Ø. profile
Ø. basics
Character: Nogami Ryotarou (Japanese order) / Zeronos
Series/Fandom: Kamen Rider Den-O
Deviance: d2 ↓
Ryotarou is… Kamen Rider Zeronos; not a singularity point; the older Nogami sibling.
Sakurai Yuuto is… Kamen Rider Den-O; a singularity point; not from the past.
Journal: Based off Zeronos's catchphrase, "Let me say this to start... I'm pretty strong!"
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Appearance: Ryotarou is your average Japanese teenager, standing at 5'6¾" (170 cm.), with black hair and brown eyes. His sense of fashion is lacking, as he'll wear sweaters or vests and scarves when it's cold and T-shirts and jeans when it's warm. Although his wardrobe isn't lacking in colors, none of them are too bright or eye-catching. Because of his natural meekness, he rarely raises his voice, instead speaking with a soft tone, and keeps his shoulders slightly hunched.
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Ø. psychology
Generally, Ryotarou is a very kind person, who likes to believe in people and their potential for whatever they hope to do. When speaking with people, he's personable, but can be fairly shy, staying formal and polite with the person, unless they're very close. Even if on the rare occasion he hates someone, he'll stay polite and keep his distance, preferring to do what needs to get done, then leave immediately afterwards… unless confronted, in which case he would probably start getting agitated more and more until the matter was settled. However, staying in a time where no one recognizes him, working toward the eventuality of becoming completely forgotten and knowing that he can't save everyone, Ryotarou has developed a cold shoulder and sharp tongue that he'll use to get out of an uncomfortable situation if necessary (or just around the one person he can't afford to stand, Sakurai Yuuto).
He is also an extremely curious individual. When faced with a new concept, no matter how strange, outlandish or ridiculous it might seem to someone else, Ryotarou would just be willing to ask questions and learn more (unless it's so outlandish or shocking that he spazzes a little instead; then, he just asks the questions when he's done). Most of the time, it's easy enough to satisfy the curiosity by just answering whatever question he's asked, although sometimes he'll pursue the thought to the very end if he feels it's relevant toward himself.
In the process of being very curious, Ryotarou can also be a huge spaz. Despite the strange way of his life and his willingness to accept new concepts, Ryotarou is easily surprised, shocked and flustered by unexpected turns of events. This results in him often either giving in to a minor flail fit or just outright fainting.
Due to his dismally bad luck, Ryotarou is used to things not going his way, and to taking responsibility for his actions. When he isn't thinking about his mission or what will become of him, Ryotarou can easily lose himself in a small happiness for a time, whatever it may be, even through his serious living situation. Not many in his world get the chance to see this less-worried, not as serious side to him though, as Deneb is currently the only person close enough that Ryotarou would intentionally let his guard down around. He also tends to have strange ideas about various things and concepts, and isn't the most imaginative when naming things, although such blatantly obvious names may sometimes be considered imaginative in their own right.
Another trait that many people might admire in him or call him foolish for is his stubbornness (and, by extension, his courageousness). When set on a task, especially if someone is counting on him to get it done, Ryotarou will not give up until he is physically incapable of finishing himself - in which case he would hand it over to Deneb in the unwillingness to leave it unfinished. Much of this comes from his compassion for people, or his own desire to become stronger so that one day the future could be saved from the Imagin.
Ø. strengths & weaknesses
Ø. STRENGTHS…
Ryotarou is fairly strong for being completely human and knows how to hold himself in a fight, particularly when using a sword or a crossbow. However, his most notable skill is that he transforms into the Masked Rider Zeronos, which gives him a large power boost, and the ability to withstand much more than he could un-transformed - to the point of being shot point blank in the back (thanks, Deneb) or coming out of huge explosions without a scratch. With Zeronos, he also gains a weapon called the ZeroGasher, which is basically two mix-and-match pieces that could be combined into either a very large broadsword or a crossbow. Using the power source for his transformation, a Zeronos Card, ZeroGasher can be 'Fully Charged' to use a super-attack. Ejecting the card, flipping it over and reinserting it into the belt buckle while Deneb possesses him also allows Zeronos to enter Vega Form, which is much stronger, although less agile, than the default Altair Form.
Both the Cards and the belt Ryotarou uses to transform are stored in a literal hammerspace, so they're extremely anti-theft… unless he has them out and someone makes a grab for them.
Being Deneb's contractor, he also has the ability to speak directly to the Imagin and vis versa when he wants to, regardless of where the other is, through a pseudo-psychic connection (meaning that Ryotarou and Deneb still have to speak out loud to communicate). They can also let each other hear what other people are saying to them like with walkie-talkies. The contract, apparently, allows Ryotarou to sense Imagin for himself, without Deneb having to alert him personally.
Another small quirk of being Zeronos seems to be that Ryotarou is connected to the ZeroLiner in a way that he can summon it to him, either directly, or by making it show up so that he can enter the desert of time in order to board it. This isn't explained, and probably won't be of much use on the Plane, but is worth mentioning.
• A clip of Sakurai Yuuto transforming into Zeronos Altair Form, and assembling the ZeroGasher into a broadsword (lightning bolt sold separately).
• And one of Deneb possessing Yuuto to access the second Zeronos Form, Vega, which is inaccessible without Deneb.
Altair • Form
Rider height: 192cm
Rider weight: 89kg
Ability perimeters
o Punching power: 5t
o Kicking power: 7t
o Maximum jump height: 35m
o Maximum running speed: 100m/5s
Vega • Form
Rider height: 199cm
Rider weight: 123kg
Ability perimeters
o Punching power: 7t
o Kicking power: 10t
o Maximum jump height: 25m
o Maximum running speed: 100m/9.7s
Ø. WEAKNESSES…
While Ryotarou can hold himself in a fight, this mostly depends on his ability to block or dodge incoming attacks; outside of Zeronos, Ryotarou cannot endure much. He may get up to try over and over again to fight, but after being hit a few times, he's usually down for the count (unless he transforms). His transformation-activation items, the Zeronos Cards, are also extremely limited, as they're literally powered off of peoples' memories of him, making him wary to transform at all.
Ryotarou also possesses horrible luck: much of the time, if something could go wrong, it's very likely that it will. While he isn't clumsy and won't fall down the stairs all the time without something in the way, or run into doors rather than have them slam in his face, it does mean that if by some chance of fate there might be a banana peel laying in the road, it will be in the perfect spot for him to slip and fall. Nothing is impossible where this kid's bad luck is concerned. Case in point: in canon, in his very first scene, we see that his bike has gotten stuck in a tree… while he's still on it.
He also cannot swim and his health is generally below average, for what it's worth.
Ø. history
CANONICAL EQUIVALENT: Post-canon. o/
Born on December 26th, 1978, Ryotarou is the oldest sibling of the Nogami family by two years. His younger sister, Airi, means almost everything to him; their parents died when they were both fairly young and any pictures of them to be remembered by were lost in the confusion afterward. During that time, Ryotarou and Airi went to live with their grandparents, although Ryotarou often made trips to the family library/café, hoping that something there might spark his memory.
Years later, Airi was sixteen and beginning to express an interest in taking over the family shop, while Ryotarou worked on starting his first year of college. Unexpectedly, one night, a mysterious steam train appeared out of nowhere, and a man approached Ryotarou with a startling proposition. The man claimed to be Ryotarou from ten years in the future, who came back in order to ask for Ryotarou's help in protecting time from a race of creatures known as Imagin. The Imagins' only goal were to grant peoples' wishes so that they could follow their memories into the past to destroy it. However, not all Imagin were evil, because as the older Ryotarou explained, he himself had an Imagin, Deneb, contracted to him, who he would pass on to the eighteen year old Ryotarou to aid him when he went to the future along with two other things: ZeroLiner, a time train, and the Zeronos Belt and Cards, which would allow him to transform into Zeronos and take care of the Imagin himself.
The older Ryotarou (who Deneb called Nogami) went on to explain the consequences of using the Zeronos Cards; every time Ryotarou would use one, they would disappear, and with them the memories of Nogami in his own time would also evaporate. With the way that time works, this would make it very easy for Ryotarou to be erased from time… were it not for Zeronos's safety net - while Ryotarou may end up completely forgotten, Zeronos would be remembered and his (along with Ryotarou's) existence ensured.
While Ryotarou would go forward and do this to keep time safe, Nogami would be scattered throughout time, using himself as Imagin-bait to prevent them from finding their real target. Despite the heavy burden laid on him by this request, Ryotarou accepted the responsibility, and went to lay low in 2007, and watch over the other Masked Rider, Den-O, hoping that revealing himself wouldn't be necessary, while at the same time wondering why Airi apparently doesn't remember having an older brother.
See the history entry for any canon bumps.
Ø. reality
For Ryotarou, two settings are the most dominant. Since he's a fairly stable individual, his reality is basically what you would see in the show.
The first one setting is Japan, 2007. It's essentially just regular Japan, with a small difference: Imagin. Creatures from an unspecified point in the future who have arrived 2007 with the goal of destroying the past. To do this, they possess whatever person they can and grant whatever that person wishes for, binding them to the person through the contract formed by the wish. Imagin aren't djinn, and cannot grant wishes magically, but they are inhuman and are extremely strong, sometimes even possessing abilities like fire-breathing or flight. Imagin also take the form that their contractor gives them, which basically means that they'll still look like guys in monster suits, but monster suits made to look like a sort of animal or mythical creature according to whatever story their form is associated with. However, if a wish is not made, but an Imagin is bound to someone, they will not be able to form a physical manifestation of their own, only able to possess their contractor directly or project a facsimile out of sand, where strangely, their torsos up to their heads appear out of the ground while their legs hover over (but still move with the motion of walking when they need to). Only people called singularity points are able to control their Imagin and defy them by refusing to make a wish.
The second setting is that of time itself, which takes the form of a giant desert with a constant aurora effect in the sky - each grain of sand representing the moving time. In this desert run many time trains, most modeled after bullet trains, with a few having motorcycles in place of actual steering equipment. Ryotarou himself lives on the ZeroLiner, the time train which escaped the destruction of the future, and is a two-car steam train with the forward car in the motif of a bull; the back car in the motif of a magpie. (As a note, the cars of the ZeroLiner are able to turn into a drill and a helicopter respectively, although these features are not regularly employed.) Its colors are mostly black, yellow and green, following Zeronos's own colors. Another time train that Ryotarou sees on occasion is the one called the DenLiner, being a train that is actually open to business for passengers to travel through time, but also where Den-O spends much of his time with his four Imagin. DenLiner is a bullet train with many cars and cabins, colored mostly silver with a few red highlights.
To enter the desert, one needs either a ticket or a Rider's Pass to board a train and to simply open a door on an identical time (12:12:12, 03:03:03, 07:07:07, etc., according to the train's schedule).
Singularity points are important people no matter when or where you are in Ryotarou's reality; they alone possess the ability to be unaffected by any changes in time (with one confusing exception that is never fully explained), and retain their memories of the 'original' timeline, despite whatever may happen to it. This is crucial because memories are time, and as long as something is remembered, it can be brought back even if time is disrupted. Which makes it a Very Bad Thing if a singularity point doesn't remember something.
Ø. NPCs…
• Nogami Airi, the owner of the library/café, Milk Dipper, along with being Sakurai's fiancée, and Ryotarou's younger older? sister who does not remember ever having a brother;
• Hana, a singularity point from the destroyed future and Den-O's good friend (also Ryotarou's niece from the future);
• Momotaros, Urataros, Kintaros and Ryuutaros, Den-O's four Imagin;
• Owner, the owner of the DenLiner (creative name, no?), a singularity point, and also Mr. Exposition.
Ø. MERGERS…
• Partially merged with the tenth Doctor and the sixth Master (both d3) as of July 16th, 2008.
• Ryotarou and Ten's Time Hobo BFF™ exploits have caused the TARDIS to appear in Ryotarou's reality - meaning he can enter it whenever it's unlocked and use the TARDIS as a mini, personal Astral Plane for him, Deneb, the Doctor and the Master, or… whatever.
• Merged further with the tenth Doctor, the sixth Master and Lucy Saxon (all d3) as of September 16th, 2008.
• Access to the TARDIS now allows the ability to fully enter d3!Doctor Who's reality; when the TARDIS travels somewhere with someone from d2!Den-O inside, they are actually brought along to that place, in that reality. The same works in reverse in that, if Ryotarou or Yuuto were to open a door into time, they can use that to return to their own reality (and bring people with them, if they wanted). Basically, doors between the entire realities have been opened.
• Partially merged with Jack Harkness (d1) as of September 15th, 2008.
• After the bodyswapping experiment, Ryotarou now has British double-decker buses running around Japan, while Jack has some Japanese-variety vending machines. You know, the kind you can get just about anything from.
• Partially merged with Hei (d1) as of September 15th, 2008.
• Hei now has access to the Milk Dipper, as a mini-nexus point. His NPCs can't perceive it, and he can't bring any of d2!Den-O's NPCs with him, but he can still interact with all the characters that might be inside at the time.
Ø. contact
Name: DJ
LJ: agentgreenway
E-mail / AIM: eevee@ptd.net / psitaniums
Timezone: US Eastern
Other characters: Chris Halliwell (d2; greever); Roxas (d4; sunkenlight).
Constructive criticism: at the musebox. ♥