He still has the possessive streak, where people that interest him will get tagged as “Mine”. This includes both people he likes and people he finds interesting for other reasons; ironically, for all Neuro's continued demonic tendencies, it's hard to get him honestly upset or angry. This doesn't really save anyone from his occasional mindgames or other jabs, although they're beginning to get more affectionate towards people he actually likes. He does still maintain a healthy sense of paranoia, and the instinctive idea that anybody around him might be ready to knife him in the back at a moment's notice. “His” people get the same kind of prodding and testing as anyone else, even if he can be incredibly protective of them and even willing to rely on them at times. He genuinely likes them and is starting to understand the idea of emotional attachment, but he still habitually veils it behind insults, casual threats, and dominance games; it takes an unusual situation for him to drop the posturing and speak frankly. He is capable of being downright mother-hen-ish, although his grasp of what is “helping” is sometimes skewed; while he has a better understanding than in canon of what might “break someone” one way or another, he still firmly believes that getting them to forget and push past their own limits to improve is helping, by hook or by crook. He's been away from his diet of negative emotions and evil intent for a while now, and has started getting a closer perspective on the emotions and reasons behind “better natures”, but he still relates to and understands the negative MUCH better than the positive, for all that the positive holds some fascination. He's starting to get more actually emotionally attached to people around him...but is still endlessly amused by watching people “at their worst”, panicking, flailing, confused, and off-balance, as much as by prodding to see what feats people are capable of when they start breaking their own limits. He's far too happily drawn to chaos, conflict, and twisted turns of events, and will cheerfully instigate, pushing buttons and stepping on nerves.
Strengths: Neuro is very intelligent, excellent at problem-solving, and (in some regards) very good at figuring out people's motives and thought processes. He has nerves of reinforced titanium and is almost impossible to faze. He's very cheerful and emotionally stable. He's also very good at dealing with problems without really giving in to frustration, has a ten mile long fuse on his temper, and treats setbacks and disappointments as extra challenges. He has incredibly fast reflexes, and has the experience in combat and assassination of a couple thousand years as His Majesty's Inquisitor. His teeth are very sharp and pointy. He's very protective of “His” people and will zealously protect them from any outside threats if it looks like they need it. He also has acquired a complex about the -potential- of humans, such that he tends to take people as what they have the potential to become as much as what they are now - which actually means expecting them to improve and seeing the diamond in the rough, as it were, sometimes. His pain tolerance is skewed; he's not used to processing pain as a human, so that even though he feels it, he can shrug it off fairly easily.
Weaknesses: Neuro is very intelligent, and in some regards very good at figuring out people's motives and thought processes - and very good at pissing people off. He has baiting people into taking shots at him or losing control of their tempers down to a fine art, and will sometimes do so out of habit or boredom. He has a blind spot in his understanding of people whenever someone's acting too much on “better nature”, especially if it goes counter to logic or self-preservation; he's fascinated by this, and sort of kind of starting to understand it, but still doesn't grasp it very well at ALL. He can be horribly reckless sometimes, and only halfway comprehends his own current mortality and fragility. He's also very, very paranoid, and even when he "trusts" people, he'll reflexively lapse into treating them as if they might turn on him if not kept in check. If someone is unfortunate enough to find his temper, there is no God that can save them, and their death will not be quick, clean, or pleasant. While he's protective of “His” people, he gets far too much amusement out of terrorizing them himself. He also wouldn't be that interested in them if they weren't at least SOMEWHAT capable of taking care of themselves, and he actively pushes them toward reaching or finding ways to exceed their limits - so he'll trust them to be able to take care of themselves in risk situations up to something just past what they can actually handle sometimes. His awareness of what hurts humans is still gimped; he's a bit more aware of what a pain in the ass injuries are, but still thinks people over-react most of the time. (He doesn't see himself as a sadist at all; he's remarkably good-natured and benevolent toward humans! He's much kinder than most of his species and extremely patient about slights and insults! It's not his fault humans are too thick-headed to understand that.)
Background: (Warning: the below is bullshitting and filling in blanks until further notice.) Our story starts a very, very long time ago, in the demon realms, with a Tool. A Weapon, more specifically, made from bones and bits of energy, not all of it entirely from that realm. That weapon was the prized possession of a demon that led a small clan, terror of the higher planes and whatever else trespassed in Their Territory, and generally a fairly powerful relic. Then another demon with no real allegiances (common in that realm) managed to kill the owner of said weapon, claimed it, and went off to spend some time going wherever the wind took him getting into and out of various conflicts. That demon eventually had a mid-eternity crisis and took what knowledge, Tools, and other such he'd collected, built a tower in what was the middle of nowhere even for the demon world, and settled down to be a hermit for a few centuries. In a fit of pique at some point or another, he "fledged" the Tool from a semi-living artifact into a full-blown avian demon. Neuro's first few centuries were... quieter than some such for demons; in between being sent out on various errands, he was typically either trying to memorize the library in the tower, or going out exploring and getting into twenty kinds of trouble, then scraping out of it enough for his "parent" to not know about it even. All told, he actually had a relatively quiet childhood. At some point, the survivors of the raid his "parent" had acquired him in came looking for revenge and to reclaim the weapon. After killing the "parent", the group turned to shake down the fledge for information on just where the weapon was...and promptly had a "...well, fuck." moment at recognizing bits of energy and some traits.
Neuro came out of that relatively unscathed via a combination of talking his way out of it, Frank Exchanges of Ideas (with claws and other sharp objects), and being quick to take advantage of openings to Get The Hell Out Of Dodge (with most of his 'Parent''s collected Tools, the beginning of the Makai 777). He managed to be something of a terror to just about the entire population of the area, getting into and out of anything a demon-parrot could possibly get into and/or take apart. He was saved from an early death to "Too Annoying To Live" by a few older, stronger demons getting the idea he could be useful, and bargaining with him against others. "Can get what you want by offering information on what the other guy is doing, or better yet, screwing it up" was an easy early lesson, and Neuro managed to be just clever enough to start a gradual climb up the food chain as he grew stronger and got better at unraveling plots and talking or misdirecting his way out of trouble. Then one of the “benefactors” got the bright idea of setting the kid up to take the fall for something. Neuro managed to scrape out of it, barely, and left just enough evidence planted to turn the double-cross back on the one responsible. “Paranoia” was solidly etched into him as a result, and soon after he learned another major lesson - “Playing both sides against the middle is profitable, esp. if someone else takes the blame”. By the time he reached “adulthood” and was coming into the beginnings of his full power, he'd already started leaving a trail of chaos in his wake. ...Well, more chaos than there would've been without his meddling. Maybe. Probably. Oh, screw it, let's just leave it that he was often a pain in the ass to the other demons, whether they always knew it was him or not. Before he made more enemies than he could successfully keep playing off each other, he managed to not only get the attention of a demon Emperor, but was lucky enough to interest them in a way that got him tossed work, allies, and an actual rank. (Sayeth half the demon world of this, “OSHI-”) In exchange for some extra power, toys, and connections, he would go after and deal with any plot or threat to the Emperor and those in his orbit. Note in a society with a basically nonexistent legal structure and a political structure based around “What you can keep under control at any given time”, what constituted a “threat” to those in Neuro's circle was a subject open to wide interpretation, and not all of his work was commissioned by someone else - it was perfectly within his sphere to simply go off investigating anything that caught his interest that wasn't a known/mandated agenda of one of his fellows. He managed to make a name for himself fairly quickly, although his reputation was as much infamy as fame; he was, after all, “His Majesty's Inquisitor”, and would all too happily pursue any sign of a good meal, making him less than popular with anybody trying to plot themselves. For the first several centuries, his actual work was broken up with occasional attempts at assassination or pre-emptive strikes; Neuro not only dodged getting killed by those whose toes he stepped on, but managed to thrive under the pressure so well that the outright attempts on his life without prompting petered off eventually to an occasional half-hearted jab. (His tendency to exact revenge and turn around chasing challenges can't have hurt, either.) He was doing so well, in fact, that he was starting to run out of challenges and real opposition...and the Emperor was beginning to seriously ponder just what he'd invited in and given a place at his back. It wasn't so much that Neuro showed active designs on the Emperor's position, as the Emperor slowly coming to the conclusion that sooner or later, boredom would set in, and he'd start looking like an entertaining challenge to the parrot-demon. (This was missing the detail that Neuro wasn't that interested in the direct spotlight/target sign even then.) So, he quietly encouraged competition from any demon that seemed like they MIGHT have a shot at it, and assigned Neuro a seemingly impossible task involving monkey-wrenching the machinations of one of the Emperor's rivals.
Neuro's own rivals took it as an opportunity to try and beat him to it and claim credit; they mostly succeeded at being useful tools causing just enough distraction and damage for Neuro to complete the job and get rid of some of them at the same time, limping back with the distinct feeling that there had been a very large target sign painted on his back. <---- This did not amuse the hellparrot. Neuro realized he'd been set up and changed his tactics from there out, putting his own plot into motion to outmaneuver the Emperor himself. Taking advantage of his position, he started doing what he could to encourage the tendency toward chaos and backbiting that came so easily to the demon race. It took depressingly little effort to encourage things to start turning in on themselves enough for Neuro to pick the Emperor off in the confusion and disarray. Even His Majesty's Weapons had inexplicably disappeared, swiped out from under any other claimants by a certain Parrot who, rather than using them to take over, simply “removed” them from play, holding them in reserve. As the dust settled and the survivors tried to figure out what the Hell had just happened over the course of the last couple hundred years, Neuro pondered what options were open to him now that he, himself, could claim the title of “Emperor” and even defend it enough to build a power base. Claiming it himself didn't sound that entertaining to him. Going to work for one of the Emperor's old rivals or wandering as a complete free agent were sounding stale as well; more of the same that he'd been doing for the entirety of his life, with the same kinds of power-plays, back-stabbings, front-stabbings, and posturing as always. It was hard to think of anything left in the demon world that would be interesting, different, or even a challenge anymore; the same diet of the same finger-pointings and open malice. There was, however, one place he'd only gotten a few brief glimpses of thanks to idiots mucking about with summoning spells a few times. It would be completely different, and all of the plotting and malice and nommy things he'd caught hints of during his short visits were less open and more intricately hidden, with more cautiously constructed ploys to avoid notice that would be more of a challenge to unravel- So Neuro gathered up his toys and went to the mortal world. (Here we go to canon timeline and I can stop bullshitting and go into 30 Seconds With Bunnies mode!) Of course, it would be utterly amateurish, idiotic, and a good way to find out what retribution was possible if he acted openly, so his first order of business was finding a proxy; some human that he could shunt the spotlight onto and let take the credit among other mortals, who would be obedient, and malleable, and not talk back too much, yet clever enough for other humans to believe they were responsible, and adaptable enough to deal with whatever they walked into without panicking or getting killed too easily - and hopefully one that would provide some entertainment while he was at it. So it was that a high school student by the name of Katsuragi Yako, whose family was still recovering from the brutal murder of her father, suddenly found herself claimed as the pawn and front for a demon, herded into detective work and drug to any crime scene where Neuro caught the scent of something interesting and edible. After using a petty poisoning and her father's own murder as demonstrations, the next agenda was establishing a business front to function from so that food would come to him, enough to save him too much effort and expended energy in the far lower-magic mortal realm.
With Yako in tow, he managed to claim an office in a high-rise building right out from under a small band of underworld money-collectors, with the bonus of taking on one of the ex-mob-legbreakers as another pet to run errands. Soon after, the key to making their name as a detective agency walked in the door, in the form of Aya Asia, internationally renowned singer, requesting an investigation of the “suicides” of her former manager and producer - a request that turned out to be a gamble on her own guilty conscience. The fame they gained from that case was enough impetus to keep Neuro well-fed while he continued looking for the greatest mystery, the greatest challenge the mortal world could offer. Of course that wouldn't be found among 'normal' homicides. The major cases ended up including an artificial intelligence replica of a multidisciplinary scientific genius that nearly brought the world to its knees via a signal that removed inhibitions and self-control and turned people into either useful soldiers or just flat criminals, and the case of X, a shapeshifter capable of mimicking any person and even some animals that sought clues to hir own identity via taking apart others to see how they work, the remains filled into bloody glass “red boxes”. X ended up being the first sign of one of the largest conflicts Neuro was involved in while in the mortal world, when hir creator swept in to reclaim hir. That individual, Sicks, was the leader of a clan specialized toward malice and cruelty until they were becoming something other than human, with X having been an escaped experimental clone of theirs. Sicks attempted to recruit Neuro to his cause... and failed miserably, with a mutual declaration that only one of them could claim the top of the food chain and neither was willing to share it. After that came a lull, as Sicks and his clan prepared to begin wiping out normal humanity as “evolutionary competition and prey”, and Neuro began conserving energy and chasing as many scraps of edible “mysteries” as he could to prepare for the coming confrontation. The first major blow struck by the Bloodline came in the form of sabotaging Tokyo's flood control system in the middle of a typhoon; while Neuro managed to prevent the worst of the damage, large areas of the city were still left in ruins, with an astronomical death toll, and Neuro had burned a large amount of energy in the conflict with just one of the Bloodline. He found himself facing an enemy that had a very clear and obvious shot at simply wearing him down and running him out of power to fight them, and began to turn to the idea of further cultivating a circle of human allies (or at least semi-willing pawns), counting on human self-preservation instinct and ability to cooperate to gain the edge against the Bloodline. Thanks to trying-to-keep-track-of-canon and several things where I FAILED at fudging “he's from end of canon and just hasn't said anything”, assume he cuts off somewhere around chapter 164-165. There's also the events of the previous session - he still has the scars from his squabbles with Moonie, and is well aware that he's slipped back in against the system and is in a very touchy situation. By slipping back in, he's lost any contact with Yako after their escape, but is basically relying on her to be able to keep herself in one piece.
Third-person RP sample: The office door opened for the second time that morning, to Neuro, feigning sleep on the couch. It wasn't hard to know it was Yako; he stayed still while she took stock of the room, the odd fact that he was sleeping on the couch and not the ceiling, and the whimpering from said ceiling. “... ... Higuuchi?” The response was a gagged mumble from the hacker, who had snooped into the office a good hour or so previous and encountered the Tool Neuro had let out on “guard duty”. Or maybe to prank Yako. Or both. A small, fanged smirk twitched the corners of Neuro's mouth while he continued to feign sleep. “How long have you - how did you get -” More mumbling. There was a higher-pitched moment, likely the large arachnid-ish Tool that had thoroughly webbed him to the ceiling (and his mouth, because the screaming would disturb Master!) chewing on his shoulder again. Yako started to walk to the couch...then stopped, and Neuro sat up suddenly at the sense that something (a pillow) had just been thrown at him. “Why is he-” she pointed up at the hapless snoop - “Webbed to the ceiling?” “Oh dear, when did he get here?” He flashed a half-blank grin with all his fangs. “He must have tried to sneak in while I was asleep and ran into the trap!” He leaned back against the couch chuckling, while Higuuchi whine-mumbled something that may've been “get me down please oh god it's gonna eat me”. “...Neuro... Who was the trap FOR?” The blank face turned even blanker, as she twitched at the all too obvious answer.
Anything else? ...the scientists probably still shouldn't trust him with anything beyond a goldfish.
He's been away from his diet of negative emotions and evil intent for a while now, and has started getting a closer perspective on the emotions and reasons behind “better natures”, but he still relates to and understands the negative MUCH better than the positive, for all that the positive holds some fascination. He's starting to get more actually emotionally attached to people around him...but is still endlessly amused by watching people “at their worst”, panicking, flailing, confused, and off-balance, as much as by prodding to see what feats people are capable of when they start breaking their own limits. He's far too happily drawn to chaos, conflict, and twisted turns of events, and will cheerfully instigate, pushing buttons and stepping on nerves.
Strengths: Neuro is very intelligent, excellent at problem-solving, and (in some regards) very good at figuring out people's motives and thought processes. He has nerves of reinforced titanium and is almost impossible to faze. He's very cheerful and emotionally stable. He's also very good at dealing with problems without really giving in to frustration, has a ten mile long fuse on his temper, and treats setbacks and disappointments as extra challenges. He has incredibly fast reflexes, and has the experience in combat and assassination of a couple thousand years as His Majesty's Inquisitor. His teeth are very sharp and pointy.
He's very protective of “His” people and will zealously protect them from any outside threats if it looks like they need it. He also has acquired a complex about the -potential- of humans, such that he tends to take people as what they have the potential to become as much as what they are now - which actually means expecting them to improve and seeing the diamond in the rough, as it were, sometimes. His pain tolerance is skewed; he's not used to processing pain as a human, so that even though he feels it, he can shrug it off fairly easily.
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While he's protective of “His” people, he gets far too much amusement out of terrorizing them himself. He also wouldn't be that interested in them if they weren't at least SOMEWHAT capable of taking care of themselves, and he actively pushes them toward reaching or finding ways to exceed their limits - so he'll trust them to be able to take care of themselves in risk situations up to something just past what they can actually handle sometimes. His awareness of what hurts humans is still gimped; he's a bit more aware of what a pain in the ass injuries are, but still thinks people over-react most of the time. (He doesn't see himself as a sadist at all; he's remarkably good-natured and benevolent toward humans! He's much kinder than most of his species and extremely patient about slights and insults! It's not his fault humans are too thick-headed to understand that.)
Background: (Warning: the below is bullshitting and filling in blanks until further notice.) Our story starts a very, very long time ago, in the demon realms, with a Tool. A Weapon, more specifically, made from bones and bits of energy, not all of it entirely from that realm. That weapon was the prized possession of a demon that led a small clan, terror of the higher planes and whatever else trespassed in Their Territory, and generally a fairly powerful relic.
Then another demon with no real allegiances (common in that realm) managed to kill the owner of said weapon, claimed it, and went off to spend some time going wherever the wind took him getting into and out of various conflicts. That demon eventually had a mid-eternity crisis and took what knowledge, Tools, and other such he'd collected, built a tower in what was the middle of nowhere even for the demon world, and settled down to be a hermit for a few centuries. In a fit of pique at some point or another, he "fledged" the Tool from a semi-living artifact into a full-blown avian demon.
Neuro's first few centuries were... quieter than some such for demons; in between being sent out on various errands, he was typically either trying to memorize the library in the tower, or going out exploring and getting into twenty kinds of trouble, then scraping out of it enough for his "parent" to not know about it even. All told, he actually had a relatively quiet childhood.
At some point, the survivors of the raid his "parent" had acquired him in came looking for revenge and to reclaim the weapon. After killing the "parent", the group turned to shake down the fledge for information on just where the weapon was...and promptly had a "...well, fuck." moment at recognizing bits of energy and some traits.
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He managed to be something of a terror to just about the entire population of the area, getting into and out of anything a demon-parrot could possibly get into and/or take apart. He was saved from an early death to "Too Annoying To Live" by a few older, stronger demons getting the idea he could be useful, and bargaining with him against others. "Can get what you want by offering information on what the other guy is doing, or better yet, screwing it up" was an easy early lesson, and Neuro managed to be just clever enough to start a gradual climb up the food chain as he grew stronger and got better at unraveling plots and talking or misdirecting his way out of trouble.
Then one of the “benefactors” got the bright idea of setting the kid up to take the fall for something. Neuro managed to scrape out of it, barely, and left just enough evidence planted to turn the double-cross back on the one responsible. “Paranoia” was solidly etched into him as a result, and soon after he learned another major lesson - “Playing both sides against the middle is profitable, esp. if someone else takes the blame”. By the time he reached “adulthood” and was coming into the beginnings of his full power, he'd already started leaving a trail of chaos in his wake.
...Well, more chaos than there would've been without his meddling.
Maybe.
Probably.
Oh, screw it, let's just leave it that he was often a pain in the ass to the other demons, whether they always knew it was him or not.
Before he made more enemies than he could successfully keep playing off each other, he managed to not only get the attention of a demon Emperor, but was lucky enough to interest them in a way that got him tossed work, allies, and an actual rank. (Sayeth half the demon world of this, “OSHI-”) In exchange for some extra power, toys, and connections, he would go after and deal with any plot or threat to the Emperor and those in his orbit.
Note in a society with a basically nonexistent legal structure and a political structure based around “What you can keep under control at any given time”, what constituted a “threat” to those in Neuro's circle was a subject open to wide interpretation, and not all of his work was commissioned by someone else - it was perfectly within his sphere to simply go off investigating anything that caught his interest that wasn't a known/mandated agenda of one of his fellows.
He managed to make a name for himself fairly quickly, although his reputation was as much infamy as fame; he was, after all, “His Majesty's Inquisitor”, and would all too happily pursue any sign of a good meal, making him less than popular with anybody trying to plot themselves. For the first several centuries, his actual work was broken up with occasional attempts at assassination or pre-emptive strikes; Neuro not only dodged getting killed by those whose toes he stepped on, but managed to thrive under the pressure so well that the outright attempts on his life without prompting petered off eventually to an occasional half-hearted jab. (His tendency to exact revenge and turn around chasing challenges can't have hurt, either.)
He was doing so well, in fact, that he was starting to run out of challenges and real opposition...and the Emperor was beginning to seriously ponder just what he'd invited in and given a place at his back. It wasn't so much that Neuro showed active designs on the Emperor's position, as the Emperor slowly coming to the conclusion that sooner or later, boredom would set in, and he'd start looking like an entertaining challenge to the parrot-demon. (This was missing the detail that Neuro wasn't that interested in the direct spotlight/target sign even then.) So, he quietly encouraged competition from any demon that seemed like they MIGHT have a shot at it, and assigned Neuro a seemingly impossible task involving monkey-wrenching the machinations of one of the Emperor's rivals.
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Neuro realized he'd been set up and changed his tactics from there out, putting his own plot into motion to outmaneuver the Emperor himself. Taking advantage of his position, he started doing what he could to encourage the tendency toward chaos and backbiting that came so easily to the demon race. It took depressingly little effort to encourage things to start turning in on themselves enough for Neuro to pick the Emperor off in the confusion and disarray. Even His Majesty's Weapons had inexplicably disappeared, swiped out from under any other claimants by a certain Parrot who, rather than using them to take over, simply “removed” them from play, holding them in reserve.
As the dust settled and the survivors tried to figure out what the Hell had just happened over the course of the last couple hundred years, Neuro pondered what options were open to him now that he, himself, could claim the title of “Emperor” and even defend it enough to build a power base. Claiming it himself didn't sound that entertaining to him. Going to work for one of the Emperor's old rivals or wandering as a complete free agent were sounding stale as well; more of the same that he'd been doing for the entirety of his life, with the same kinds of power-plays, back-stabbings, front-stabbings, and posturing as always. It was hard to think of anything left in the demon world that would be interesting, different, or even a challenge anymore; the same diet of the same finger-pointings and open malice.
There was, however, one place he'd only gotten a few brief glimpses of thanks to idiots mucking about with summoning spells a few times. It would be completely different, and all of the plotting and malice and nommy things he'd caught hints of during his short visits were less open and more intricately hidden, with more cautiously constructed ploys to avoid notice that would be more of a challenge to unravel-
So Neuro gathered up his toys and went to the mortal world.
(Here we go to canon timeline and I can stop bullshitting and go into 30 Seconds With Bunnies mode!)
Of course, it would be utterly amateurish, idiotic, and a good way to find out what retribution was possible if he acted openly, so his first order of business was finding a proxy; some human that he could shunt the spotlight onto and let take the credit among other mortals, who would be obedient, and malleable, and not talk back too much, yet clever enough for other humans to believe they were responsible, and adaptable enough to deal with whatever they walked into without panicking or getting killed too easily - and hopefully one that would provide some entertainment while he was at it.
So it was that a high school student by the name of Katsuragi Yako, whose family was still recovering from the brutal murder of her father, suddenly found herself claimed as the pawn and front for a demon, herded into detective work and drug to any crime scene where Neuro caught the scent of something interesting and edible. After using a petty poisoning and her father's own murder as demonstrations, the next agenda was establishing a business front to function from so that food would come to him, enough to save him too much effort and expended energy in the far lower-magic mortal realm.
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Of course that wouldn't be found among 'normal' homicides. The major cases ended up including an artificial intelligence replica of a multidisciplinary scientific genius that nearly brought the world to its knees via a signal that removed inhibitions and self-control and turned people into either useful soldiers or just flat criminals, and the case of X, a shapeshifter capable of mimicking any person and even some animals that sought clues to hir own identity via taking apart others to see how they work, the remains filled into bloody glass “red boxes”.
X ended up being the first sign of one of the largest conflicts Neuro was involved in while in the mortal world, when hir creator swept in to reclaim hir. That individual, Sicks, was the leader of a clan specialized toward malice and cruelty until they were becoming something other than human, with X having been an escaped experimental clone of theirs. Sicks attempted to recruit Neuro to his cause... and failed miserably, with a mutual declaration that only one of them could claim the top of the food chain and neither was willing to share it.
After that came a lull, as Sicks and his clan prepared to begin wiping out normal humanity as “evolutionary competition and prey”, and Neuro began conserving energy and chasing as many scraps of edible “mysteries” as he could to prepare for the coming confrontation. The first major blow struck by the Bloodline came in the form of sabotaging Tokyo's flood control system in the middle of a typhoon; while Neuro managed to prevent the worst of the damage, large areas of the city were still left in ruins, with an astronomical death toll, and Neuro had burned a large amount of energy in the conflict with just one of the Bloodline. He found himself facing an enemy that had a very clear and obvious shot at simply wearing him down and running him out of power to fight them, and began to turn to the idea of further cultivating a circle of human allies (or at least semi-willing pawns), counting on human self-preservation instinct and ability to cooperate to gain the edge against the Bloodline. Thanks to trying-to-keep-track-of-canon and several things where I FAILED at fudging “he's from end of canon and just hasn't said anything”, assume he cuts off somewhere around chapter 164-165.
There's also the events of the previous session - he still has the scars from his squabbles with Moonie, and is well aware that he's slipped back in against the system and is in a very touchy situation. By slipping back in, he's lost any contact with Yako after their escape, but is basically relying on her to be able to keep herself in one piece.
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“... ... Higuuchi?”
The response was a gagged mumble from the hacker, who had snooped into the office a good hour or so previous and encountered the Tool Neuro had let out on “guard duty”. Or maybe to prank Yako. Or both.
A small, fanged smirk twitched the corners of Neuro's mouth while he continued to feign sleep.
“How long have you - how did you get -”
More mumbling. There was a higher-pitched moment, likely the large arachnid-ish Tool that had thoroughly webbed him to the ceiling (and his mouth, because the screaming would disturb Master!) chewing on his shoulder again.
Yako started to walk to the couch...then stopped, and Neuro sat up suddenly at the sense that something (a pillow) had just been thrown at him.
“Why is he-” she pointed up at the hapless snoop - “Webbed to the ceiling?”
“Oh dear, when did he get here?” He flashed a half-blank grin with all his fangs. “He must have tried to sneak in while I was asleep and ran into the trap!” He leaned back against the couch chuckling, while Higuuchi whine-mumbled something that may've been “get me down please oh god it's gonna eat me”.
“...Neuro... Who was the trap FOR?”
The blank face turned even blanker, as she twitched at the all too obvious answer.
Anything else? ...the scientists probably still shouldn't trust him with anything beyond a goldfish.
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