PROFILE
CHARACTER
NAME: Sora Koudou
CANON SOURCE: Nabari no Ou
TIMELINE: Pre-dates the current storyline, canon is from a series of flashbacks.
CANON ABILITIES: At this point, nothing. Sora is just a child.
PERSONALITY:
Before the application continues, it's very important to note that Sora is medically intersexual, or, he has no gender. While it is correctable with surgery, in canon, it is not pursued. Thus, Sora does not identify as female or male. His family refers to him as "it," but Canon refers to him as male, so that's how I'll be referring to Sora. But keep in mind, he is truly an androgynous creature, and doesn't go one way or the other. This is a large source of Sora's timid nature. "Sora" was meant to be the name his mother would have given him if he were born a girl. Since he turned out the way he did, it was decided he "wasn't Sora," because of his condition. Beyond gender identity, this does not even leave him with a name to call himself by. Unsure of himself and who he is meant to be, he allows others to dictate his own identity. Whenever praised, he bends himself to please. Whenever criticized, he shrinks to lessen his impact. He is extremely obedient, to the point where he doesn't try to fight back while abused.
Despite his isolation, Sora is an inquisitive, intelligent child. During his containment, he taught himself to read, and soon devoured the many forgotten textbooks left in storage. He is extremely adept at math and puzzles, and seems to find the same enjoyment in solving a graph as children do while coloring in a coloring book. When he is presented with something he doesn't understand, Sora is eager to decipher it for new information. That said, he does not comprehend anything he has not experienced. Anything he hasn't experienced, he may have read about, but much of his reading is reduced to the clinical, mechanical textbooks. He could describe in detail a complex equation, but not be able to identify a butterfly.
Only one person in his life has offered him a kind, nonjudgemental attitude toward Sora- his half-brother, Tsukasa. Tsukasa was younger than Sora, though he was healthy and tall. Though his father discouraged and threatened Tsukasa not to get involved with "that child," Tsukasa disobeyed his orders to offer Sora companionship and a peek into the outside world. After a game of catch outside, Tsukasa began the first steps of gently repairing Sora's broken identity. The brothers attended a small Catholic church on a hill by the sea. It was the only time Sora was ever allowed out of the house. He didn't associate with the other children for fear of accidentally harming them. The messages of grace and forgiveness the church offered conflicted with the messages of damnation from home, leaving the boy unsure if even God cared for him, or if he was a creation of heaven or hell.
Finally after many years, Sora's father decided to rid himself of this nuisance, and called the family together. Sora innocently smiled at his family, happy to be involved, until his father sliced his neck open. He passed the knife to Tsukasa, but the boy was too kind and too frightened to murder his older brother. Sora escaped into the night in terror, and that night, Sora died, and the boy that replaced him was named Yoite, a soul that did not actually live, and sought to finish the job his father started by slowly erasing himself from the pages of history.
CANON HISTORY:
Sora knew very little about himself. What he did know, was that he killed his mother, and that he was a death god. Sora Kadou was brought into the world at the expense of his mother. An intersexual child, the angry father rejected the child immediately, feeding and watering the squirming creature only enough to keep it from crying. As soon as it was old enough, the child was confined into the basement room, with bars on the windows. Its siblings pretended it didn't exist, and its father and step-father did, too. It was called 'Sora' sometimes, the name his mother was to give her baby if it were born a girl. However, most of the time, Sora was simply "it" or "that child."
However cruel, Sora was unaware of the harsh hand life had dealt him. Sora simply didn't know any better. So he accepted that he was not human, and not worth any care. Keeping confined to the basement, to occupy the empty days he taught himself to read and write, and though he could speak, he often didn't. After all, who was there to talk to? If anyone has taken the time to speak to the child, they would have found a very intelligent, thoughtful little thing, if a bit halting in speech.
One day, a face peered down at him through the bars and said hello. Sora had never been addressed before, and followed the voice that asked him to play. Though unsure what it meant to play, Sora dutifully tossed a ball back and forth with the other boy, chatting. The boy's name was Tsukasa. And he was Sora's stepbrother, and did not carry the hatred for Sora that the rest of the family did. He asked who Sora was, but Sora was unsure how to respond. "I was supposed to be Sora if I was a girl, but I'm not a girl, so who am I? Am I alive?" Sora's questioning was answered by Tsukasa kindly, stating "Sora is just Sora." And for a time, Sora was content to be Sora. He occasionally slipped out with Tsukasa to attend a small church, where he would sit in the very back, calmly watching the light from the stained glass. The children left him alone, and in return, so did he. Sora knew it was better not to interact.
However, Sora's father was furious. He demanded that Tsukasa not approach the child, and if he did, he would be treated the same as Sora. So Sora, grateful that he had the little bit of interaction, went back into the darkness of the basement. Things came to a head when Sora's family decided to move. Sora's father was sick of dealing with him, and attacked the calm child with a knife, slicing his neck from the jaw down to the base of the throat. As Sora collapsed, clutching his neck, his father passed the blade to Tsukasa, and demanded he do the same. Tsukasa couldn't bring himself to do it, and fled from the room. Sora took his cue and ran from the house clutching his bleeding neck. He no longer wanted to be a burden to this family. Dying, Sora stumbled into the snow and collapsed, waiting for the end to come, when he would stop being a problem to the world.
But it never came.
He was swept up by a faction of ninja, who used his apathetic tendencies as an effective tool to create the ultimate kamikaze warrior. He was taken in by a caretaker, who gave him the name "Yoite" to replace the name Sora. The tender, innocent child had learned that the world as it was was a horrid place, that would only be remedied when he removed himself from it. But deep inside his heart was the child Sora, still awaiting a scrap of affection.
PLANS FOR YOUR CHARACTER:
Sora's life thus far, and his life to come, are not kind to him. Shortly after his father's attack, Sora turns his life over to a power that slowly and painfully kills him, and he dies only after he has just learned to laugh. Much of his life was pained and miserable. He has no concept of love or family. Paradisia will offer him, for the first time in his life, kindness and comfort. And while it isn't always sunshine, it's a far better life than what he's known, and through the people he encounters, he can learn love, laughter, and about worth and gentleness. Essentially, I wanted to bring him to Paradisia to learn to love.