Application, project_purity
☣ Character
Character Name: Tohno Shiki
Character Age: 17
Canon + Format: Tsukihime + eroge visual novel game
Background:
Gah this is long enough already. Here is his general background. I'll describe the events of the route I took him from in brief, below (and yes, I have very valid reasons for picking the incest route >_>).
After Shiki was called home by Akiha, a string of 'vampire murders' happened in the city. He was somewhat concerned about this but wasn't overly so, as it was grily, true, but everyone he knew should be safe. Akiha told him not to go out at night and he agreed. This was only until classmate Yumizuka Satsuki disappeared, however. Concerned about Satsuki, who was reported as having ran away from home despite having a happy conversation with him the day before. Looking for Satsuki in the city, he eventually came into an alley full of corpses. Before the shocked Shiki could do anything, one corpse rose up and attacked him. Just as he thought he was about to die, Satsuki came and killed said corpse, which turned into ashes. Thanking Satsuki, he then noticed that she was carrying another corpse behind her. Satsuki has became a vampire and this was her feeding ground. She said that she was in pain and needed his help, but it was too early. She would become a better vampire before she meets him again.
With that, Satsuki ran away. Shiki returned home to a worried Akiha, who tended to his wounds, but he couldn't forget Satsuki's words. He went to look for her again the following night, promising Akiha that he would certainly come back safe, and found Satsuki in the park. Satsuki confessed that she had been in love with Shiki for a year, and asked if he liked her back. Shiki said he didn't know that, but if she's in pain she needs to go to the hospital and he'd help her get there. Satsuki said he didn't understand, but that was fine, she didn't understand him either until recently. She couldn't understand that he was a natural born killer until she became one herself, after all.
While Shiki was busy being flabbergasted, Satsuki bit him, reminding him of the promise that he'd come save her if she was ever in a bind and asked him to become a vampire under her control. Feeling miserable for Satsuki and desperately wishing for a way to help her, he almost let her do it, but then was reminded of his promise with Akiha before his consciousness slips. And then Shiki took off his glasses and killed her. Satsuki thanked him and said she was sorry before fading away.
Although he didn't tell anyone about what happened, Akiha decided to cheer him up by arranging a welcome back party at the Tohno Estate. He enjoyed that party and the preparations, spending his time talking to Akiha, but under the influence of alcohol started to recall the image of a younger Akiha saying sorry to him in a room full of tatami mats that he had never seen before. Of a summer day with a dead boy in the garden, a crying little girl, and another boy who killed him. The next day, to his surprise, Shiki found that Akiha had transferred herself from her prestigious school to his in order to keep an eye on him. They had lunch together, and Shiki learned that his father Makihisa suffered from multiple personality disorder. That everybody in the Tohno household suffered from something, they tend to die young, and his anemia was just part and parcel of the thing.
That night, Shiki started dreaming that he was walking outside, killing people, tearing into their flesh and drinking their blood. The next day, he discovered that the victim of the 'vampire killer' has been found again, despite Satsuki being dead. And the location of the corpse was the same place he dreamed of that night.
This continued for the next few days until he started to believe that he really was the killer, and that he has multiple personalities. (Well, he sort of does.) Eventually he saw Ciel, his trusted sempai, as a vampire hunter who came to kill him in one night and decided to ask her about it the next day. She called him out at night and ran a Secret Test of Character to prove that he really can't kill anyone (if he does, here, he turns into a really creepy killer in the Bad End) and tell him that he was probably not dreaming but channeling real events from the killer's eyes, and that maybe his power as a Tohno. And the most likeliest culprit would be someone else with the mixed demon blood of the Tohno's, as well.
This leaves Akiha. He started to grow paranoid of her as evidence began to pile up that his sister was the vampire killer of the city, but they were also growing closer and closer and he can't help letting his affection for her win over his paranoia and horror. This stressed him, and he was reaching his mental limit when recalling that in one of those dreams, he recalled watching Akiha in a mansion, so the person he's connected to cannot be her. But if it was in the mansion, then the vampire killer was a creepy stalker and the next victim could be Akiha, too.
Thinking that, Shiki ran back to the mansion ASAP. He found, in Akiha's room, a deranged young man who introduced himself as Tohno SHIKI and the person Shiki killed, the real vampire killer who had his mind connected to him. Shiki started to piece his fragmented memories of the past together, but SHIKI attacked him before he could get all the pieces together and they took the fight into the mansion lobby. This is where Akiha turned up and used her demonic powers to drive SHIKI off, promising to kill him as the head of the Tohno family. She then explains Shiki's background story to him and say that all Tohno's will eventually invert into demons, her real brother already did and her time was coming soon. Troubled and wanting to save her from both herself and SHIKI, he went looking for answers in the Tohno family records and figured out the rest of his past as a Nanaya and the reason why Akiha did the things she did. How she couldn't rein in her Tohno blood because she's using half her life energy to keep him alive. How everything she does, every lie she says, has been to protect his happiness as a normal human being and stay with him.
He went to the detached building where he used to stay as Nanaya Shiki to think and remember. Akiha came to meet him there. They talked. He apologized for bringing this on her and that it wasn't her responsibility that he died, and asked if he could still stay there even though he wasn't her real brother since he didn't want to be apart. Akiha felt the same way, basically, and asked that he be the one to kill her if she ever turns into a monster. As they happily walked back to the mansion, however, SHIKI attacked both of them, critically wounding Shiki and taking Akiha away. Shiki was saved by Ciel, however, and went to fight SHIKI and take Akiha back, falling into his Nanaya bloodlust along the way. Unfortunately, Akiha has already turned into a completely inverted demon hybrid (the Crimson Red Vermillion, the same kind of monster that destroyed Shiki's whole village), lacking all reason, and she was the one ripped SHIKI's heart out. This snapped Shiki out of Nanaya mode. She attacked Shiki and was about to eat him as well (literally), and Shiki recalled the promise they made. That he would kill her if she ever turns. He couldn't bring himself to do it, however. He wanted Akiha to live more than anything in the world, and wanted her to be happier, happier than she ever was, for all her sacrifices and for her suffering. And so, in order to give her back the power to maintain her reason, Shiki decides to give back to her the life she gave him.
He took off his glasses and, apologizing to Akiha for all the guilt he'll cause her and wishing for her happiness, cut at his own line of death.
Canon Point: And that moment is pretty much where I'm taking him from. Well. For him at least. The moment his cut his own line and his world went black was the last thing he remembered. He would think he's dead. What really happened, though, was that Ciel saved him and nursed him back to health before returning him to the Tohno household months later, but that's another story entirely.
[Optional] Previous RP History: n/a
Personality:
Among his peers in school, Tohno Shiki is a bit of an oddity. He's a reliable, friendly and somewhat socially awkward guy-in-glasses with good grades and a tendency to keep to himself, no different from any other nerdy student. He's reasonably good-looking and funny in a conversation, the type that would make a good friend once approached. The fact was that nobody approached him. Nobody, except childhood friend Arihiko and popular girl with a crush Satsuki. According to the former, Shiki gives off a certain air that repels ordinary people used to ordinary happiness, as if they're seeing an uncanny valley. Every bit the ordinary school boy, no mysterious transfer student atmosphere, no quiet angst of the tortured soul. There is simply something that says 'Not our kind'. On the outside, it's easy to think that this is because Shiki is anemic and rich and sickly, more of a 'minor manga character' than a real person, and the rest of everyone left him alone. The truth is a little more complicated. People avoid Shiki because he knows something they don't know, don't want to know and shouldn't ever know. The meaning of death. He has both seen his entire clan die (although he doesn't consciously remember) and died himself, and the experience has marked him forever as different. It's this difference that draws Arihiko to him, as Arihiko has also witnessed the tragic death of his grandmother, and somewhere he knows that Shiki understands. It's this difference that makes him a withdrawn from other people. They know there's something wrong with him. That's fine. He knows it, too, and purposely distanced himself from most people he knows, including his foster family. It's only what any responsible person would do, and even in the closest of interpersonal relationships, Shiki tends to keep a certain distance from the people he loves. If they accept him and say they want him, he'll try his best to reciprocate. He often fails, unless said person also has a true nature to hide.
For the same reason, however, Shiki values life more than anything else. Not because he's afraid of dying (although he doesn't want to, naturally), but because he knows that life is worth valuing. Life is fragile and easily destroyed. He knows he can kill anything he wants to, whenever he wants to, and the thought is as horrifying. At the same time, something that can die at any moment is priceless. Therefore, Shiki cherishes every minute of his and others' lives even though they might not be spent in perfect happiness, valuing the simple fact that they're alive. Life is worth living, in all instances, and there's always something to celebrate when you're alive. It's thought patterns like this that makes Shiki eternally optimistic and helpful, unable to say 'no' to requests for help even if he didn't make a habit out of stepping into people's affairs. And to those who gets past 'the uncanny valley', they'll find Shiki a nice, cheerful and funny young man with a sarcastic sense of humor. He's intelligent, if no super genius, as well as responsible and dutiful, and makes a stalwart friend and a good place to ask for advice (if they don't mind the wisecracks). No matter what absurdity he runs into, Shiki is usually ready to face it in good humor, a snark, a smile, a pat on a friend's back, a calmness to view it all logically and absorb it as it is as well the determination to see things through. There's only one situation where he'll react differently : that involving senseless death. Because he cherishes life so much no matter what happens, Shiki believes that death solves nothing and serves no one. Because everything is only trying to live their lives, a person that kills senselessly is a monster, and he hates them with every ounce of his being.
This is probably partly because he's one.
The current Tohno Shiki is a personality that an amnesiac boy constructed after being told that his family no longer wanted him and the only friend he had was angry at him for not understanding the value of life. His sense of responsibility and his hate of killing. One could almost say that his cheerful solitariness, too, is a result of trying to be like his 'teacher', the warm yet aloof Aozaki Aoko, when he himself is a blank slate with nothing written upon it. The boy who woke up in the hospital---the boy who cuts a beetle apart just because he could, and see the entire rest of the world as alien things who didn't quite understand him and whom he didn't quite understand---we know little about. We know that Tohno SHIKI, the real one, said that pre-amnesia Shiki was always alone and always seemed passive, with no desire for anything and no life in his eyes. SHIKI thought this means he was lonely. We know that Shiki the assassin's protege watched with little grief or comprehension when his entire clan was slaughtered, and did not understand the concept of 'mother' even as she shielded him and got cut in half. We know that he's always been quiet, and only became a 'warm, cheerful boy' after Akiha and SHIKI and Hisui befriended him, going so far as to give up his life to protect Akiha's. Still, we can argue that Shiki was as much of a Nanaya as SHIKI was a Tohno---they were different from normal humans. SHIKI was a boy who knew that one day he'd transform into a cannibalistic beast. Shiki was a boy who was born for one purpose : killing those beasts. Both hid under the facade of ordinary children, but their true selves are there, and Shiki still manifests his when he (technically) undergoes an 'inversion impulse' of sorts. From Tohno Shiki to Nanaya Shiki, the cold, almost mechanical assassin he was supposed to be.
Nanaya Shiki's killing instinct means he kills and kills and kills not because he wants to, not because he feels proud, not because it sates something in his mind---he kills simply because he's a killer, and killers kill. There is no more and no less. A wolf does not kill and eat sheep because it's happy, a wolf kills sheep because that's what wolves do. Murdering, to Nanaya Shiki, is not so different from breathing air. He gets excited, true, and depending on what he's killing, sometimes he does this with amused detachment, sometimes with a hint of Shiki's usual sarcasm. Sometimes there is nothing but a cold desire to kill. Some make the mistake of considering Shiki and his inner murderer as separate beings, a double personality, someone else. This is not true. There is no difference between Nanaya Shiki and Tohno Shiki. One does not negate the other, and they're even less than two sides of the same coin. One simply pushes the existence of the other so far away in his mind that it's no longer visible, but he knows it's there, he forgot but he never quite forgets. The inversion merely brings that portion of his mind to the forefront and pushes his everyday persona back. It's not that Nanaya Shiki doesn't value life, he does. But while the fragility of life gives normal Shiki a desire to protect every last minute of it, Nanaya Shiki (Tohno Shiki, deep down in his heart) wonders why everyone is so attached to something so ephemeral, so easily lost. Tohno Shiki understands what it means to kill. Nanaya Shiki understands what it means to murder. He simply finds it nothing horrible. Death is a natural state of all things in this world, one way or the other. The lines of death are not horrific things that show how everything could be lost, but the simple fact that everything will end. Some people are better at bringing that end about than others, and that is all.
As his Nanaya side, Shiki simply becomes the darker implications of his own conclusions about life. The difference between seeing sacks of meat that can be killed and sacks of meat that he can kill is the line between man and monster. Crossing that line is Tohno Shiki's greatest fear.
(If you played Melty Blood or have seen its 'Nanaya Shiki' before, the laughing, boastful Nanaya Shiki that appears there is not the true Nanaya Shiki, it's what Shiki fears about himself, partly made from the memories of Tohno SHIKI as a serial murderer that he was forced to witness firsthand due to their mental connection. Thus, 'Nanaya' retains some personality aspects of the chatty Tohno SHIKI. The real Nanaya Shiki is Tohno Shiki himself, when he admits that the part he doesn't want to recognize is as much himself as the noble, selfless boy, and that it cannot be erased. He's around for the conversation with Tohno SHIKI in Kohaku's route, in the original game, and you can see the distinct styles of thinking in several battle sequences and some of the bad ends.)
As far as he is concerned, 'Nanaya Shiki' is dead. He can't remember himself as such, and therefore he no longer exists. Tohno SHIKI killed him that day when he took away the right for him to use that name, the same way Shiki killed Tohno by taking everything that was his. Now, he knows he isn't the true Tohno Shiki and will never be. He cannot go back to being Nanaya. But what are those but labels---? He's himself and he knows who that is. He lost precious memories of people he knows he dearly loved, but whose faces he couldn't even recall clearly, but he can treasure the loved ones he has now and the loved ones he will meet. For every tragedy that happened, he can try to be happier and happier than he ever was before, and make the people he loves happier and happier in return.
When the time comes for everything to end, that's all that matters to Shiki.
Appearance:
Here. Standing at 169 cm tall, Shiki is medium height and somewhat thin for his age, looking very much like your standard megane guy. Black hair. His eyes are originally blue, as a child, but appears black once he started wearing the 'Mystic Eye-Canceling Glasses', and the only time it turns blue again is when he takes the glasses off. His default clothing is a dark blue gakuran-type school uniform, but he's not opposed to wearing something else, either.
Abilities:
Please be prepared for tl;dr.
Type-Moon, the eroge company that birthed Shiki's canon, is well known for having absurd power levels and haxx skills. Tohno Shiki is one of Type-Moon's flagship characters, and therefore it follows that his skills and powers would be pretty haxx as well. Not as much as the other Shiki's, but they are sufficient enough to need hard level caps. Also, any explanation of Type Moon powers are extremely likely to be tl;dr.
You can divide Shiki's skills into two categories : physical and magical.
Physical Skills
His physical skills include the speed, reflex and killer instinct bred through the blood of generations of Nanaya assassins that flow in his veins. This gives Shiki an almost superhuman ability to withstand damage, despite his anemia, and he is agile enough to engage in melee battles with beings that were forces of nature themselves---practically speaking, he's fast enough to dodge close-range physical attacks, no projectiles. In a sense, Shiki's 'battle form' is much like riding a bicycle to him...he may have forgotten how he learned and how it worked, exactly, but it's something so intrinsically a part of him that it can never be gone.
This is the part that he'll wake up knowing--from the get go. The other part of his physical skills is a little bit more complicated.
After 'Nanaya Shiki' was erased from existence and Shiki became 'Tohno Shiki', remnants of Nanaya's instinct to kill and assassin training remains in him, a wolf that lingers deep in Shiki's heart. When he's in danger or is physically near a being of immense power, the 'Nanaya' personality will kick in with greatly boosted agility (often compared to a spider, like his father, and he runs on walls and ceilings) and accuracy. He can still control his actions, but not their reasoning, and he remembers it afterwards. Some of this isn't pleasant. If he does things in Nanaya Mode that he would regret as Tohno Shiki, there's a chance that he would stay in that personality for a period of time.
Considering the types of casts that these games tend to bring in, having Nanaya ping at every powerful superhuman character would be a bad idea. Therefore, I'll be altering the method of Nanaya's activation somewhat. Nanaya Mode would be unable to turn on in this manner until Shiki has recovered both of his supernatural-detecting skills in the magic section, which would take a good bit of time. The 'I see you, I kill you' bloodlust would not be activating until he's in the physical presence of such beings, much like in his canon, but they would also require that said being be using their powers with the intent to harm. This should keep him from going berzerk on shounen heroes practicing their powers and so on. In other manners...well, I'll say that he'll probably turn on/off as the plot dictates.
Magic Circuit
The Nanaya clan mostly relied on their highly trained skills and physical prowess to hunt and destroy demons, meaning that they don't have much in terms of clan powers and can thus be taken out when surprised. The high-ranking members of the clan have married among themselves long enough for a few talents to emerge, however. The Nanaya clan's special ability is the 'Pure Eyes', a form of sight-based skill that allows them to see 'things that are not meant to be seen'. Shiki's father Kiri had eyes that could see the thoughts of others in the form of colorized mist/waves. Shiki's own 'Pure Eyes' has the ability to see incorporeal powers being used in corporeal form, which allows him to attack said incorporeal power. (Although he can't see concepts, no.) Unlike his other eye-based ability, Shiki is born with this and he can turn it on or off---due to having forgotten most of his past, however, Shiki can't do it consciously. It seems to activate when he needs it to, usually when he decides to kill, and deactivate when he doesn't. This might be a good thing; seeing supernatural forces all the time will probably drive someone insane. It is said that his Pure Eyes are the real reason his eyes turn blue when he's trying to use his other sight-based skill, and this will be reflected as he relearns it. I expect this to take about 4-5 months.
Shiki's second metaphysical ability is his sixth sense, related to the above. Inside his veins flows the blood of generations and generations of demon hunters, condensed into him. Therefore, Nanaya or no, he'll be able to tell if something unnatural is approaching him and/or vicinity. This is not a concrete thing, but he can certainly sense them. The more powerful the demon, the easier it is to sense. But since this skill is highly based on his view of the environment, the more he trusts the environment and the person he's talking to, the less receptive he'll be to their powers. If you're still reading, people who are not mods, this clause is meant to be convenient for people he makes friends with through the CLD! (Yes it's also really in canon, but without it so many things will have to be handwaved.) I expect to take 5-6 months, since he can't train it consciously.
And lastly.
This is Shiki's signature ability, the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. I despair at explaining it at times. The long version is...long, but here's the short version : due to his brush with death as a child, a Magic Circuit has opened under Shiki's Pure Eyes that allows him to connect to the Akashic Records, which holds the records of every being born under the Earth. While there are other kinds of connections, Shiki's connection is that of 'death'. He see lines and dots across pretty much everything whose 'death' he can conceptualize. The death of minerals and the death of people are different things, for example. Lines allow him to cut the fabric of existence of whatever he's cutting, severing it without resistance. It's the 'death' of that part. This is reversible if the object/being being cut is immortal. Dots are the 'death' of that whole being. Poke at a dot and that being dies. This is 'true death', as in the existence of that being unravels onto itself and it ceases to exist. Some beings/objects may take longer to unravel, but as long as Shiki understands the concept of 'death' for it, he can see the dot, and a being killed this way will die. No exceptions. Using this power too much would either cause a brain hemorrhage, as humans are not supposed to perceive 'death', or cause the power to go into overclock mode, which would cause an even worse hemorrhage but seeing dots would be easier for a short time. Using it to see the death of conceptual things would do the same thing. Shiki's living normally due to his glasses, which have the power to cancel all Mystic Eyes---and are now placebo. Oops. Overclocked eyes can cancel the glasses themselves for a short time.
Fortunately for game balance, Shiki is taken from the Far Side routes which are more 'gothic horror' than the 'slaying eldritch horrors-horror' Near Side, and thus he hasn't figure out the thing about dots yet. He'll be able to learn it again under special circumstances, however.
On Relearning the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception
The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception are a gained function of Shiki's Pure Eyes, which has the characteristics of 'seeing invisible energy'. He will be unable to regain it until he has the use of his Pure Eyes again, and then, he will only be able to see the lines for a short while (see details below). Since his glasses are placebo, he will also have some trouble controlling it. The Mystic Eyes can randomly go into overclock mode (i.e. at inopportune times), just stop working, or flicker on and off if he's not wearing his glasses and sometimes even with them on. Shiki, however, will be unable to see anything but lines at least until he dies once in the game. After one death, he regains the ability to see dots on living things. Dots on nonliving things depends on his willingness to understand the concept. After two deaths, his eyes will stabilize out, although this can also happen if enough time passes and he regains full control of the Pure Eyes. (We can assume that Shiki will be trying to control his eyes, it's not a pleasant effect.)
Due to radiation damage on his brain, however, Shiki will be unable to use the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception for more than a half-hour per day. The half-hour starts whenever he takes his glasses off for the day, and continues for the duration regardless of whether he has put the glasses back on or not. (Even if the glasses are canceling them, in other words.) And at first, it wouldn't reach the full half-hour at all, that's something he has to train for. If the Eyes goes overclocked on that day, however, they can bypass this and run 'on' the full length of time on their own even with the glasses on. This can lead to a number of fun, delabitating effects, considering how much he hates seeing things through 'death sight'.
Also : Death by Mystical Eyes of Death Perception are reversible in this setting in the same way as any death, unlike how it is in canon. It should go without saying, but I thought I'd mention it.
Note Shiki has a chronic case of anemia. This isn't his natural condition, no, but considering the ending I'm basing this on....he's still living on a paltry life force, and overexertion is really not a good thing for his health. He can probably fight and go on any action plot there is, but if he pushes himself he'll probably faint for a few hours afterward. A week at worst.
In terms of battle technicalities, Shiki is a glass cannon to a tee. He's got high HP for an average human being, godly Attack and Speed and Tech/Skill points, below average Strength (average for Nanaya Mode) but rather poor Defense. This is going by what I saw in the original game, not Melty Blood. Let him get close and he'll probably one-hit kill everything. Don't let him get close and Shiki is just about as easy to kill as your average teenager, although it may take a bit longer for him to die. His power is a godmode, yes, but it merely tells him where to hit. He still has to deliver the finishing blow and Shiki himself is not invincible by any means.
Items/Weapons:
- His ancestral knife, 'Nanatsu Yoru/Nanaya/Seven Nights'. It looks pretty much like a fruit knife from the outside, with its name engraved on the hilt, but the blade is of high-quality make. It used to belong to his real father, Nanaya Kiri, and he would probably not be pleased to find it being blunted. Really, you ACRO people, if you've seen his dreams you know that the sharpness is not a problem anyway. >:[ (Would Boston blunt the blade if it's fruit-knife size, but they know that Shiki has used it as a primary weapon, but doesn't actually require it to be sharp to do so anyway?)
☣ Samples
First Person Sample:
(As Tohno Shiki)
[On comes the feed, and in it is a blurry video of a scrawny Japanese boy in glasses. He seems to have found his way into the hostel room and is sitting on the bed, still fidgeting somewhat from unfamiliar surroundings.]
So, uh, nobody's going to stand up and tell me I'm on Candid Camera at this point, I guess. This isn't exactly what I envisioned my first trip to America to be like... And I think I know the answer for this anyway, but let me ask, this wouldn't happen to be one of those places you end up after dialling the wrong number for afterlife, right?
[He looks up from the communicator, takes his glasses off and peers very, VERY intently at the empty wall. After a few seconds, an expression creeps onto his face that's somewhere between puzzled, serious and awkward, and he puts the glasses back on.]
Still not there. That's...interesting.
...well, at least this communication device looks like it came out of a sentai show, so this can't be so bad. Um, can you all hear me properly? This is supposed to be a video post, am I doing it right? In any case, I'm Tohno Shiki, currently, er, formerly a resident of Misaki City, Japan. I don't suppose anyone has heard of a Tohno Akiha or anybody else from the same town?
As Nanaya Shiki (called this way for convenience, Nanaya Mode really does have a different mode of thought and speech even if he IS still Tohno Shiki).
[Voice]
[The voice feed, full of static, came on with what sounded like a rather amused young man. His voice is neither low nor rich, but something in the voice was catching. Something smooth and slightly out of synch, like the movement of a spider's leg.
They sound the same, but at the same time, completely different. Unless someone really knows how to tell a voice from another, they'll never believe that this voice belongs to the boy called Tohno Shiki.]
Integrate, so they say. Rebuild this town. Use the skills we have. The skills we gained in fevre dreams that we're supposed to forget.
Tell me, my fellow abominable mutants, is this reasoning not funny?
I'm the last person to underestimate dreams. What lies in them. I will not fault them for their fear. It's quite common for a species to fear what is no longer one of them. That is why society exists. That is why animals flock together. But tell me, between us monsters, doesn't it sound ridiculous?
Third Person Sample:
As Tohno Shiki
In the pale light of the strangely yellow moon---really, would the repairman just come and fix his lighting already---Shiki found himself adjusting his glasses. He'd just opened his eyes after a nice, long nap, and there were cracks in the ceiling. Not the kind of crack he should call the landlord and file a complaint (as if complaints are listened to around here!), but the kind of crack that he knew very well. He was used to waking up seeing them, in fact, in the mornings before he reached for the glasses on the nightstand.
The thing was, he fell asleep with his glasses on.
He blinked, and adjusted his glasses again. The crack was still there. It ran from from the ceiling to a part of the wall by the window, also lit by the moonlight. Feeling a little bit like he was in a lucid dream, Shiki walked to that crack and poke at the glowing red of it with his index finger. It slipped in just as easily as poking through melted butter.
"What------------------?"
He had been told that this sort of thing could happen, if he used his powers too much. But he hadn't. He hadn't seen any line at all in weeks. He had been told that his powers would return eventually, even if they'd be weaker than before. But he was having his glasses on.
The red, red crack pulsated quietly in the pale yellow light.
"....What's going on here?" he whispered, knowing that nobody could answer if he himself did not know.
As Nanaya Shiki
The glass moon was in the sky tonight.
No. Not the glass moon, not the cold blueness that stared at the all of the Earth like a cyclopean goddess. Not the red moon of a killing night. A pale, sickly greenish-yellow moon, clouded in radioactive dust. Just the moon, looking balefully at the stage this city set before him.
He walked in the alleys, strewn with rubble, the smell of dried piss and some old drunk's pile of vomit. His path twisted and turned and joined with other paths, like a neverending labyrinth, but Shiki always knew where to go. He was relaxed. His knife was in his pocket. Those glasses, left where he called home. The moon was bright. The darkness of the alleys melted together in the faint glimmer of some distant bar.
Not a single line in sight. There were none of those pulsating cracks in the seams of reality, no guiding line to make things easy. No glowing red dots that he only needed to touch in order for something to die.
---------------------this is like the wilderness.
Somewhere in this forsaken, dead city, there were things that should die. Dead things, because how else would something lack an end that could be seen?
---------------------can he do it, then, without knowing where the end lies?
The thought burned comfortably in his brain and sent rivulets of heat down his spine. The moon was bright. The stage was set. He only had to walk in this darkness long enough for find his prey.
In the night of the sickly, yellow moon, Shiki's mouth curved up in a smile.
QUESTION for reading mods : Since everyone can die when they move into this setting, do I just assume by default that everybody has lines and dots, or do his old limitations still apply? Normally he wouldn't be able to see lines on, say, an elemental spirit or a death god or something like that. I'll have a permission post for that kind of thing up anyway, but I'd like to ask for consistency's sake.