KOUKI HIDAKA

[Kouki Hidaka]

HEAR US NOW - - -

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LET THE WHOLE THING BLOW

B A S I C I N F O

★ NAME: Kouki Hidaka
★ NICKNAME: Mitsuki (secondary personality/alias)
★ MEMBER GROUP: Gijinka
★ POKEMON: Ninetales
★ STATUS Illegal
★ AGE: Seventeen
★ HEIGHT: 5'7"
★ WEIGHT: 132 lbs.
★ FACE CLAIM: Emil Castagnier/Ratatosk from Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
★ APPEARANCE:

At precisely five-foot-seven and with a slim (although fairly fit) build, Kouki is fairly small for his age; despite this, however, he secretly takes a great amount of pride in his appearance, to the point where one could say he is more than a little vain. His light blonde hair is a similar shade to a typical Ninetales's cream-colored fur, and slightly longer than chin-length at its longest in the front. While the cut may look somewhat ragged with the uneven ends and the longer cluster of bangs falling directly into the gijinka's face, he actually takes good care of it, and as such rarely is it ever knotty or overly messy - though there is one stubborn lock of hair that persistently refuses to lie flat like the rest no matter how many times he attempts to brush it down. It matches rather nicely with his lightly tanned skin - the product of spending a fair amount of time outside the city despite the many dangers this poses. He has a few scars here and there - after all, life as a gijinka in the slums isn't as easy as some people would like to think it is - the most prominent of which stretches a good half foot down his chest starting from his left shoulder. As far as facial features go, he is still rather babyfaced for his age. For example his eyes, though most often narrowed and cynical when others are around, are still big and wide, which can make him appear slightly younger than his real age to some passerby. They are also, much like those of a Ninetales, a deep crimson color when he either doesn't bother or forgets to wear the green contacts meant to make him look less suspicious in particularly anti-gijinka areas.

When it comes to clothing, he does like to wear outfits that are comfortable but would prefer to wear something that looks "cool," despite the fact that it would be easier to survive if he just allowed himself to blend into a crowd. His favorite attire, and therefore that which one is most likely to see him wearing, is a bit outlandish looking even by current standards. It consists of a strange garment that is something between a blue sleeveless shirt and a coat that falls all the way to his knees and is covered in two criss-crossing black and yellow belts over a pair of loose back pants with three yellow stripes on each leg - two going down the center vertically, and two horizontal ones at his knees and roughly two inches above their ends. In addition to this, he often wears shoulder-high, fingerless black gloves along with a matching pair of blue, yellow, and white wristwarmers; the gloves also appear to have some kind of extra, thicker fabric wrapped around them from the elbow upwards, but this is actually attached. And while he has never had a problem with the cold since becoming a gijinka thanks to his fire-type blood, seeing him without his soft black scarf wrapped around his neck is a rarity. His shoes are just as outlandish as the rest of his clothing with their metal cuffs at his ankles, yellow strip of fabric in the front, and black bodies that only cover the front half of his feet and leaving the rest exposed were it not for the boy's knee-high white socks. Finally, he wears a circular white pouch at the back of his waist, secured by his belts, in which he keeps most of his essentials - pokeballs, various recovery items, and food when he can get it.

Notably, when traveling through dangerous areas, he tends to bring a sword with him, with a long straight edge and semicircular hand guard that he wields in reverse grip out of habit. It serves both as a last line of defense in a fight when he cannot rely on pokemon or he is in a place where using his gijinka powers could get him lynched, but also works as an intimidation tactic, as he's found out after a while that others are a bit less likely to try and snatch away your bag or pick a fight with you when your hand is perpetually gripping the handle of a potentially deadly blade.

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P E R S O N A L I T Y

★ POSITIVE:

• Self-disciplined - Though he is careful to avoid humans while doing so, Kouki holds himself to keeping up with his personal training so that he can control his pokemon DNA-given abilities well. While using them could potentially get him killed, he also knows that they are his last resort to fall back on, and it is better to be well-practiced with them so that if he is ever in a really dire situation he can fire off attacks without worrying that he is using them wrong or ineffectually.
  
• Pragmatic - Is using confuse ray on your enemies a dick move? Yes. Is blowing embers into their face while they're confused downright dirty? Hell yes it is. But it's these kind of tactics that will keep you alive longer, and so Kouki has no qualms about using them, even though he'd rather win in a "cool" way if possible.
  
• Cautious - You won't last very long in this world if you go around with your heart on your sleeve and trusting everyone you meet. Kouki believes in always assuming someone is a potential enemy, especially if they're acting friendly around him. It only takes letting your guard down once to go from an alley-prowling slumrat to a pile of bones in the nearest gutter. Unfortunately, his other persona is a overly trusting idiot as far as he's concerned.
  
• Good with pokemon - Though you wouldn't guess it from his main personality's usual front, he can actually be kindhearted when around pokemon, provided they don't try to attack him. Maybe it's because of the Ninetales DNA in his body, or perhaps due to the fact that pokemon mainly act on instinct and emotion, and won't stab you in the back like humans have a habit of doing, but he seems to be almost nice around them. Mitsuki even takes it even farther to the point where he openly dotes on the creatures.
  
• Protective of his fellow gijinka - While he often says that giving two shits about anyone but yourself is stupid and will get you killed, Kouki really does care about his fellow gijinka, enough that he will try and back them in a fight or even give them some of his supplies. Mitsuki, however, is still very afraid of gijinka due to his belief that he is an ordinary human.
  

★ NEGATIVE:

• Violent - Kouki doesn't have time for your shit. If he perceives you as a threat, he is going to attack you - no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Unless, of course, he is at an extreme disadvantage, but even then it is far too easy for his temper to get the better of him, which can lead to making downright idiotic decisions in the heat of the moment. This goes double for humans, who he takes some extra delight in kicking around. Does not apply to Mitsuki, who would really rather stay out of fights.
  
• Vain - Kouki thinks he's cool shit. He also doesn't like it when people say otherwise, or do something to mess up his hair, or touch his scarf. He is not an attention whore or anything - far from it - but he likes to at least look his best. How else are you gonna keep holding your head up high?
  
• Distrustful - While this is less evident with his fellow gijinka, Kouki is extremely wary of humans, and doesn't open up to others easily. You can never be sure of who is harmless and who wants you dead. Better to assume the latter than think someone's the former and later find out otherwise.
  
• Holds grudges - He's a Ninetales gijnika, what did you expect? If you attack him, steal from him, attack another gijinka in front of him, or get his hair dirty, he's not going to be forgetting it anytime soon. And the next time you meet, he might very well remind you of his grudge with a fireball to the face. Mitsuki, on the other hand, doesn't care as much, but will still be wary of anyone who's hurt him before.
  
• Inconsistent - Because of his, uh, personality issues, his interactions with others can be awkward if he met them as one personality and runs in to them again as the other. If he met them later as Kouki, for example, he will be mistrustful and standoffish as opposed to acting shy but overall nice, and vice versa. On a side note, while Kouki can remember everything he does while acting as "Mitsuki" - and facepalm about it - Mitsuki can't remember anything Kouki does, which leads to some...interesting situations. Like suddenly having "new" pokemon or making enemies without his knowledge.
  

★ HABITS, QUIRKS:

• As should be pretty obvious by now, the boy has some issues with multiple identities. Originally, it was just Kouki; he was the sole personality, but started using green contacts to conceal his red eyes - brought on by his transformation into a Ninetales gijinka - and the alias Mitsuki to avoid giving out his real name to strangers. However, over time, that cover identity evolved into something more: at some point, he started waking up some days with no recollection of being a gijinka at all. Instead he took the lies Kouki had concocted about his identity and past as truth, genuinely believing that he was a harmless human orphan named Mitsuki. Perhaps it has something to do with the old legend that Ninetales can control the minds of others - only in this case, the mind Kouki is controlling is his own.
  
• Kouki's identities each stand a little differently, so if one is paying close attention it is easy to tell when he is acting as Kouki or Mitsuki depending on posture. Kouki stands straight most of the time and keeps his hand on his sword's handle most of the time, and tends to be aware of his surroundings. Mitsuki, on the other hand, often ventures through the city with slumped shoulders, a downcast gaze, and not paying much attention to what's going on around him.
  
• Kouki also has a habit of crouching slightly right before he attacks.
  
• Both of them love Cheri berries, though they rarely get the chance to eat them.
  
• Being a Ninetales gijinka, Kouki is capable of putting curses on others, but they are mostly small and aren't very life threatening. They tend to wear off on their own after a period of a few weeks to a few months, though he could remove them himself if someone managed to convince him to.
  
• In all cases, Kouki's body temperature is significantly higher than an normal human's, enough to where the cold doesn't really bother him much. Which is really handy when you're homeless and rarely know where you'll have to sleep next.
  

★ OVERALL PERSONALITY:

In another world, Kouki would most likely come off as a rude, violent, paranoid asshole who only cares about himself; with the state of the world today, however, he's pretty much a normal guy...at first, at least. He's gruff, short with people, and extremely blunt when talking with others - if he sticks around to talk at all. He also has a habit of throwing insults around like they're some kind of sarcastic confetti, and if you make it through a conversation with his main personality without him calling you a moron, weakling, or retarded fuckface, there's either something special about you or he is putting on an act for the sake of not drawing attention to himself. He can also come across as full of himself - and why not? He's been able to survive on his own since he walked out of his home three years ago, and in his eyes, that makes him pretty damn awesome considering he's been toughing it out in the slums the entire time. Not to mention his pride in his appearance, which is hardly fitting for a slumdweller like himself. This doesn't mean he isn't aware of his own weakness, though: rather, he's painfully aware of it, with the scars on his body to remind him. But just because he's weaker than some doesn't mean he isn't stronger than others, and he continues to build up his strength over time in hopes of overcoming his weaknesses.

His relationships with humans are strained at best: he wants to avoid becoming someone's next unwilling DNA donor if possible, and in order to do so, he has to either blend in as best he can or stick to places where humans rarely go. Most of the time, he's forced to accept the former, since he still needs to eat and humans tend to congregate where there's food. So he spends his days living a wary existence, secretly detesting the humans who would surely kill him without a second thought if they found out what he was. Yet above all others, the human he loathes the most is the man who made him this way. Not because he hates being a gijinka, or even because some jealous human assholes hate him, but because his father doesn't give a shit about his patients as long as they cough up the dough before he performs his risky back-alley operations on them. That's why he left in the first place.

I suppose that suggests that despite his grouching and defensive behavior around others, Kouki isn't entirely a bad guy deep down, even if he admittedly likes fighting and has a deep dislike for humans, since most of them want him dead. In fact, despite his hatred and name calling, he rarely attacks someone unless he feels like they're going to attack him first. You have to do what you have to to survive, after all. Better to kill than be killed, even if you'd rather just beat the asshole halfway to hell so that they'd be too scared to come near you again. While that may be a bit contradictory given his love for a good fight, nearly all people are a little contradictory even at the best of times, and these are the worst of times people. Everyone does things they don't want to do, and if you don't learn to like it even a little bit, chances are you'll go insane over it someday. Not that Kouki is the poster boy for sanity.

If he ever shows his softer, caring side, it is usually around either pokemon or gijinka. In his view of things, pokemon aren't motivated by the same feelings of greed, hate, and vengeance that humans are, which makes them the species he'd much rather be around. He admires their ability to live by instinct and emotion, without having to rely on calculation or manipulation to survive, and enjoys sparring them with his gijinka abilities. Around them, he doesn't have to hide who and what he is, or constantly worry if and when they'll stab him in the back. And if he manages to obtain a few of his own, he would love to be able to fight with them without having to worry about anyone actually dying. He might even go as far as to call some of them cute, provided there's no one else around to hear him.

The other group that might catch a glimpse at his nicer side - well, the nicer side that isn't Mitsuki - are other gijinka. He is more cautious around them than he is around pokemon, since you never know if one of them could be an agent working for Epispect to get rid of illegal gijinka like himself, but he still feels a sense of loose comradeship with them because they all have to deal with the hate and prejudice from the normal humans. Though of course, he is less tolerant than those who decided to become gijinka just for shits and giggles than those who did so under more dire circumstances. He won't go laying down his life for any of them - at least not until they've managed to break through his harsh exterior and start up some kind of friendship with the guy - but he will try to back them in a fight or give them what aid he can, even if it means blowing his cover and having to leave an area for a while. It's not like he has anywhere he can really call home anyway. At least that's one good quality the Ninetales gijinka has: he is good at adapting to different situations and new areas, especially since he knows very well that his could and often does depend on it.

While it may seem like he's only focused on survival most of the time, Kouki also has a fun-loving, even mischievous side to his personality. He likes to have fun, though he is usually too busy worrying about his surroundings to loosen up for it. Unless he's alone with his pokemon, in which case he would gladly organize a series of mock battles or even kid's games like hide-and-seek, stuff he remembers from his brief childhood. Perhaps that's another reason Mitsuki exists: to give him a taste of the childhood his father's ambitions stole from him. He also has a habit of laying "curses" on people who slight him for amusement, though since he isn't a true Ninetales these are mostly harmless pranks - although they can turn nasty at times, such as when he cursed one thief that stole his food that everything he ate would taste like shit.

It is worth noting that despite the existence of his alternate personality, he himself sometimes acts as "Mitsuki" to avoid drawing suspicion to himself, which makes a fair degree of sense as the alias predates the alternate personality. When doing so, he tries to act submissive, timid, and kind, but he is still the same guy ready to fight at the drop of a hat on the inside. His opinion if the "real" Mitsuki is that his other self is a complete and total moron, but he cares about him none the less: after all, if Mitsuki dies while controlling their body, he does to. That's why if Mitsuki is active and danger arises, Kouki will most likely awaken and retake control.

Speaking of Mitsuki, he is a somewhat less complex personality than his other self, but that is understandable since it's only been about two years since he surfaced. He is under the impression that he suffers from chronic bouts of amnesia, but he "knows" a few things about himself that are in truth the lies Kouki concocted to build himself a false history. Thanks to that, he is under the impression that he is a human orphan who is trying to make a decent living in the slums...not that there's any to be had. This personality is kind to pretty much everyone but gijinka, as he is (pretty ironically) afraid of their powers, but even then he's usually polite to those he runs into out of fear. He has a tendency to space out in this mode, which can lead to some sticky situations, but luckily for him Kouki usually takes over again before things go too far south. He loves pokemon a great deal and is quick to accept "new" additions to his team - usually caught by Kouki. Despite his shyness, he is a genuinely caring boy who likes to help others out, and sometimes he will take odd jobs for food or shelter, and during those times Kouki is more or less content to enjoy a break from life and just Mitsuki do his stupid thing until trouble starts brewing. Oddly enough, if you make friends with Mitsuki, Kouki is also a lot more likely to tolerate you, though in general it will still take him a bit longer to accept anyone as a friend. Though doing nice things for Mitsuki always helps, since Kouki feels indebted to those who aid his clueless other side, despite his complaints. Conversely, if you were to pick a fight with Kouki, Mitsuki would have no idea about it, since Mitsuki isn't aware that Kouki even exists in the first place. He just blames whatever new pokemon, possessions, or injuries he's gathered on his amnesia, and seems adamant about insisting that others have the wrong guy if they bring up something Kouki did to them - especially if that something was violent.

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H I S T O R Y

• Kouki's family was never a wealthy one; on the contrary, he was born to slum-dwelling parents and spent his formative years in a small run-down clinic, living as best he could with his parents as they tried to make ends meet. His father was, to put it bluntly, a quack who never officially earned any kind of degree, though he spent years apprenticed to one of the few official physicians that actually cared to provide services to the denizens of Aether City's poorest districts. Unfortunately, soon after his parents were married, the doctor met his end while on his way back to the clinic from a house call, beaten to death by muggers. After that, "Dr." Hadaka had no choice but to take over the clinic and keep it going as best he could despite his limited medical knowledge, relying on the practical skills he built up over years as the doctor's aide to treat his patients. Looking after his fellow slum-dwellers was a risky affair, and he rarely ever profited from his actions, but he did his best regardless. Patients would pay him back in whatever ways they could, be it some of the little money they managed to scrape up, in food, or even in pokemon to resell in the city proper. It was roughly a year later that another responsibility was added to his plate in the form of the birth of his and his wife's only son, Kouki.
  
  
• As a boy, Kouki Hidaka didn't worry much about the state his family was in; he was content to run around with the other poor kids, playing child's games that required nothing from them but creativity and a healthy body. He was proud that his daddy was their community's doctor, because he helped other people get better, and he hoped to be able to do the same someday. He didn't realize how poor his family was, because everyone around them was just as poor, and thanks to that ignorance he was able to lead a fairly carefree childhood, despite the lean times his family would go through. Then, when he was about eight, something changed in their little community: children and adults both started falling ill left and right, falling prey to the same virus that ravaged the city years prior. The Hidaka Clinic was swamped with patients, and Kouki was forced to watch as his father fought to save them in vain. Even some of his own friends fell to the sickness, and the worst part of it all was that Kouki's father was unable to do anything to stop it.
  
  At least, that was until Kouki caught the virus.
  
  Dr. Hidaka panicked then. First, he was unable to save people he had known for years, children he had watched grow up alongside his own, and now his son had caught the dreaded disease. This was beyond what he had any ability to treat; only the scientists who worked for Epispect had that power, but the company would only cure those who could afford to pay their astronomical fees. In short, it was hopeless. His son would wither and die in front of him just as all his patients before him had. Knowing that he had no chance of saving the boy, Dr. Hidaka fell into a deep despair, and even contemplated taking his own life.
  
  And that was when a saving, damning hand reached out to him in the form of a man who wandered into the clinic one night, offering Dr. Hidaka a gift more precious than he could ever imagine: enough samples of pokemon DNA to perform the needed transfusions on his son, along with the necessary equipment. However, as most offers that are too good to be true are, this one also came with a steep price. In exchange for the tools to save his son's life, the man would request Dr. Hidaka's cooperation in a...business endeavor of sorts.
  
  Now Dr. Hidaka may have been a quack, but he was not a fool. There was no doubt in his mind that this strange and frankly unnerving man with his gray trench coat and expression concealing shades belonged to the rumored Black Market. By agreeing to his terms, he would doom his family to a life on the run, always wary of Epispect's hunters. But if he refused, then his only chance to save his son's life would slip through his fingers forever.
  
  Obviously, he chose to save his son's life, commencing with the procedure immediately after shaking the man's hand in agreement. One laborious surgery and several more brushes with death later, Kouki was on the road to recovery.
  
  It didn't take long for rumors surrounding Kouki's recovery to start circulating throughout the remnants of their community. Why was it that his own son made a full recovery, while their family and friends had died en mass? Whispers about his involvement with the black market spread like wildfire - after all, the only cure for the disease was pokemon DNA, and the only ones who had access to such a thing were those who had ties to either Epispect or the Black Market. People who once looked to Kouki's father for relief now saw him as the worst kind of traitor, who let their families die but was willing to make a deal with the devil to save his own son. Fearing that the rumors would catch Epispect's attention, Dr. Hidaka saw no choice but to abandon the clinic and flee, taking his wife and son with him.
  
  Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, given the events that followed, his contact from the Black Market was able to set him up with another practice far from their old home in the Canopy, deep within the bowels of The Jungle. Here, Dr. Hidaka and several other "doctors" either hired or coerced into cooperation by the Black Market performed countless illegal pokemon DNA infusion surgeries in a dirty, run-down back-alley hospital.
  
  The whole move was a jarring experience for both Kouki and his mother, especially since the former was still recovering from his close encounter with death. Fleeing for your life is stressful enough as it is, but adding to that the physical strain the changes his body was going through and the mental strain of realizing that he had lost most of his friends and would never see the others again, and you had a royal mess on your hands. The fact that he was forbidden from so much as stepping a foot outside the seedy hospital for fear that someone would snatch him up for the pokemon DNA in his body didn't help the situation at all.
  
  And yet, life goes on, and no matter how trapped you feel you can't stop the world from turning.
  
  Unable to go outside, Kouki spent most of his time in his tiny room up above the hospital's main floor during the following months. During that time, he gradually discovered that he had...changed, somehow, since he got sick. For once thing, his once-green eyes had changed and darkened to a deep crimson, and for another his body was always warm, no matter how cold it was in the barren halls of the hospital. He also found that when he accidentally touched a candle's flame, it still hurt, but at the same time it hurt less...in fact, it felt kind of good, and made him feel energized somehow. Perhaps the most drastic change, though, was that he found that he could breathe short bursts of fire when shocked or scared. With nothing else to amuse him or distract him from the mess his life had become, now that he was forced to leave his happy childhood behind, he quickly latched on to these new found abilities and threw himself into learning how to control them. At first, it was just a way to pass the time, but as the boy's control of these newfound powers increased, he spent every waking moment and all his energy learning how to use them.
  
  
• While Kouki spent the next few years sharpening his abilities, the relationships in his family started deteriorating. His mother, though she had also wanted desperately to save her son at the time, now saw his powers as freakish and unnerving. He had been a normal boy before all this happened, but now? Now he acted like some kind of recluse, shutting himself away for days at a time to practice his attacks. What if he lost control and burned the whole building down around them? The thought of her son laughing while the hospital burned around him, flames reflecting off his strange, red eyes terrified her. Her relationship with her husband wasn't much better, and she grew resentful toward him for ousting them from their meager but comfortable home in The Canopy. For while their home before was tiny, out of repair, and occasionally dangerous, here in The Jungle even setting foot outside your door could get you killed, especially if Epispect discovered them.
  
  And then there was Kouki's father, who had changed so much after the virus incident that Kouki could barely recognize the man he had become. At first, he grieved over the fact that he was unable to save his other patients when they were sick, but that grief seemed to fade all too quickly once he realized that he what he earned through his Black Market dealings was more than he ever did at his previous clinic. He couldn't save people back then because he was poor, but now? Now he was bringing in money, and he didn't even have to worry about "saving" anyone as most of his new patients were just seeking transfusions to gain power. Forgetting that the Black Market would never let him leave, he began performing as many illegal procedures as possible, hoping that if he saved enough he could pay off his debt to the Black Market, move to one of the more civilized areas of the city, and open up a legit clinic once more. People died more often than survived his operations, but who cared? They were just worthless pieces of gutter trash, and no one would miss them now that they were gone.
  
  His transformation from a kind, caring doctor into a half-crazed man who only cared about money disgusted Kouki the older he grew. By the time he was in his early teens, he had seen countless people enter through the hospital doors for their illegal treatments, and while he'd seen plenty leave as newly created gijinka, he saw just as many - if not more - corpses tossed out the back with the other trash after the doctors extracted the last bits of pokemon DNA with them. Sometimes, their Black Market contacts would even bring in gijinka from other parts of the city to "harvest" the DNA from their bodies to bolster the Black Market's supplies.
  
  It made Kouki sick, and he wasn't the only one; unable to stand the monsters her husband and son had become in their own different ways, his mother committed suicide one night shortly after he turned fourteen. That, more than anything else, was the final nail in the coffin of Kouki's relationship with his father. True, his mother hadn't said a civil word to him in years, but she was still his mother! And while it had been partially his fault for "being a monster," Kouki laid all the blame for it on his dad. The man was more of a monster than he ever was, as far as Kouki was concerned. No human being could just throw away lives like they were nothing, and no man would toss his wife's body out the back door like it was a piece of garbage!
  
  The morning after Kouki's mother died, he punched his father in the face, called him a fucking asshole, and stormed out the door. He never looked back.
  
  
• Life on The Jungle's streets was a difficult one, especially for a illegal gijinka who had to constantly be on guard for Epispect's agents or Black Market operatives wanting to get their hands on some more pokemon DNA. He learned quickly to keep to himself, say as little about himself as possible when forced to interact, and not use the powers he was so proud of unless he was in a serious fight. He also learned that even normal, harmless looking slum-dwellers weren't to be trusted: one night, he offered to share the empty building he was crashing in with a scrawny kid half his size, and the brat pulled a knife on him and nearly mugged him. Kouki escaped with just the scar on his chest, while the kid ran off with most of his food and supplies. After that, he was never dumb enough to let his guard down around anyone else...at least, not as Kouki.
  
  It was after he managed to fight his way back up to The Canopy that he crafted a fake history and name, hoping that it would throw off anyone who might either know his father from down below or still remembered his days in The Canopy. He would act shy and oblivious around others, but it was an act he maintained to catch them off-guard if they tried to stab him in the back, in which case he'd turn the tables on them. As "Mitsuki," he started taking jobs here and there throughout The Canopy, such as delivering messages or helping some of the few struggling shops that managed to stay open there do inventory. He didn't earn much, but sometimes he would get a place to stay as long as he worked there instead, or get paid in food. Either way, it wasn't a comfortable life, but it was survivable and infinitely better than staying down below for extended periods of time.
  
  Soon after leaving The Jungle, he managed to find a sword in an old pile of junk, which was a downright miraculous turn of good fortune considering that people rarely overlooked anything that valuable. That said, he decided to live by the rule "finder's keepers," and took the weapon for his own. It's been with him ever since, and is useful both for its intended purpose - "cutting assholes to pieces" as he puts it - and as an intimidation tactic. He also purchased his current outfit and contact lenses on a rare venture into the "dignified" part of Aether city, blowing most of the money he'd managed to scratch up in the process.
  
  It was about a year after he left home that he began having strange periods where he would suddenly forget everything about himself and start acting like "Mitsuki," the alias he made up to keep others from finding out the truth about him. It was extremely strange at first - one minute, he'd be wandering around under the impression that he was a human boy named Mitsuki, and then he'd suddenly remember that he wasn't, returning to his true self. Oddly enough, while Kouki remembers everything that happened to Mitsuki, Mitsuki has no idea that Kouki even exists, blaming the gaps in his memory on some kind of amnesia. At first, it was really unnerving to Kouki, realizing that he wasn't always in control of his body, especially when his other personality was such a soft-hearted moron. After a while, though, he learned to accept it, and is content to let Mitsuki "borrow" their body for extended periods of time so that he can rest, surfacing again when the idiot lands himself in trouble.

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P L A Y E R I N F O

★ OOC NAME: Cori
★ AGE: Twenty-One
★ OTHER CHARACTERS: I'm planning on another gijinka, yes. And then maybe a human so that there's actually some humans up in here. ^-^'
★ RP SAMPLE:

I didn't like this post when I read it, but...I kind of do now? XD

“Haru! Weisheng, Bracelet!” Cecille yelled in alarm, eyes widening as Daemon’s Evil Flapping attack sped towards her partner and her friends, the dark cloud of miasma engulfing them - at least, that’s how it looked from where she was, unable to clearly see the tunnel Bracelet’s attack created, saving group from suffering most of the damage. In her worry, the little tamer did not notice the strange light suddenly filling the chamber, its pure glow clashing with the twisted light cast by the evil flames. But the intensity of the light grew with every short second and suddenly burst in greater intensity than ever before from the wall behind her, catching Cecille’s attention despite her panic. It was almost like her body turned on its own, searching for the source of this unidentified light: a piece of the wall, one of the sections unmarked by the huge carvings etched deeply into the surrounding stone. Almost as soon as her eyes locked on the object it burst from the wall, shrinking into a tiny glowing square as it broke free to drift down toward Cecille with a strange tranquility that was at odds with the battle raging on just across the room.

The tamer stared at the object with wide eyes, vivid blue light reflecting on blue irises, wondering what the strange object could be and why it seemed to be drawing her toward it. Before she realized what she was doing the girl had hopped to her feet, wobbling slightly as blood dripped down her injured right arm, with her fist still clenched tightly around her Digivice, dropped the knife from her uninjured left hand and cupped it beneath the object, the light gently illuminating her palm at odds with the metallic clatter as the knife hit the floor. Then it too fell, whatever power was keeping it afloat vanishing as it landed gently in her waiting hand. Peering closer at the object, Cecille noticed that there was some kind of symbol on the square’s surface similar to a cross but with the addition of four triangles occupying the usually empty areas created by the cross’s limbs. ”What is this?” She asked no one in particular as she stared at the crest, awed but unaware of the trinket’s true significance. The glow faded away slightly as she spoke, shifting from brilliant blue to a calm grey, though with the fires raging on close by she could still see the strange carvings on the wall above her clearly. They depicted familiar scenes, the images practically mirroring the events of the past few minutes with almost disturbing accuracy - a circle of flames, digimon offered to the flames as sacrifices to give them power, and a cloaked figure turning into a winged demon. But there were other pictures as well: one of the demon turning into a vast darkness to consume everything, and another that was nearly unreadable...the only thing that Cecille could see beneath the deep gashes marring that section of the wall’s section was a depiction of water. Water to wash away the flames? But even with the room illuminated the way it was, Cecille could see no sign of water, other than the glistening wet walls.

Strange.... the girl thought as she narrowed her eyes at the wall, wondering how it could be so damp when the evil flames were burning away, heating the room with malevolence. Before she could contemplate the out of place dampness, however, Daemon’s laughter brought her crashing back to reality. The tamer spun on her heel, the strange carvings and the equally strange little square gripped tightly in her hand momentarily forgotten as she dashed back toward the fray, mentally admonishing herself for getting distracted so easily by something as stupid as wall carvings. Dimly she registered Daemon’s ranting - to her it sounded like he was just repeating his previous rants about how they were going to die...sure, the mega looked like a child’s absolute worst nightmare come alive, comparable in form to Satan himself, but he sure wasn’t the original when it came to his villainous taunts. But that was not captured her attention at all when her eyes met the battlefield scene once more, oh no.

All she could see was her partner, crushed beneath one of the goat-headed demon’s massive fists.

Haru struggled feebly beneath the behemoth's vast hand, his crushed wings convulsing beneath him weakly as he tried to push the creature off, but to no avail; the demon was much stronger, strong enough that he could crush the Buraimon like a Tentomon if he so desired, though for the moment he just kept him pinned. His whole body hurt, the immense pressure crushing his bones while the aftermath of the Evil Flapping attack continued to wreak havoc on his insides. It felt like someone took a match and lit it on his throat before dropping it into his lungs, only much, much worse. A shriek of pain tore from his throat, an inhuman cry like that of an eagle. It echoed eerily in the massive chamber, the anguish in the sound causing shivers down his tamer’s spine.

“Haru!” Cecille’s terrified shout nearly matched her partner’s in volume, her eyes wide with fear as she raced forward, trying to go to his side. Of course running toward the giant monsters trying to kill you instead of getting the hell away was a Very Bad Idea, but the panic clutching painfully at Cecille’s chest overpowered any reason. All she knew was that she had to get back to Haru, and she had to do it now.

“No, stay back!” Haru yelled, straining his neck as he tried to shoot his partner a warning glare, but it was already too late. No sooner had he yelled than his partner was nearing his side, and for just once he wondered if Cecille did not have a secret death wish with the way she kept rushing into danger no matter how he tried to keep her out of it. Oh for the love of - why can’t she just stay put?! He thought as he continued to struggle, but the results were the same as before: there was no escape from the great demon’s crushing hand. “Ugh, get away from here before it’s too late!”

“Like hell I’m going anywhere! We’re partners, damnit!” Cecille shouted at her partner, eyes flashing defiantly as she came to a halt not far from where Mephistomon had Haru pinned to the floor. “So you can’t just tell me to leave you behind, you idiot!” Her voice was angry as she spoke; angry, but a bit hurt that after how she worried about him, Haru would tell her to just run away. Well she would never abandon him like that - giant demons be damned - and he was just going to have to learn that the hard way! Whether he liked it or not, they were together, and he had no right to go acting like a knight making his last stand so some wimpy-ass princess could flee the scene. She already said they were not going to die here, so dying was out of the question, simple as that! That’s right, I’m not going to let either of us die like this, not if I can help it somehow!

[/color] The petite tamer thought desperately, her hands balling into tight little firsts at her side, her nails - and something else in her left hand, something that she had quickly forgotten in her panic that was starting to glow again with a steadfast grey light that leaked unnoticed from between her fingers - digging into her palms.

Before she could say anything else or her partner could answer, however, Daemon’s sinister voice boomed from his fanged maw once more, and this time the little tamer heard his taunts loud and clear. How could they care? What did it matter? The fact of the matter was that he was trying to kill them, so of course she wasn’t going to sit there and just let it happen! And there were people out there, people in the Digital World and back home in the human world that she wanted to protect, so succumbing to destruction was out of the question. How the hell could a future created by this ranting lunatic be better than what we have today? The worlds may be flawed, but they are still full of good people along with the bad, people who struggle and fight every day to live their lives how they want, regardless of the chaos, despite the pain and suffering in their lives. What makes him think he can just come along and decide to erase it all?![/color] She thought furiously, her grip tightening on her Digivice and the strange object, glaring up at Daemon with unadulterated rage. Her slight frame practically trembled with it, while her lips curled into a snarl.

“Argh, would you just-” She began, intent on telling Daemon just where he could shove his “die for a better future” crap before a different voice cut in and silenced hers. A familiar voice, but with a more vicious edge to it than she ever heard before.

“OH SHUT UP!!!!” Weshing yelled, cutting her own shout short, the raw anger in the boy’s voice scathing enough that it turned Cecille’s head. Light pulsed from her friend’s digivice similar to when Haru digivolved, but to her shock, this was not the pure light she saw then - it was a warped, dark gray bordering on black. “What’s going-” she asked incredulously, before his yelling silenced her again, ordering Mephistomon to let his partner go. The energy from his digivice poured into his partner, fueled by his darker feelings as he ranted at the massive demon. And while she agreed with most of what he had to say, there was something...disturbing about the way spat out the words. While Cecille had only met the boy twice, she got the impression that he was a quiet, gentle kind of guy, not someone who could declare with a dark chuckle that he would drench the walls with his enemy’s blood. It was just damn eerie, sending sending a few shivers down the girl’s spine. But there was no time to ponder the sudden unnerving change in the boy; too much was happening at once. Daemon’s attack was crashing in, the dark, warped energy was curling in a hellish shroud around Bracelet’s body, and Haru was still struggling beneath Mephistomon’s other hand, and if she didn’t do something now they would both...no, she would not think that way!

Come on, Cecille, do something! She thought, desperately, eyes widening to the point where all she could see was Daemon’s fist as it shot down -

- and, as if responding to her need to fight back, the object in her hand and her Digivice both lit up in an explosion of light, the rays nearly blinding the tamer while she blinked in confusion. Cautiously she unclenched her hand to see the object shining as brightly as it had when it first appeared, and that the symbol etched on its surface was replicated on her palm with how tightly she gripped the thing. Again, she felt that calm energy flowing through her, steeling her nerves as the light from the two objects mingled and intertwined before shooting toward her pinned partner. Light raced across his limbs, covering gold feathers and crimson cloth alike in a bright glow, hiding the champion’s features from sight. His swords disintegrated into shimmering data fragments where they lay before blowing away like dust in the wind, and the silhouette of his hands gripping the Mephistomon’s massive one. With a new found strength, Haru heaved the giant paw off of him and leaped away from the beast, the glow that surrounded him expanding and shifting into a new, taller shape: one with massive wings that curved out behind him and what appeared to be horns curving upward from its head. But the light engulfing her partner began to dissipate and Cecille had to correct herself - those were no horns, but part of the helmet that adorned the head of this new form of Haru’s, obscuring his facial features from sight with a metallic mask. In fact, much like Bracelet’s champion form this Digimon seemed to be made entirely out of armor, from the helmet on his head and the dangerously sharp looking spikes on his shoulders to the enormous wings flaring out protectively behind him as he stood in the way of Daemon’s attack, clawed blue hands outstretched in front of him. Another bright light appeared between them which transformed into a strange weapon that the new Digimon held up defensively in his taloned fists. The handle alone was nearly as long as Haru was tall, and the blade on the end was half that length again, its cutting edge glittering dangerously in the chamber’s wicked light. Last to form was a bright pink cape, materializing in a shower of data from the ultimate’s shoulders as he stood protectively over his partner while bracing for the oncoming attack.

Butenmon was here now, but would his might be enough to protect both himself and his partner? [/blockquote]

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