to others, preferring to avoid confrontation whenever possible. If he senses that a situation is about to get out-of-hand, he will remove himself from it. Around the opposite sex, he is a gentleman, and very much hands-off, regardless of how strongly the other party is coming on to him, if indeed they should choose to.
Unfortunately, that happens to be one of the things that can trigger a shift in his personality. Excessive flirtation, the promise of violence, threats to people he cares about, too much hunger, open wounds in the vicinity, and provoking his anger are generally the most reliable ways to force Hikaru to shift his personality. This should be distinguished from shifting his form into that of the werewolf hybrid, though some of the changes—namely, the ones in his coloration—are the same. The red-eyed, white-pated man will often refer to himself as Hotaru, though this seems to be a matter of preference rather than actually believing it to be his name. He is quite conscious of who he is, but he acts entirely differently.
Hotaru is sadistic, violent, brash, and quite prone to lecherous behavior. The amount of time that he is in control of Hikaru’s body seems to vary, though it’s hard to tell what the criteria are. Whereas there are very clear ways to provoke the change, putting things back the way they were is much trickier—generally, Hotaru has to get bored with what’s happening, or decide that he’s satisfied with his actions for the moment, and then he will voluntarily recede. They do, however, share a certain loyalty to their friends, even if it is displayed in very different ways. When possible, Hikaru spends the day as himself and the night hours as Hotaru, though naturally, this is a bit awkward when he has to go to class. It’s… always a bit tricky, really.
⌈I may have been born an abomination, but I was made into a monster.⌋
⌈History⌋
What’s known to history about the story of the Ancestor and the Creature is not the whole tale. In fact, shortly before the Ancestor died, he declared his love to the Creature, and the pair conceived a child. Hikaru was that child. His father, Naoya Minamoto, was the first of the Ancestors, oldest son of the Progenitor of vampires, Ichirou Fujiwara. His death was a serious loss to the world of vampires, but to his family most of all. The Creature, Ayla, having borne her son, lived long enough to name him before she brought him the only place she could think to: the residence of Naoya's wife, Reiko Minamoto, nee Hino, herself Naoya's half-sister. Understandably, Reiko was shocked, now not just by her husband’s death, but also his infidelity. Though their marriage had been arranged, Reiko had loved Naoya, even though she’d always known he did not return the sentiment.
Still, Reiko was a kind woman, and her heart went out to Ayla, an old friend of her father's. She agreed to raise the child as though he were her own, though she knew not what to expect from such a being as Hikaru was. Regardless, he was Naoya’s child, and that was reason enough to love him. Reiko had never been gifted with a child of her own, as Naoya generally tended to avoid her when they were both at home. But in Hikaru, she saw much of her late husband, and she grew to care for the child as though he were her son. Some years later, she “adopted” another—Sora, the son of her bond-sister and her uncaring husband. Reiko raised both of the boys together, as her own sons, and to this day, it is she they call “mother.” Even so, she did not lie to them about their true parentage, thinking that it would be wrong to do so. She accepted both for who they were, and treated them with kindness and tolerance, striving to teach both of them to do the same. A skilled swordswoman, she also passed along these skills to her sons.
She is against forcing either of them to be married, but she has no real control over Sora’s life, as his father is still alive, even if the man left all the work of raising him to her. Despite her best efforts, Hikaru has turned out to be a cynic about love, and there’s not much she can really do to change that. After all, part of the reason he thinks so is that her love for his father was forever unrequited, and this is quite true. She still loves Naoya, even now, knowing what he did.
The incident which split Hikaru and Hotaro was one quite formative in his life. Reiko was working with him on some particularly-difficult sword forms, and because of a bad block on his part, she accidentally almost killed him, something that he was able to stop only by unconsciously forcing a transformation. Unprepared, he was out of control, and attacked Reiko, nearly killing her. She clung to him in a tight embrace, begging him to stop and telling him over and over that she loved him no matter what, and this eventually brought him back from the edge. Panicking, he gave her his blood to help speed her healing, which worked, but he couldn’t forgive himself for what he’d almost done. He distanced himself from his mother, and locked away his violence and his anger, doing everything he could to keep it at bay. As he matured, this side of him took on a life of its own, and Hotaru was the result.
When the time came, Hikaru left home to attend Cross with his brother—for though they are not actually related, he does consider Sora his brother, just as he thinks of Reiko, not Ayla, as his mother. The secret is kept between the three of them, and he hopes that it stays that way.
⌈If you take my hand, there's no going back. I can only lead in the direction of damnation.⌋
King; of the Night | The Ruler or Sovereign King of the Night
⌈With parents like mine, are you really surprised?⌋
⌈With parents like mine, are you really surprised?⌋
♠Theme
Sixx A.M. – This is Gonna Hurt
Cinema Bizarre – Dark Star
⌈Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, it’s hard to mistake me for anything else.⌋
⌈Nickname⌋
[ Al; this is a shortened form of his middle name, which is Albrecht | Bal; used only very occasionally, and usually to tease him—he doesn’t favor it. It's all Ary's fault. ]
⌈Age⌋
[ 85 ]
⌈Gender⌋
[ Male ]
⌈Race:⌋
[ Vampire; Pureblood ]
⌈Role:⌋
[ Child of Jasper and Nikki von Nacht | Brother of Aryan von Nacht | Cousin to Keir and Alarica Alistair | Half-brother of Yuki Alistair ]
⌈Face Claim:⌋
[ Zack Fair | FF7 ]
⌈I guess I'm pretty often looked at, put under a microscope. Dad says I'll get used to it. I'm not sure I want to.⌋
⌈Hair Color⌋
[ A deep black, occasionally bluish in the right light. ]
⌈Eye Color⌋
[ Like his father’s, Balthasar’s eyes are strange and mercurial. They tend to shift along the spectrum of colors depending on lighting conditions, but the most common shade for them to take on is a sort of bluish grey, a bit like one might imagine the ocean. ]
⌈Skin Tone⌋
[ Pale, but not egregiously so. He favors sunlight when he can get it. ]
⌈Height⌋
[ 6’4” ]
⌈Weight⌋
[ 200, give or take. ]
⌈Physical Description⌋
[ Balthasar strongly favors his father, Jasper von Nacht, in just about every facet of his appearance, though there are touches of his mother to be found, also. He bears the night-dark hair that both of them share, though the bluish hint is Nikki’s, certainly. It’s rather shaggy, though he prefers it out of his face. It tends to be on the soft side, but is also very thick, and a bit unruly. He keeps it swept out of his face, giving it a sort of spiky appearance, though one persistent lock of it falls down anyway. His facial features are strong, and the von Nacht heritage is very obvious in them. Like his father, he’s widely considered to be a cut above even purebloods in terms of physical appeal. He has a bit more of a rough-hewn aspect to him, though, only emphasized by his choice in physical exercise regimens; he’s quite muscular, and his body contains almost no fat.
His eyes have the interesting almond slant of his family, and their typical color falls somewhere in between the bright silver of his father and the deep slate of his mother, with a little bit of blue thrown in as well. They do catch the light and shift a bit, though, so at any given time, they may appear green, gold, or completely blue. He’s tall, and physically could be considered somewhat imposing if he wanted to. He doesn’t come off quite as expressionless as Jasper does, but nor is it possible to read his emotions easily off his face. He’s usually smiling just a little, but there’s something inscrutable about him—his eyes are too sharp, like he sees more than he should, and it makes it impossible to determine what the half-smile really means. It’s driven more than one relative crazy before.
Balthasar moves fluidly, with a sort of unconscious grace that is nevertheless rather predatory in nature. One gets the sense that he is equally at home in and out of doors, and with a book or a blade in his hands. There is a kind of dignity about him, even when he’s not trying to make it so, and those sensitive to such things would say that he has a very strange aura… like there’s a still ocean, but with a devastating undertow beneath it. Al isn’t exactly sure how that could be, but it doesn’t bother him if someone wants to think so. ]
⌈It's a little... strange to talk about it. I'm not ashamed of what I am, but it can make other people uncomfortable.⌋
⌈Potential Interest⌋
None at the current moment: Balthasar's not closed off to the idea of romantic attachment; he's just... never really thought about it. Other things in his life have always seemed more important to him, like his family and ending the war for good.
⌈Skills⌋
- ★ Piano || It's pretty much a requirement to be a von Nacht. Balthasar learned in his childhood from his older "sister" Yuki, but his father took over the tutelage when he was old enough.
★ Swordsmanship || Well, technically he prefers spears (pluralization intentional), but he can use swords, axes, or basically any other type of weapon at will.
★ Chess || A hobby taught to him by his uncle Morgan, Balthasar is a formidable opponent, and usually plays with his cousin Keir, or his brother.
⌈Abilities⌋
- ✠ Blood of the King || Only three known beings have ever developed this ability, and one of them is the progenitor himself. The second is Balthasar's father. The Blood of the King is a blanket name for those abilities granted him through his direct lineage tie to the first vampire. Not all the descendents have it, as neither Theodor nor Heinrich von Nacht inherited it, and the traits were considered lost until they were discovered in Jasper. The ability is exactly as it sounds: something possessed only by the king of vampires. Balthasar can override or cancel another person's powers at will, including erasing the protection given by nullification abilities, through the distinctive ability to manipulate reality itself, to warp the fabric of space and time to his will. The ability has limits, and is exhausting to use, but all the same, it is incredibly potent and dangerous.
✠ Gravatic Manipulation || The traditional von Nacht line power, Balthasar was a quick master of his father's techniques, especially the ones for flight, which is now one of his favorite things to do.
✠ Pyrokinesis || He isn't only his father's son, after all, and from his mother, he inherited the distinctive pyrokinesis. It should be noted that Balthasar's flames are white rather than red or yellow, and seem to burn hotter and more consuming than any natural fire. They weren't always so, actually, and have in fact only taken on that hue very recently. He's not sure if that means something or not, since they used to be blue, but it surely couldn't be random.
⌈I've never met a hurdle I can't jump, a distance I can't run, or a challenge I can't overcome. That doesn't make me lucky-- it makes me afraid.⌋
⌈Other:⌋
N/A
⌈Habits⌋
- ☁ Playing Piano || Requirement or not, he still enjoys it. It's kind of hard not to like music, honestly.
☁ Flying || On those days when the pressure catches up with him (and they are many), Al often finds relief by taking to the skies for a while. He's been known to accept requests for rides from family members or friends as well, on the off-chance that they also just want to get away from it all.
☁ Odd Tics || Balthasar as a number of strange little habits. For example, he's incredibly organized, and generally uncomfortable around obvious disorder. He tends to neaten stacks of things and remove small traces of dirt from surfaces, that kind of thing. He also will do small things like drum his fingers on surfaces when thinking particularly intently, and he's not very good at understanding personal boundaries, oddly enough. Without hint of ill intention, he's just... more tactile than other people.
⌈Likes⌋
- ღ Sweets || Well, you don't grow up around "aunt" Ava without developing a serious appreciation for what the woman can do with a spatula and some sugar. Necessary or not, home-baked sweets are basically his biggest weakness... aside from, you know, his actual weaknesses. A plate of cookies is a great way to bribe him.
ღ Music || Also runs in the even the extended family. Or perhaps especially them. It's not unusual for music to be constantly playing at any gathering of the three lineages, especially on holidays. It was either learn to appreciate it or go crazy, and the choice was not difficult.
ღ Family || For better or worse, they're his family, all of them. Now matter how crazy the twins get, how hard his own brother tries to fluster him, or how overrun he feels by Vincent and Ava's seven kids, he'll always care about them. He has something of a big brother role to basically all of them, even Yuki, who is almost fifty years his senior. He and Zero are much closer in age, but Al is easily the more mature counterpoint to Zero's rebellious nature.
⌈Dislikes⌋
- ✘ Coffee || Bitter tasting things in general don't do it for Al, but coffee is especially bad for some reason. If he has to drink it for some reason, he wimps out and overdoes it on the cream and sugar.
✘ Surprises || A meticulous planner like he is, who is used to organizing everything and may even qualify as somewhat OCD, doesn't generally find pleasure in his plans being interrupted, and honestly, he knows that's kind of boring of him. But... it's just how he is. Perhaps, someday, someone will be able to coax a little more spontaneity out of him (goodness knows Ary has tried), but for now, he's a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.
✘ The War || He's been raised to respect life, even if he sometimes has to take it. The war needs to end, and in some ways, he can't help but think that it's his fault. Not him specifically, but whomever it would have been that inherited the traits he happens to have. Theodor von Nacht was a twisted bastard, but he had seriously long-term plans, and Balthasar knows he was part of them.
⌈Strengths⌋
- ♦ Bloodline || It's hard to argue with a direct line from the first of all vampires, especially when it's a line that traditionally produces one son per generation and nothing else. He's not sure if that's just because they're unlucky or all introverted or what, but that's how it's worked out. The powers are certainly nothing to sneeze at. Despite the fact that his mother is technically a noble, Balthasar is so obviously a pureblood it's almost painful. Perhaps it's the strength of his father's blood in him, or perhaps it's the modified dosage of his grandmother's blood that his mother received to extend her life-- whatever the case, he is no mere Noble.
♦ Prodigy || To put it bluntly, aunt Ava termed him the "superkid" at a young age, and she was kind of right. He's never had to struggle very hard to master the tasks and skills he's set about doing and learning, and most things just seem to come to him with unnatural speed. Like the Alistair twins, he has been the subject of much outside interest, but his is largely due to the combination of his blood and his power. Some members of the Council have speculated that he and his father should belong to a new class of vampire, unofficially termed the "S" class, but neither of them could care either way about that.
♦ Upbringing || Of course, talent can go to waste, but his parents weren't exactly the kind to let him wilt away to nothing. His upbringing wasn't strict exactly, and they love him a lot, but all the same, he couldn't stand to disappoint them, and that was a lot of motivation for him to put his talent to good use.
⌈Weaknesses⌋
- ☯ Expectations || Sometimes, the pressure can get to be a little too much, and Balthasar feels keenly the need to be a model child, student, soldier, and just about everything. He knows what he has to do, and sometimes, he feels burdened by it. It can make him a bit closed-off from others at times, though he tries to avoid that as much as possible. More than anything, though, he can be manipulated. If someone convinces him that something is his duty, he'll do it, regardless of his personal feelings on the matter, and he wants more than anything to make his parents proud of who he is. He feels doubly inclined to do this because it means that his brother doesn't have to if he doesn't want to-- and it's pretty obvious that Ary doesn't want to.
☯ Family || He'd do anything for them, period. Even things that he would never consider doing otherwise. They mean the world to him, from his parents and brother down to the most distant cousin. Sometimes, they're all each other has in the world, and he'd give his life to protect that, no questions asked.
☯ Control || He awoke to his true power much earlier in his life than his father did, as a result largely of having the proper training and knowledge. Unfortunately, he did not and does not have all the wisdom his father did when he came into contact with his inheritance, and sometimes, controlling his powers can be difficult. He has been known to cause the occasional accident because of this, but nothing irreversible-- yet. He worries about hurting one of the people he cares for most, and is no longer so reckless with the use of his abilities as he was in his youth.
⌈You're probably wasting your time.⌋
⌈Personality⌋
Dutiful | Meticulous | Compassionate | Humorous
[ Balthasar has a great respect for his parents and other older-generation relatives, and this has in large part shaped who he is. Among the oldest of his extended "family," he was born and raised entirely during the ongoing war. It was something of a miracle that his parents were able to make his home life normal enough for him to even learn pursuits like music and literature, but they somehow managed it. Even with that considered though, it was clear to Al from a very early age that he was expected to be exceptional, not necessarily by his parents, though of course they always believed he would be, but by the world at large. There are a lot of hopes for peace riding on his shoulders, and he accepts this for what it is. From his father, he has learned a great sense of duty, and cultivated the ability to put other people always before himself. To protect the weak, and encourage the strong to be better people.
He was a rather solemn child, but he has developed a bit of a sense of humor, this a result of the lighter influences in his life, such as his "aunt" Ava, and to some extent the caustic sarcasm of his Uncle Morgan and Aunt Erys. Granted, his humor is more gentle in nature than theirs was at the same age, but all the same, he does know how to laugh and enjoy the lighter moments in life. He just doesn't let himself be carried away in them. He is not the darling ray of sunshine that some of his relatives and friends are, but that's all right. He appreciates them. Balthasar has a certain talent for looking at people, getting to know them, and appreciating them as they are without putting too much pressure on them to change. Strange, for someone who is always under his own pressure and pushing himself to improve. He likes to remind himself what he's protecting, after all.
He is very much a planner, and turns out to be rather bad at spontaneous things. He doesn't live his life on impulse or instinct, having instead cultivated talents of the intellect to guide him. He's not unemotional, exactly, but it can be a little hard to read him. Though he usually seems on quite an even keel, there are certain things that will spark his temper, and like Jasper, his rage can be a terrible thing to behold when confronted. There is a saying that one should not wake sleeping dragons-- they were probably talking about Balthasar. ]
⌈Not a day goes by when I'm not reminded of whose child I am, of what responsibilities I bear, and what burdens are mine alone to carry. This war will end. I'll end it by myself if I have to. Because... it's kind of my fault that it started.⌋
⌈History⌋
[ When Balthasar’s father officially ended the second Vampire-Human war by slaying his own grandfather, Theodor von Nacht, most people assumed that things were finally looking up. It was true that the secret had been exposed to the human world, but perhaps, with time, the vampiric community could be forgotten, left to drift once more into the realm of myth and legend. Perhaps there need not be anymore violence. Perhaps those who had stood for so long in the center of it all could have a moment’s peace. For the first ten or so years afterward, they had it. But like all good things, it was not to last.
Theodor’s treachery and wickedness extended well beyond his life, and it turned out that he had planned for the contingency in which his grandson, raised by a weak and soft pair of parents, betrayed him and managed to end his life. A decade to the day after his death, Theodor’s remaining retainers released a set of documents to the press, detailing the research his science division had done on human embryos, specifically one Esther Ava Ellsworth, in order to replicate and enhance the capability of the genetics of Elsa von Nacht, the Benevolent Ancestor. The details of what was done to the girl, and the tortures she suffered at the hands of Theodor, once again enraged a slowly-calming human populace.
The information continued to filter out. Ava had not been the first such experiment, only the first successful one. For nearly seven hundred years, Theodor and those that worked under him had been experimenting on unborn human children, and killing them when the experiments failed. Perhaps this alone would have been overlooked in favor of laying things to rest, but the information that continued to trickle out was just as bad—and indicated that many of the members of the reformed Vampire Council had been complicit in these crimes, and various other projects that treated human beings more like lab rats and cattle than actual people. It may have been forgivable, if the Council had responded better. But they did not. Tensions grew, and it was then that something became readily apparent to the cohort of neutral parties that had ended the war: Theodor von Nacht may have been its instigator, but he was not necessary for continued violence.
Several hidden members of Theodor’s pantheon still operate in the shadows, fanning the flames of conflict, though their ultimate goal remains unknown. The war continues, mostly in the form of small skirmishes, and the world slowly divides, with human and vampire hostilities making battlegrounds of entire countries. It was into this mix that Balthasar von Nacht was born, and his birth did not go unmarked. As the child of Jasper and Nikki von Nacht, themselves the subjects of much interest and speculation, it was perhaps only to be expected that their child was of grave importance to the state of things, and when it seemed that he had indeed inherited the power that made his father both recognizable and almost universally feared, he was placed forever under a microscope, with even his allies cautious and wary of him.
The boy grew up with a sword in one hand and a tome in the other, learning to strike the delicate balance between diplomacy and warcraft that was his birthright. He proved to be as adept in one as the other, and took after his father’s general composure and manner. Scrutiny only increased as he grew, and from a very young age, he was courted by all manner of people: here, a family would throw a daughter at him, there, another would attempt to ply his favor with bribes or elaborate promises. He learned to navigate life as though he walked on a glass ceiling in the sky, and one misstep would send him plunging below. Fortunately, he also grew up surrounded by love and support, and this helped keep him grounded.
Though very little of what the Pantheon plans is known to anyone else, it was discovered by Balthasar’s uncle Morgan that Al himself figures very prominently in it—the Pantheon has somehow gained access to his genetic code, as well as various records kept before and after his birth, and various statistical charts relaying his capabilities and powers. This disproportionate amount of attention, both positive and negative, has engendered in Balthasar deep feelings of guilt—for it seems, at times, that the war continues, the Pantheon continues, because of him. Though he has been kept from it for most of his life, his parents have finally decided to allow him to do as they did and attend Cross Academy, along with his cousins and other younger-generation family members. He has taken it upon himself to protect them, every one of them, but it remains to be seen from what. ]
⌈I have chosen to rise to meet my burden. My responsibility will not be shirked. My task will not be undone. I will not fail.⌋
Shining Light; Darkness | The Shining Light in the Dark
⌈Names are promises, wishes our parents make. If this is what they wanted me to be, well, then I don’t mind it.⌋
⌈Names are promises, wishes our parents make. If this is what they wanted me to be, well, then I don’t mind it.⌋
♠Theme
Sia - Where I Belong
Florence + The Machine - Breath of Life
⌈I’m one of seven; it kind of makes feeling unique or special a bit tough. But then you realize that you don’t really need that stuff, anyway. I’m like my parents, and I’m proud of that.⌋
⌈Nickname⌋
[ Leo | Lee ]
⌈Age⌋
[ 19 ]
⌈Gender⌋
[ Female ]
⌈Race:⌋
[ Vampire—Pureblood ]
⌈Role:⌋
[ Daughter of Vincent and Ava Kuragari | Sister to Zero Kuragari | Cousin to Keir and Alarica Alistair ]
⌈Face Claim:⌋
[ Tifa Lockheart | FF7 ]
⌈I don’t really spend a lot of time in front of mirrors; what were you hoping to learn that you can’t see for yourself?⌋
⌈Hair Color⌋
[ Black, though there are caramel colored highlights in it, so in truth, it might just be a very dark brown. ]
⌈Eye Color⌋
[ Red, mostly, but they’re ringed with an amber gold. The rings are larger than they are in her father’s eyes, and the same honey-scotch color as her mother’s irises. She seems to be the only one of her siblings with this particular hue. ]
⌈Skin Tone⌋
[ Pale Peaches and Cream ]
⌈Height⌋
[ 5’10” ]
⌈Weight⌋
[ 140 ]
⌈Physical Description⌋
[ Tall, lean, and well-curved, Leora looks a bit like a model, only… healthier. Her coloration is mostly her father’s but her facial structure, a bit girlish and rounded still, with an upturned nose and a full set of lips, is much more like Ava’s. She wears her raven-colored hair long and loose mostly, about at waist length unbound. Her form is lithe and svelte, and it’s clear she doesn’t believe in starving herself to lose those last five pounds or whatever. She’s very trim and fit, and her musculature, while lean, is visible where her skin is, the contours of her arms and legs being very firm, and the line of her shoulder strong.
She moves like a contained thunderstorm—quiet and rolling in gait, but with the potential for explosive power when the mood strikes her. Leora smells like lightning and fresh rain, with a faint trace of the strawberry scent that so characterized her mother. Her posture is straight and proud and a touch defiant; she walks with the confidence of someone who understands her station in life, but does not flaunt it. There’s deliberateness to her, and reserve, and it can be difficult to pick up her thoughts or her moods—she has Vincent’s flair for maintaining a stoic face, even in crisis situations. She dresses to suit the occasion, but she’s one of those people who can wear pretty much anything and get away with it.
Like all her female relatives, Leo could easily be called stunningly-beautiful, and nobody would argue with the classification. Being the only girl in a family of boys, however, means that while she knows this, she never saw much reason to care. She was always much more interested in being able to win a fistfight with one of her older siblings than looking prettier than anyone else. So there's something confident and lovely about her, sure, and there's no mistaking that she smells like temptation itself, due to the inheritance of her mother's enhanced blood properties, but even so, she doesn't seem like someone who pays any attention at all to her appeal. ]
⌈You want to know what I can do? I promise you, you have no idea what I’m capable of. My family’s like that.⌋
⌈Potential Interest⌋
None at the current moment: Leo dreams of a love like her parents have: something at once warm and deep, subtle and obvious, secretive and candid. It's hard to grow up surrounded in the cocoon of their warmth and affection and see anything else as acceptable. It's a very romantic notion of what love should be, and she knows that it would be difficult, perhaps even impossible, to obtain. Some part of her won't give up on it, and until then, she won't settle for less. Even so, she can be a bit of a flirt-- she sees an obvious between physical attraction and love, after all. Leo feels a particular and persistent attraction to her cousin Keir, though really, he's just as much of a tease as she is, so she doesn't expect anything to come of it.
⌈Skills⌋
- ★ Manipulation || She's very perceptive about other people, and isn't afraid to use what's available to her. Meaning, essentially, that if she wants to, she can seduce someone without working too hard. She actually finds this a little depressing, and doesn't usually bother unless it's necessary or seems like it might be interesting or a challenge.
★ Violin || Well, someone had to learn, and her brothers (except Zero) thought the instrument too "girly" as a rule. Her mother was only too happy to teach Leo when she wanted to learn, though, and it was something that bonded them together.
★ Hand-To-Hand || Though she's a fair hand with guns like her dad, Leo honestly prefers getting up close and personal, preferably with her fists.
⌈Abilities⌋
- ✠ Ambrosia/Amplification || Inherited from the strange mutation in her mother's genetic code, Leo is the only one of her siblings to have gained the near-irresistible, ambrosial qualities of Ava's blood. Not only is her blood incredibly potent in smell and allure, but it also confers benefits upon those who drink it, including not only a serious boost to their own power, but also the Aegis Effect, a temporary invulnerability to all damage, from something as mundane as a papercut or falling down to an incendiary explosion, including vampiric abilities. An unfortunate side-effect is that the blood itself is highly-addictive, and so cannot be simply given out when necessary to help with the war effort. It's impractical for her to act as a source for more than one person, and her parents have been very careful to teach her what it means to allow someone to take it, just so she isn't convinced to do so from kindness or pity alone.
✠ Weather Manipulation || Leo's personal ability is the one to manipulate weather effects, including wind direction and intensity, and precipitation. She can also call raw lightning from the sky and direct it to strike as she wills. Mastery of this power is still an ongoing process, and at the moment, she is not fully in control of it.
✠ Shadow Travel/Intangibility || Like her father, Leo can become as shadow, and sink into other existing shadows, jumping back and forth between them at will. She is largely invulnerable while in this state, but also cannot attack anything. She must become tangible again, and step out of any shadow she's in, to strike at a foe.
⌈What if I told you that my weakness was you? Heh. As if.⌋
⌈Other:⌋
N/A
⌈Habits⌋
- ☁ Flirting/Teasing || Leo can, on some occasions, be very much a flirt. It's entirely harmless, of course, and she lacks the ill intent of an actual seductress, but she does find messing with people to be entertaining, and likes her mind games to have a bit of an edge to them when possible. She can be either overt or remarkably subtle in this, and most of all, just likes to keep people guessing. Beyond that, she does deploy sarcasm with regularity, and pinpoint accuracy, usually, and enjoys getting a rise out of those who usually remain unfazed.
☁ Cooking || Another hobby she's taken from her mother. Ava was never quite able to give up human food, and so her family from time to time eats small meals, and pretty much all of them have some fondness for sweets, so Leo's gotten especially good at making those. Almost as good as Ava, in fact, and she's been designated the official "kitchen assistant" around the holiday season.
☁ Running || It's just a good way to release energy. When something seems to be vexing Leo (and, given her adolescence, sometimes, lots of things are vexing her), she'll take it out on a track or the grounds of Cross Academy. She doesn't even have to run at full speed, just... enough to feel her feet against the ground and the wind in her hair. Sometimes, she pesters Balthasar into taking her flying, but only if she really needs the extra help-- or his advice for something.
⌈Likes⌋
- ღ Family || She may not always openly express it, but Leo has a major soft spot for the members of her extended family, crazy as they all are. She's officially the youngest, and sometimes it bothers her that she's always the baby of the group, but in the end, it doesn't matter. She and Alarica kick everyone else's ass at snow fights, anyway, between Leo making more snow and Rica manipulating the ice.
ღ Mischief || Perhaps it is not surprise that she likes getting into people's business, or even just playing idle pranks on them. She grew up with the Alistair terrors, after all, and since they were a few years older, she really idolized them. Plus... only girl in a house full of rambunctious boys. She definitely learned to hold her own with six brothers.
ღ Solitude || As much as she likes being with other people, there's a part of Leo that's solitary, too, and enjoys her time by herself or with maybe one or two other people. If she's alone for too long, she does get lonely, but sometimes, having eight other people around is just a bit too much. She usually spends her self-time reading or running, or perhaps just sleeping. Naps are nice.
⌈Dislikes⌋
- ✘ Idiots || She has patience for a lot of things. Obnoxious stupidity is not one of them. The quickest way to annoy her is not to be a jerk, but a fool.
✘ Shallow Relationships || Much as she might like to flirt and tease, she doesn't understand why two people would ever want to be in a relationship (of any kind, including friendship) when there's no deeper connection involved. She believes in holding onto the people closest to you and never letting go. One could actually consider her passionate in this sense, and honestly? She's a little possessive, too.
✘ Dogs || Unfortunately, she, like Ava, is allergic to them.
⌈Strengths⌋
- ♦ Improvisation || Leo's a quick thinker, and not nearly set enough in her ways to fail to see the unconventional solution to a problem. She's open-minded and innovative, and fast on her feet, so to speak.
♦ Perceptive || She has a pretty good read on people, from the ones that would hide pain with a smile (like her mom), to those that would hide everything with a stoic mask (say, her dad). She is instinctually drawn to some people, and seems to be able to get a read on how others are feeling, even when they might be confused about it themselves. This perception extends to herself as well-- Leo is very aware of her own emotions and reactions to things.
♦ Speed || Her primary asset in a fight is the extreme speed with which she is able to move. She has a long stride and a light frame, so rather than focusing on strength, she has put a lot of time into honing her sheer quickness. She's agile, flexible, and nearly unmatched in a dead sprint.
⌈Weaknesses⌋
- ☯ Killing || Leora's soul is a fundamentally gentle one, and for this reason, she doesn't like the idea of killing another person, be they human or vampire. She has a deep empathy for other beings, and doesn't want to conceptualize killing in any way that would make it seem like something she could do. Nevertheless, she knows that there's a war going on, and that she may eventually be called upon to kill for the sake of the ones she loves. It will not be an easy thing to do, and she dreads it.
☯ Family || She straightforwardly and without remorse loves them, and it is an obvious weakness to exploit.
☯ Blood || Even more than her mother's, Leora's blood is incredibly compelling, a fact which tends to make her the target of a lot of the wrong kind of attention. Her family has somewhat grown used to the scent over time, but there were a couple of rough years there as she transitioned from girlhood to adulthood, when the smell also changed, when even the members of her family found it distracting. Needless to say, strangers or those who haven't been around her for her whole life are drawn to her like moths to a flame.
⌈I am who I am. Do I really need a reason for everything?⌋
⌈Personality⌋
Sly | Good-Hearted | Stoic | Reliable
[ Growing up in a household like hers meant that Leo never lacked for the love of a family. For the most part, she is well-adjusted and of good temperament, but she is not without her unique quirks and oddities all the same. On any given day, she actually seems to be a bit on the stoic side, taking after her father's ability to mask her feelings quite well when she wants to. This is the face she shows to people she does not know well. It is, after all, important not to show weakness in front of those who may one day be enemies. Besides, the more in-control and less vulnerable she looks, the less likely someone is to think they can get away with trying for her blood. That's always been the main sticking point of her interactions with other people. Where her mother grew up largely ignorant of the consequences of smelling as she did (and smelling much milder than she eventually would), and had her father for extra protection afterwards, Leora was born addictive, and it only got worse in her teenage years. Overtures and engagement proposals from high-ranking families were common, but her parents were adamant that this be her decision to make, and that she should not make it for convenience.
Of course, this led to some people trying to get it in less-official capacities. Leo learned to read people and to play the manipulation game because she had to, in order to tell apart the people who genuinely wanted to be her friend from those who were only interesting in her blood or the Aegis Effect. This part of her personality has developed within the last few years, and she blends flirtatiousness and a certain kind of sly cunning surprisingly well with the general stoicism. It's enough that she's something of an enigma, a mystery, and while in one sense, that only adds to her problems, it's much better than being vulnerable. There is no mistaking that she is an opponent against which even a master would have to fight hard in a mind game.
Underneath it all, she takes after her mother more than one would expect. She was rambunctious as a child, especially with her brothers and her older cousin Balthasar, who tended to be put in charge of babysitting her when the rest were off doing older-kid things, so they are close to this day. He is the one in which she confides, and her brother Zero as well. Alarica, she's friends with, and the two have often employed their more mischievous sides together. Keir... well, that's another story. She treats him as she would her other relatives, and nobody yet knows about her little attraction It's not like she plans on doing anything about it, anyway. At heart, Leo is a caring, sympathetic person, and surprisingly gentle, but that is a deep, deep part of herself, and few have truly known it. Even so, any relative of hers could tell you that if you need a secret kept or something done for you, there are few more dependable people out there than she. It's the only outward expression of her love for them all that she really lets herself make. ]
⌈Growing up like I did isn’t something most people are lucky enough to do. I’ll never forget what I owe my parents, and my family.⌋
⌈History⌋
[ Leora was born well into the third vampire-human war, which as of now is certainly in full swing. Nevertheless, there are neutral zones that remain more or less protected from the majority of the conflict, and the Kuragari family, along with the Alistairs and the von Nachts, resides in one of those neutral zones. There wasn’t much remarkable about Leora’s birth itself—she was not a twin, nor was she one of Jasper’s children and thus a candidate to inherit his devastating power. Indeed, she was one of seven, the only girl born to Vincent and Ava Kuragari.
Like many of her relatives, however, her birth turned out to have serious relevance. This came about when it was discovered that she inherited what was believed to be a unique trait of her mother’s—the Aegis Effect. Just like that, Leora was the center of quite a bit of attention, herself. It seems that seldom are the children of her family able to escape it, but hers was of a particularly unsavory kind. While there are always alliances and politics to b considered, Leo also had to learn very quickly to deal with the fact that her blood induced difficulties in even the most controlled vampires.
She learned to defend herself at a young age, from both of her parents, and from them she also learned how to keep her heart hidden. It was every bit as tender as her mother’s, but she developed a façade that made this appear otherwise, and in the process gained a reputation for being as cold and steely as her father.
All the same, her childhood was not a bad one. Her parents and brothers loved her, and she them. She maintains a special place in her father’s heart, as his only daughter, and her brother Zero’s as his sole little sister. She grew up watched over by Balthasar, who is usually her go-to person for the kinds of things she wouldn’t discuss with her immediate family. And then, of course, there were the twins. Leora was born only two years or so after Keir and Alarica, and grew up very close to the both of them. Their terrorism at formal dinners never failed to entertain her, and she and Rica are to this day best friends, and close as sisters, since neither has a blood sister of any sort. With Keir, things are different. The two have an odd friendly rivalry of sorts, made only more complicated by Leo’s well-hidden attraction to him. Their similarities are many, and challenges nearly-constant between them, but thus far, it has been all in fun.
Generally, Leo tries to think about the war as little as possible, but she knows that she, like the others, bears a great responsibility in the years to come. It’s just inevitable. ]
⌈You never know. Someday, I might just surprise you.⌋
Fair/Beautiful One; Sorrowful | The Fair One, Full of Sorrow
⌈It was more appropriate when I was called ‘Hel,’ the bringer of death. Then I should be the bringer of death and sorrow. That would describe matters more accurately.⌋
⌈It was more appropriate when I was called ‘Hel,’ the bringer of death. Then I should be the bringer of death and sorrow. That would describe matters more accurately.⌋
♠Theme
Natalie Merchant – My Skin
Linkin Park – Somewhere I Belong
⌈All of life is a rushing towards the Void.⌋
⌈Nickname⌋
[ Hel | Lena (used by those who want to nickname, but not remind her of what she was) ]
⌈Age⌋
[ 387 ]
⌈Gender⌋
[ Female ]
⌈Species:⌋
[ Vampire Pure-Blood | Experiment ]
⌈Role:⌋
[ Sister to Freya | Friend of Yuki ]
⌈Face Claim:⌋
[ Konpaku Youmu | Touhou ]
⌈I’ve not seen a mirror in years. The revulsion in the eyes of others is enough. Their fear is enough. I am ugly, and should not be seen.⌋
⌈Hair Color⌋
[ Silver ]
⌈Eye Color⌋
[ Violet ]
⌈Skin Tone⌋
[ Semitranslucent ]
⌈Height⌋
[ 5’0” ]
⌈Weight⌋
[ 95 ]
⌈Physical Description⌋
[ Helen retains an impression of extreme delicacy in her features. She is quite slender, bordering on skinny, and very small height-wise also. From behind, she could be mistaken for a girl much younger than she actually is, though the impression is not retained when one faces her head on. Her features are refined and graceful, and she looks very much like someone one should be addressing as ‘my lady,’ though to do so would be very strange to her. She looks breakable, as though to even touch her too hard would cause her to collapse in on herself, but something about the way she carries herself suggests otherwise.
She is not beautiful in the seductive sense, largely because such matters are not even part of her mental makeup, but there is a certain kind of allure to her even so. Hers is simply more like the beauty one sees in a true piece of art, at once timeless and transient, close and untouchable. Her skin is so pale as to be almost translucent, and in places, it is, at least enough that one can clearly make out the veins at her thin wrists, for example. Her hands are graceful, her fingers long and tapered, but very callused. She keeps her silvery hair, the sheen of it metallic, cut short to just beneath her chin, and most often sports a thick black ribbon in it, tied into a bow slightly off to one side. It’s a surprisingly girlish ornament, but it’s a memento, so she’s never even considered being rid of it.
Her eyes, framed with exotic silver lashes, are themselves a most unusual violet color, that includes just the faintest touch of blue near her pupil. The color is striking and clear, a compliment to the rest of her pigmentation and the sole spots of vibrancy in an otherwise very pale visage. She tends to dress practically, forgoing elegance for practicality, and a lot of her clothes are those made for young men or boys. For reasons indiscernible, she keeps her bustline bound, in the traditional fashion of women warriors, with bandage-tape. It’s much more convenient that way, because somehow, though rather narrow in the hips, she wound up with breasts that could actually get in the way of some of her more acrobatic maneuvers if dealt with more conventionally. Her entire aesthetic is pragmatic rather than meant to enhance her looks or anything like that, as Helen seems to have very few of the related concepts. ]
⌈I am an abomination, and I should not exist. This power is only for gods to hold.⌋
⌈Potential Interest⌋
Aryan von Nacht: Hel’s not exactly mentally equipped for romance, so to speak. She sees it as something that happens to other people, and something she has no use, need, or desire for. As far as she knows, she’s asexual, but it may just be that it would require some work nobody’s bothered to do yet. Lately, though... she's found herself unusually preoccupied by thoughts of Aryan: what he's doing, how he is, whether he's remembering to take care of himself... these thoughts plague her, though their only contact is through a long-distance game of chess. It is not something she understands, and if she did, she would still probably never admit to it because... he is who he is, and she is less than that. It hurts to think so, and that alone perplexes her greatly. She's not sure what to make of it.
⌈Skills⌋
- ★ Bladework || Hel’s primary weapon is an odachi, an extra-long katana, though she will often compliment it by using a straight-bladed wakizashi in her off-hand.
★ Acrobatics || Even for a vampire, she is unnaturally flexible and athletic, double-jointed basically everywhere and capable of very strange contortions when necessary. Her small size makes her even harder to hit.
★ Clarinet || Freya encouraged her to learn an instrument as part of her recovery from what happened to her, and she made sure to choose one that would be helpful to the annual family orchestra, also known as Christmas.
⌈Abilities⌋
- ✠ The Touch of Unmaking || Hel hates this power. With nothing but the barest brush of a finger, she can drain the life from someone by breaking apart the molecular bonds that hold them together and absorbing the energy. She can then either discharge this in explosive blasts or use it to heal. Because it was designed to kill, however, and because Theodor liked it so much, she refuses to use it.
✠ Aerokinesis || Helen has an affinity for wind manipulation, of all things. It was always a secondary talent according to Theodor, and he didn’t care much about it, as it was mostly an “extra” byproduct of her genes. She prefers it for this reason.
✠ Absorption and Redirection || A byproduct of her primary ability, Hel can absorb a certain level of energy-based attacks, including elemental, kinetic, and so on, and redirect the force elsewhere.
⌈I feel as though everyone around me is doing this thing called living, and I am only a spectator.⌋
⌈Other:⌋
N/A
⌈Habits⌋
- ☁ Sketching || Hel has taken to sketching quite a lot of things, including what she sees, the content of whatever memories filter to her through Theodor’s conditioning, and things she isn’t sure how to explain with words. She’s a wonderful artist, actually, and those who think she is completely bereft of emotion need only to look at her paintings or drawings to understand their error. That said… she’s not in the habit of letting anyone do this.
☁ Staring || When something catches her attention, her focus snaps to it. It can actually be a bit of an… intense experience, being looked at by Helen. She may not have Freya’s ability to see everything, but sometimes, she seems close.
☁ Zoning Out || Hel gets flashes of things—memories, things Theodor implanted in her mind, bizarre dreams that she can’t make sense of—and they play in front of her eyes like movies. It’s really hard to rouse her when she’s undergoing one, which is bad, because some of them put her in a lot of pain.
⌈Likes⌋
- ღ Quiet || As a fundamentally quiet person herself, Helen appreciates not being surrounded by too much noise. Actually, overstimulation tends to trigger her episodes, so it’s better for her health if she avoids crowds and suchlike.
ღ Sweets || She has the palate of a child, really, in that she adores sugary things. This is partly because she was never allowed them as a girl. It wasn’t like Theodor was the kind of person to feed his marionette-doll cookies when she was well-behaved, after all.
ღ Swords || She was raised with a blade in her hand, and there’s something comforting about holding one. Familiar.
⌈Dislikes⌋
- ✘ Sleeping || It tends to bring with it nightmares, and those always leave her awake, exhausted, and probably in a cold sweat
✘ Overstimulation || Helen just can’t tolerate too… much. Of anything, really.
✘ Theodor || It’s rather an understatement to say so, but he scares her half to death, more now that he is dead than he ever did when he was alive. She has no idea what the full extent of his experimentation with her will do, and there are large chunks of time that she does not remember…
⌈Strengths⌋
- ♦ Efficiency || Hel knows how to do basically anything with an economy of movement, making her already substantial speed eve that much deadlier.
♦ Flexibility || She is not the fastest, and is far from the strongest, but she can bend and twist like nobody else, and her acrobatic capabilities are really something special. She knows how to take a hit with minimal damage, and can bend to avoid some that would definitely hit anyone else.
♦ Experience || Most of her life has been training and battle and death. While it has given her a rather impoverished ability to understand others, it has granted her the ability to survive where someone greener would not. Hel in battle does not understand mercy.
⌈Weaknesses⌋
- ☯ Episodes || It’s hard to say how bad the damage is, but Theodor used her mind as a playground for centuries, destroying everything the girl had been and building her into what he wanted her to be. She has yet to uncover everything he left behind, but these things tend to surface without her permission and at unfortunate times.
☯ Yuki || The strongest bond she has with anyone in her life is the one she shares with Yuki, and it would be fair to say that Helen would take major risks and do literally anything to keep her safe.
☯ Reluctance || Hel hates her primary power, and as a result, will only use it in the most dire of circumstances, a ceded advantage which could cost her dearly.
⌈I have found that I know how to kill, and I know how to heal. But I do not know how to live.⌋
⌈Personality⌋
Solemn | Melancholy | Intense | Loyal
Perhaps the best singular word to describe Helen is damaged. From her very youth, she was raised by a man who wanted nothing of her but her power and to violate the sanctity of her mind for his own plans and amusement. To this day, the extent of the ways Theodor von Nacht manipulated her are unknown. Nobody has been able to get far enough in her mind to understand it, and pieces of her conditioning will surface at odd times, and she will do and say things that make no sense, even to her. She has become quiet and withdrawn, though she always was, to a lesser extent than now. She almost never speaks, and indeed seems surprised when she does. This makes her very hard to understand, for basically everyone by Yuki, who can communicate with her telepathically, and her sister Freya, who does not need to hear anything to know.
It is not that nobody in her life has ever loved her, but that even this was not enough to protect her from what she was forced to endure for almost three hundred years. Hel was Theodor’s pet project, and one does not simply recover from that kind of attention. She was released from servitude to him in her fight with Yuki, but she knows that even this was because Theodor allowed it. He had no more use for her, or at least, her use was better served apart from him, she does not know which. Her own mind is something of a mystery to Hel, and she feels like a stranger in her skin.
Her exterior is a strong, smooth one, a visage of thickened ice, impenetrable and exuding a faint coolness where most people would be warm. She is the picture of unruffled, emotionless composure, and in that at least, she is flawless. But it is not the truth of things. Her strength, her quiet certainty, is a barrier she built to hide a seemingly-irreparable brokenness and vulnerability, as though she is only waiting for him to come back, and to shatter her once and for all, to rip from her what little threads of identity she has managed to tie from herself to those around her, and make her forget once again who she is, or that she was ever anyone at all. He is still there, in pieces of her, and she runs across them unexpectedly. Each one terrifies her more than the last, because she can never sense these moments coming before they do, and she fears that one day, she will simply become him.
Hel does not see much in herself worth letting live, let alone loving, but she has allowed some people closer than she would otherwise have done all the same. Her sister Freya and Yuki are first among these, because her sister has been with her her whole life, and she and Yuki have bonded deeply over all the years they have known each other. She is less reluctant to speak with Balthasar than most, though the pieces of him are more likely to surface when the von Nacht heir is around, so it’s complicated. She doesn’t mind any of the rest of the members of the family, and indeed is very protective of all of them, but it’s less like she’s one of them and more like she’s their servant of some kind. She seems intent on providing them with all the help that she can, but she cannot see them as her equals, because that would be to bring them lower than they deserve. So she is deferential and obedient, two more traits of her conditioning that are so deep they are by now ingrained in her personality, perhaps forever.
⌈I have forgotten much. Sometimes, I wish I could forget the rest, as well. But people like me don’t get to start over.⌋
⌈History⌋
The Pantheon is divided into two halves: some of them were exceptionally-talented members of existing pureblood families, recruited by Theodor von Nacht to serve his ends. The other half were experimental children, engineered to perfection to be able to take on certain tasks. Hel was among the latter half, and given the potency of her abilities, Theodor made sure to condition her much more than he did most of them.
Though she knows her “brother” and “sister” as the figures she lived her early life with, Hel was eventually and at a very young age taken from them and brought into Theodor’s care, though to call it that would be to mistake it for the kind of arrangement where her warden had at least some mild concern for her. He did not, and his extensive manipulation has damaged her mind, removing entire decades of memory from her. Her life was largely a haze of things she barely registered, but she knows there was a lot of death. The only bright spot in any of it was her sister—for she has no idea what happened to her brother.
Until that fateful day when Theodor let her go. It came without warning, and it was not easy to break free even when let go, but she did, with the help of Yuki Alistair-von Nacht, whose life she saved in recompense for the deed. She was returned to Cross Academy, and taken into the custody of her sister Freya. The two of them presently live alone, on an estate belonging to Freya, but Helen has requested permission to attend Cross Academy, having heard that her only friend and her family will be doing so as well. She wishes more than anything now to protect Yuki, to protect all of them, from the dark things that are now only flickering shadows at the edges of her mind. Hel knows something is coming, but she does not know what.
⌈Sometimes, nothing is the only thing one can say truly.⌋
Wise One; Darkness | Wisdom in Darkness, or, more loosely, the One Who Sees in the Dark
⌈I don’t think anyone has yet said it, so I will: our parents are all far too into the symbolism and meaningful names schtick.⌋
⌈I don’t think anyone has yet said it, so I will: our parents are all far too into the symbolism and meaningful names schtick.⌋
{Theme}
Vienna Teng – The Hymn of Acxiom
Blue Stahli - Ultranumb
⌈The essence of a spy is written in cryptography. We’d die, otherwise.⌋
⌈Nickname⌋
[ Spider | Violet | Vi ]
⌈Age⌋
[ 60 ]
⌈Gender⌋
[ Male ]
⌈Species:⌋
[ Vampire; Pure-Blood ]
⌈Role:⌋
[ Second Son of Vincent and Ava Kuragari; Cousin to Alarica, Keir, Emrys, Balthasar, Aryan, and Yuki, Brother to Zero and Leora ]
⌈Face Claim:⌋
[ Murasakibara Atsushi | Kuroko no Basuket ]
⌈This? This isn’t even the surface. I can look like anyone, become anyone. I’m so good at it that sometimes, I forget what I’m supposed to be like when I get to choose.⌋
⌈Hair Color⌋
[ Currently, a vibrant azalea-purple. ]
⌈Eye Color⌋
[ Red-Violet ]
⌈Skin Tone⌋
[ Middling ]
⌈Height⌋
[ 6’0” ]
⌈Weight⌋
[ 150 ]
⌈Physical Description⌋
[ At any given moment, Alden’s physical appearance is what he wants it to be. He can and does regularly manipulate it to appear like someone else, a vital skill if one desires to be in espionage. Generally speaking, he never looks quite the same when his relatives come into contact with him, nor does he even necessarily smell the same. Only his mother remembers exactly how he was composed when he came out of the womb, because he’s been changing ever since. Perhaps even that was not the truth of the matter. Perhaps there is no truth of the matter. Whatever the case, he looks as he wants to look, at any given moment.
For ease of recognition, he generally sticks to only minor alterations around a theme when he’s with his family, and as such, appears as a lanky youth, artfully-disheveled and very aware of the appeal of his appearance, the appeal that all of his kind share. For whatever reason, he chooses generally not to look overmuch like either of his parents, though there’s some hint of his father’s bone structure in his face, perhaps. Hair of a most curious azalea-purple falls a little ways past the nape of his neck, sometimes pulled into a very small tail. The strands of it are fine, and seem to be shot through with the occasional touch of blue or lilac.
His eyes can change just as easily, but unless he’s wearing a particular disguise, he keeps them a red-violet color, a bit of a play on the traditional bloodthirsty red, with a touch of something softer. His height is decent but not as obvious as, say, Balthasar’s or Aryan’s, and his complexion a smooth, flawless peaches and cream. He’s on the lanky side, though not thin, and there is definitely a smooth muscle tone to him, though it is not obvious in the looser clothing he favors. His aesthetic gives off an impression of careless grace, as though he made no effort at all to appear a crafty mixture of apathetic and mysterious. Of course, given his abilities, he could just as easily look like anything—or anyone else. ]
⌈What I can do is lie to you, so perfectly that you’ll wish it was the truth.⌋
⌈Potential Interest⌋
None at the current moment: Alden is deeply, deeply cynical about romantic attachment. Not in the sense that he thinks it’s impossible—he does have eyes with which to see his parents, after all. It’s just that he has sacrificed his ability to engage with someone on that level in order to be able to do what he does. Sex is a weapon in Alden’s arsenal, one of many, and this has rather ruined romance for him, one could say. His work favors an open attitude towards gender, and he doesn’t honestly see much difference between sleeping with a woman and sleeping with a man.
⌈Skills⌋
- ★ Espionage || One would be hard-pressed to find someone more suited to spywork than Alden. His abilities in manipulation and information gathering extend far beyond the norm, and more than that, he is capable of levels of disguise and deception that are literally impossible for anyone else. There is a reason that, young as he is, he runs the informant network that his Uncle Morgan and cousin Aryan use to gather their intelligence.
★ Infiltration/Hacking || On the off chance that he can’t get what he wants by talking to someone, he can also get it by sneaking around and hacking the required technology. Alden is a whiz with computers of any kind, a skill he honed in his childhood. Firewalls aren’t much protection against him.
★ Cello || Well, it never hurts to be musically-talented, does it?
⌈Abilities⌋
- ✠ Shapeshifting || Alden’s shapeshifting talent far exceeds the bounds of ordinary cases. Not only can he transform himself into any particular animal he should like, but he can also alter the fundamental structure and coloration of his normal body. He’s been doing so since the moment of his birth, possibly even before, if the amount of discomfort his mother experienced during her pregnancy was any indication. He can change the color and length of his hair, the shape and color of his eyes, his complexion, his facial structure, muscle mass, anything. The one thing he’s never been able to get quite right is making himself into a female, but he can certainly make himself look highly feminine, enough to pass with clothing on.
✠ Truesight || An interesting contrast, he has developed the antithesis of his own ability. Truesight is the ability to detect the undetectable, to sense the distinct presence and essence of anyone or anything over a certain radius of space. It’s like being perfectly omniscient, but only for a single moment, and a restricted area. For an area of about two hundred feet in any direction, Alden simply cannot be fooled. He knows when someone is lying, precisely where they are, and can even sense intent. He can if necessary expand this to about a mile, but doing so leaves him severely depleted and weak.
✠ Telepathy || His powers of mental reading are deep and subtle, moreso even than those belonging to his cousin Yuki, though he lacks her corresponding Telekinesis. His powers could be likened to a mixture of something like Freya can do and straightforward mindreading. He can leave traces behind in the minds of others if he likes, but he does not often do so, unless it becomes necessary in his work. How he wound up with these powers is unclear, but what was done to his mother was extensive, and perhaps his genetic inheritance from her is simply unstable to a certain degree.
⌈My strength is built on no foundations but the ones I make myself. I love my family, but I will not depend on them. They do not deserve to know this evil I have embraced.⌋
⌈Other:⌋
N/A
⌈Habits⌋
- ☁ Carpentry || You’d probably never guess it to look at him, but Alden is really good with his hands. He likes building things, especially useful things, and has made several pieces of furniture for his family—including a bed that his aunt and uncle have yet to break, something from which he derives quite a bit of amusement.
☁ Playing Cello || He likes to keep his skills sharp, and there’s really no way to do that but practicing.
☁ Chameleon || His hair and eye colors will sometimes randomly change, and sometimes according to his mood, though he will generally revert to the purple and so on eventually.
⌈Likes⌋
- ღ Basketball || Everyone needs some way of working off steam, and Alden does enough violence in the day-to-day of his work that training really doesn’t help. During his stint at Cross (a while ago now), he discovered basketball, and it has remained a hobby of his ever since.
ღ Food || Alden is basically constantly consuming food. He says it’s because his powers take so much energy from him that he needs to refuel, but that’s only partly the truth. In fact, they do deplete a lot, and he’s basically constantly thirsty. But, growing up in a household with his mom and later his baby sister Leo, he’s had to learn to cope with the fact that his blood pills are never really adequate to compensate. Food helps, especially if it contains lots of sugar.
ღ Family || Being around them has the pleasant tendency to make him forget what he’s had to become to protect them. At the very least, it reminds him of why he’s done it.
⌈Dislikes⌋
- ✘ Blood Pills || While he can (barely) digest them, they just aren’t adequate to the ravenous thirst his abilities tend to build up in him. He’s taken to compensating with so much sugar that if he was human, he would probably have been in a diabetic coma a very long time ago.
✘ Fighting || Well, he’s very good at it, though admittedly, his preferred weapons are those that can be concealed, but he doesn’t find any real joy in it. Actually, he doesn’t find joy in much, anymore, but he doesn’t sit around feeling sorry for himself, either. He’s made his choices, and he knew what the consequences would be when he did.
✘ Being Lied To || Ironic, considering that he is himself a professional liar. Then again, maybe not strange when you think about it. He can always tell when he is being deceived, and the frequency of it gives him a headache, so to speak.
⌈Strengths⌋
- ♦ God of His Own Domain || Within the hundred or so feet immediately surrounding him, literally nothing gets by Alden. Granted, this is a limited radius, and it will not stop someone from successfully attacking him within it, but he has the edge of extra warning and the ability to read the mind of anyone trying. Though his truesight will still function on Alarica, say, and he can still shift in her presence, her nullification will cancel his telepathy, if she remembers to use it. The one time Balthasar used his powers in this radius, Alden nearly lost his mind, however.
♦ The Spider || Not only does he run an extensive network of informants (commonly called the Web), but he himself is the consummate spy, given what he can do. He has impersonated more than one high-ranking individual before, and the work of Alden’s Web is the reason his family has enough information to function, these days.
⌈Weaknesses⌋
- ☯ Cynical || His experiences have not always changed him for the better, and Alden lacks much of the general idealism of people like his cousin Balthasar. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that his family was involved, he would simply let the war run its own course, and care not at all about the results.
☯ High-Octane Metabolism || It might seem initially funny that Alden needs to eat as much as he does, but it has its darker side as well. Should he run low on energy, the constant output of his powers, which he can’t really turn off, so to speak, would begin to eat away at him very quickly. This has happened a few times, actually, when he’s been on assignment and unable to access the sustenance he needs. He can begin to show signs of starvation after as little as a day. He’d easily be dead within three, unlike the week or more it would take an ordinary person to expire from lack of nourishment. He… doesn’t tell anyone this. It’s better when they’re laughing at his constant need to consume foodstuffs.
⌈If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.⌋
⌈Personality⌋
Recalcitrant | Jaded | Intellectual | Sensual
Alden is a very reserved person, on average. Not in the sense that he refuses to talk to anyone or does not know how to navigate social interaction, but in the sense that he just doesn’t give anything away. He is entirely unreadable, despite the fact that he exercises the usual range of expression and reaction for an emotionally-balanced person. In fact, that’s what people take him to be—well-adjusted and rather normal, if a bit on the subtle, sneaky side. He’s a bit mischievous, a bit smart-mouthed, and a smidge wicked. Nothing terribly dangerous however—or at least, he takes great care not to seem so.
There are certain thing in life—hope and idealism, mostly—that he’s lost any ability or inclination to hold onto. The life of a spy means that he’s had to let go of himself, more often than not, and slip repeatedly into personas, into skins, that are not his own. And he’s had to do it perfectly, because anything less would mean his discovery and his death—or worse, his use as a hostage against his family. That is something he refuses to allow, and so he has relinquished nearly everything that was Alden and just become the Spider. He wears his at home face like another mask, and indeed, it feels only like another role he is playing, no more real than any of the rest of them. He has given up his innocence, his trust, his faith in other people, his ability to love, even. He can act like he still has any of them, but it all rings hollow.
He shows a general aptitude for academic pursuits, and may indeed be the most broadly knowledgeable of all his cousins and siblings, simply because one never knows when a piece of information is going to come in handy. He doesn’t seem to spend much more time reading than any of the rest, though, so one can infer that he may have gained it through other means.
One thing that seems to carry broadly across guises is a certain kind of careless sensuality about him—something he shares with his sister. There’s just a certain kind of slow elegance to the way Alden moves, a magnetic allure in his eyes, and perhaps, it could be said, a bit of a sultry note underneath his voice. Whether this is an inherent element of his personality or he’s just been doing it so long that it’s habit is impossible to tell—not even he knows.
⌈A second son is not like an heir. There’s something different about standing in another person’s shadow. There’s freedom there, but also a responsibility. Because you’re standing behind him, you have to watch his back. That’s what I do, and I’m rather good at it.⌋
⌈History⌋
Alden was the second son of Vincent and Ava Kuragari, born more than two decades after his older brother, Zero. Though it was a bit difficult, growing up in a household where they were watched so closely due to what their parents were, Alden as a child never really felt the pressure of it. Perhaps it was because he was only the second son and thus free of the responsibilities of being the heir, perhaps it was because his mother shielded him, as she shielded all of them, from the harshness of things until they were ready to face it, but he actually grew up quite the bright youth, intelligent and humorous and with a rare innocence that had failed to persist in more than just him.
But the world is hard, and his world no different. Alden’s abilities made it very difficult for him to resist the powerful lure of his mother’s blood, and on more than one occasion, he attacked her accidentally. It was clear from an early age that blood tablets were not quite enough to keep him sated for more than a few hours at a time, and too many of them tended to make him sick. It was improbable for him to take Ava’s, because he probably would have grown addicted to it, and the arrangement wouldn’t work on a permanent basis. So he learned to get by on a lot of sugar and a razor’s edge of control.
From the beginning, it was clear that Alden had prodigious talents in disguise and acting, and as a result, he was trained in the finer points of informant and spy work by his Uncle Morgan, though he had to learn a lot of the finer points as he went. It was quite clear after a while that what he was doing was taking a great toll on his mind, and his mother began to worry for him, trying to encourage him to let others share the burden a little more. But none of the others could do quite what he could, and everyone knew it.
So Alden has sacrificed his innocence and his wonder and his light for the power that comes with knowledge, and this, he has given to those he loves. Those that anchor him still in place. For them, he would live empty for as long as it took. And that it what he will do.
⌈The toll is not always paid in physical scars and missing limbs. It is not always given in material things. Sometimes, it is paid, gradually, in the missing pieces of a soul, and a heart that turns to stone, left accessible only to a very small few, and forever tainted. This is what I have paid, but I was glad to do it. Because it means that they have not yet had to.⌋
[ To the North, I Call thee: Sephiriel Storm-Singer: quick-witted angel whose sword is the Word.
Sephiriel Storm-Singer:
Angel of Action; She of the Swift Wings:
Keen-witted Judge and Guardian,
Who sunders illusion, captivity, and deceit.
We seek your guidance: what can you give us that will help us succeed? ]
⌈It is not easy to balance justice and mercy, but it must be done.⌋
Sephiriel Storm-Singer:
Angel of Action; She of the Swift Wings:
Keen-witted Judge and Guardian,
Who sunders illusion, captivity, and deceit.
We seek your guidance: what can you give us that will help us succeed? ]
⌈It is not easy to balance justice and mercy, but it must be done.⌋
♠Theme
Sia – Elastic Heart
Papa Roach – Leader of the Broken Hearts
⌈It’s my job to protect them, and I will carry it out, regardless of my feelings on the matter.⌋
⌈Nickname⌋
[ Seph—this was an endearment coined by her “brother” Michael, and it is something she does not allow just anyone to use. Most people are better off with “Lady Sephiriel.” ]
⌈Age⌋
[ Timeless, ageless, and undying. ]
⌈Gender⌋
[ Female—despite rumors to the contrary. ]
⌈Species:⌋
[ Angel—Archangel/Seraphim ]
⌈Role:⌋
[ The Grudging Envoy from Heaven | Glorified Babysitter | Protector of the Witnesses ]
⌈Face Claim:⌋
[ Saber | Fate/Stay Night ]
⌈This form? I suppose it resembles my true one, but it is like a shadow of what I am supposed to be.⌋
⌈Hair Color⌋
[ A pure, pale gold, which seems to catch basically any light, producing a very notable halo effect. ]
⌈Eye Color⌋
[ Spring Green | Peridot | Jade ]
⌈Skin Tone⌋
[ Porcelain ]
⌈Height⌋
[ 5’6” ]
⌈Weight⌋
[ 117 ]
⌈Physical Description⌋
[ As one would expect of a seraphim, a member of the highest order of angels in Heaven, and one as yet untainted by the sins of the fallen, Sephiriel is of extraordinary, unearthly beauty. She seems to carry the radiance of heaven with her wherever she goes. Her mortal form is actually a toned-down representation of this, but she’s almost flawless all the same. Her skin is blemish-free, smooth, and dewy, with a slight hint of natural pink to her cheeks. A cascade of sun-blonde hair is generally kept braided around the crown of her head, the strands fine and soft like silk.
Her eyes are the pale green of new plant life, or perhaps the jade stones pulled from the belly of the earth. There is something vibrant and dynamic about them, and they are the most expressive part of her face, easily discernible as hardening from a stony appearance to softening in tender affection. Certainly, a representative of Heaven must wear many faces, from the arbiter of fair justice to the merciful redeemer, and this is most easily conveyed in Sephiriel’s oculars.
Her figure is slender, perhaps even a bit on the side of boyish, with long legs and a willowy frame. She has moderate curvature to her, but it’s largely hidden beneath the clothing she favors, and not at all emphasized. Her clothing ranges from relatively normal selections for a human of the visual age she has (which is around eighteen, give or take a year) to full battle armor, shining sword and all. ]
⌈I have always been this way—it is difficult to understand how mortals can change as much as they do.⌋
⌈Potential Interest⌋
None at the current moment: An angel is forbidden such things as romantic love, or at least, that's how she chooses to see it. It may not be technically forbidden, but it is certainly discouraged, and furthermore, it is a foreign concept to Seph. She is a warrior, and she is righteous, bound by her duty above all else. Even if she were inclined to love another, who would ever love someone like her?
⌈Skills⌋
- ★ Swordsmanship || Seph is almost flawless with a blade, as it is a talent honed over eons, originally taught to her by the one she considers her brother, and he was heaven's consummate warrior... before he fell.
★ Endurance || Like the other commanders of the heavenly ranks, Seph is stronger, faster, and more durable than even the average angel. Her kind are those who stand toe-to-toe with the princes of hell. Or at least, they used to. The war's been stalemated for many many centuries now.
★ Speed || Sephiriel isn't "she of the swift wings" for nothing. She might not always be quite as strong as her brothers in arms, but she was built to be quicker.
⌈Abilities⌋
- ✠ Divinity || Seph has what one would consider the standard repertoire of seraphic powers: she can wield the divine light and holy fire, give life to and heal the wounds of mortal and immortal beings, purify corrupting influences, and is immune to possession.
✠ Electrokinesis || The Storm-Singer wields the power of thunder and lightning, and while she has some control of weather patterns, this mostly manifests in electrokinesis. She can hurl lightning bolts, redirect man mad electricity, and so on.
✠ Telepathy || Seph is skilled in the mind arts, and in addition to being very good at shielding hers from invasion, she can also initiate telepathic links with others-- or with groups of people.
⌈I bear a sacred burden. But if it were not within my power, I would not have been given it.⌋
⌈Other:⌋
N/A
⌈Habits⌋
- ☁ Prayer/Meditation || Everyone needs to center themselves somehow, and as an agent of heaven, her method only makes sense. She doesn't pray the same way humans do, as hers is more like opening a direct telepathic connection to someone in heaven, usually to receive orders or advice, but she does meditate, oddly in a very Zen Buddhist fashion.
☁ Observation || Part of being an effective strategist is developing the habit of taking in everything around you as objectively as possible. Sephiriel's been doing this for so long that she seems unable to stop. She's always actively watching, and noticing things.
☁ Singing || Well, they don't call her storm-singer for nothing. She can channel divine power through song, or not, as she chooses. Mostly, it's a hobby.
⌈Likes⌋
- ღ Plans || Nothing is quite as satisfying as having an excellent plan and executing it to perfection. She’s a meticulous person, and that is reflected in her commitment to doing things the right way.
ღ Battle || She is trained for it, and she was made for it. It would be a bit unnatural not to enjoy it at least somewhat.
ღ Cute Things || Not that she’d ever admit it, but she has a serious soft spot for fuzzy animals, baby anything, and ridiculous things like that. Generally, she does her best to keep this hidden, for the sake of her dignity.
⌈Dislikes⌋
- ✘ Demons || You try fighting the same enemies over and over for millennia and not developing a serious dislike for them. It’s a coping mechanism as much as anything else—she’s lost track of the number of them she’s slain… and of the number of friends and subordinates she’s lost to them. There may not be a war on right now, but it’s hard to forget the days when there was.
✘ Disrespect || The quickest way to spark Sephiriel’s temper is to disrespect her—or those she holds in high esteem. She won’t tolerate it. She earned her position, and that demands a certain level of consideration. She will respect others as much as they earn, and she expects them to do the same for her.
✘ Darkness || There’s something lonely about the dark, and cold, like it might snuff her eternal light. It’s a visceral instinct that angels have, to create light in the darkness and keep it going.
⌈Strengths⌋
- ♦ Divine || It comes with a lot of benefits: the ability to manifest her true form, certain purification abilities, and a lot of superhuman qualities. It can get a little out-of-hand sometimes, though—she sometimes makes flowers grow and bloom at her feet without intending to, for example.
♦ Unshakable || She is not easy to scare, and cowing her into submission is next to impossible if she doesn’t go willingly. Really, the only reason she would is because of the few people above her in the hierarchy. Anyone else will not simply be able to overcome her will.
♦ Intelligent || Sephiriel has a keen intellect, and she is used to applying it to combat situations especially. She could be considered quite tactical in this sense, with a flair for strategy and seeing the best solution to a given conundrum.
⌈Weaknesses⌋
- ☯ Stubborn || She can sometimes refuse to see the other side of an issue, because she believes that the way she has been taught to go about things is the best way. She doesn’t give up easily, and while this can sometimes help her (against temptation, for example) it can also hurt her (like when trying to work with people who see things differently).
☯ Hot-Headed || Even the best-laid plans can go to waste when the planner is carried off in a fit of temper, and this happens to Sephiriel with unfortunate frequency, especially now that she’s acting outside normal command structure. It’s not too hard to set her off, and the results are rarely pleasant for the perpetrator.
☯ Independence || Namely, she’s not sure how to deal with it. Sephiriel’s duties have fallen within very specific parameters for her entire lifespan, and she’s used to following a few rather simple directives. An assignment like this, which requires flexibility and the self-assurance to do things without being told to do them, is a major challenge to her linear way of thinking.
⌈Duty does not take vacations.⌋
⌈Personality⌋
Resolute | Dutiful | Noble | Serious
[ Sephiriel is one of the most certain people there is. She believes with all that she is in what she does, because she has never known of any other way to be. Of all those in the firmament above, she has spent comparatively little time observing the mortal realms, as her task has always been to keep an eye on Hell and sometimes to act as bodyguard to her immediate superior, Metatron, the voice of God. So there has been precious little opportunity to bother much with the happenings of the mortal universe. In this sense, her resolution and certainty are born equally of loyalty and naiveté. These traits, she certainly displays, especially since having been assigned a protection task on earth. She displays absolute and unwavering devotion to the things she undertakes, often in spite of her personal inclinations on the matter. It might be true that she would rather be preparing her armies for the impending events, but she has been told to do this, and so she will do it as perfectly as possible.
She can sometimes come off as hard and unfeeling, because she does not allow her own feelings or inclinations to overcome this sense of duty, but Seph is also a very noble person, very willing to make sacrifices for the sake of others. She does not disvalue herself—because she knows that there are important things she has been entrusted with—but she does not have an inflated sense of her own worth, either. She may come across as cold, but she is not at all merciless or unforgiving. Her life has made her hard on the outside, and even she doesn’t really know what’s underneath that anymore, but there are those that have professed to know that she’s actually rather warm. She doesn’t understand it, but she trusts them.
She can be a bit humorless, and really, the only time she’s not cold as a block of ice is when she’s letting her temper burn hotter than it should, so she’s not the easiest person to get along with, especially if she happens to see things differently from you, but she is nothing if not fair. She will make concessions if she feels it necessary for the task at hand, so in this sense, she can be a bit flexible when she must. She does not generally enjoy it, however. Sephiriel seems to almost be militant in some ways, and standoffish, but there is no mistaking that, when push comes to shove, she’ll be there, at your side, ready to do everything in her power and then some to protect you. She doesn’t know how to have friends, really, but she does know what it means to be loyal. And loyal she is, to the very last. ]
⌈What I am, what I have done, has only ever been in service to something greater than myself.⌋
⌈History⌋
[ Sephiriel is the single female angel in the highest caste of them, and so in some sense, her most immediate family consists of the rest of that order. Technically the bodyguard of Metatron, she nevertheless has a fraternal relationship with him, and with Gabriel and Raphiel, and once with Uriel as well. By far the person she was ever closest to, however, was Michael, before his fall. He was in some sense her mentor-figure, being somewhat older than her, and it was he who taught her not to use a sword, but to live with one in her hand, and in her heart. They fought numerous battles together over the course of the Wars, and were nearly inseparable.
His falling felt like a betrayal, however, and that it was she he attacked in his show of disloyalty lanced her deeply. She isn’t sure whether or not she’s forgiven him for this, and that worries her. She should have, by now. Everyone else has—they understand why he had to do what he did. But Seph still feels left behind, discarded and hurt, and it is something that managed to get under the armor she built for herself. It festers in a small corner even now.
She has always been devoted to her duty, but she never expected it to take quite the turn it has. As the most experienced guardian of them all, she has been tasked with something most important: she must descend to earth and protect the two Witnesses, so that they do not die before they are meant to, and it is she who must ensure their resurrection once they do. It is no trivial undertaking—there are many who will want to kill them before their time, so that what was foretold does not come to pass. She is to be their shield, and their sword.
Needless to say, she’s not very happy about it. One of them is Michael’s child with his nephilim lover, and the other is half a demon of all things. She’s unsure that this arrangement will work out at all, but she is resolved to make the best of it. It is, after all, her duty, whether she likes it or not. ]
⌈Even angels have nightmares, fears. What I fear most of all is the day when I am no longer strong enough to stand in front of those who need my protection.⌋
Eternal, Infinite, Endless; Darkness, Shadow | Roughly translates to the “Eternal Darkness” or “Infinite Shadow”
⌈My mother was a strange woman, and did not see darkness as something to be feared. She named me to remind me of what I am, and what I could become.⌋
⌈My mother was a strange woman, and did not see darkness as something to be feared. She named me to remind me of what I am, and what I could become.⌋
♠Theme
Imagine Dragons - Radioactive
Cinema Bizarre – Angel in Disguise
⌈I am what I am—there is no stopping fate when you are so entangled in it.⌋
⌈Nickname⌋
[ Kal | Azrael—this is the name his father gave him at birth. He doesn’t like it, and prefers just to go by either Kal or Khalid. ]
⌈Age⌋
[ Somewhere between three and four thousand years, he’s pretty sure. ]
⌈Gender⌋
[ Male ]
⌈Species:⌋
[ The child of the first Annunaki, Esther, and the Devil himself, it would be hard to place just what Khalid is. ]
⌈Role:⌋
[ The Fourth Horseman | Death ]
⌈Face Claim:⌋
[ Allen Walker | D. Gray-Man ]
⌈Over time, I suppose my successes and my failures have sunk into my visage somewhat. But it is no true reflection of my nature, only my history. Take care not to confuse the two.⌋
⌈Hair Color⌋
[ Stark, Bone-White ]
⌈Eye Color⌋
[ Ordinarily, Khalid’s eyes are blue-grey. The left one, however, sometimes turns red, occasionally with a black sclera. ]
⌈Skin Tone⌋
[ Ever heard the expression “pale as death?” That’s about it. ]
⌈Height⌋
[ 6’1” ]
⌈Weight⌋
[ 160 ]
⌈Physical Description⌋
[ Khalid is a distinctive-looking individual. His most recognizable feature is the fact that his hair is stark white, cut in shaggy tufts that surround a face with a sort of classical aristocratic appeal to it. His complexion is quite pale as well, and seems to lack the rosiness or pink tinges that ordinarily signify health in human beings. It gives him a bit of a surreal appearance, as though he were something carved out of marble. Looking at him, one might expect him to be quite cold, and indeed, his body temperature runs lower than most, but he’s not an ice block or anything.
His eyes are generally speaking a deep blue grey, something inherited from his mother, the first Watcher and an Annunaki. They are somewhat exotically-shaped, but the most obvious feature about them is that there is a prominent red mark, starting with a pentacle and ending in a jagged line, bisecting the left one. This is the Devil’s Eye, so called because, well… his father plucked out one of his eyes shortly after his birth and replaced it with one of his own. When activated, it turns bright red, and when in prolonged use, the sclera surrounding the iris will turn black rather than white.
Kal is built tall and lean, his musculature pronounced but packed tightly onto his frame. There’s little softness to his person at all, and he seems to be comprised largely of sharp angles, from his face down to his feet. The only exception is his eyes, his sole maternal inheritance. His body, especially his left arm, bears many additional markings. His arm is tattooed almost entirely in black ink, and his chest bears a wide, ragged-looking scar, a relic from a time before he was truly able to fend for himself. A time before he understood what he really was, and was not, meant to be. ]
⌈I had once resolved never to use this power. And then I realized that without it, I would die.⌋
⌈Potential Interest⌋
None at the current moment: Khalid has issues. Serious issues. Mostly revolving around being the Fourth and most feared Horseman of the Apocalypse and literally the spawn of Satan. He really wouldn’t want to force anyone else to deal with that on a long-term basis. Plus, you know… immortality and human relationships don’t mix so well.
⌈Skills⌋
- ★ Bladework || This is something taught to him by a friend of his mother’s, named Caspar. The man was obviously a master of the craft, and over the centuries, Kal has become the same.
★ Reading People/Intuition || There’s something almost supernatural about Khalid’s ability to determine the character of other people. And that’s without using his eye.
★ Stealth || This applies to skulking around in the shadows as well as going “under the radar” in the more conventional sense. Khalid has worn many faces, assumed many names and personas and professions over the years, and this has given him great skill in being unnoticed if he wants to be.
⌈Abilities⌋
- ✠ The Devil’s Eye || The capabilities of his father’s eye are not fully known to Kal at this point, but he does know that he can see the time and nature of someone’s destined death, as well as the state of their soul. He can peer into the very core of a person and know their sins, their virtues, their greatest fears, and pretty much any facet of their character. It is… rarely ever pleasant knowledge.
✠ Life/Death Touch || The best representation of the duality of his nature, a simple touch from Khalid can siphon life energy from a person… or give it. In this way, he can both heal and destroy with something as simple as the brush of a finger. The arm inked in black siphons, and the other heals.
✠ Berserk || There is a lot of untapped anger beneath Khalid’s Zen exterior, and he can occasionally touch that wellspring of hateful power, using it to amplify his characteristics and abilities. It takes a lot out of him, but it can cause serious devastation, too.
✠ Cryokinesis || Which sort of helps explain why his body temperature is chillier than most, actually. It's not uncommon for angels or demons to have control of one or two elements, and this one happens to be one of Khalid's.
✠ Aerokinesis || The aerokinesis is something he uses only seldom, generally to increase his speed in motion. It can also be used to slow his falls should he jump from great heights. Theoretically, he can fly with it, but he does not.
✠ Hypnosis/Suggestion/Memory Manipulation || These are more minor versions of some of the mind talents his father has. He tried not to use them, but occasionally, it's a mercy to make someone forget something, and he has done so in the past.
⌈There is little point in knowing me—I will only lead you to ruin.⌋
⌈Other:⌋
N/A
⌈Habits⌋
- ☁ Daydreaming || The full knowledge of what he is and what he’s going to do to the world is not kind. One could perhaps argue that Kal is well-excused for seeking a bit of escape from that knowledge whenever he can get it. He tends to let his mind wander far afield, contemplate what-ifs and pipe dreams that will never be, because at least when he’s thinking about what he isn’t, he’s not thinking about what he is.
☁ Reading || He reads for much the same reason, as a form of escape. Whether it’s simple fiction, or nonfiction for learning purposes, Khalid often passes his spare time this way. He’d accumulated centuries in libraries by this point, he’s pretty sure.
☁ Writing || This is a little different. Kal keeps meticulous journals, records of his life, though he doesn’t have the intention of ever allowing anyone to read them. He just thinks that maybe, someday, after all is said and done, someone might come across them and find some good in him, or something of value in his thoughts. He doesn’t want to leave only the impression of his destruction and horror on the world, after all.
⌈Likes⌋
- ღ Kites || There’s something perfect about a kite in the sky: it’s free enough to fly, but tethered to something real and important, something that keeps it from floating away entirely and losing itself to a storm or something like that.
ღ Cake || What’s not to like? From the sweet and fluffy to the rich and dense, Kal is something of a connoisseur of cakes and cakelike substances.
ღ Smiles || Life is short, at least for humans, and one day, they’re all going to hate and fear him. He prefers not to surround himself with misery before then, if at all possible, and prefers it when those around him are content.
⌈Dislikes⌋
- ✘ Bad Weather || There’s nothing quite as dissatisfactory as being prevented from doing something because of the weather. Well, not him, because weather wouldn’t prevent him from doing anything, but other people. It kind of goes with the “life is short” thing—how awful is it to be delayed by something you have no control over at all?
✘ Himself || There will come a day when he is forced to kill untold numbers of people, and when that day comes, he will be the monster he has always known he is. He anticipates it much like most people anticipate their own death, with a mixture of fear and resignation.
✘ Angels || Well, to start with, they can’t seem to stop interfering in his life. If they’re going to kill him, he wishes they would do it now, but his mother’s friend stopped that from happening. Now they just tend to glare at him and threaten him a lot.
⌈Strengths⌋
- ♦ Combat || A master of most any technique of combat, from hand-to-hand to bladework to bludgeoning, Khalid is also accustomed to battle as a lifestyle, meaning that, for example, it is very hard to catch him unawares. He doesn’t seem to enjoy it all that much, but there’s no mistaking his consummate lethality. If he wants to kill something, that something will die. It’s in his very nature, after all.
♦ Experience/Knowledge || Khalid has lived a very long life. He was born in the declining period of ancient Egyptian civilization, actually, which gives him a few thousand years to work with. He has not been idle in that time, and indeed has collected knowledge and skills like it was his job, not having much else to do, honestly. He’s fought to live for most of those years as well, and so he has millennia of survival experience to draw on.
♦ Control || Emotional control is somewhat necessary for Khalid, else his considerable powers get away from him. Rage is particularly dangerous as far as emotions go, but even too much happiness or melancholy can set off an accident, so he’s honed himself a certain kind of stoicism over the years that is incredibly hard to breach.
⌈Weaknesses⌋
- ☯ Fatalism || To a certain extent, surviving as long as he has required Khalid to accept some very unfortunate facts about himself and his nature, and what he eventually must do. He doesn’t often try to fight the pull of fate, and sees himself not really as an agent who can choose what to do, but more as a puppet that is simply badly-made enough to sometimes regret the way its puppeteer chooses to use it. It’s not the healthiest outlook on things, and makes him a bit morose on average.
☯ Doormat || Related to his fatalistic tendencies, Kal doesn’t, on average, put up much of a fight when other people try to get him to do things. Mostly, he’s just content to move with the flow of things, to the point where even if he disagrees, he probably won’t say anything or argue. Most people would never even be able to tell when he’s dissatisfied—he’s that good at being stoic.
☯ Self-Loathing || It’s hard to, as any kind of decent person at all, come to the realization that you are Death itself and not feel bad about that. Over the years, Khalid’s guilt over the events of his early life has evolved into a deep well of self-loathing and contempt that most would not be able to guess is there. People have died, and worse, for his sake, and there is nothing he can offer them in turn—he will awaken to his powers, and he will take part in the destruction of the world itself. There is not other option, much as he wishes that there were. The only thing that has kept him from attempting to take his own life is a promise he once made, to an angel who made a sacrifice for him so profound that he still does not understand it to this day.
⌈You don't want to get close. Anyone with any sense will remain as far from me as possible.⌋
⌈Personality⌋
Stoic | Grim | Gentle | Unpredictable
[ The first thing to note about the kind of person that Khalid is is that he takes very little from either of his parents in terms of personality. Esther was spirited, vivacious, and generally stubborn and passionate, all traits that her son seems to lack entirely. His father, being the devil, was manipulative, cruel, and quick-tempered, but he burned just as hot as she did. It’s a bit odd to see fire and more fire making ice, and yet for all appearances, this is what has happened in the case of Khalid. He reacts very little to anything that happens around him, and it would be hard to look at him and suppose that he’s simply hiding the fact that he has genuine emotional reactions to things. His stoicism is perfect, at least almost, and this is because his powers are connected to his emotions. Excessive anything can set them off in destructive ways, and so he has learned not to feel.
He has a rather jaded outlook on life, and there seems to be a faint aura of melancholy surrounding him, when one can pick up on anything at all. On very rare occasions, his complete expressionlessness gives way to something sad and unreachable, and he stares into the middle distance, as though recalling something from long ago. Given how young he appears—surely no older than his early twenties at the very most—this can be a bit jarring. It is the expression of a very ancient being, and one who no longer knows how to see hope.
He treats the things around him with an almost exaggerated delicacy, as though he, for all his grace and fluidity, were an elephant in a room full of glass or fine china. It might as well be the truth, as far as he’d concerned, when he can kill with a touch. Though he knows how not to do this, he still keeps both of his hands gloved, to prevent accidents. Khalid, when interacting with others, speaks softly, with an air of patience and delicate concern. Nevertheless, there is something about him that is unmistakably detached from his surroundings.
In battle, he is difficult to predict, as his extensive experience and knowledge of strategy, combined with the fact that he believes there is no honor in a fight, make him wily as well as powerful. He fights to survive, not for pleasure or to protect anything else. Why protect what he will eventually simply destroy, after all? So he is pragmatic, ruthless, and efficient in this, with many tools and strategies at his disposal. Should he become angered, this becomes even more dangerous, because he may start disregarding strategy all together, and simply kill for the sake of it. This could be seen as succumbing either to his essential nature or to his dark side, depending on how you think of him to begin with. ]
⌈Quote Goes here.⌋
⌈History⌋
HISTORY GOES HERE
⌈Quote Goes here.⌋
Morning Star
⌈All that is gold does not glitter, not all who wander are lost.⌋
⌈All that is gold does not glitter, not all who wander are lost.⌋
♠Theme
Skillet – Falling Inside the Black
Cinema Bizarre – Je Ne Regrette Rein
⌈I am the Antithesis and the Unmaking. What more is there to be said?⌋
⌈Nickname⌋
[ Satan | The Devil ]
⌈Age⌋
[ Unfathomable ]
⌈Gender⌋
[ Male ]
⌈Species:⌋
[ Lord of all Demons ]
⌈Role:⌋
[ The Devil | Primary Antagonist ]
⌈Face Claim:⌋
[ Byakuran | Hitman Reborn ]
⌈Are you surprised? Ah, but you should not be. What power would temptation have if it looked as ugly as it was?⌋
⌈Hair Color⌋
[ White ]
⌈Eye Color⌋
[ Wisteria | Violet ]
⌈Skin Tone⌋
[ Fair ]
⌈Height⌋
[ 6’3” ]
⌈Weight⌋
[ 182 ]
⌈Physical Description⌋
[ What does one expect the Devil to look like? Probably nothing like he does, but those surprised would be wise to note that the greatest evils are often the ones that do not look like evils at all. Satan has never believed himself wrong or wicked, only to be doing what he must, or what he wants. And what is so wrong with that? As one might expect, then, his appearance is more in line with temptation and dark, seductive promises of sin than the outright ugly consequences of living such a life. It would be hard to tempt people from the path of righteousness if one looked too much like their ultimate fate, no? To this end, Lucifer’s features are refined, aristocratic, and, dare it be said, still quite reminiscent of his time as a seraph, and one of God’s favorite angels, at that.
His skin is smooth and without blemish, alabaster-pale and utterly flawless. Surprisingly, his eyes, feline-slanted and lovely, are not the typical red of demonkind, but rather an alluring, fascinating purple. They have a vaguely-hypnotic quality to them, one which only gets worse when he consciously exerts the corresponding power. His limbs are long and elegant, and his fingers taper to what seem almost delicate tips, most often gloved. He dresses, ironically enough, primarily in white. His hair shares the color, long enough to bush his nape when smoothed back.
He shares most of the physical features of his son, actually, and there is another commonality: Lucifer also bears a brand around his left eye, though his is blue. This marks it not as his own, but the eye he exchanged with Khalid soon after the child was born, the eye of a Watcher. Between the two, he is capable of seeing pretty much anything in any of the realms, which comes in quite handy for planning, you understand. ]
⌈Oh, please do resist. I love it when they resist. It makes the shattering so much more… exquisite.⌋
⌈Potential Interest⌋
None: There was a woman once. Whether Lucifer loved her, or whether he even knows how to love, is a matter of much debate among those who know the story. Some believe that she brought him to the very cusp of redemption, others that he was manipulating her the entire time, so that he could have a son with the abilities and capacities he required for further plans. Whatever the case, Esther is the one and only being who ever inspired in him enough tender feeling that he did not want to kill her personally. She is, to him, The Woman, and there has been no other.
⌈Skills⌋
- ★ Combat || He was one of Heaven’s finest, once upon a time, and of course, one has to be stronger than everyone who wants to kill one if one is to live successfully in Hell. Lucifer is, in fact, not the King of Demons for nothing.
★ Persuasion || Quite silver-tongued and a natural seducer and tempter, it should come as no surprise that the devil can convince people to do pretty much anything.
★ Perception || Even without his Eyes, Lucifer is very skilled with reading people, sharing with his only child an uncanny ability to take the measure of a person just by observing them for a while.
⌈Abilities⌋
- ✠ Hypnosis/Compulsion || One could call it the power of temptation, and one would not be wrong. Though Lucifer may not compel humans, he can certainly hypnotize them, offering them everything they have ever wanted. Angels and demons are, however, subject to actual compulsion, if they are not strong enough to resist it. Most are not.
✠ Possession/Standard Demon Powers || Notable in that he seems to have an especially devastating version of each. His possession does so much damage to the human mind and body that most hosts die after little more than a few minutes. Angels and demons can last a bit longer, but he’ll still burn through their shells eventually. In fact, there is exactly one being who can tolerate being the vessel for his soul for any decent period of time—his son.
✠ All-Seeing Eyes || With the eye of a Watcher and his own, there is very little Lucifer cannot come to know just by looking at someone. He is also able to monitor movements in the other realms, giving him a serious advantage when it comes to information.
✠ Reality Warping || There are some beings who are powerful enough to change and shape the nature of the world around them to their will. Though Lucifer cannot create in the same way God can, he is certainly capable of extensive manipulation of the world around him.
✠ Elemental Manipulation || A natural extension of his talent for warping reality is his command of the elements. Where most angels and demons are limited to one or two primary elements, Lucifer has ever been a master of them all.
✠ Death Touch || With a simple touch of skin to skin, Lucifer can decompose matter. This works as a life-drain on living creatures, and accelerated decomposition on other types of matter. One could compare the pain of it to having one’s organs ripped out… or perhaps one’s soul
⌈Such a shame, that so few bother to fight the dark anymore. It makes my task too easy…⌋
⌈Other:⌋
- Lucifer fears exactly three beings: God, Christ, and fully-powered Michael. The last was the one who threw him out of Heaven, and the first two are rather obvious. Other than that, he fears nothing, and even these fears are not enough to really dissuade him from his course.
⌈Habits⌋
- ☁ Smiling || Basically no matter what’s happening, Lucifer is smiling. It is not a nice smile, and most of the time, it doesn’t even look like one. He smiles when torturing people, when fighting, and when trying to intimidate his foes and his allies alike. It usually works quite well, and makes him nigh unreadable.
☁ Torment || Occasionally he gets bored and tries to invent new ways to torment the souls of the damned. It’s mostly out of habit that he bothers torturing them at all, because he finds little satisfaction in beating the already beaten. He prefers it when the objects of his ruinous attention have spirit. Perhaps why he was drawn to his annunaki lover.
☁ Thinking || He has a lot of memories to dwell on, and a lot of plans to make. Lucifer spends a lot of time in his own head, and this is the most exquisite torment of them all, and his alone to bear.
⌈Likes⌋
- ღ Defiance || As mentioned, it’s preferable to him when people at least try to defy him. Life is far too boring for him otherwise.
ღ Temptation || There’s a lot to be said for subtly twisting the mortal mind until they have abandoned all of those principles they thought unshakeable in favor of the addiction and vice he has tempted them to. It gives him great satisfaction to steal from the Kingdom of Heaven. He may be a parasite, but he’s very good at it, and shouldn’t one take pride in their work?
ღ Winning || Well, he certainly doesn’t like losing. Lucifer prefers to have the last word, the final barb, and the parting shot, though he will sacrifice little victories for larger, longer term ones. He conceptualizes the apocalypse as a game of chess, and when ones opponent is so mighty, one must be willing to lose a few bit players here and there.
⌈Dislikes⌋
- ✘ Azrael || His son is something of a disappointment to him, though that’s not to say he will not suit the purposes for which he was conceived. Still, it’s no fun to destroy something that’s so willing to be destroyed.
✘ Michael || Of all of his former comrades, Satan harbors a special dislike for Michael, because he was the one who actually physically bested him in battle and threw him from Heaven. None of the other Seraphim would have been capable of the feat, most likely. It is fortunate that the man has fallen, and Lucifer has not missed the delicious irony given by the reasons. All the same, the one calling himself Caspar must die, because any chance that he might become again what he was, however small, it too great a chance.
✘ Angels Generally || Well… betraying the lot of them doesn’t make for the best reunions. They’re so sanctimonious, really. It drives him a little more crazy.
⌈Strengths⌋
- ♦ Power || It’s simple, really. He was strong before, and he is stronger now. He will bring the world to its knees, as he was always meant to do.
♦ Knowledge || One does not live for uncountable years and acquire eyes that see basically everything and expect that knowledge to weaken oneself.
♦ The Legions of Hell || Lucifer has hordes of demons at his command, and the coerced loyalty of all but two of the Princes. Both of whom he plans to kill quite soon, actually.
⌈Weaknesses⌋
- ☯ Pride || It was the reason for his fall, and poking too much at it (accurately, mind you, he doesn’t fall for the amateur stuff) is a good way to get him angry to the point of irrationality. Though… you really, really don’t want to be on the wrong end of that.
☯ Understanding || Certain concepts, notably love and sacrifice, tend to elude him. There was once, when he almost grasped them, but in the end, close was not close enough.
☯ Esther || And yet still, somewhere in a deep part of his being he does not understand, and echo of what he once was, some part of him still lives for her. It is incomprehensible and small and he reviles it, but The Woman still has a place in him.
⌈Thief, parasite, pestilence, murderer, betrayer, serpent… I suppose I have earned my invectives. Just do not call me coward, for this is not among my vices.⌋
⌈Personality⌋
Sadistic | Cruel | Genial | Seductive
Lucifer is much like a personification of sin itself: his exterior, including his external mannerisms, is beautiful, tempting, genial, and refined. He promises with tongue and look the most sublime of all pleasures, the deepest of all satisfactions. But he speaks with the tongue of a serpent, and what lies beneath is dark, evil, despicable, and ruinous.
To this end, his personality can come off as cheerful, alluring, and occasionally even friendly. He affects the mannerisms of a gentleman rake and a flirt, with an undercurrent of dominion that humans tend to find quite attractive in its own right. Some see him as the promise of power, others as the promise of a power to take shelter beneath. Everyone sees in him their darkest desires made flesh, their selfishness indulged and forgiven. Sin doesn’t seem so bad in his presence, nor indulgence so terrible. In this sense, one might even read him as benevolent, because not only will he forgive you your transgressions, he will enable them. It is predictably very hard to resist him.
But mistake not the façade of indulgence for actual beneficence, because he desires nothing so much as for all others to be ruined as he has been ruined. He enjoys the torments he can visit upon others, and nothing rings him so much satisfaction as watching someone spirited wither away beneath the cold touch of reality that he can impose. He is a being of his own passions, with a deeply obsessive nature. Though he is most often fixated on thwarting Heaven, there have been rare occasions when something or someone else can become the object of that attention, though most burn away beneath it eventually, because there is too much intensity and power within him for much of anything to withstand the full force of his fixation. Only she had ever done so, and in the end, even she was too weak to survive past the birth of Azrael.
If he ever found such a thing, it should be wary, for there is very little to be redeemed in him any longer—his time beneath the ice has only made him worse than he was, if that were even possible.
⌈Worlds begin and end, civilizations rise and fall, and we few are ever the same. Is this battleground any different from the last? I do so look forward to finding out…⌋
⌈History⌋
His history is too long to recount in full, but suffice it to say that in his jealousy and pride, he went from one of Heaven’s most beloved angels to its bitterest and most famous outcast, the antithesis to everything good and pure in the world. For many eons, uncountable years, it was like this, and then he met her.
Esther was the first Annunaki, the daughter of his adversary Gabriel and his mortal lover. There had never been a creature like her in the world, and this naturally drew his curiosity. Because of the part of her that was human, he was unable to simply override her will with his superior one—humans alone had been ordained to always have the ability to choose their own fates. But the part of her that was human was no less alluring than the part that was angelic and powerful, and he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame, though which one of them was which is perhaps not easy to discern. It was a clandestine thing, their dalliance, though perhaps to call it a courtship would be inaccurate. She loved him, he knows this, but what he felt for her is a mystery he still has not solved.
She died from lingering complications of bearing his son, and the boy at least, he had no obvious affection for. Azrael, whom he has never called anything else, was perhaps eleven years old when they met for the first time, and that was the day Lucifer exchanged their eyes, and branded his son with his mark. They have seen each other only seldom since, for it was shortly after that that Michael and Sephiriel, with some help from Raphiel, sealed him deep beneath the ice of the Ninth Circle, leaving his spot as its ruler temporarily vacant. This set off a war in Hell, in which the strongest of the other demons fought for control of each of the circles, eventually splitting up the task of their rule, rather than having one sovereign, perhaps because the position would have been too unstable for any but him to hold.
He is not, however, totally helpless beneath the ice, because Azrael still exists, and this will eventually free his father from deep within the frozen dark. When it does, the world will shake before him.
⌈You’re so beautiful when you’re broken.⌋
Flourishing Perfection
⌈It rather suits me, no? It should… I did choose it, after all.⌋
⌈It rather suits me, no? It should… I did choose it, after all.⌋
♠Theme
Florence + The Machine – Heavy in Your Arms
Disturbed - Serpentine
⌈Oh? Please do guess what I am. I’m so interested in the answer.⌋
⌈Nickname⌋
[ V | “Damn Bastard” (that’s what Ephraim calls him half the time) ]
⌈Age⌋
[ 527 ]
⌈Gender⌋
[ Male ]
⌈Species:⌋
[ Kitsune ]
⌈Role:⌋
[ Supernatural Detective/Informant ]
⌈Face Claim:⌋
[ Tomoe | Kamisama Hajimemashita ]
⌈I promise not to hold your swooning against you, darling.⌋
⌈Hair Color⌋
[ White | Silvery ]
⌈Eye Color⌋
[ Aquamarine | Gold ]
⌈Skin Tone⌋
[ Fair | Pale ]
⌈Height⌋
[ 6’ ]
⌈Weight⌋
[ 150 ]
⌈Physical Description⌋
[Virgil could be said to be something like a mirror-world image of Ephraim: where his “brother’s” eyes are a bright red, Virgil’s are aqueous blue, at least when he appears as a human being. Where Ephraim is dark-haired, Virgil is fair. Where the leader of their little organization appears intimidating and cranky, his self-titled sibling comes across as anything but.
Indeed, most of the time, Virgil seems like someone you’d expect to be famous: classically handsome, always put-together, and without a hair out of place, his default expression is a disarming smile, a slightly-mischievous twinkle to his eye. His taste in clothing is impeccable and modern, often in quiet neutrals and bright splashes of hue. His hair has on occasion made women jealous- soft, shiny, long and straight, and requiring little effort to keep that way. It’s also a most unusual color—naturally silver-white, most people assume that it’s simply the lightest of platinum blondes, and perhaps there are a few golden streaks to it. He generally wears it long, though he has been known to cut it from time to time.
His aesthetic is a gentleman’s, and he’s fastidious about this. Even his voice suits the whole thing- a light tenor which only deepens with his rage, which he’s careful to keep under wraps. His smiles are effortless, his laughter free, and his entire appearance designed to allure. Unlike Ephraim, he keeps the natural danger that supernaturals exude to a minimum, just enough to affect a tiny bit of an edge. This tends to increase his magnetism rather than decreasing it, which is the whole point.
When Virgil’s power is active, his eyes turn bright gold, and he gains several of his white fox tails, as well as triangular, furred ears that rest on either side of his crown, elongated incisors, and silvery claws at the tip of each digit. There’s no mistaking him for human then—though even this is not the full extent of his transformation. In full yokai form, he is quite large, nine-tailed, and entirely foxlike, save the red-orange demon markings on his face. ]
⌈Oh, don't worry—there’s nothing too dangerous about yours truly. Docile as a lamb, really.⌋
⌈Potential Interest⌋
None at the current moment: Well… kitsune are tricksters, and not infrequently seducers. One could say that Virgil’s drive towards such carnal acts is rather more… potent than that of most other things, and it’s in his nature to be polyamorous. Most of his kind are, until they find their mate, after which point that are quite capable of monogamy, though… they tend to exhaust any non-kitsune unfortunate enough to fall into this role. That’s the curious thing, about them, too—their humanoid form is the one preferred for copulation, so the mate bond is not by any means limited to their own species, and kitsune are frequently the source of half-demon members of other species. They have a particular fascination with humans, whose lifespans are comparatively short, but whose natures are nevertheless wide in range from the simple wanton hedonists to the studious and future-conscious.
⌈Skills⌋
- ★ Charisma || Even without his empathy, Virgil's is a dynamic, compelling personality. He's quite used to using charm to get what he wants, be that information or blood. This makes him very good at infiltration and espionage.
★ Piano || Perhaps a bit odd for a demon, but he’s been in this world more than most, and besides, is it really safe to assume that demons don’t have pianos?
★ Seduction || And if someone doesn’t believe it to be a skill, he has a very thorough lecture on all the ways he’s used it to get something otherwise unobtainable—not only including sex.
⌈Abilities⌋
- ✠ Empathy/Emotional Manipulation || His particular talent is the ability to perceive and manipulate emotions. He's taken to not using it, but it's certainly still there. This is not something all of his kind have, thankfully, though that may be small comfort to those that encounter Virgil himself.
✠ Intangibility || Virgil can cause himself to become intangible, either in part of his body or completely. He can extend this to anything he's touching, but only with great focus.
✠ Illusion || The typical Kitsune brand of magic is the illusory kind. It’s a mind-affecting thing, and actually typically works better the more intelligent the target is, because it plays on the victim’s own expectations. Virgil can create sight, sound, and even phantom touch sensations and smells.
✠ Foxfire || A type of pyrokinesis, in a sense, but foxfire is spiritual rather than physical energy, meaning it burns only things with souls. It can actually consume a soul, given enough time, but the duration this would require makes it more suitable as an extended torture method rather than a combat technique. In a fight, it’s better to just use it to burn a body. Virgil has never used it to torture, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t.
✠ Kitsune || Virgil’s final transformation is of a size with Ephraim’s, which is to say, he’s about the dimensions of a large vehicle. Lithe and swift even despite this, his motion flows like water, but he is still very much a creature of flame.
⌈I might like you, or I might want to rip your eyes from your face. But I can assure you, I'll always keep you guessing.⌋
⌈Other:⌋
- Every kitsune has an object called the starball, an external manifestation of the soul. It is basically every fox demon’s first priority to keep the object safe and hidden, for whomever possesses it holds the creature’s life in his or her hands, and the traditional rate of exchange is one wish for the return of the ball. The kitsune is compelled to carry out this directive once the bargain has been struck, and there’s no going back for either party. Naturally, one does not want such an object to fall into another’s possession. The gods regularly use this trick to secure eternal servitude, as there are few more useful creatures to have at one's command.
⌈Habits⌋
- ☁ Humming || He tends to do this whenever nothing else in particular occupies him. His voice is quite lyrical, but this does not stop the sound from annoying Ephraim—which is only a bonus, really.
☁ Conversation || He’s a master at the subtle art of information gathering, but even beyond that, he just enjoys talking to people. Humans, silly and strange as they are, nevertheless hold a certain fascination for Virgil, and he’s never been one to avoid indulgence for the sake of avoiding indulgence.
☁ Chivalry || Strangely, he seems to adhere rather well to the concepts of human Chivalry, though perhaps it is a bit of a misnomer to call it such—Virgil’s nice because he wants something, usually, and there’s no real self-sacrifice involved. Perhaps it’s better to say that he’s in the habit of being well-mannered.
⌈Likes⌋
- ღ Tea || It's his preferred beverage, and he likes sweets as well.
ღ Libraries || He’s also an avid reader, especially of scholarly literature and poetry. He knows less about prosaic novel-fiction, but he’s had a lot of years to read things, so even this is only relative.
ღ Beautiful Things || He's a great lover of art and the sublime in any form he can find it. It's one of the few things he thinks humans have some worthwhile grasp of.
⌈Dislikes⌋
- ✘ Humans || Despite his surface-level friendliness and charisma, Virgil shares Ephraim’s disdain for humanity. His is slightly more problematic. Actually, his relationship with humanity is something of a fascination/revulsion alternation. On the one hand, they’re so very interesting but in the end he finds the majority of them repugnant. This does not stop him from interacting with them frequently. If it doesn’t make sense, well… it isn’t supposed to.
✘ Filth || As a fastidious and neat soul, Virgil dislikes the mess that comes with stalking one’s prey. He prefers to just manipulate them until they do all the work of coming to him, willingly. This is surprisingly easy for him.
✘ Benihime || It’s a long story, but he’s pretty sure she has his starball and therefore he wants her dead. He also can’t kill her, at least not before tricking her into returning the object. It rankles him.
⌈Strengths⌋
- ♦ Intelligence/Knowledge || Virgil is incredibly learned, and an adroit strategist.
♦ Manipulative || It’s unusual that a person doesn’t give him exactly what he wants, whether they know it or not.
⌈Weaknesses⌋
- ☯ Star Ball || If you have it, you have his servitude, essentially—or whatever else you want instead, and his will does not come into play.
☯ Uninformative || He doesn’t always inform other people of what he’s planning and consciously chooses to remain an enigma to those around him. It can be frustrating, but more than that, it can be detrimental to planning and teamwork. It’s not much of a big deal while he only works with Ephraim, but…
⌈But darling, I’m everything you never knew you wanted. I promise.⌋
⌈Personality⌋
Sly | Seductive | Gentlemanly | Amused
Upon first meeting Virgil, it seems as though there’s scarcely a more mannerly, warm personality to be found. Always polite, always gentle, and always kind, there’s an immediate sense of safety about him, as though being in his presence is enough to protect one from harm.
This is, naturally, exactly what he wants you to think. The “real” Virgil Solomon is every bit the predator other demons are, and a human being is no safer with him than with the average rabid mountain lion. Of course, he won’t attack anyone or anything in public, and dislikes “attacking” at all, but what he will do is considerably more frightening, at least if you value the sanctity of your own mind. What at first seemed and uncanny but friendly ability to read people is suddenly terrifying: your feelings and thoughts are not safe with you any longer; he can make you want to tell him anything he wishes to know. And his (friendly) persuasion is still callus— he regards you as little more than a thing, and feels no qualms about manipulating you.
The only thing keeping him in check might very well be his misanthropic brother-figure, and that’s incredibly cold comfort.
Virgil is, to those who make him their enemy, very much the dagger in their back, the poison in their cup. He is indirect, subtle, and all the more deadly for that. He is not the honest man Ephraim is, and spins lies as often as he threads his stories with truth, until one can never be sure which is which. He’s an actor, and a damn good one at that. Figuring him out is an endeavor that has been undertaken by many, and none have succeeded, not even Eph, who no longer bothers to try.
⌈The most interesting part is still in progress, though I suppose I could indulge your curiosity… for a price.⌋
⌈History⌋
On some interpretations, Virgil could be counted as a prince among demonkind. His family is very prominent and powerful in the realm they occupy, and additionally he is of the white variety of kitsune, who are generally greater than the petty tricksters most known for crossing realms into the human world. Though of course the instinct for deception, doubletalk, and illusion is still very prominent in the white, it is of a more… refined sort, one could say.
He was birthed in a litter of five, and as was traditional, he and his siblings were basically at each others’ throats from that day onward, fighting furiously and with great cunning for the title of heir. As Virgil tells it, he would have had it, but for his sister, who was just a little cleverer than him, and managed to steal his starball from where he’d hidden it inside his eye. Of course, she wasn’t that clever after all, and lost it to a human in a came of riddles, and it’s been in the wind ever since.
Virgil was forced to follow it, though he has not yet found it. He believes it to be in the possession of an earthbound demon named Benihime, and chances are, she’s waiting for him to show up to retrieve it. He does not want to do this alone, however, and in the meantime, he has fallen in with an unlikely companion: the Hellhound. The two have been partners, of a sort, for about three centuries now, ever since Virgil crossed illegally into the mortal plane in search of his artifact. Their relationship is interesting, but they tend to claim brotherhood in human settlements, despite their very different appearances.
⌈Captivation is not so difficult a thing. All it takes is knowledge, and a willingness to adjust oneself to fit the situation. I have worn so many masks for so long that I am comfortable in them all. Which one is me? Such a silly question. There is no me, there is only what I do. And what I do… well, that depends entirely on you. Choose wisely.⌋
Increasing Perfection
⌈I had to be called something. I guess. Hell if I know why he picked this, but whatever.⌋
⌈I had to be called something. I guess. Hell if I know why he picked this, but whatever.⌋
♠Theme
Volbeat - A Warrior's Call
Hollywood Undead - Kill Everyone
⌈What am I? Good question—I’ll let you know when I figure out how to explain it.⌋
⌈Nickname⌋
[ Eph (Pronounced “Aif”) ]
⌈Age⌋
[ Roundabout a thousand? That sounds right… ]
⌈Gender⌋
[ Male ]
⌈Species:⌋
[ Shinigami | Hellhound ]
⌈Role:⌋
[ Supernatural Detective ]
⌈Face Claim:⌋
[ Shiki | Togainu no Chi ]
⌈Well… it was this or I look like a giant dog.⌋
⌈Hair Color⌋
[ Black ]
⌈Eye Color⌋
[ Scarlet ]
⌈Skin Tone⌋
[ Moderate ]
⌈Height⌋
[ 6’3” ]
⌈Weight⌋
[ 180 ]
⌈Physical Description⌋
[ Perhaps the proper word for Ephraim’s appearance is… intimidating. It’s not so much any single fact about his form (though in all honesty, his is rather well-built and quite tall, so that helps) as it is something about the way he carries himself. His posture is perfect, but he has a faintly careless air about him. His hair is often somewhat mussed or windblown, the soft-looking strands of it left hanging in his face or tossed about on his head. His clothing, always dark, appears to be a bit rumpled and clearly has never seen an iron, though it sort of contributes to the overall aesthetic of apathy he has going on.
By no means does he come off as a slob, but it certainly seems as though the man has more important things to worry about than the details of his appearance. Not that any of this does much good to hide the obvious: either way, his features have a certain uncanny symmetry and perfection to them, as though they were carved from stone of some kind. His limbs are long, his shoulders broad, his form laden with efficient, lean muscle.
It may be that what seals the deal is his eyes. Not many people have irises of his color, and the peculiarity of this feature combined with the fact that his stares have a downright intense quality to them is enough to keep most folk at a distance. Everything about him screams “danger,” and he’s quite fine with that. He doesn’t need allure or personability; he’s in the business of death and destruction. There’s a confidence to him, and a wildness, but most of the time it’s just beneath the surface, and though many a soul has been afraid of him (and with good reason), it’s hard to find anything to justify that feeling.
One of the most obviously unusual features Ephraim possesses are the extensive tattoos on his arms, back, and legs. He has two full sleeves, a large, integrated back tattoo, and part of this spills over onto his chest and abdomen as well. The themes seem to center largely around motifs like dragons, fire, and scales, but it’s hard to tell if there’s any personal significance to this, or if it’s simply what he chose because he liked the aesthetic. Either way, these are no mere novice’s tattoos; they were clearly all inscribed with painstaking care by a master artist. Given his usual clothing, only the sleeves are visible, and sometimes not even those, though a few do manage to peek out from his shirt collar, along the sides of his neck. ]
⌈The word shinigami means god of death. What do you think I do?⌋
⌈Potential Interest⌋
None at the current moment: Well, being what he is makes relationships of any sort kind of difficult to maintain. It’s really a minor miracle that even Virgil has stuck around this long, though Ephraim might honestly prefer it if he hadn’t. It’s not that he’s never been involved with anyone, just that he doesn’t really feel a pressing need to be. He’s not the same kind of creature as Virgil is, and honestly, he could take or leave liaisons of that sort. Right now, he’s rather more inclined to leave them.
⌈Skills⌋
- ★ Deathwatch || Well, he knows how much longer a given mortal has to live before they expire. Somewhat useful, considering he was made to transfer their soul when that happens.
★ Stealth || The Hellhound is very good at moving quietly and unseen, especially in his more lupine form.
★ Combat || It’s a combination of being powerful, confrontational, and experienced. He can use basically any general kind of weapon, including guns, and is usually carrying a few different things.
⌈Abilities⌋
- ✠ Gate Release/Sealing || There is more than one spoke on the Wheel, and only Shinigami are allowed to pass at will through all of them. This usually involves the use of a Gate, an access point from one realm to another. Ephraim can call forth a Gate and open or close it as he desires, and he can also seal shut an existing one. Gates aren’t exactly spatial, so there can be several in one place, and additionally, there are places where the fabric of spacetime is thin and allows beings from other realms through, even without a Gate.
✠ Reality Rejection || To some extent, existing outside the Wheel allows Ephraim to impose his will upon it, as the gods can. It’s tricky, though, and honestly he doesn’t understand most of it. What he usually does do is heal injuries this way, by rejecting their existence and reverting the body in question back to its uninjured state. Virgil hypothesizes that he rejects his own aging in a similar way, and thus fails to grow any older at all.
✠ Ergokinesis || The manipulation of raw energy. Ephraim wields kinetic force like a weapon. It’s not as refined as an elemental manipulation talent, more like just throwing around the raw, pure stuff of the universe. Regardless, it functions as an elemental sort of talent, and Ephraim honestly doesn’t use it for much of anything but fighting.
✠ Enhancement || Stronger, faster, more durable, and generally smarter than a human being, it’s no surprise Ephraim can survive the things he puts his body through.
✠ Hellhound || For whatever reason, Kurogami saw fit to give him an alternate form, and he can shift between them at will. Arguably, the hound’s nose is sharper than Ephraim’s, and the body is built to fight in a different way, but other than that, it’s functionally equivalent. He can alter it a little bit to look like a very large black dog.
⌈I just do what I want to do. Where’s the mystery in that?⌋
⌈Other:⌋
- Most Shinigami are drawn from the ranks of the living upon their death. Ephraim was actually created by the mysterious entity Kurogami, who runs the entire reincarnation system. The creation of an absolutely new soul is thought to be impossible, as the finite number of them that would forever turn the Wheel was set upon the initial miracle of Creation. Ergo, Ephraim, while sentient and quite capable of most emotions, has no soul, and sits outside the Wheel. It is a most unique status.
- Notably, he is not a Hellhound, he is the Hellhound. There are no others, as one would expect from the manner in which he came to be. There are, however, plenty of other Shinigami.
- The tattoos were actually not really his own idea. He was reaping an artist at the time, and the man requested a bit more time, to create one last masterwork. For some reason, Ephraim complied, and the result is now etched into his skin—an everlasting canvas, if his guess about his mortality is correct.
⌈Habits⌋
- ☁ Smoking || A pipe, not cigarettes. He’s not really sure when he picked it up, but it’s not like it’ll kill him, and everyone else is going to die anyway, so… who cares?
☁ Sarcasm || It’s his usual response to most anything, including and especially Virgil. His is of the caustic, crabby variety, and it can sometimes be hard to tell if he intends to come off as mean as he does.
☁ Crosswords || He reads the newspaper pretty much every day, and usually does the crosswords in pen.
⌈Likes⌋
- ღ Coffee || Black, at that. He doesn’t mind the bitter flavor of it, actually, though he will often eat something rather sugary with it to sort of balance the effect. It doesn’t seem to have any effect on him, so it would have to be that he enjoys the flavor.
ღ Puzzles || Which perhaps explains how he came to be in his current profession. Ephraim has always enjoyed a challenge, and the difference between physical and mental ones is not so great as most people often presume.
ღ Confrontation || This is how he gets the high that other people use drugs and coffee for. Ephraim is… well, if he was human, one would perhaps refer to him as a daredevil, adrenaline junkie, or maybe just suicidal.
⌈Dislikes⌋
- ✘ Religious People || Chances are they’re wrong. He wouldn’t really care about that—life is easier for him when people are wrong about such matters. But they’re sometimes aggressively wrong, and he doesn’t have time or patience for that shit. He’s fine with people who are religious without being obnoxious, but the ones who try to proselytize… well, it’s a good thing he’s had some practice with restraint.
✘ Virgil || It’s not a hate thing, really, he just… they’re very different people, and their dynamic largely consists of Virgil prodding and Ephraim snapping. What else would you expect from a fox and a hound? At least they’re not usually trying to kill each other. Oddly, they work well together despite this, or perhaps because of it.
✘ Humans || It’s more of a disdain than anything. Half the things humanity is capable of make him a little sick, and the other half just make him jealous.
⌈Strengths⌋
- ♦ Durability || It’s hard to even break Ephraim’s skin, to say nothing of his bones. He’s just made of sterner stuff than most people.
♦ Logical Mentality || With the occasional exception of his more reckless tendencies, Eph is a very quick, logical thinker, and rarely finds his judgement clouded by emotions or outside circumstances.
♦ Knowledge || He’s been there and done that, to put it simply as possible. It may be hard to tell this just from talking to him, though.
⌈Weaknesses⌋
- ☯ Apathy || It’s hard to make Ephraim care about anything. This means he doesn’t always try as hard as he should, nor does he feel particularly compelled to do the right thing. He just… does what he feels like doing.
☯ Understanding || Humans don’t always make sense to him, but then again, neither to spirits or demons or gods. It can be hard to empathize, because he simply isn’t like them. He supposes it’s probably because he doesn’t have a soul.
☯ Leash || Long as it may be at the moment, Kurogami still holds it, and he can make it tighter again if he wants to. In the end, Ephraim’s life isn’t really under his own control.
⌈Four words: Don’t fucking cross me. That’s all you really need to know.⌋
⌈Personality⌋
Bloodthirsty | Irreverent | Foul-Mouthed | Apathetic
Ephraim Solomon is not the kind of man who people are falling over each other to approach. On the face of it, he’s… well, a jerk is putting it kindly. He addresses people rudely, hardly ever bothers with courtesy, and tends to treat those outside his very small circle as means to an end, if that. To say that he “hates people” might even be ascribing too much- it’s more like he just doesn’t care about them at all, and that, in its way, is more frightening if you really think about it. He does not initiate social interaction with anybody if he can help it, and is perfectly happy sitting in his corner, reading his newspaper and drinking his coffee. He remembers nearly everything he sees only once, except names, for some reason. He’s gruff, often cranky, and brutally honest. Certainly not the man to look to if you’re hoping for reassurance or a harmless white lie, because he won’t reassure anyone without a better reason than their need, and he doesn’t lie.
He’s not entirely silent, however, and if one does manage to engage him in conversation, he’s abrasive, to put it mildly. He doesn’t really seem to care if his language makes other people uncomfortable, which is perhaps predictable for someone like him. He’s actually possessed of a wide range of knowledge on various topics, a symptom perhaps of having lived in the human world for as long as he has. Ephraim loves a challenge, be that a physical fight or a mental exercise of some other kind, and he rarely ever backs down from one. Perhaps this contributed to the air of confidence and subtle dominance he gives off—it does tend to send the average human scurrying if he applies it properly. He can be a bit bloodthirsty, and has no compunctions about slaying things if they don’t go quietly back where they came from.
Despite his obvious shortcomings, he does seem to have some kind of moral code, and he adheres to it quite strictly. He doesn’t kill his food, doesn’t tell falsehoods unless they’re necessary to preserve the safety of his mission, and though he’s always armed, he doesn’t pull weapons on humans. A little bit wild, a little bit stoic, and mostly just quietly angry, it’s hard to say whether there’s more going on underneath that or not.
⌈It sure as hell isn’t in any books.⌋
⌈History⌋
The Wheel of Life turns always, its motion entirely inexorable… or it seems so. In reality, it takes and entire bureaucracy of beings to keep it running: gods, spirits, and all the souls that shift on its spokes. Chief among these is Kurogami, the Judge of Souls. He has variously been referred to as many things over time, including Anubis, the Arbiter, or simply God. Beneath him are the ranks of the Shinigami, called by some the reapers. These beings are usually of a race called the grim, departed human souls chosen for their capability and granted new lives as reapers.
But there is one being who exists apart from the Wheel, and has no defined place on it. This being operates outside the usual rules of reality, and is to some degree able to bend the world around him to his will. His creation was an act of defiance on Kurogami, who was rather tired of the other gods attempting to use his Shinigami for purposes of their own, using the promise of divine intervention to alter the reincarnation cycle (something that doesn’t even work) to distract them from their duties. So he made something that could not be given such promises.
It was thus that Ephraim came into existence, though he was not called so at the time. He has assumed many names over the centuries, this one just the last of many. Technically, Ephraim has all the power and techniques of a Shinigami, with a few additional…perks. For the first few hundred years of his life, he was on a pretty short leash, going where Kurogami told him to, and doing what he was supposed to. With time, he proved himself more than adequate to the chores of an ordinary Shinigami, and Kurogami got most of his back anyway, so Ephraim was kept in reserve for the hardest jobs.
He’s largely allowed to do what he wants for now, though he is still very much Kurogami’s dog, much as he might dislike it. He mostly wanders around on the mortal plane, and it was there that he first met Virgil, a very long time ago now. For now, he deals in whatever needs doing, but Kurogami has sent him to a small town by the name of River Lake, to investigate a series of supernatural phenomenon that should not be occurring in one place, let alone a backwater American settlement.
⌈Let me put it to you this way: I’m a cosmic abomination with anger issues and a serious fetish for death and unrestrained destruction. I am my instinct, and it’s nothing like yours. Your survival is more guaranteed the further you run away from me. So don’t stand there like a fucking idiot—run.⌋