OOC: Kannagara app
PLAYER INFO
Name/Nickname: Higuchimon
Age: 39
Journal: cynthia_harrell
AIM/MSN/IM: zeofyre (AIM)
Email: higuchimon@hotmail.com
Character Name: Marufuji Ryou
Canon: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Point taken from canon: Late in season two, just a few minutes after giving Rei his Genex medal in episode 103.
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Appearance: Ryou's hair and eyes are both blue-greenish, with his hair layering around his face, and his eyes sharp, demanding, cold, and cruel. "Sharp" really describes everything about him, from his facial features to his clothing style to his dueling style. He once was a little softer, but having one's personal world turned upside down and all of one's beliefs challenged and shattered changes that. He wears black pants, black shirt, and a black trenchcoat with red lines on it, and a deck holder attached to his belt, which has a buckle with "R" on it. His expressions tend to be smug, arrogant, and confident at all times. His movements are also sharp and without hesitation.
http://dev.janime.eu/images/content/Genex/images/characters/ryo_hell/01/52.jpg
http://dev.janime.eu/images/content/Genex/images/characters/ryo_hell/01/33.jpg
http://dev.janime.eu/images/content/Genex/images/characters/ryo_hell/01/13.jpg
Background: Ryou once believed that respecting his opponent and their duel was all that mattered. After ten straight defeats, he lost his sponsor in the Pro Leagues. A man named Saruyama, who offered him a place in the underground league and a chance to return to the Pros, approached him. Ryou accepted the offer and found out too late that these duels involved electric shocks when life points were lost. Suffering from the pain and unable to stop the duel, Ryou understood suddenly that he didn't care about respecting his opponent any longer. He only wanted to win the duel, by any means necessary short of actual cheating. Win it he did, and he reinvented himself in that moment, donning the black gear he has worn ever since and calling himself Hell Kaiser, as opposed to just the 'Kaiser' he was before, a title granted because he'd won every duel when he was in school.
Not long after that, he went to his old teacher, Principal Samejima, and dueled him in a brutal fashion, winning ownership of a deck that Samejima, as the head of the Cyber Style Dojo, kept away from everyone. This deck, known as the underworld deck, featured monsters that focused on powering up through the graveyard and filling that graveyard with spell and trap effects, with the focus being on power instead of respect. Ryou merged it with his own deck and brought it to the Genex tournament at Duel Academia a short time later. He dueled multiple times with it, the most well known duels being against his best friend, Tenjoin Fubuki, and later against his own brother Shou. Ryou won both of those duels, proving against Fubuki that despite everyone's fears, evil hadn’t possessed him and he had chosen the path of darkness willingly, to find out what it took to win duels. When he dueled against Shou, it was a fight of respect vs. power, with Ryou searching for power while Shou represented respect. Ryou won, but Shou kept his respect for his opponent's duel, proving he was a better respect duelist than Ryou.
Ryou chose to leave the tournament some time after that, believing there weren't any duelists there who could give him a true challenge. His last act was to hand over his Genex medallion (symbol of being in the tournament) to a disguised Saotome Rei.
Personality: Once upon a time, Ryou believed in respecting his opponent's duel more than anything else. Winning or losing didn't matter to him, so long as he maintained that respect. The first known hit that attitude took was in his last year at Duel Academia, when he dueled a vampire known as Camula. She defeated one of his teachers in a very disrespectful fashion, angering Ryou so that he challenged her less than a day later. His younger brother noted his raw anger in this situation, since it was so unlike him. Ryou ended up losing that duel, however, because Camula struck in a disrespectful fashion toward him: first copying his ace monster and then threatening Shou himself to trick Ryou into not defending himself when he could have. Nothing much seemed to come of that: at the time. But after his defeat by Edo (or himself, however you choose to see that duel, since he was responsible for all of his own life point loss) and his subsequent string of defeats, he came to want something else altogether.
Ryou wants power, plain and simple. He gave up everything that he believed in before (respect, which was once the cornerstone of his life) for the power to win duels instead. He still won't cheat, but he will be disrespectful, not care for himself, his cards, or his opponents, as much as he pleases. He also has something of a taste for pain, since he not only grew used to dueling with shock collars on, but has kept them ever since he left the underground dueling circuit and used them in at least one duel.
Ryou thinks more about himself than he does for other people, but if other people cross his mind, he has no qualms about hurting them for their own good. If something can't forward his progress to power, to being the absolute best duelist that he can be, then Ryou has no interest in it at all.
Ryou is self-confident in the extreme. He knows what he believes, he knows what he used to believe, and he's working on what he will come to believe. He doesn't listen to what other people have to say, preferring to make his own choices and judgments on any situation. Where once he went for pure, overwhelming power, now he is learning how to be more subtle, and his deck reflects that. His original deck involved various methods of overwhelming his opponent through force, but his current deck features less power in favor of more strategy. One example of this is a trap card that sends cards to the graveyard to protect his life points, while his current ace monster has an effect that powers up its strength by how many cards are in the graveyard.
Ryou is a master of snark as well, insulting people to the best of his ability. He is proud and arrogant (even after coming off a ten duel losing streak), to the point he stopped and gave a speech concerning how his desires had changed in the middle of a duel that he was losing. This has been a part of him even before he chose power over respect. He taunted one opponent that if she thought his ace monster was all he had in his deck, she was sadly mistaken.
He is also arrogant, shown best in his two fully shown Genex duels. He deliberately accepted a duel from his best friend Tenjoin Fubuki, who was using some of the deepest powers of evil in their world, just to test out his own new deck. When Ryou dueled his brother, he demanded that they use the shock collars, so that Shou could see what he'd went through to become Hell Kaiser. He believed that Shou would understand why he made his choices if he suffered the same pain, and believed that Shou would do the same thing. He was wrong about that, but that is what proved he was the duelist of power while Shou was the duelist of respect.
Ryou doesn't sugarcoat anything. If he has an opinion on someone or something, he will state it in the baldest terms possible, and always has. The difference with him as Hell Kaiser is mostly a matter of terminology used. He was slightly more polite about it before the turn to the black outfit. But that's about all.
For all of his arrogance and snark, however, Ryou doesn't actually hold grudges. He and Edo eventually come to respect one another, though at the canon point I'm taking him from, Ryou isn't aware of the fact this will happen. Offenses against Ryou himself are meaningless in Ryou's mind. They can only help him grow stronger.
Abilities/Strengths: Being one of the finest duelists of his era, Ryou is an excellent strategist, at least where dueling is concerned. He keeps with him a set of damage amplifying devices that he gained in the underground league and is able to activate remotely, providing himself with a minor means of defense/offense. Physical fighting isn't something he's good at, and he tends to think of settling any issue with a duel, as is normal in his world. He could probably pick up some fighting skills if he had to, but now, his likely choice of physical violence would be the damage devices or bonking someone over the head with his duel disk. Assuming that he still has the damage devices while here, of course.
When it comes to dueling itself, Ryou can read his opponents like a book. He might not know their exact moves, but he can predict the type of move they are likely to make, which helps him to plan his counters. This increases, naturally, the better he knows someone, exemplified in the third season (post his drawing point but he would be able to do this regardless) when he reads Juudai's plays and correctly names cards that he doesn't know Juudai has in his hand and how Juudai should be able to play them.
Weaknesses: Ryou is a creature of extremes. When he believed only in respect, he respected everyone, no matter what. Once he didn't believe that anymore, he didn't respect himself, his opponent, anything, or anyone else. He can't defend himself properly without a deck or possibly the amplification devices, not that he wouldn't try. He just wouldn't be that good at it. Given that he wants power in order to win duels, he could be convinced to do almost anything if he had reason to believe whoever he was bargaining with could actually help him in that fashion. Though since he's also seen results with the path he's been following, it wouldn't necessarily be easy to persuade him. He'd at least listen, though.
One weakness he would never admit to having is his brother. He threw his duel against Camula because she threatened his life, even though there was still a chance he could've won. But he chose his brother's life over his victory. Whether he'd make that same choice now is unknown. He would tell himself that he wouldn't, of course, since his only goal is for victory.
Defining Quote(s): I don't want to lose! I don't care how I do it, I want to win, and defeat you. I get it now. I finally get it now. Since the fight against Edo, I've been in a state of confusion. 'Just respect my rival's duel. If only I can do this, the result doesn't matter'. But it's not the truth. I'm hungering, thirsting for victory. I'll survive even if I have to deprive you of your hunger!-Hell Kaiser Marufuji Ryou, Yu-Gi-Oh GX, episode 65.
"Let go of my friend."
"That's light. Ryou's voice is coming from that light."
"Fubuki, I'm not in darkness. I'm not bound by darkness."
"You're saying you didn't lose yourself?"
"I just want to find out who can get strength from the deep darkness where light can't reach."
"Why?"
"For victory."-Hell Kaiser Marufuji Ryou, Tenjoin Fubuki, Yu-Gi-Oh GX, episode 89.
Action Writing Sample:
[What comes into view first is a deer’s hindquarters bouncing across the grass as it flees. What does it flee? Or perhaps the question there should be who. The answer to that question comes clear as the Hitomi turns to reveal a sharp-featured face that first looks in the direction the deer ran away in. Then he looks toward the device.
That reminded me of too many duelists I’ve seen in the last few weeks. The Genex tournament wasn’t worth my time at all. [He glances around, taking in the whole situation, a slight furrow between his eyes before he looks back.]
Though I think there are other things I should know now. Such as where I am and how I was brought here and if there’s anyone worth dueling here. [There is a definite hunger in that last phrase, one that perhaps can’t ever be sated.]
I would like to think that any duelists who are here would be more of a challenge than the ones I’ve recently faced. But first of all: what is this place?
[He glances down again and the Hitomi ends up tilting in his hand to reveal a fuzzy, adorable rabbit sniffing at a black boot. Kaiser’s grip shifts, this time revealing his face as he glares at the cute creature.
Which does not appear bothered by him like the deer was. Instead, it just calmly begins to nibble some grass.]
And what makes the creatures here so suicidal?
Third Person Writing Sample:
Electricity crackled through him as a few hundred life points dropped from his total. Hell Kaiser hissed through his teeth, but not in annoyance. He welcomed the pain, ached for more of it, both to give and to receive. Pain defined his world now.
It would be wrong to deny the truth of pain, and the pain of truth, to his opponent. He drew his card and attacked without mercy. Mercy was not just for the weak, but for those who didn’t want to win. Pain and victory, if he were to be truly accurate about it, that made his world. He couldn’t have one without the other. He wouldn’t have wanted to, even if he could.
Across the field, his opponent dropped to one knee, panting, sweat trickling down her neck. He tilted his head back, a sneer rippling his lips.
“Is that all you can do? You still have life points, don’t you?” Indeed she did, nearly a thousand of them. He only had five hundred, but wouldn’t surrender the duel. The thought of doing so wouldn’t even enter his mind.
She rubbed her forehead for a moment before dragging herself back to her feet. It was her first time in the underground, as he understood it. He suspected it would also be her last.
“These things aren’t right.” She gestured to the shock collars. Hell Kaiser smiled. She had no idea of how wrong she was. He wondered if she’d try to surrender. Doing so would only increase the damage she would have to deal with.
Do it. Do it. Do it. He was almost disappointed when she unsteadily drew a card and set it down on her disk. He would have to do this the hard way then.
So be it.