Application for deadculture
PLAYERName: Kristen
Journal: mouthofbrass
Contact: AIM - MadMadPhineas
CHARACTERSeries: Katekyo Hitman Reborn
AU?: No
Full Name: Gokudera Hayato
Timeline: at the end of chapter 282, just after returning to the past
History: Wikia.
Personality: Gokudera is a sixteen-year-old explosives expert--he keeps various explosives hidden all over his body and ignites them using cigarettes (he is essentially a chain smoker). He is also a skilled pianist, and is considered to be of genius level intelligence, so he excels academically. He is hotheaded and short-tempered most of the time and gets into fights with little provocation. He hates to lose and almost never backs down unless he has no choice. Also of note, he's very interested in cryptids and aliens, but is superstitious and apparently very scared of ghosts. Due to his family background and his experiences with rejection when he left home, as a rule he doesn't trust anyone older than himself.
When he was fourteen, he came to Japan to test the strength of the tenth generation Vongola family boss, Sawada Tsunayoshi. When Tsuna ends up saving his life during their fight, Gokudera devotes himself entirely to Tsuna and decides to become his right hand man. However, for quite awhile, he doesn't get along with any of Tsuna's other friends (who are also the other members of Tsuna's family and become Tsuna's six guardians after the Varia arc). He especially clashes with Yamamoto Takeshi; he disapproves of Yamamoto's easy-going attitude and how familiar he is with Tsuna, and it's very possible that he's jealous of the attention Tsuna gives Yamamoto. During the beginning of the series, in fact, Tsuna often invites Yamamoto to do something and it's Yamamoto who either invites or drags Gokudera along. For quite a while, Gokudera actually kind of annoys Tsuna with his devotion and scares him with how impulsively and violently he responds to perceived threats on or slights to Tsuna.
Despite his confident demeanor, Gokudera is actually rather insecure. He worries that he's not good enough for his (self-assigned) position as Tsuna's right hand man, and on a couple of occasions almost decides to go back to Italy and serve the Vongola family in some other way. On both occasions he changes his mind and decides to just work harder and improve, which is a common trend for him: he comes right to the brink of giving up and then manages to rise to the occasion and prove himself, generally in a rather bad ass way. This also happens when it comes to his training--he often has to struggle for long periods before he has a breakthrough, and due to the complicated nature of his weapons and the fact that they are more suited for defense than offense, he is sometimes the most ineffectual of the guardians in battle.
On the topic of insecurity, it could be surmised that one of the reasons Gokudera doesn't get along well with the other guardians is because he resents them. Of all the guardians, he probably works the hardest for the least amount of progress. He's good at what he does only because he painstakingly researches and then practically kills himself experimenting and practicing (literally, he almost manages to kill himself training on at least one occasion). By comparison, all of the other guardians improve in leaps and bounds, and are naturals at what they do.
(Of course, in terms of why he doesn't get along with the other guardians, there's also the fact that Gokudera takes the mafia and being a guardian more seriously than the others, at least in the beginning. Yamamoto thinks it's all a game, Hibari doesn't care, Ryohei has the attention span and recall of a goldfish, Lambo's an obnoxious five-year-old, and Chrome may or may not be their enemy.)
Gokudera's impulsivity and violent tendencies in the beginning of the manga probably come from the fact that he has something to prove and this results in an over-compensation for the fact that most of his real strengths are analytical and cerebral rather than physical. He succeeds most often when he is able to research and analyze problems, exerting the least amount of force and effort needed to win. This is increasingly apparent in his fighting style throughout the series, as he becomes more secure in his place within the family and among the other Vongola guardians.
Powers and Abilities: The utilization of hammer space, apparently. In the manga, it's stated that Gokudera's "a human explosive device, capable of hiding bombs all over his body." And he does seem to be capable of carrying ridiculous amounts of dynamite without it being in any way visible. For the purposes of this game, I'm going to list a finite amount in his starting inventory, and when he runs out, he'll have to make more to replenish his stock, assuming the requisite materials are available. The hammer space thing will still apply, though--that is, the explosives and whatever else he has on him won't be visible to the naked eye.
He's also got the ability to use five of the seven canon ring flame wavelengths (specifically storm, sun, rain, cloud and lightning) to control his box weapons, the Sistema CAI. The system consists of 16 boxes (four storm, four rain, two lightning, two sun, and four cloud) and five rings (four skull rings and the Vongola storm ring). The system is made up of several components:
- 1. ring shields that protect from attacks and can also trap enemies
2. an arm mounted cannon and ammunition for it
3. Uri, a leopard cub capable of evolving into a grown leopard with the use of sun flames
4. contact lenses that help with aiming and monitoring the rest of the system
5. the storm disc, which Gokudera can ride on top of in order to move at high speed
After returning to the past, all of the box weapons were turned into rings. Because Gokudera's Sistema CAI encompasses so many boxes, my assumption is that the system is housed inside his Vongola Box ring (which is effectively Uri, the Leopardo di Tempesta ver. Vongola), and when he activates this ring/box, the rest of the system is released as well, in its original multiple-box-and-ring form. This is partially anime-canon and partially head-canon, and is mainly a measure to make it easier for him to transport the Sistema CAI outside of combat situations.
Obviously in this setting, it will take Gokudera a while to regain the ability to fully use his weapons. I intend to handle this systematically, having him slowly regain control of different flame types and different components of the Sistema CAI, with the ultimate goal being to regain the ability to use his Vongola box weapon, G.Archery.
Starter Inventory: His clothes (and the ridiculous number of accessories he wears), a lighter, two packages of cigarettes, the Vongola Storm ring, the Sistema CAI (16 boxes and the four skull rings) and Vongola weapon (both the Sistema CAI and the Vongola weapon are housed inside his Leopardo di Tempesta ver. Vongola ring), a rosary (this is head canon, based on his cultural background and his superstitious nature), his glasses, a couple of hair ties and bobby pins, dynamite (25 regular bombs, 15 rocket bombs, 7 mini-bombs).
Anything else?: Note that I'm taking him from the manga continuity. By the end of the future arc, the manga and anime time lines are fairly different.
Item of choice: Radio
SAMPLESThread Sample
[Gokudera's sitting on a low, half toppled wall, wrapping a series of bloody gashes on his arm in what used to be his outer shirt. He winces slightly, using his teeth to pull the makeshift bandage taut and tie it off. He's obviously been there long enough to have come to some conclusions about his surroundings and to have met up with some of the infected locals.]
Mother fucking-- Need to find some real supplies. [He reaches into his shirt and scowls.] Almost out of bombs and my rings aren't working... Tch.
[His expression twitches between angry and confused as he finds a cigarette and lights it. After a couple long drags, he looks decidedly calmer. He slides off of the wall, muttering a list to himself as he starts to walk, his eyes darting in either direction, ready for an attack.] Bandages, disinfectant, ammonium nitrate, fuses, casings...somewhere to get my damned flames to work without any fucking interruptions....
[He starts to move down the street, hands twitching toward the few bombs he has left, ready to use them if he has to.]
Prose Sample
Gokudera had been to Malta only once, as a child. He'd spent most of the vacation wandering around Valetta on his own, avoiding his sister's attempts to force her poisonous versions of local foods on him. That had been a long time ago--nine or ten years--but he still remembered it clearly enough to recognize the city underneath the sights of destruction and desertion, and the oppressive smell of death. He took a deep breath, inhaling smoke from his cigarette, using the taste to block out some of the smell clinging to the air around him.
Tobacco and decomposition were not a good combination, he noted, wrinkling his nose. Still, the nicotine helped settle his nerves somewhat, allowing him to think the situation through without panicking too much.
Whatever had happened here, it had happened recently. He looked around, taking in the debris-littered street, trying to ignore the fact that some of the debris was very obviously the remains of people, and wondered how this could have happened without him knowing about it. He made a habit of knowing what happened in Europe, because politics there still could still have an effect on the Tenth halfway around the world, and he wanted to be ready for anything and everything.
Somehow, after travelling to the future and back, how he had come to be here was a less urgent question. If this situation was like the one before, the Tenth might be here too, and if he was, Gokudera needed to find him. That was his first priority--figuring out how he had gotten there and how to get home would wait until he knew for sure whether or not his boss was safe.
Picking his way through the debris, his gaze darted to either side, trying to pinpoint the source of the noises he was hearing. The scene looked like it should be deserted, but he could hear odd scrabbling, shuffling noises that put him on edge. Rats, he had tried to convince himself. Just rats. And that had worked until he'd heard a shriek of pain and fear that was so inhuman it had to have come from a human throat.
He sprinted toward the source of the sound but stopped dead as he turned a corner, staring as a group of what had to be zombies converged on a man, who continued to scream as he tried pointlessly to fight them off.
Gokudera was frozen, his stomach twisting inside him, and if not for all of his training, he'd have doubled over right there, retching. As it was, he only stumbled, sending a metal can clanging across the pavement. The sound drew the attention of the zombies motherfucking zombies Jesus Christ and GOD how did this happen why was he here how could he ever survive this--
The part of him that stayed in control during fights reacted through instinct. He had to light his ring, release his boxes, and turn them all to ashes, the victim included. They were biting and not eating, which meant they were trying to infect, not feed. The best thing he could do for that poor bastard now was kill him.
All this occurred to him in the space of half a second, no conscious thought necessary, and he focused his mind to light his ring--
--only the faintest of storm flames lit up the Leopardo di Tempesta, not enough to make Uri respond or to release the Sistema CAI. He stared in confusion and alarm for a moment, long enough for the zombies to start move toward him. Their gait was decidedly unnatural, but fast enough that any more hesitation on his part would probably mean his death. He could worry about why his flames weren't reacting later. Right now he just needed to survive this encounter and continue his search for the Tenth.
Reaching into his open outer shirt, his hands wrapped around sticks of dynamite. Despite the new weapons he'd brought home with him, he never went out without his explosives, and although it probably seemed paranoid to the rest of the guardians, it was proving right now to have been a wise choice.
He whipped the explosives out, lighting them with a practiced pass at the glowing end of his cigarette, and throwing them at the charging creatures. The resulting explosion showered him with bits of tissue and fluids he didn't care to put names to. He brought up an arm, shielding his face from the brief red mist. If the things were spreading some kind of infection, he couldn't afford getting any of their fluid inside of himself.
When the smoke cleared, he was pleased to see that he'd destroyed all of the creatures. He spat out his cigarette--there was blood on it now--and moved quickly away from the site. The sound would draw unwanted attention, and he had other things to do than waste his ammunition on more of those things. He needed to find the Tenth, figure out why his flames weren't working, and clean this crap off of him, preferably in that order.