Application for medius_terra
Player Info:
Name: Kristen
Personal LJ: mouthofbrass
IM Contact: MadMadPhineas (AIM)
Other Characters: pakisunotpaku
Character Info:
Full Name: Gokudera Hayato
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Age: 16
Species: Human
Point In Canon: mid-chapter 319, before they meet Adelheid on the path
Gender: Male
Background: Wikia. It should be noted that I'm only using the manga continuity, from which the anime splits during the TYL arc. So the Arcobaleno Trials and Inheritance Succession Arcs of the anime canon aren't included in his canon background.
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 hot-headed and short-tempered, and continually gets into fights. 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. So in other words, under all the anger, he's kind of a huge dork. He possesses an almost limitless ability to analyze situations in order to properly handle them, and his approach to most problems, especially those that aren't combat-related, is largely cerebral. Case in point, when asked to teach Tsuna how to swim, he attempts to do so with diagrams and descriptions of the physics behind propelling one's body through the water.
Gokudera was the illegitimate son of an Italian mafia boss. During his childhood, his father allowed his older sister, Bianchi, to test her poisoned cooking skills (yes, in Reborn-canon this is a legitimate fighting method) on him. As a result, he can't even see his sister without becoming physically ill and it's likely that this caused a general distrust in and dislike of his father and older sister. He ran away from home at age eight when he overheard that his mother's death had been caused be some of his father's men (although he later finds out this wasn't true and that his mother's death was an accident). At that point he decided to join the mafia and wandered around Italy for several years trying to find a mafia family to join, but due to the fact that he is part Japanese and has a bad attitude, he was never accepted. Because of this lack of acceptance and the way his faith in his family was shattered, 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 things 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 or slights.
Despite his (often over-)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. However, he's constantly striving to be better, and won't be satisfied with himself until he reaches his goal of being the perfect right hand man. On the other hand, he also has a self-destructive streak and sees absolutely no problem with getting injured or even killed if he can do his duty for Tsuna.
(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. He becomes closer to the others over time, capable of working in tandem with them. In particular, he and Yamamoto make a good team, as their abilities complement each other well (and after Yamamoto finally tells him to stop being a dickhead, because it stresses Tsuna out--only took him 200 chapters to do it). By his current canon point, he's developed an attachment to most of his fellow guardians: he knows how to handle Lambo's childishness, even if he isn't particularly patient with him; he's concerned about the well-being of the others, particularly Yamamoto and Lambo, and tolerates the things he originally hated about Ryohei and Hibari.
What kind of things will they be bringing with them?
This is way too specific. His clothes, a lighter, cigarettes, his Vongola gear in the form of a hideous belt buckle, and the stuff in his pockets (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)).
Abilities: In terms of general abilities and skills, Gokudera is a skilled pianist, and is considered to be of genius level intelligence, so he excels academically. In combat, he's a mid-range fighter, but has passable close-combat skill as well. At the very least, he can take a hit like the best of them.
In terms of abnormal abilities, he's got 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. As long as it's approved, 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.
In the Reborn-verse, each person has a specific type of wavelength that, through the focusing of their resolve, can be manifested in a flame with particular properties. Gokudera has five of these wavelengths, but his main flame type is a Storm flame, which has degenerative properties. His current weapon (other than the dynamite) is his Vongola Gear, accessible through the Buckle of the Storm Version X, an upgraded form his his original Vongola ring and the Sistema CAI.
His Vongola Gear manifests as a Rambo-like assortment of various types of dynamite strapped to his body, armor on his legs and one arm, a pair of glasses that provide a visual display to allow him to aim with extreme accuracy, taking into account and correcting for things like gravity and magnetic fields.
He also has Uri, a tempermental leopard cub. When the VG is initiated, it's Uri that appears first; when given the command "cambio forma", Uri then transforms into the weapons of the Vongola Gear. A few of the revealed techniques of the Storm Vongola Gear are:
- ☠ Rocket Bomb Version X: Rocket Bombs that use Storm Flames for propulsion with increased speed, power and homing capabilities.
☠ Air Bomb: When thrown at the ground, this bomb allows him to leap great distances.
☠ Uri Bomb: Utilizing the storm flames stored in Uri's body and her tail as a fuse, Uri's body becomes a powerful bomb. Her size decreases based on the amount of force she explodes with, but increases again as she absorbs flames over time.
A description of Gokudera's weapons and abilities prior to the creation of his Vongola Gear can be found here. It includes links to reference pictures.
Third Person Sample:
It wasn't that different from some parts of Italy, Gokudera supposed. At least, not if he tilted his head and squinted. But it wasn't Italy, or the Shimon family's island, and it definitely wasn't any other part of Japan. How he'd come to be here was a mystery that was pissing him right off, but that wasn't the uppermost thought on his mind at the moment.
No. The most important thing right now wasn't where he was or how he'd gotten there, but where Tsuna had gone. Therefore, the first thing he needed to do was stay calm and look for his boss.
After only about ten minutes of pacing up and down narrow streets, eyeing the locals who eyed him right back with almost as much suspicion, and calling for Tsuna, the first part of his resolve was quickly eroding. With only the impulse to find Tsuna left, he was ready to assault the next passerby who so much as breathed in his direction oddly. He'd shove a stick of dynamite into their mouth and demand to know what the hell was going on--
Leaning against the brick facade of the building where he'd woken up, his hands clenched tightly around the dynamite in his pockets and puffing agitatedly on his cigarette, he tried to think. The facts were that he'd been with Tsuna, Reborn, and the stupid cow one minute, and the next he'd been waking up in a tiny, dark room. It wasn't the first time he'd suddenly appeared in an unexpected and unfamiliar place, but it was the first time that he had found himself alone when it happened. It was also the first time he'd had no recollection of how he'd gotten there.
The familiar feeling of his homemade explosives under his fingers helped him focus, if only enough to avoid grabbing a man who skirted around him as though there were something wrong with him.
Maybe this was more like Italy than he'd thought.
Shaking his head and shoving his hands deeper into his pockets, he pushed away from the wall. The only thing to do was to find his boss. And if Tsuna really wasn't there--and he would check very thoroughly to make sure that was the case before he gave up--then the next step would be finding a way to leave.
First Person Sample:
[Gokudera appears on the screen, scowling horribly, with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. He doesn't bother removing it to speak, clenching it between his teeth instead.]
I don't know who the fuck brought me here and I don't care, either. Whoever you are, if you think you're going to stop me from getting back to the Tenth, you'd better think a-fucking-gain. I'll find you and when I do--
[Apparently too angry to even articulate what he intends to do for a moment, he clenches his teeth, and then spits his cigarette out of his mouth.]
Well. Once I've gotten the information I need out of you, don't expect to survive it.
[He huffs, glaring at the camera for a minute, before forcing his expression into something slightly more amiable.]
Tenth, if you're here, please respond. I'll find you and we'll get the hell out of here.