NULL.
Name: Fyre
LJ: fyretoppaaa
E-Mail: hotaru.no.tamashii[at]gmail[dot]com
IM: eighth helleluia
Character's Name: Nora
Series: Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom
Timeline: Vol. 4, Ch. 16 -- after Nora's battle with Asto/Knell
Canon Resource Link:
- General Wikipedia
- Series Wikia
Once upon a time, in the demon world, a hellhound pissed off the Dark Liege (a.k.a. Satan) by calling her ugly. Simultaneously in the human world, a bored, quasi-perfect boy named Magari Kazuma lamented his boredom. As a result, Kazuma got a pet, and Nora, a.k.a. the hellhound Cerberus, got the shock of his life.
After picking up a demon familiar in a box and a contract with the devil in the hallway of his school, Kazuma proceeds to browbeat his new dog into helping him defeat the rogue demon that happened to be rampaging through. This occasion is also the first time Cerberus is unsealed in the human world; the awe and interest of seeing what is called the greatest demon -- the vicious dog of disaster -- unleashed before his eyes prompts Kazuma to accept the Dark Liege's proposal: help put down rogue demons and the Resistance in the human world, and Nora's power is yours to command.
Unfortunately for Kazuma, Nora isn't housebroken. At all.
Unfortunately for Nora, Kazuma is the son of a mafia family, his parents are arguably insane, and so is he. He also has a pretty twisted sense of entertainment, and throughout their "partnership" (also known as Nora's various, increasingly spectacular failures at getting Kazuma to nullify their contract) continues to bait and provoke Nora by calling him names, manipulating him into doing what he wants and generally humiliating him. They do, however, start carving their way through the ranks of the Resistance more or less efficiently.
Their first real challenge is one of the Resistance unit leaders -- Knell, a demon immune to fire with a familiar of his own. Also a shameless pervert and peeping Tom extraordinaire. Unfortunately, the negative effects of hosting the Cerberus' power are beginning to tell on Kazuma; having to channel so much strong magic so quickly puts a great burden on him physically. However, it is also at this point that Kazuma displays most clearly his determination to continue the contract with Nora -- ostensibly for the thrill of controlling the greatest demon in existence.
This problem is soon rectified with the arrival of Barik -- Naval Fleet Lieutenant General of the Dark Liege Army -- with a bracelet, courtesy of the Dark Liege, to control the release and negative effects of magical power for Kazuma. Barik and Nora both having short tempers and no love lost between them (supposedly), they provoke each other straight into a fight; Kazuma takes advantage of this opportunity to have Nora improve his hand-to-hand combat abilities in an all-demons-sealed environment (it works).
Then they find out the bracelet's dogtags can nullify the "Forbid" command Kazuma frequently uses to keep Nora in line.
Source of spectacular failures #2, coming right up.
In an equally spectacular example of reverse psychology, Kazuma manipulates Nora into declaring that he will not accept the dogtags if given willingly -- that he must steal them for himself using spectacular failures ingenious machinations (such as digging holes). With that little hurdle taken care of, they hit up Knell (who is beginning to be tired of the interruptions to his flirting) for a little Q&A session about the Cerberus' background and find a fisherman instead.
The fisherman is the slacker Naval Fleet General of the Dark Liege Army Rivan, who may or may not know something about the Cerberus -- an information exchange in the form of a fishing contest ensues. Nora, being Nora, manages to provoke Rivan's famously horrible temper (a.k.a. he fucks up the weather and everything else when he's pissed) and nearly gets them all annihilated as a result. This is also, however, the occasion on which Nora figures out how to see the streams of magical energy that allow him to multiply his power by channeling it more efficiently from Kazuma and stop Rivan's rampage.
In a shocking twist of events, the vicious dog of disaster, the hellhound Cerberus of the stories, is said to have the power to destroy both the human and demon worlds in one fell swoop.
Now that Nora is actually interested in learning more about magic, streams, and the acquisition of power -- which, much to his dismay, all seem to be related to Kazuma's emotional state -- he's also shaking some of the rust off his mental gears (Kazuma finds this weird). His new resolution is tested in a battle with another Resistance unit leader -- Tyron, who can use Terra Magia to rip an abyss in the ground and crush anything inside it to death. This is also the point at which they learn about the Resistance's designs on the Dark Liege soul stones: precious stones of demonic origin scattered in the human world mixed in with many other similar ones, containing fragments of the Dark Liege's soul and the key to removing her.
And for once, Nora has a workable idea: gather all the Dark Liege soul stones, and then threaten her until she breaks off his contract with Kazuma. Bingo.
After some more run-ins with Resistance members (Keini and a blob of jelly, respectively; with the latter, Nora saves Barik from what is essentially mind control and apparently they don't dislike each other completely after all), Nora accidentally discovers that he can conveniently tell the Dark Liege soul stones apart from the other stones of demonic origin thanks to their elemental symbols (with his left eye, explained below under What your character can offer). After a few more adventures in soul stone hunting (in which a dumb dog defeated future-reading abilities by nearly blowing himself and his opponent to smithereens) and a painful reunion full of headlocks with Wind Corps General of the Dark Liege Army Bajee, the final boss makes a somewhat premature appearance for a memorable hit-and-run.
The leader of the Resistance -- mysterious guy in a mask -- proceeds to somehow break Nora's sealing spell without Kazuma's approval and send the Cerberus on a magic-sucking rampage that threatens to put the entire surrounding area in danger. For some reason Rivan, Bajee and Land Corps General Leonard (along with a few other Dark Liege people) all happen to be hanging out in the human world at the time; luckily for them, Nora rejects his alter-ego's quest to kill everything and manages, with great effort, to reseal himself before they are forced to make a concerted effort to take him down.
In the aftermath, the Dark Liege Army generals recommend that Nora and Kazuma's contract be nullified, that Nora be returned to the demon world and sealed back inside the special Elite Area for his own good. Nora, far more interested in pursuing what he's learned and lost about his self-perception, refuses -- and is allowed to remain in the human world, on the condition that he learn to create a magical weapon. This he continuously fails at (Rivan being his teacher), until the Resistance member Tyron returns to challenge him. The Resistance's previous orders had been not to make contact with the Cerberus; until now, they had gotten off lightly in their various encounters. This time, the Resistance has been given free rein, and Nora is faced with Tyron's ability to cut through any type of magic. His resolution to stand firm despite his lack of weapon (magical or otherwise, since the former continued to fail) spurs Kazuma to make his own: this provides enough impetus to their magical stream that Nora is finally able to acquire his long-sought magical weapon and send Tyron flying. At the same time, Kazuma, having been unable to do anything about Cerberus' rampage during the forced release, acts on his resolution to accept a contract with a certain information dealer and departs mysteriously to train himself.
Nora, not terribly invested in his master's fate despite his lack of magical ability without Kazuma present (since he now has a carry-along magical weapon), continues the search for the Dark Liege soul stones, and proves himself capable of holding his own against even Knell's familiar spirit Asto -- a user of powerful barrier magic that can weaken other demons' magic, and also a zombie. Knell, previously revealed to have been an ex-member of the Dark Liege Army (Fire Corps Lieutenant General, in fact), finally reveals a part of his true goals: to acquire the power of Cerberus for himself, as a familiar, dead or alive.
Personality: Not the brightest bulb in the pack -- in most senses, anyway. Everyone who knows him, including Nora himself, remarks how much he hates studying and training and overly complicated anything. His thinking, especially when he first comes to the human world, is so linear it's a wonder he doesn't run repeatedly into his own skull. He's also terrible with directions. As Nora matures throughout the series, however, Kazuma, other comrades in the Dark Liege Army as well as his own accumulating experience begin to give him a much more well-rounded brain to his brawn. As he steadily gains strength thanks to challenges from rogue demons and the Resistance, Nora also comes to realize that he does want to learn -- stronger magic such as what he's been able to do under contract, for the sake of making others acknowledge him and becoming the strongest ever as befits the hellhound Cerberus; this desire comes clear after he learns to see the magical stream under Rivan's forceful tutelage.
Unfortunately, he never does entirely get over the fundamental flaw of leaping before he looks -- though it sometimes manages to work to his advantage thanks to sheer cussed luck. He's impatient, incredibly stubborn and contrary (which makes his partnership with Kazuma more of a small-scale war), a proud, boastful loudmouth, and loses his temper at the drop of a hat -- especially when he's looked down on, called a dog or a child or otherwise belittled. And frequently, when his composure goes to hell, so does most of his sense of caution and rationality -- he's already pretty easy to manipulate (so much so that Kazuma ostensibly does it for sport), but it gets even worse when provoked.
In that vein, Nora starts out pretty naive -- he spent most of his life locked away and relatively isolated as the military secret/pet of the Dark Liege Army in their Elite Area. If his understanding of the demon world is considerably less than average as a result (he didn't know which types of demons would eat humans, though he himself considers humans unpalatable), his understanding of the human world barely existed when he was first thrown into it. He'd only ever seen humans on TV (which apparently demons have, along with cellphones and laptop computers, though they don't have trains or soda), and he refers several times throughout the series to things he saw (and evidently believed) on TV. In other words, he's pretty gullible, especially with regards to human culture (though it's shown that other demons aren't especially knowledgeable either, as one of the Resistance members didn't know what alcohol was). Kazuma takes full advantage of this culture shock.
Nora seems to have some abandonment issues; later in the series, when Kazuma learns to fight on a more equal level with him, the former (who seems to have a habit of telling others what they're really thinking) half-mocks, half-reassures Nora about not needing his strength as a partner anymore. As a child, he's scolded by Barik for rejecting a pet on the basis that it will die before him -- Nora is very much not a lone wolf (though he doesn't do too well with crowds).
On top of all that, he's also terrible at lying -- his attempts at hiding the truth fool pretty much no one at any point in the series, though he (or his luck) is fairly good at avoiding the issue. Kazuma accuses him almost immediately after they meet of being a whipped dog who runs away at the slightest excuse (this, of course, provoked Nora enough to reconsider abandoning Kazuma to possible death at the time). After the forced release and resealing of Cerberus, however, Nora comes to understand his own failings and the extent of his own willful ignorance about himself; he knows nothing at all about the Cerberus' background, his predecessors, or his own purpose. This is his second turning point (the first was the match with Rivan); it is the point at which Nora makes the decision to stop running away and to understand himself fully so that he can properly control the Cerberus' power without relying on anyone else.
What your character can offer: Nora isn't what you'd call the brightest thinker, but he can dredge up some scraps of knowledge and experience in a crisis, especially in battle situations -- he's been known to recall past lessons (despite his alleged unwillingness to learn much of anything) as well as past battle experiences and stratagems (notably Kazuma's) in a pinch and use them to his advantage.
His booksmarts may be generally acknowledged as horrendous, but Nora is a very quick hands-on learner; he learned to keep up with Barik in sealed form with just one hand-to-hand combat session and grasped the ability to see the stream of magical energy during the life-and-death face-off with Rivan after a short scolding session explanation beforehand. He also managed to keep up with Keini and her invisible strings by fighting only through his sense of the magical stream (i.e. eyes closed) thanks to a long-ago childhood lesson.
He spends most of his time in completely sealed human form in order to control his abilities as Cerberus -- his unsealings become more and more unruly as the series progresses and his power grows. In sealed form, he cannot use any magic without his master Kazuma's approval (with the exception of his magical weapon, which seems only to need the initial approval for first forming it), and usually cannot break the seal spell himself. If it is broken (whether by a special type of outside magical intervention or if his own emotions reach an extreme), however, he recovers all his magical powers as Cerberus and, when the current of his magic is strong enough, Kazuma's "Forbid" command becomes useless for stopping him. Nora's power seems to manifest itself physically in his psyche when unsealing makes him lose control of himself; first in the form of a somewhat older-looking Kazuma and then in the form of a dark hound -- what is common between the two is that it wants only for Nora to destroy everything around him and uses various psychological inducements to try and manipulate him. Cerberus' unsealed power is theoretically limitless, since it can absorb and use magical power from everything that surrounds it (it is implied that it can kill by doing this to a great enough extent); Nora's own willpower can prevent this from turning into a complete catastrophe -- in other words, he can reseal himself either by standing against the manifestation of his power, or he can be resealed when sufficiently weakened.
Special characteristics of the Cerberus include the ability to use all of the types of demon magic: Igunisu Magia (fire spells), Aqua Magia (water spells), Anemosu Magia (wind and thunder spells), Terra Magia (earth spells) and Eteru Magia (soul spells). Some examples of spells are here. Regular demons can only use spells of one or two elemental affiliations. Despite all this potential, Nora is, by self-admittance, terrible at the more complicated types of magic; especially support magic such as transport, barrier and healing -- he is never seen successfully using any of the above at any point in the series, though thanks to Kazuma, they do sometimes find ways around it (using wind spells for transport, for example). Apparently, Nora is unusual for a Cerberus because he easily learned to see the magical stream -- the current of magical energy created by any use or presence of magic; he can also apparently spot, punch and stab foreign objects from the stream. His golden eye, a characteristic of the ancient races (of which Cerberus is a mutated variety), also allows him to see unusual forms of magical energy invisible to most demons, such as the elemental symbols that denote the Dark Liege's soul stones.
Nora is pretty strong even without his magic, though his tendency to bull his way through battles usually gets him roughed up and/or in real trouble unless Kazuma or luck bails him out. The magical weapon (double-tipped spear) he succeeded in forming before Kazuma disappeared doesn't vanish unless destroyed; it can be retracted into a small cylinder and carried around. It doesn't appear to have an elemental affiliation.
What items will they be bringing with them?
• Magical weapon -- two-tipped, retractable spear marked with the symbol of Cerberus -- can be destroyed, but can also be reformed at will without master's approval (needs the ability to use magic)
• Dog collar -- used to seal the Cerberus form and control its power; always worn; also tightens to a stranglehold with Kazuma's "Forbid" command
• Fire Soul Stone -- An oval-shaped, fairly ordinary-looking small jewel; actually contains a fragment of the Dark Liege's soul; in the eyes of the ancient races, it will have an aura in the shape of the symbol for fire -- an upright triangle
LJ: fyretoppaaa
E-Mail: hotaru.no.tamashii[at]gmail[dot]com
IM: eighth helleluia
Character's Name: Nora
Series: Nora: The Last Chronicle of Devildom
Timeline: Vol. 4, Ch. 16 -- after Nora's battle with Asto/Knell
Canon Resource Link:
- General Wikipedia
- Series Wikia
Once upon a time, in the demon world, a hellhound pissed off the Dark Liege (a.k.a. Satan) by calling her ugly. Simultaneously in the human world, a bored, quasi-perfect boy named Magari Kazuma lamented his boredom. As a result, Kazuma got a pet, and Nora, a.k.a. the hellhound Cerberus, got the shock of his life.
After picking up a demon familiar in a box and a contract with the devil in the hallway of his school, Kazuma proceeds to browbeat his new dog into helping him defeat the rogue demon that happened to be rampaging through. This occasion is also the first time Cerberus is unsealed in the human world; the awe and interest of seeing what is called the greatest demon -- the vicious dog of disaster -- unleashed before his eyes prompts Kazuma to accept the Dark Liege's proposal: help put down rogue demons and the Resistance in the human world, and Nora's power is yours to command.
Unfortunately for Kazuma, Nora isn't housebroken. At all.
Unfortunately for Nora, Kazuma is the son of a mafia family, his parents are arguably insane, and so is he. He also has a pretty twisted sense of entertainment, and throughout their "partnership" (also known as Nora's various, increasingly spectacular failures at getting Kazuma to nullify their contract) continues to bait and provoke Nora by calling him names, manipulating him into doing what he wants and generally humiliating him. They do, however, start carving their way through the ranks of the Resistance more or less efficiently.
Their first real challenge is one of the Resistance unit leaders -- Knell, a demon immune to fire with a familiar of his own. Also a shameless pervert and peeping Tom extraordinaire. Unfortunately, the negative effects of hosting the Cerberus' power are beginning to tell on Kazuma; having to channel so much strong magic so quickly puts a great burden on him physically. However, it is also at this point that Kazuma displays most clearly his determination to continue the contract with Nora -- ostensibly for the thrill of controlling the greatest demon in existence.
This problem is soon rectified with the arrival of Barik -- Naval Fleet Lieutenant General of the Dark Liege Army -- with a bracelet, courtesy of the Dark Liege, to control the release and negative effects of magical power for Kazuma. Barik and Nora both having short tempers and no love lost between them (supposedly), they provoke each other straight into a fight; Kazuma takes advantage of this opportunity to have Nora improve his hand-to-hand combat abilities in an all-demons-sealed environment (it works).
Then they find out the bracelet's dogtags can nullify the "Forbid" command Kazuma frequently uses to keep Nora in line.
Source of spectacular failures #2, coming right up.
In an equally spectacular example of reverse psychology, Kazuma manipulates Nora into declaring that he will not accept the dogtags if given willingly -- that he must steal them for himself using spectacular failures ingenious machinations (such as digging holes). With that little hurdle taken care of, they hit up Knell (who is beginning to be tired of the interruptions to his flirting) for a little Q&A session about the Cerberus' background and find a fisherman instead.
The fisherman is the slacker Naval Fleet General of the Dark Liege Army Rivan, who may or may not know something about the Cerberus -- an information exchange in the form of a fishing contest ensues. Nora, being Nora, manages to provoke Rivan's famously horrible temper (a.k.a. he fucks up the weather and everything else when he's pissed) and nearly gets them all annihilated as a result. This is also, however, the occasion on which Nora figures out how to see the streams of magical energy that allow him to multiply his power by channeling it more efficiently from Kazuma and stop Rivan's rampage.
In a shocking twist of events, the vicious dog of disaster, the hellhound Cerberus of the stories, is said to have the power to destroy both the human and demon worlds in one fell swoop.
Now that Nora is actually interested in learning more about magic, streams, and the acquisition of power -- which, much to his dismay, all seem to be related to Kazuma's emotional state -- he's also shaking some of the rust off his mental gears (Kazuma finds this weird). His new resolution is tested in a battle with another Resistance unit leader -- Tyron, who can use Terra Magia to rip an abyss in the ground and crush anything inside it to death. This is also the point at which they learn about the Resistance's designs on the Dark Liege soul stones: precious stones of demonic origin scattered in the human world mixed in with many other similar ones, containing fragments of the Dark Liege's soul and the key to removing her.
And for once, Nora has a workable idea: gather all the Dark Liege soul stones, and then threaten her until she breaks off his contract with Kazuma. Bingo.
After some more run-ins with Resistance members (Keini and a blob of jelly, respectively; with the latter, Nora saves Barik from what is essentially mind control and apparently they don't dislike each other completely after all), Nora accidentally discovers that he can conveniently tell the Dark Liege soul stones apart from the other stones of demonic origin thanks to their elemental symbols (with his left eye, explained below under What your character can offer). After a few more adventures in soul stone hunting (in which a dumb dog defeated future-reading abilities by nearly blowing himself and his opponent to smithereens) and a painful reunion full of headlocks with Wind Corps General of the Dark Liege Army Bajee, the final boss makes a somewhat premature appearance for a memorable hit-and-run.
The leader of the Resistance -- mysterious guy in a mask -- proceeds to somehow break Nora's sealing spell without Kazuma's approval and send the Cerberus on a magic-sucking rampage that threatens to put the entire surrounding area in danger. For some reason Rivan, Bajee and Land Corps General Leonard (along with a few other Dark Liege people) all happen to be hanging out in the human world at the time; luckily for them, Nora rejects his alter-ego's quest to kill everything and manages, with great effort, to reseal himself before they are forced to make a concerted effort to take him down.
In the aftermath, the Dark Liege Army generals recommend that Nora and Kazuma's contract be nullified, that Nora be returned to the demon world and sealed back inside the special Elite Area for his own good. Nora, far more interested in pursuing what he's learned and lost about his self-perception, refuses -- and is allowed to remain in the human world, on the condition that he learn to create a magical weapon. This he continuously fails at (Rivan being his teacher), until the Resistance member Tyron returns to challenge him. The Resistance's previous orders had been not to make contact with the Cerberus; until now, they had gotten off lightly in their various encounters. This time, the Resistance has been given free rein, and Nora is faced with Tyron's ability to cut through any type of magic. His resolution to stand firm despite his lack of weapon (magical or otherwise, since the former continued to fail) spurs Kazuma to make his own: this provides enough impetus to their magical stream that Nora is finally able to acquire his long-sought magical weapon and send Tyron flying. At the same time, Kazuma, having been unable to do anything about Cerberus' rampage during the forced release, acts on his resolution to accept a contract with a certain information dealer and departs mysteriously to train himself.
Nora, not terribly invested in his master's fate despite his lack of magical ability without Kazuma present (since he now has a carry-along magical weapon), continues the search for the Dark Liege soul stones, and proves himself capable of holding his own against even Knell's familiar spirit Asto -- a user of powerful barrier magic that can weaken other demons' magic, and also a zombie. Knell, previously revealed to have been an ex-member of the Dark Liege Army (Fire Corps Lieutenant General, in fact), finally reveals a part of his true goals: to acquire the power of Cerberus for himself, as a familiar, dead or alive.
Personality: Not the brightest bulb in the pack -- in most senses, anyway. Everyone who knows him, including Nora himself, remarks how much he hates studying and training and overly complicated anything. His thinking, especially when he first comes to the human world, is so linear it's a wonder he doesn't run repeatedly into his own skull. He's also terrible with directions. As Nora matures throughout the series, however, Kazuma, other comrades in the Dark Liege Army as well as his own accumulating experience begin to give him a much more well-rounded brain to his brawn. As he steadily gains strength thanks to challenges from rogue demons and the Resistance, Nora also comes to realize that he does want to learn -- stronger magic such as what he's been able to do under contract, for the sake of making others acknowledge him and becoming the strongest ever as befits the hellhound Cerberus; this desire comes clear after he learns to see the magical stream under Rivan's forceful tutelage.
Unfortunately, he never does entirely get over the fundamental flaw of leaping before he looks -- though it sometimes manages to work to his advantage thanks to sheer cussed luck. He's impatient, incredibly stubborn and contrary (which makes his partnership with Kazuma more of a small-scale war), a proud, boastful loudmouth, and loses his temper at the drop of a hat -- especially when he's looked down on, called a dog or a child or otherwise belittled. And frequently, when his composure goes to hell, so does most of his sense of caution and rationality -- he's already pretty easy to manipulate (so much so that Kazuma ostensibly does it for sport), but it gets even worse when provoked.
In that vein, Nora starts out pretty naive -- he spent most of his life locked away and relatively isolated as the military secret/pet of the Dark Liege Army in their Elite Area. If his understanding of the demon world is considerably less than average as a result (he didn't know which types of demons would eat humans, though he himself considers humans unpalatable), his understanding of the human world barely existed when he was first thrown into it. He'd only ever seen humans on TV (which apparently demons have, along with cellphones and laptop computers, though they don't have trains or soda), and he refers several times throughout the series to things he saw (and evidently believed) on TV. In other words, he's pretty gullible, especially with regards to human culture (though it's shown that other demons aren't especially knowledgeable either, as one of the Resistance members didn't know what alcohol was). Kazuma takes full advantage of this culture shock.
Nora seems to have some abandonment issues; later in the series, when Kazuma learns to fight on a more equal level with him, the former (who seems to have a habit of telling others what they're really thinking) half-mocks, half-reassures Nora about not needing his strength as a partner anymore. As a child, he's scolded by Barik for rejecting a pet on the basis that it will die before him -- Nora is very much not a lone wolf (though he doesn't do too well with crowds).
On top of all that, he's also terrible at lying -- his attempts at hiding the truth fool pretty much no one at any point in the series, though he (or his luck) is fairly good at avoiding the issue. Kazuma accuses him almost immediately after they meet of being a whipped dog who runs away at the slightest excuse (this, of course, provoked Nora enough to reconsider abandoning Kazuma to possible death at the time). After the forced release and resealing of Cerberus, however, Nora comes to understand his own failings and the extent of his own willful ignorance about himself; he knows nothing at all about the Cerberus' background, his predecessors, or his own purpose. This is his second turning point (the first was the match with Rivan); it is the point at which Nora makes the decision to stop running away and to understand himself fully so that he can properly control the Cerberus' power without relying on anyone else.
What your character can offer: Nora isn't what you'd call the brightest thinker, but he can dredge up some scraps of knowledge and experience in a crisis, especially in battle situations -- he's been known to recall past lessons (despite his alleged unwillingness to learn much of anything) as well as past battle experiences and stratagems (notably Kazuma's) in a pinch and use them to his advantage.
His booksmarts may be generally acknowledged as horrendous, but Nora is a very quick hands-on learner; he learned to keep up with Barik in sealed form with just one hand-to-hand combat session and grasped the ability to see the stream of magical energy during the life-and-death face-off with Rivan after a short scolding session explanation beforehand. He also managed to keep up with Keini and her invisible strings by fighting only through his sense of the magical stream (i.e. eyes closed) thanks to a long-ago childhood lesson.
He spends most of his time in completely sealed human form in order to control his abilities as Cerberus -- his unsealings become more and more unruly as the series progresses and his power grows. In sealed form, he cannot use any magic without his master Kazuma's approval (with the exception of his magical weapon, which seems only to need the initial approval for first forming it), and usually cannot break the seal spell himself. If it is broken (whether by a special type of outside magical intervention or if his own emotions reach an extreme), however, he recovers all his magical powers as Cerberus and, when the current of his magic is strong enough, Kazuma's "Forbid" command becomes useless for stopping him. Nora's power seems to manifest itself physically in his psyche when unsealing makes him lose control of himself; first in the form of a somewhat older-looking Kazuma and then in the form of a dark hound -- what is common between the two is that it wants only for Nora to destroy everything around him and uses various psychological inducements to try and manipulate him. Cerberus' unsealed power is theoretically limitless, since it can absorb and use magical power from everything that surrounds it (it is implied that it can kill by doing this to a great enough extent); Nora's own willpower can prevent this from turning into a complete catastrophe -- in other words, he can reseal himself either by standing against the manifestation of his power, or he can be resealed when sufficiently weakened.
Special characteristics of the Cerberus include the ability to use all of the types of demon magic: Igunisu Magia (fire spells), Aqua Magia (water spells), Anemosu Magia (wind and thunder spells), Terra Magia (earth spells) and Eteru Magia (soul spells). Some examples of spells are here. Regular demons can only use spells of one or two elemental affiliations. Despite all this potential, Nora is, by self-admittance, terrible at the more complicated types of magic; especially support magic such as transport, barrier and healing -- he is never seen successfully using any of the above at any point in the series, though thanks to Kazuma, they do sometimes find ways around it (using wind spells for transport, for example). Apparently, Nora is unusual for a Cerberus because he easily learned to see the magical stream -- the current of magical energy created by any use or presence of magic; he can also apparently spot, punch and stab foreign objects from the stream. His golden eye, a characteristic of the ancient races (of which Cerberus is a mutated variety), also allows him to see unusual forms of magical energy invisible to most demons, such as the elemental symbols that denote the Dark Liege's soul stones.
Nora is pretty strong even without his magic, though his tendency to bull his way through battles usually gets him roughed up and/or in real trouble unless Kazuma or luck bails him out. The magical weapon (double-tipped spear) he succeeded in forming before Kazuma disappeared doesn't vanish unless destroyed; it can be retracted into a small cylinder and carried around. It doesn't appear to have an elemental affiliation.
What items will they be bringing with them?
• Magical weapon -- two-tipped, retractable spear marked with the symbol of Cerberus -- can be destroyed, but can also be reformed at will without master's approval (needs the ability to use magic)
• Dog collar -- used to seal the Cerberus form and control its power; always worn; also tightens to a stranglehold with Kazuma's "Forbid" command
• Fire Soul Stone -- An oval-shaped, fairly ordinary-looking small jewel; actually contains a fragment of the Dark Liege's soul; in the eyes of the ancient races, it will have an aura in the shape of the symbol for fire -- an upright triangle