(no subject)
Character Information:
Name: Mikahil Koivu
Age: 27
Gender: Male
Occupation: Pro athelete/duelist for Team Nibelung
Duel Information: Nordic Beasts.
PB and/or Description: David Eagle from Punchman: The Manga
Personality: When someone sees his impressive frame (he stands at a little over 6 feet and weighs more than 210 lbs.), or hears of his many exploits in the athletic world, it's easy to assume that he, like most athletes, is competitive to the extreme, or at least predisposed towards a certain healthy sense of aggression. This is not the case, though it once was. Mikahil is a quiet, reserved man, who handles things in a very methodical way. He rarely meets the eyes of others, opting to keep his head down, and he often stays behind his team leader and friend Astrid, allowing her to deal with most matters that concern the team anyway. It all creates the image of a man who has much less faith in himself than Mikahil does. The truth is, he's a strong, self-confident man who can be as competitive as anyone. But his ability, the Rune Eye, has in many ways, wrecked his mental fortitude. Ironically enough, this is most apparent by just looking into his eyes. There's no joy in them when he competes, merely a sense of resignation, as if he wants to finish it as quickly as possible. Most of the time, he looks as if a haze is surrounding him, even as his eye shines brightly with the insignia of the Thunder God.
He comes off as a mostly solemn man, but he is capable of joking around if the right mood and circumstances strike him. He's a strong believer in the rewards of hard work, and he believes one of the biggest follies a person can make is to assume they're entitled to something. Thus, it's little surprise that people who do act as though they're entitled to something get under his skin quickly. Even then, though, he's slow to anger and quick to calm down, having taught himself a philosophy that basically amounts to "don't sweat the small stuff". He doesn't bottle things in, he just doesn't let them get to him. However, when assaulted with a lot of little things or even just a few medium-to-big things at once, he can lose his cool and not immediately recover it, and in those situations, it's best to just let him get it out all at once, lest he hold on to it and just become more angry. The thing that is most important to him is camaraderie, by far, and in that he has a strong attachment to both of his teammates, even if one of them conducts themselves in a manner he would normally find quite objectionable and he feels like the other isn't being 100% forthright with him. In the case of the latter at least, he happens to respect her a lot, so he chooses to trust her anyway.
History: Mikhail was born and raised near the border of Russia and Norway, his mother being a Russian who moved to Norway, where she settled down, met his father and gave birth to him. Living close to the country his mother came from, Mikahil visited family there often, and grew up inundated with the languages and cultures of both Norway and Russia. When it became clear as a child that he had some significant athletic potential, he moved to Russia in the long term for his training, where he eventually flourished through various minor leagues and it became clear that one day, he may have the skill to become a professional. Even with his natural talent however, moving up through the leagues proved to be difficult, perhaps too much so for him to do naturally, leading him to doubt whether he would be able to become a professional on his own. Whenever he had a chance to have a few months to himself, he would return to Norway, usually just to spend time in his home town with his parents, but upon one of his trips, he felt compelled to travel, knowing that if he did become a pro, he would probably have to move very far away, and would not get a chance to see the country of his birth again for a very long time.
His trip eventually took him to the Stavanger Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in all of Norway for reasons that, at the time, he didn't fully comprehend. Upon arriving there, he felt a strong force imploring him to explore the cathedral. He eventually found himself in a chamber beneath the cathedral that had to be manmade, but looked as if no one else had been inside it before him. The chamber had clearly been built around a mantle at the center and atop that mantle was a card. Upon taking it and reading the card's name, Thor, Lord of the Aesir, Mikhail was granted the Rune Eye and with it, the Thunder God's power.
The Rune Eye allowed Mikhail to see past a person to their core and decipher their weaknesses with a mere look. At first, Mikhail properly respected the power, and barely ever used it. While he didn't fully understand that the Thunder God had chosen him for something much bigger than himself at first, he knew that he had been given a gift, and to abuse it would be to spit in the face of the being that had given it to him. He also managed to recognize that Thor had taken the form of a Duel Monsters card, a game he had played as a child quite enthusiastically before pretty much giving it up when he had began to focus on athletics instead. Imagining this to be relevant in some way, he managed to weave the game back into his life, going so far as to construct a deck that would support the Aesir card, although being careful not to really. Use the card, since he imagined a one of a kind Norse God card might get people to start asking questions better left unasked. Eventually, he went back to Russia for what would prove to be the last leg of his play in his homeland's minor leagues. He wound up being drafted by a major league team, and moved to compete at what was more or less the highest level in the world. There, he hit the wall. Surrounded by athletes all of a truly elite skill level, he found that by comparison, his skills were average at best. Frustrated and drained by the physical and mental toll his career was now taking on him and faced with the idea of swallowing his pride and moving back to the minor leagues, he made what would prove to be the worst decision of his life: he decided to use his Rune Eye during the course of a match.
The first time, he put it to good and immediate use, spotting a physical weakness in his opponent, taking advantage of it and proceeding to win for his team in a clutch moment. The victory immediately tasted bitter to him, and he regretted what he had done, swearing to himself and the Thunder God that he'd never do it again. But, bitter though it was, the memory of victory was a powerful temptation, and the next time he used the Rune Eye, it was a bit easier to stifle the bitter taste. He was able to outpace his opponents with ease when he saw the parts of their bodies and minds that were ailing them, as virtually every athlete has. The ease with which he could not only avoid his own body becoming broken and battered, but lead his team to victory was simply too strong a temptation for the young athlete to resist. He used his Rune Eye on a near constant basis, and the frequency with which he used it to advance his own career angered Thor, so for his hubris, Mikhail was punished. Not by having his gift taken away, but by the exact opposite. He was robbed of the ability to disable his Rune Eye, and thus, saw the weaknesses inherent in all people, all the time. At first, Mikahil was only mildly perturbed by this development, but as he saw people fall prey to their physical, mental and emotional weaknesses, people he cared about, even strangers he didn't know, people he was almost uniformly completely unable to help in any meaningful way, he rapidly began to wish for nothing more than to be able to turn his Rune Eye off.
Trying to help people, failing to do so, and feeling the futility of it crush him, Mikhail's concentration and his ability to compete were absolutely shot and he was unable to continue with his career. He left the major leagues and the pros in general, eventually returning to the land where he grew up, Russia, and placing himself in solitude, if only to get some modicum of mental peace. It was there that he was sought out by Astrid Ostagaard, who was able to quite plainly see his plight and how he got himself into it, having the powers of a Rune Eye herself. Seeing that he wasn't the only one to hold the power of the Aesir endeared Mikhail to Astrid, and so he listened to her proposal: that he join his power with hers and that of the final Aesir, and that the three of them would change the world for the better of its people together. From there, he left his self-imposed exile with her, eventually searching out the holder of the third Aesir card, Loki. He doesn't like her much. But he puts up with her.
With their team set, they then entered the WRGP, Mikhail aiming to help all of humanity evolve past their inherent weaknesses with Astrid and the Aesir's help. As of yet, he has not recovered the competitive fire that made him capable of becoming a professional athlete in the first place, and he doesn't even know if that's possible at this point, but he also has the feeling that competing with the top-level duelists in the WRGP will be impossible if he doesn't do something.
Abilities: In addition to his top-level physique, Mikhail has the power of the Rune Eye, which allows him to see the weaknesses of all people, physical, mental and emotional, merely by casting his gaze on them. Due to Thor's punishment, he is incapable of disabling his Rune Eye and sees the weaknesses of all people at all times (this ability will not work in duels to let him go, "oh their weakness is that all of their set cards are SHIT I'll just attack with impunity" for example). Due to his close bond to the Thunder God, he is immune to the manipulation of his body or his mind through reality warping, and all forms of mental assault or mind control.
Why is your character here?: Plot.