[Adstringendum] Application
Name: Leah
Livejournal: catchingspirit
Contact: PMs, AIM: catchingspirit, plurk: waterfell
Other Characters Played: buntails, marriedforlove, sicksadlife
Are you 18 or over? yes
Canon: Fushigi Yuugi
Character: Nakago (Gi Ayuru)
Timeline: just after Soi's death, saving Nakago from the sword meant for him
Personality:
Nakago is a charismatic man who draws people to him easily. He is somewhat cold and aloof, but respectful of authority, protective of the weak, angered by injustice, and deeply loyal to his country, his emperor, and the country's god Seiryuu. He is diligent as a warrior and persuasive as a courtier. He works hard to further his country's interests and keep it safe, and has risen in favor due to his tactical wisdom and success in battle.
This is all a lie. That is the face Nakago presents to the world, but behind it lurks an astonishingly deep darkness and hatred. His seeming loyalty and goodness is in reality biding his time until he can overthrow the country, emperor, and god all at once in vengeance for what he suffered because of them in his childhood.
He is not a soft man. He has no apparent interest in closeness to others. Instead, he typically rejects attempts to get to know him, blows off those who discover things about him they hope to use to gain his confidence or make him open up to them, or prefers to simply use their loyalty and feelings to further himself. He does not mind manipulating the truth to this end. However, those seeking success and advancement are still typically drawn to his strength and influence, despite his flaws.
Even those who know his past already, even those who are sincerely prepared to care for him deeply, are rebuffed and held at a distance, and the only value he tends to place upon those around him is dependent upon what advantage they bring him towards his goals. In the rare occasion when he may truly hold an attachment towards someone, it still comes firmly second to their usefulness; he can even tell his own lover to become another man's lover if it will further his plans, with no hint of perceivable jealousy. Those who hold out hope that he has heart and good in him still are typically disappointed as, whether he still possess these qualities or not, he follows his path anyway, even knowingly killing his own father without a hint of remorse.
This is because Nakago is firmly trapped in the past. His true hatred of the crime of rape that leads him to save Soi when they are young stems from his mother's rape and his own. He is reluctant to use his Seiryuu powers because they are responsible for the death of his mother - and indirectly, his childhood friend. He continues worshiping the doomed god of his doomed people in private, tying their vengeance together.
Nakago dislikes what he cannot control, and likely believes it is possible he will lose control of his powers once more. His feelings are all rigidly and consciously translated into hatred and anger; the sorrow from the same events emerges only when, again, he has no means of controlling his reactions, such as during his sleep and dreams. He himself despises the emotions he cannot turn off.
As he is now, Nakago is willing to swallow down anything he has to and go to any lengths for this ultimate goal. In fact, he arguably decays to the point of betraying even his own morality before he's finished, when he attempts to rape Miaka.
Background:
Gi Ayuru was born to the Hin tribe, which was oppressed and destroyed by the Emperor of Kutou when he was a child, considered weak and beneath everyone else, and foreign. His mother was raped before his very eyes during this bloody time, a trauma which awakened the power sleeping inside him. He killed the soldiers - and, unable to control his new abilities, his mother as well. This memory shaped his life and marked his awakening as a seishi, or celestial warrior, of the god Seiryuu.
With his power awakened, he was taken to the emperor himself The emperor, seeing that the young boy was pretty, kept him as a special pet. He reacted unemotionally; a trait which should have disturbed the emperor more, but which was overlooked because of his beauty. Ultimately, it was accepted that the child made the only possible choice: forsaking his past with the Hin which would have ended in his own destruction as well, to move forward with the Kutou empire. (Secretly, however, he continued to worship his own tribe's god and remember them and what was done to them.)
First, the Emperor, surprised one of the Hin tribe could be a celestial warrior of the Kutou country's god, demanded proof of the boy's powers. This was finally gained when the child was told to destroy everything and everyone present in order to save his childhood friend imprisoned in the palace. He refused to, or could not, do so with his powers so firmly locked away in his mind after their dramatic awakening. Finally, he complied - too late, and his friend died. All he had available to him now was the life of Nakago, the Seiryuu seishi in service to the country of Kutou.
Bit by bit, Nakago worked his way into full mastery of his chi abilities and the emperor's confidence, always planning to betray and destroy the man and country who had destroyed his own chance at happiness and abused him for so long. He became a soldier of Kutou and worked his way up the ranks, drawing men to him and consolidating the power of his faction and their loyalty to himself. He encouraged the Emperor to overlook problems brought to him, so that the country would sink further into decay and be ripe for rebellion.
Gradually, even the other Seiryuu seishi began to gather around him, though Nakago expressed little interest in them until the priestess also appeared - or unless he had reason to. One of them, Soi, earned his notice finally by revealing a plot to drive him out of power. As it turned out, she was the same girl as a young prostitute he had saved from being raped by a client years earlier. When her seishi ability was discovered to control a man's chi and life force through sex, he allowed her to become his lover as she had hoped for all those years. Nakago defeated those against him, whether they stood against him from jealousy or more understandable worries about his loyalties, and continued to rise - even when it meant pitting himself against his own father, and killing him, to amass control of the entire army.
Nakago finally found the priestess of Seiryuu, a girl from another world named Hongo Yui, as she was attacked and nearly raped by thugs. Nakago, who truly does despise that crime, drove them off - but allowed Yui to believe the crime had actually taken place and that her friend Miaka had abandoned her to it. He continuously fed her anger and bitterness over the incident so that she would sink into hatred and darkness like him. Meanwhile, he cemented her loyalty to him as her savior so that she would be willing to use her powers and wishes as the priestess for his good, thus allowing him to complete his designs. He was attentive to her, tender, and solicitous, which was mistaken for caring as he intended.
When Miaka appeared, Nakago was confronted by a second question: which otherworldly girl was the true priestess of Seiryuu with the potential to give him what he wanted? He determined it was Miaka when he discovered her copy of the Universe of the Four Gods which transported her and Yui to Nakago's world. It revealed not only that Yui was the true Seiryuu priestess but that Miaka was the priestess of their enemy: Suzaku, the god of Konan country. Nakago quickly had Miaka arrested and, when Yui was about to escape with her, reminded Yui of her ordeal. Ultimately, Yui remained with Nakago and turned against Miaka even more firmly, even letting Nakago attack Miaka outright, when she believed Miaka her returned for Tamahome, her love interest, and not for Yui.
To keep Yui bound even more tightly to him - and create another warrior loyal to himself, as well as breaking up the warriors on his enemy's side - Nakago delivered Yui drugs to make Miaka's love interest, Tamahome, in love with Yui and loyal to their side instead, as Yui had developed an interest in him. Yui did not question the drug until later, at which point Nakago already had Tamahome under his own control. He was able to use Tamahome to lure Miaka and her companions into a trap, capturing Miaka. Finally Yui asked about the drug; but Nakago still only answered that Tamahome will not be harmed. (This is of course technically true; Tamahome will be kept alive and in health for the sake of his use - while also allowing Nakago to claim he gave Yui what she wanted.)
Of course, Miaka and her companions came for Tamahome. Nakago discovered their plot, and sent Tamahome to meet them - only to try to kill them. As he and Yui watched Tamahome's battle from a distance, Nakago finally revealed that the drug indeed altered Tamahome's memories and personality.
Even after Tamahome was freed, Nakago had more cards to play. He sent Amiboshi to Miaka's group to pose as one of their own celestial warriors, allowing their ritual to summon the god Suzaku to be interrupted and end in failure. Unfortunately, both groups suffered setbacks that made them require an item known the shinzaho from yet another country: Genbu; it became a race to see who would procure it first. Although the Suzaku group did, Nakago's warriors soon stole it from them.
When head-on collisions between both gods' warriors tended not to produce beneficial results, Nakago resorted to more indirect means. He lured Miaka to his tent (with the smell of food), told her the truth about Yui's ordeal, and made advances to her - though he was stopped from touching by a strange force, unknown to Miaka herself. Letting Miaka believe she has now given herself to Nakago was just as beneficial for him as it caused chaos to his enemies.
After several other conflicts between the two warrior groups, Nakago and Yui were directly on the way to the ceremony to summon Seiryuu. Professing to love Yui, Nakago was promised one of the wishes she would be given from the god - not particularly caring that once her wishes were made, she would disappear. He'd have what he wanted. Yui sucessfully summoned Seiryuu and sealed away Suzaku's power by her first wish, allowing Kutou country to easily invade Konan country.
At this time, Nakago inadvertantly learns of the world Yui and Miaka come from when he looks into a vision provided from their subconscious. As they view it, Soi finally confesses her feelings for him, but he rejects her romantically despite having a certain feeling for her loyalty and the bond between them - shortly before one of the Suzaku seishi tries to kill Nakago and Soi sacrifices her life to protect him.
After losing the one person he had still cared for, Nakago arrives in Adstringendum.
Abilities/Additional Notes:
Nakago is considered the strongest Seiryuu warrior. His powers primarily take the form of strong blasts of psychic energy or chi; he typically attacks to harm or kill, but he has been able to cleanly knock a person out as well. He also demonstrates a certain command of psychokinesis.
He is also such a fine and strong soldier without his powers that his decision to almost never use them is rarely questioned. In battle, he normally uses a whip or sword.
As the leader of the Seiryuu seishi, it can actually be assumed the majority of the actions of the other warriors on his side are either under his orders, or at least done with his approval.
Sample Journal Post:
[The face on the PCD (not too difficult to manipulate, he finds; a little like the visions in Tomo's shells) is smooth, pretty in a slightly feminine way only enhanced by the long blond hair, but he is clearly every inch a warrior from his armor to his sturdy, muscular build.
He seems quite composed, as though ending up in a different world happens to him every day. The truth is, his first experience with such a concept is only minutes behind him. This is the second; he learns quickly. And after a debate with himself chiefly regarding the likelihood of Suzaku senshi listening in (or this entirely being an illusion cast by them somehow rather than an actual other world), he decides to speak.]
I would be very appreciative of any information I can be given regarding this place, and those who hear my voice right now. I have important tasks to return to that I am very anxious about. They are very urgent, and time is of the essence; assistance will be rewarded to the best of my ability.
[He glances at something off-screen, a gesture that seems somehow at once aloof and dignified, and the feed cuts out to wait for replies.]
Sample RP:
In reality, Nakago was furious. The moment his face was no longer shown to others, he scowled darkly. He'd been minutes away from the culmination of so many years of waiting, and the time he wasted now was time his foes would use to amass their own power and efforts.
No good to him, being in a world where every focus of his vengeance was absent.
Yes, he would think about that: being cheated of his goal so near the mark. He would not think of the woman who gave her life for him in the process, who loved him and who - if he had not been able to love her as she had wished he would - he had at least valued. There was no place for mourning her. His eyes were dry. But he would see her avenged, too. Mark him well for that.
Although a lesser man's prudence would suggest waiting where he was for assistance, or at least replies, Nakago kept the device with him and scanned the horizon, where he thought he could already make out some form of settlement or town. The buildings reminded him of the world of the priestesses; had he ended up there after all? He tossed his head in some annoyance, and headed towards the meager sign of civilization.
Livejournal: catchingspirit
Contact: PMs, AIM: catchingspirit, plurk: waterfell
Other Characters Played: buntails, marriedforlove, sicksadlife
Are you 18 or over? yes
Canon: Fushigi Yuugi
Character: Nakago (Gi Ayuru)
Timeline: just after Soi's death, saving Nakago from the sword meant for him
Personality:
Nakago is a charismatic man who draws people to him easily. He is somewhat cold and aloof, but respectful of authority, protective of the weak, angered by injustice, and deeply loyal to his country, his emperor, and the country's god Seiryuu. He is diligent as a warrior and persuasive as a courtier. He works hard to further his country's interests and keep it safe, and has risen in favor due to his tactical wisdom and success in battle.
This is all a lie. That is the face Nakago presents to the world, but behind it lurks an astonishingly deep darkness and hatred. His seeming loyalty and goodness is in reality biding his time until he can overthrow the country, emperor, and god all at once in vengeance for what he suffered because of them in his childhood.
He is not a soft man. He has no apparent interest in closeness to others. Instead, he typically rejects attempts to get to know him, blows off those who discover things about him they hope to use to gain his confidence or make him open up to them, or prefers to simply use their loyalty and feelings to further himself. He does not mind manipulating the truth to this end. However, those seeking success and advancement are still typically drawn to his strength and influence, despite his flaws.
Even those who know his past already, even those who are sincerely prepared to care for him deeply, are rebuffed and held at a distance, and the only value he tends to place upon those around him is dependent upon what advantage they bring him towards his goals. In the rare occasion when he may truly hold an attachment towards someone, it still comes firmly second to their usefulness; he can even tell his own lover to become another man's lover if it will further his plans, with no hint of perceivable jealousy. Those who hold out hope that he has heart and good in him still are typically disappointed as, whether he still possess these qualities or not, he follows his path anyway, even knowingly killing his own father without a hint of remorse.
This is because Nakago is firmly trapped in the past. His true hatred of the crime of rape that leads him to save Soi when they are young stems from his mother's rape and his own. He is reluctant to use his Seiryuu powers because they are responsible for the death of his mother - and indirectly, his childhood friend. He continues worshiping the doomed god of his doomed people in private, tying their vengeance together.
Nakago dislikes what he cannot control, and likely believes it is possible he will lose control of his powers once more. His feelings are all rigidly and consciously translated into hatred and anger; the sorrow from the same events emerges only when, again, he has no means of controlling his reactions, such as during his sleep and dreams. He himself despises the emotions he cannot turn off.
As he is now, Nakago is willing to swallow down anything he has to and go to any lengths for this ultimate goal. In fact, he arguably decays to the point of betraying even his own morality before he's finished, when he attempts to rape Miaka.
Background:
Gi Ayuru was born to the Hin tribe, which was oppressed and destroyed by the Emperor of Kutou when he was a child, considered weak and beneath everyone else, and foreign. His mother was raped before his very eyes during this bloody time, a trauma which awakened the power sleeping inside him. He killed the soldiers - and, unable to control his new abilities, his mother as well. This memory shaped his life and marked his awakening as a seishi, or celestial warrior, of the god Seiryuu.
With his power awakened, he was taken to the emperor himself The emperor, seeing that the young boy was pretty, kept him as a special pet. He reacted unemotionally; a trait which should have disturbed the emperor more, but which was overlooked because of his beauty. Ultimately, it was accepted that the child made the only possible choice: forsaking his past with the Hin which would have ended in his own destruction as well, to move forward with the Kutou empire. (Secretly, however, he continued to worship his own tribe's god and remember them and what was done to them.)
First, the Emperor, surprised one of the Hin tribe could be a celestial warrior of the Kutou country's god, demanded proof of the boy's powers. This was finally gained when the child was told to destroy everything and everyone present in order to save his childhood friend imprisoned in the palace. He refused to, or could not, do so with his powers so firmly locked away in his mind after their dramatic awakening. Finally, he complied - too late, and his friend died. All he had available to him now was the life of Nakago, the Seiryuu seishi in service to the country of Kutou.
Bit by bit, Nakago worked his way into full mastery of his chi abilities and the emperor's confidence, always planning to betray and destroy the man and country who had destroyed his own chance at happiness and abused him for so long. He became a soldier of Kutou and worked his way up the ranks, drawing men to him and consolidating the power of his faction and their loyalty to himself. He encouraged the Emperor to overlook problems brought to him, so that the country would sink further into decay and be ripe for rebellion.
Gradually, even the other Seiryuu seishi began to gather around him, though Nakago expressed little interest in them until the priestess also appeared - or unless he had reason to. One of them, Soi, earned his notice finally by revealing a plot to drive him out of power. As it turned out, she was the same girl as a young prostitute he had saved from being raped by a client years earlier. When her seishi ability was discovered to control a man's chi and life force through sex, he allowed her to become his lover as she had hoped for all those years. Nakago defeated those against him, whether they stood against him from jealousy or more understandable worries about his loyalties, and continued to rise - even when it meant pitting himself against his own father, and killing him, to amass control of the entire army.
Nakago finally found the priestess of Seiryuu, a girl from another world named Hongo Yui, as she was attacked and nearly raped by thugs. Nakago, who truly does despise that crime, drove them off - but allowed Yui to believe the crime had actually taken place and that her friend Miaka had abandoned her to it. He continuously fed her anger and bitterness over the incident so that she would sink into hatred and darkness like him. Meanwhile, he cemented her loyalty to him as her savior so that she would be willing to use her powers and wishes as the priestess for his good, thus allowing him to complete his designs. He was attentive to her, tender, and solicitous, which was mistaken for caring as he intended.
When Miaka appeared, Nakago was confronted by a second question: which otherworldly girl was the true priestess of Seiryuu with the potential to give him what he wanted? He determined it was Miaka when he discovered her copy of the Universe of the Four Gods which transported her and Yui to Nakago's world. It revealed not only that Yui was the true Seiryuu priestess but that Miaka was the priestess of their enemy: Suzaku, the god of Konan country. Nakago quickly had Miaka arrested and, when Yui was about to escape with her, reminded Yui of her ordeal. Ultimately, Yui remained with Nakago and turned against Miaka even more firmly, even letting Nakago attack Miaka outright, when she believed Miaka her returned for Tamahome, her love interest, and not for Yui.
To keep Yui bound even more tightly to him - and create another warrior loyal to himself, as well as breaking up the warriors on his enemy's side - Nakago delivered Yui drugs to make Miaka's love interest, Tamahome, in love with Yui and loyal to their side instead, as Yui had developed an interest in him. Yui did not question the drug until later, at which point Nakago already had Tamahome under his own control. He was able to use Tamahome to lure Miaka and her companions into a trap, capturing Miaka. Finally Yui asked about the drug; but Nakago still only answered that Tamahome will not be harmed. (This is of course technically true; Tamahome will be kept alive and in health for the sake of his use - while also allowing Nakago to claim he gave Yui what she wanted.)
Of course, Miaka and her companions came for Tamahome. Nakago discovered their plot, and sent Tamahome to meet them - only to try to kill them. As he and Yui watched Tamahome's battle from a distance, Nakago finally revealed that the drug indeed altered Tamahome's memories and personality.
Even after Tamahome was freed, Nakago had more cards to play. He sent Amiboshi to Miaka's group to pose as one of their own celestial warriors, allowing their ritual to summon the god Suzaku to be interrupted and end in failure. Unfortunately, both groups suffered setbacks that made them require an item known the shinzaho from yet another country: Genbu; it became a race to see who would procure it first. Although the Suzaku group did, Nakago's warriors soon stole it from them.
When head-on collisions between both gods' warriors tended not to produce beneficial results, Nakago resorted to more indirect means. He lured Miaka to his tent (with the smell of food), told her the truth about Yui's ordeal, and made advances to her - though he was stopped from touching by a strange force, unknown to Miaka herself. Letting Miaka believe she has now given herself to Nakago was just as beneficial for him as it caused chaos to his enemies.
After several other conflicts between the two warrior groups, Nakago and Yui were directly on the way to the ceremony to summon Seiryuu. Professing to love Yui, Nakago was promised one of the wishes she would be given from the god - not particularly caring that once her wishes were made, she would disappear. He'd have what he wanted. Yui sucessfully summoned Seiryuu and sealed away Suzaku's power by her first wish, allowing Kutou country to easily invade Konan country.
At this time, Nakago inadvertantly learns of the world Yui and Miaka come from when he looks into a vision provided from their subconscious. As they view it, Soi finally confesses her feelings for him, but he rejects her romantically despite having a certain feeling for her loyalty and the bond between them - shortly before one of the Suzaku seishi tries to kill Nakago and Soi sacrifices her life to protect him.
After losing the one person he had still cared for, Nakago arrives in Adstringendum.
Abilities/Additional Notes:
Nakago is considered the strongest Seiryuu warrior. His powers primarily take the form of strong blasts of psychic energy or chi; he typically attacks to harm or kill, but he has been able to cleanly knock a person out as well. He also demonstrates a certain command of psychokinesis.
He is also such a fine and strong soldier without his powers that his decision to almost never use them is rarely questioned. In battle, he normally uses a whip or sword.
As the leader of the Seiryuu seishi, it can actually be assumed the majority of the actions of the other warriors on his side are either under his orders, or at least done with his approval.
Sample Journal Post:
[The face on the PCD (not too difficult to manipulate, he finds; a little like the visions in Tomo's shells) is smooth, pretty in a slightly feminine way only enhanced by the long blond hair, but he is clearly every inch a warrior from his armor to his sturdy, muscular build.
He seems quite composed, as though ending up in a different world happens to him every day. The truth is, his first experience with such a concept is only minutes behind him. This is the second; he learns quickly. And after a debate with himself chiefly regarding the likelihood of Suzaku senshi listening in (or this entirely being an illusion cast by them somehow rather than an actual other world), he decides to speak.]
I would be very appreciative of any information I can be given regarding this place, and those who hear my voice right now. I have important tasks to return to that I am very anxious about. They are very urgent, and time is of the essence; assistance will be rewarded to the best of my ability.
[He glances at something off-screen, a gesture that seems somehow at once aloof and dignified, and the feed cuts out to wait for replies.]
Sample RP:
In reality, Nakago was furious. The moment his face was no longer shown to others, he scowled darkly. He'd been minutes away from the culmination of so many years of waiting, and the time he wasted now was time his foes would use to amass their own power and efforts.
No good to him, being in a world where every focus of his vengeance was absent.
Yes, he would think about that: being cheated of his goal so near the mark. He would not think of the woman who gave her life for him in the process, who loved him and who - if he had not been able to love her as she had wished he would - he had at least valued. There was no place for mourning her. His eyes were dry. But he would see her avenged, too. Mark him well for that.
Although a lesser man's prudence would suggest waiting where he was for assistance, or at least replies, Nakago kept the device with him and scanned the horizon, where he thought he could already make out some form of settlement or town. The buildings reminded him of the world of the priestesses; had he ended up there after all? He tossed his head in some annoyance, and headed towards the meager sign of civilization.