❰ APP: DISCEDO ❱
Name: Kaye
LJ: aetherae
E-Mail: twisting.lilac[@]gmail.com
IM: AIM: monotone days
Characters played at Discedo: Chihiro Shindou (allephoria), Marta Lualdi (remnantstrike)
Character's Name: Shiki Ryougi
Series: Kara no Kyoukai
Timeline: between Movie 1: Overlooking View (September 1998) and Movie 5: Paradox Spiral (November 1998)
Canon Resource Link: Kara no Kyoukai wikiThe Ryougi family has the supernatural ability of being born with dual personalities in order to gain multiple skills (i.e. one focuses on acting normally and taking care of family matters, the other focuses on fighting and such). As the heir is usually male, they are raised as the dominant "yang" personality while the female is called the "yin" personality. However, Shiki's older brother did not have a second personality, so she was raised as the heir instead. Shiki (式) is the dominant personality while her male self, SHIKI (織), is the recessive. It is easy to tell who is who both by their personalities and their way of speech; Shiki refers to herself with the gender-neutral pronoun "watashi" while SHIKI uses the male pronoun "ore". Together they are called "United Independent Personalities" as instead of the usual split personalities not being aware of each other, both Shiki and SHIKI are aware of each others’ existence and can communicate with each other.
During her year as a freshman in high school, she met and eventually befriended Mikiya Kokutou (of course, it was more of him persistently talking to Shiki and her eventually accepting him than actually befriending him). Around the same time, mysterious and gruesome murders began happening around the city. Evidence pointed towards Shiki being the murderer, and she even warned Kokutou several times that she was dangerous and should stay away from her. However, he refused to do so, even after meeting SHIKI and receiving the same message, and continued to be her and SHIKI's friend. He even attempted to visit her to make sure she was safe. It would eventually turn out that this was a bad idea as during one of his attempted visits, Shiki came out and tried to kill him. In the end, she chose not to and ran away from him, unfortunately straight into the road. A truck then hit her, sending her into a coma for the next two years.
When she finally woke up, there were two things she noticed: 1) Shiki could no longer feel SHIKI's presense inside her, and 2) lines and dots appeared over everything she could see, and when she touched them the objects they covered died. Frightened, confused, and utterly alone, she attempted to gouge her eyes out in a fit of terror. She then met Touko Aozaki, self-proclaimed therapist and magus in actual truth. She offered to teach Shiki how to properly use her eyes, revealed to be the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, and after some hardships Shiki agrees. As of now she formally works for Touko with Kokutou in the Garan no Dou agency, a kind of detective agency that only takes cases regarding the supernatural.
Personality: Shiki is a very complex character. Back when she still had SHIKI inside her, she was mostly a brooding, overly-polite, and distant kind of person. She had absolutely no interest in other human beings. However, when Mikiya Kokutou managed to befriend her, she actually felt something kind of... special for him. Unfortunately, due to her lack of knowledge regarding human interaction, Shiki had no idea what kind of feeling this was while SHIKI interpreted it as wanting to kill him. Despite what she eventually attempted to do, she cared about him enough to want to try and "save" him by telling him to stay away from her. When she actually does try to kill him, both she and SHIKI realize that they can't bring themselves to actually do it-he was like a dream for them, accepting them both for who they were. Determined to keep him safe, they then let themselves get run over to try and take themselves out of his life.
Fast-forward to two years later, and Shiki wakes up in a hospital alone. When she realizes that SHIKI is no longer with her, she flips out. She has never been without her other self, and the thought of it is absolutely terrifying. With SHIKI dead now, there's a distinct mental separation between herself now and herself from the past-a memory gap due to not having SHIKI's memories anymore for one thing, but also not feeling like the female Shiki despite knowing that she is her. While she knows that she is her, she simply can't make the emotional connection because compared to her "incomplete" self of the present, she was "complete" in the past; she is empty now. To make up for this she attempts to recreate SHIKI by speaking in a more masculine way while acting as the female Shiki would, i.e. being standoffish, cold, distant, etc.
Overall she appears to be a rather apathetic person. Most sights that would disturb or frighten people only get a passing glance from her. Her reaction to getting her arm twisted and dragged by ghost-like spirits? Glaring at it from irritation more than pain and cutting it off! A horribly disfigured and bleeding corpse on the ground? Just walk around it! The closer you get to her though, the more... well, not normal, but approachable she is. She's too sarcastic and cold to be considered friendly, but she's not beyond finishing someone's punchlines and lightly teasing them. As disinterested as she is in other people, she can make lasting connections with them.
One of the conditions in working for Touko was being allowed to kill. Along with adopting SHIKI's way of talking, she also began to develop his murderous intent as her own. That is to say, Shiki is a somewhat violent person. She knows how to act proper and behave in proper society, but she also won't hesitate to use force and violence if something stands in her way. Given a good enough opponent, she's never one to turn down a fight. Basically, she's violent but not aggressive; you won't see her actively trying to pick a fight with someone. However, despite her violent tendencies, she also has a great respect for death. Part of it is from being able to see death with her eyes, but it's also partly because of her grandfather's last words to her. He told her that a person could only kill one person in their entire life: themself. Since then she has made a distinct separation between murder, slaughter, and massacre in her mind, with only one of them being even remotely close to acceptable, as well as taking care not to kill human beings. Everything else is fair game though-whether you're a spirit or a magus that was once human, she doesn't care. Granted, that doesn't mean she's going to go out of her way to save people; watching someone kill themselves doesn't particularly bother her, nor does watching others get attacked.
Above all, Shiki loves Mikiya Kokutou. Sure, she's now capable of interacting and befriending other people-even liking them-but almost everything she does is in one way or another for him. Besides her respect for death, she tries not to kill people so as not to disappoint Kokutou. In a case during July of 1998, she goes after Fujino Asagami when he tells her that she is a friend and that he wants to help her as what she's doing saddens him; she even opts out of killing her and destroys her appendicitis instead. During September, she went after a ghost on a murder-spree because she felt it was trying to take Kokutou away from her. To put it simply, she is extremely protective of him, almost possessive even, and refuses to see him come to harm in any way.
Powers & Abilities: › MYSTIC EYES OF DEATH PERCEPTION
Shiki's most powerful weapon, and her only supernatural one. They allow her to perceive the inherent mortality, or death, of theoretically anything and everything that exists, in the form of lines and dots. Tracing or cutting the line will damage the target, usually resulting in cutting, cracking, or falling apart. Piercing a dot effectively erases the target's entire existence, thereby killing it; this death is apparently so absolute that said target cannot be revived in any way, not even through reincarnation. However, the older something is, the more "existence" it has amassed, thus making it more difficult to kill; finding the "death dot" takes a longer time and more concentration. They can still be found, but it just takes more effort. According to magus Souren Araya, she could find the "death dot" of anything as long as she tried hard enough. Basically, Shiki really can kill anything, from a person to intangible magic to thoughts to even God (or so she claims), so long as it exists.
› SELF-SUGGESTION
As the heir to the Ryougi family, Shiki has been trained in numerous forms of self-defense, most extensively sword-wielding. This particular skill has been trained so far that wielding a Japanese katana will induce a sort of self-hypnosis, greatly increasing her mental and physical capabilities. For example, when armed with a knife, her usual weapon, crossing a distance of three meters is a fairly easy task. However, should she be armed with a katana instead, her range instantly triples to nine meters.
› AKASHA
The way in which one gains the Mystic Eyes of Depth Perception is by having some kind of connection to death while still being alive. For Shiki, the death of SHIKI is what gives her this connection. However, what makes them so infinitely powerful is the fact that she is actually the avatar of what is called 'Akasha,' the 'Root,' or most accurately " " (quoted empty space) from which all things are created from. Basically, every single person has something called an 'Origin' that directs their lives in some way or form. For example, if one's Origin is consumption, then their past lives have almost entirely been made up of predators and they may even take up cannibalism at some point in the future if they're human. Shiki's Origin is void/emptiness, essentially Akasha; while she was always disinterested in humans by herself, this quality is what made her empty inside. As the avatar of Akasha, she actually houses a third personality, that being Akasha itself. This personality claims that it could easily recreate reality on a whim, and considering what it is that is definitely true; however, it is disinterested in practically everything and remains dormant within Shiki.
› OTHER
Along with knife-fighting and sword-wielding, she is proficient in hand-to-hand combat, ranging from nerve strikes to kicks strong enough to knock someone out to tearing a magical barrier with her bare hands. She also possesses a great amount of self-discipline, enough to endure the pain of having her arm twisted and broken in midair. After being so completely and utterly ruined, she had said arm replaced with a prosthetic one that has the ability to grab objects from a distance, along with objects that can't usually be grabbed such as ghosts, spirits, and barriers. This prosthetic arm is amazingly durable; it's creator stated that it would take an elephant stepping on it to be destroyed.
What items will they be bringing with them? The clothes on her back, her red jacket, and her knife.
Third-Person Sample: It was late afternoon, the setting sun dying the streets a dark orange. Most of the buildings were either abandoned or run-down in this part of the city, so seeing other people walking about was unlikely. Touko initially insisted that she go late at night so that there would be less of a chance of other people seeing her, but Shiki couldn't care less; she wanted this case done and taken care of. The thought of fighting this so-called ghost-of cutting and breaking and killing-should have been enough to excite her, but all it took was thinking about Kokutou lying comatose on the couch for her mood to sour.
Initially, the case hadn't interested her. Of course, not many did beyond the promise of a good fight. It was something about high school girls and suicides and a building, but the details hadn't mattered. As far as she was concerned, suicide itself was stupid. Those girls hadn't even been in control of themselves, so it hardly counted as suicide. And yet, that was starting to concern her the most; if this ghost was controlling people to make them commit suicide, then what if it could to the same to Kokutou? That coma of his was because of this damn ghost, and who knew what it wanted to do with him.
"Tch," she muttered to herself, "what a pain in the ass. He owes me for this."
But that was when she saw something in the distance-a body, falling, straight from the top of the building. Panic rose within her, and she made a beeline for it in a vain attempt to save it. There was no way, it couldn't be-!
"Kokutou! Kokuto-!!"
It landed headfirst, a sickening smash as blood seeped out all around it. When she got there, panting and breathless, she let out a small sigh of relief. It wasn't him. He was still alive, back at Touko's office. Glaring up at the building, she got out her knife and made her way in. This proved that there really was something up with this building, and she'd be damned before she let some lousy ghost take Kokutou away from her.
First-Person Sample: [When the feed turns on, Shiki is standing over the body of a monster she has apparently killed, some of its blood splattered across her body. If she's bothered by this, she definitely doesn't show it. It seems like she tossed aside the communicator when she started fighting, and she sighs as she walks back to pick it up.]
Oi, these monsters are way too easy to kill, not to mention annoying. If they're going to attack me, they should at least put up a decent fight. I don't even have my, ah... 'powers' here, right? These things have a handicap, and it's still easy.
[She seems satisfied with that and is about to switch it off, but at the last second she seems to remember something. Apparently, the appropriate response to this thought is to glare rather coldly at the communicator.]
Whoever keeps giving me ice cream, quit it. I hate sweet stuff. Tch, you're almost as irritating as that guy.
LJ: aetherae
E-Mail: twisting.lilac[@]gmail.com
IM: AIM: monotone days
Characters played at Discedo: Chihiro Shindou (allephoria), Marta Lualdi (remnantstrike)
Character's Name: Shiki Ryougi
Series: Kara no Kyoukai
Timeline: between Movie 1: Overlooking View (September 1998) and Movie 5: Paradox Spiral (November 1998)
Canon Resource Link: Kara no Kyoukai wikiThe Ryougi family has the supernatural ability of being born with dual personalities in order to gain multiple skills (i.e. one focuses on acting normally and taking care of family matters, the other focuses on fighting and such). As the heir is usually male, they are raised as the dominant "yang" personality while the female is called the "yin" personality. However, Shiki's older brother did not have a second personality, so she was raised as the heir instead. Shiki (式) is the dominant personality while her male self, SHIKI (織), is the recessive. It is easy to tell who is who both by their personalities and their way of speech; Shiki refers to herself with the gender-neutral pronoun "watashi" while SHIKI uses the male pronoun "ore". Together they are called "United Independent Personalities" as instead of the usual split personalities not being aware of each other, both Shiki and SHIKI are aware of each others’ existence and can communicate with each other.
During her year as a freshman in high school, she met and eventually befriended Mikiya Kokutou (of course, it was more of him persistently talking to Shiki and her eventually accepting him than actually befriending him). Around the same time, mysterious and gruesome murders began happening around the city. Evidence pointed towards Shiki being the murderer, and she even warned Kokutou several times that she was dangerous and should stay away from her. However, he refused to do so, even after meeting SHIKI and receiving the same message, and continued to be her and SHIKI's friend. He even attempted to visit her to make sure she was safe. It would eventually turn out that this was a bad idea as during one of his attempted visits, Shiki came out and tried to kill him. In the end, she chose not to and ran away from him, unfortunately straight into the road. A truck then hit her, sending her into a coma for the next two years.
When she finally woke up, there were two things she noticed: 1) Shiki could no longer feel SHIKI's presense inside her, and 2) lines and dots appeared over everything she could see, and when she touched them the objects they covered died. Frightened, confused, and utterly alone, she attempted to gouge her eyes out in a fit of terror. She then met Touko Aozaki, self-proclaimed therapist and magus in actual truth. She offered to teach Shiki how to properly use her eyes, revealed to be the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, and after some hardships Shiki agrees. As of now she formally works for Touko with Kokutou in the Garan no Dou agency, a kind of detective agency that only takes cases regarding the supernatural.
Personality: Shiki is a very complex character. Back when she still had SHIKI inside her, she was mostly a brooding, overly-polite, and distant kind of person. She had absolutely no interest in other human beings. However, when Mikiya Kokutou managed to befriend her, she actually felt something kind of... special for him. Unfortunately, due to her lack of knowledge regarding human interaction, Shiki had no idea what kind of feeling this was while SHIKI interpreted it as wanting to kill him. Despite what she eventually attempted to do, she cared about him enough to want to try and "save" him by telling him to stay away from her. When she actually does try to kill him, both she and SHIKI realize that they can't bring themselves to actually do it-he was like a dream for them, accepting them both for who they were. Determined to keep him safe, they then let themselves get run over to try and take themselves out of his life.
Fast-forward to two years later, and Shiki wakes up in a hospital alone. When she realizes that SHIKI is no longer with her, she flips out. She has never been without her other self, and the thought of it is absolutely terrifying. With SHIKI dead now, there's a distinct mental separation between herself now and herself from the past-a memory gap due to not having SHIKI's memories anymore for one thing, but also not feeling like the female Shiki despite knowing that she is her. While she knows that she is her, she simply can't make the emotional connection because compared to her "incomplete" self of the present, she was "complete" in the past; she is empty now. To make up for this she attempts to recreate SHIKI by speaking in a more masculine way while acting as the female Shiki would, i.e. being standoffish, cold, distant, etc.
Overall she appears to be a rather apathetic person. Most sights that would disturb or frighten people only get a passing glance from her. Her reaction to getting her arm twisted and dragged by ghost-like spirits? Glaring at it from irritation more than pain and cutting it off! A horribly disfigured and bleeding corpse on the ground? Just walk around it! The closer you get to her though, the more... well, not normal, but approachable she is. She's too sarcastic and cold to be considered friendly, but she's not beyond finishing someone's punchlines and lightly teasing them. As disinterested as she is in other people, she can make lasting connections with them.
One of the conditions in working for Touko was being allowed to kill. Along with adopting SHIKI's way of talking, she also began to develop his murderous intent as her own. That is to say, Shiki is a somewhat violent person. She knows how to act proper and behave in proper society, but she also won't hesitate to use force and violence if something stands in her way. Given a good enough opponent, she's never one to turn down a fight. Basically, she's violent but not aggressive; you won't see her actively trying to pick a fight with someone. However, despite her violent tendencies, she also has a great respect for death. Part of it is from being able to see death with her eyes, but it's also partly because of her grandfather's last words to her. He told her that a person could only kill one person in their entire life: themself. Since then she has made a distinct separation between murder, slaughter, and massacre in her mind, with only one of them being even remotely close to acceptable, as well as taking care not to kill human beings. Everything else is fair game though-whether you're a spirit or a magus that was once human, she doesn't care. Granted, that doesn't mean she's going to go out of her way to save people; watching someone kill themselves doesn't particularly bother her, nor does watching others get attacked.
Above all, Shiki loves Mikiya Kokutou. Sure, she's now capable of interacting and befriending other people-even liking them-but almost everything she does is in one way or another for him. Besides her respect for death, she tries not to kill people so as not to disappoint Kokutou. In a case during July of 1998, she goes after Fujino Asagami when he tells her that she is a friend and that he wants to help her as what she's doing saddens him; she even opts out of killing her and destroys her appendicitis instead. During September, she went after a ghost on a murder-spree because she felt it was trying to take Kokutou away from her. To put it simply, she is extremely protective of him, almost possessive even, and refuses to see him come to harm in any way.
Powers & Abilities: › MYSTIC EYES OF DEATH PERCEPTION
Shiki's most powerful weapon, and her only supernatural one. They allow her to perceive the inherent mortality, or death, of theoretically anything and everything that exists, in the form of lines and dots. Tracing or cutting the line will damage the target, usually resulting in cutting, cracking, or falling apart. Piercing a dot effectively erases the target's entire existence, thereby killing it; this death is apparently so absolute that said target cannot be revived in any way, not even through reincarnation. However, the older something is, the more "existence" it has amassed, thus making it more difficult to kill; finding the "death dot" takes a longer time and more concentration. They can still be found, but it just takes more effort. According to magus Souren Araya, she could find the "death dot" of anything as long as she tried hard enough. Basically, Shiki really can kill anything, from a person to intangible magic to thoughts to even God (or so she claims), so long as it exists.
› SELF-SUGGESTION
As the heir to the Ryougi family, Shiki has been trained in numerous forms of self-defense, most extensively sword-wielding. This particular skill has been trained so far that wielding a Japanese katana will induce a sort of self-hypnosis, greatly increasing her mental and physical capabilities. For example, when armed with a knife, her usual weapon, crossing a distance of three meters is a fairly easy task. However, should she be armed with a katana instead, her range instantly triples to nine meters.
› AKASHA
The way in which one gains the Mystic Eyes of Depth Perception is by having some kind of connection to death while still being alive. For Shiki, the death of SHIKI is what gives her this connection. However, what makes them so infinitely powerful is the fact that she is actually the avatar of what is called 'Akasha,' the 'Root,' or most accurately " " (quoted empty space) from which all things are created from. Basically, every single person has something called an 'Origin' that directs their lives in some way or form. For example, if one's Origin is consumption, then their past lives have almost entirely been made up of predators and they may even take up cannibalism at some point in the future if they're human. Shiki's Origin is void/emptiness, essentially Akasha; while she was always disinterested in humans by herself, this quality is what made her empty inside. As the avatar of Akasha, she actually houses a third personality, that being Akasha itself. This personality claims that it could easily recreate reality on a whim, and considering what it is that is definitely true; however, it is disinterested in practically everything and remains dormant within Shiki.
› OTHER
Along with knife-fighting and sword-wielding, she is proficient in hand-to-hand combat, ranging from nerve strikes to kicks strong enough to knock someone out to tearing a magical barrier with her bare hands. She also possesses a great amount of self-discipline, enough to endure the pain of having her arm twisted and broken in midair. After being so completely and utterly ruined, she had said arm replaced with a prosthetic one that has the ability to grab objects from a distance, along with objects that can't usually be grabbed such as ghosts, spirits, and barriers. This prosthetic arm is amazingly durable; it's creator stated that it would take an elephant stepping on it to be destroyed.
What items will they be bringing with them? The clothes on her back, her red jacket, and her knife.
Third-Person Sample: It was late afternoon, the setting sun dying the streets a dark orange. Most of the buildings were either abandoned or run-down in this part of the city, so seeing other people walking about was unlikely. Touko initially insisted that she go late at night so that there would be less of a chance of other people seeing her, but Shiki couldn't care less; she wanted this case done and taken care of. The thought of fighting this so-called ghost-of cutting and breaking and killing-should have been enough to excite her, but all it took was thinking about Kokutou lying comatose on the couch for her mood to sour.
Initially, the case hadn't interested her. Of course, not many did beyond the promise of a good fight. It was something about high school girls and suicides and a building, but the details hadn't mattered. As far as she was concerned, suicide itself was stupid. Those girls hadn't even been in control of themselves, so it hardly counted as suicide. And yet, that was starting to concern her the most; if this ghost was controlling people to make them commit suicide, then what if it could to the same to Kokutou? That coma of his was because of this damn ghost, and who knew what it wanted to do with him.
"Tch," she muttered to herself, "what a pain in the ass. He owes me for this."
But that was when she saw something in the distance-a body, falling, straight from the top of the building. Panic rose within her, and she made a beeline for it in a vain attempt to save it. There was no way, it couldn't be-!
"Kokutou! Kokuto-!!"
It landed headfirst, a sickening smash as blood seeped out all around it. When she got there, panting and breathless, she let out a small sigh of relief. It wasn't him. He was still alive, back at Touko's office. Glaring up at the building, she got out her knife and made her way in. This proved that there really was something up with this building, and she'd be damned before she let some lousy ghost take Kokutou away from her.
First-Person Sample: [When the feed turns on, Shiki is standing over the body of a monster she has apparently killed, some of its blood splattered across her body. If she's bothered by this, she definitely doesn't show it. It seems like she tossed aside the communicator when she started fighting, and she sighs as she walks back to pick it up.]
Oi, these monsters are way too easy to kill, not to mention annoying. If they're going to attack me, they should at least put up a decent fight. I don't even have my, ah... 'powers' here, right? These things have a handicap, and it's still easy.
[She seems satisfied with that and is about to switch it off, but at the last second she seems to remember something. Apparently, the appropriate response to this thought is to glare rather coldly at the communicator.]
Whoever keeps giving me ice cream, quit it. I hate sweet stuff. Tch, you're almost as irritating as that guy.