ooc ☼ APPLICATION
Player nickname: Ichi
Player LJ: unspeakingly
Way to contact you:
Email: ezzigreenie@hotmail.com
AIM: kowareta ichi
Other: unspeakingly @ Plurk
Are you at least 15?: Y.
Current Characters: Haruhi F., Nill, Miharu, Xion, Romano, Belarus, Minatsuki, Elizabeth. FUCK MY FUCKING LIFE, MAN.
Character: Yako Katsuragi
Fandom: Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro (manga)
Character Notes:
History:
Yako grew up in a pretty normal, happy family; she was an only child, and she was close to both of her parents. Her father was a workaholic, her mother was a dangerous cook who could make things like explosive bricks for dinner and still think they were normal and Yako was a strange girl that only ever thought about food and could eat someone out of house and home, but there were no problems within the family, and all three of them loved each other very much.
And then, when Yako was 16, her father was brutally murdered. Despite the fact that the man's body had been stabbed with a large number of knives, because it was a closed-room case with no criminal evidence and no apparent way for a culprit to have entered or exited the room, it was ruled as a suicide.
Yako didn't believe it for one second, but there was nothing she could do to make the case move any faster, and the police had assured her that they would delve deeper into the case and solve it soon. Overwhelmed with grief and the chaos in her mind, she went to sit at her father's shrine, and as she cried, she suddenly heard a strange voice - "Why are you crying? That's ridiculous. You should be laughing right now, bitch." And when she turned around there was a strange man leering right at her, feet planted on her father's sacred shrine, standing sideways, his arm going through the picture of her beloved father, his very presence striking her with fear.
Shocked, Yako managed to form just a few words, and the man caught on to her terrified stammering - Me? Oh, I see! You want me to introduce myself! I am called Neuro. Brain-eater Neuro. He announced himself as a puzzle-eating daemon; a resident of Hell. Yako could do little but stare in horror and try desperately to make some sense of the situation, and of the strange daemon desecrating her late father's shrine - and out of nowhere, sensing a "mystery" somewhere nearby, the daemon Neuro abruptly told her that she would serve as his assistant; a human front so that he didn't come off as too suspicious.
Half out of fear of consequences if she didn't, and half out of a morbid curiosity and confusion that was left after his strange explanation, Yako went with him to a restaurant; they had barely been sitting there for a minute when Neuro told her that very soon, someone in the room would be killed. Just on cue, a man began violently spewing blood, and keeled over, dead. It was the first of many "mysteries" to come for Yako and Neuro. It was also the beginning of a career for Yako; the two officers who were in charge of her father's case recognised Yako at the scene of the crime, and as Yako frantically tried to explain that Neuro was some sort of crazy monster, the daemon shoved his hand into her mouth and happily introduced himself as an "assistant" - the assistant to the "Great Detective Yako Katsuragi", in fact, saying that he had recently discovered her amazing deductive abilities.
Threatened by Neuro into terrified silence, Yako watched as Neuro cleared the name of an obvious suspect and pointed out the real criminal, explaining her method in detail - using Yako as a front the entire time, right up to the point that he used his daemonic powers to make her point to the culprit. She saw him use his strange daemon tools for the first time, and she saw him devour his first mystery from the human world once the case was over.
Without even having a chance to take all of this in, she took Neuro back to her house at his demand so that he could solve the mystery of her father's death. It was over quickly, with the officer in charge being the real culprit behind the murder thanks to some cheap, easy trick he employed; as was to be the usual, Neuro used Yako as a front, giving her credit for everything he said and revealed - "this is Miss Yako's theory!" - and having her point out the criminal, and he ate the negative energy that was released when the "puzzle" was solved. After that, he announced himself satisfied and said that the place had no more use to him; he left, and Yako thought that was the end of it.
Unfortunately, when she woke the next morning and opening her blinds, he was there, waiting. He no longer had any use for her house, but Yako was still going to be his slave, whether she liked it or not - and so began Yako's career. They solved a number of cases after that, in which Yako saw more and more sides of humanity that she didn't know about before Neuro's interference in her life; she also adjusted to Neuro, to the point that she was willing (sometimes) to work with him, and she wanted to prove herself to him as something worth more than a "dishrag". In the Aya Asia case, she began to do just that, and Neuro truly took an interest in humanity around that time - he decided that Yako was of use to him as more of a front. While he could unravel a method, he didn't understand the motives or the human emotions behind the crimes, which he realised could be a weakness in future cases; Yako had a natural talent for just that, solving the Aya Asia case in her own mind without any of the evidence Neuro had procured, simply with the facts she had heard and her own understanding of Aya's feelings.
After that, not only was Yako stuck in her job, it also began to grow into something much bigger than what she had wanted; soon, she was known all over Japan, the Great High School Detective, Yako Katsuragi (and her bizarre yet innocent assistant, Neuro). She and Neuro got themselves an office from a group of gangsters after solving the case of their boss' death, and began to form a real detective agency with two more employees - the gangster Godai from the group they had taken the office from, and Akane, a corpse trapped in the office walls whose braid of hair had been brought to life thanks to Neuro's daemonic energies.
Their cases didn't really seem to anywhere bigger, or some ultimate plan; it was all just to keep Neuro happy and satisfied. And then they ran into something that, while put on hold throughout their next big case, would continue to develop into the biggest problem they would ever deal with. It all started with the Phantom Thief Sai. He was a human that had a bizarre and horrific condition; his DNA was unstable and his cells constantly mutated and morphed, giving him the ability to change his form to whoever he wanted, making him impossible to catch. Neuro and Yako encountered him after following a crazed fan of his who had been trying to replicate his Red Box technique - grinding a person into an unrecognisable mess and putting it all into a glass box - in which he and Neuro both called each other out on their inhuman abilities. Sai realised that Neuro was a monster of some sort and decided he wanted to put him in a Red Box and observe his cells, hoping that it would give him some clue as to who he really was. Neuro, however, merely saw Sai as a pest hiding a potentially tasty meal.
Sai made a few attempts on Neuro's life after that, even knowing that he was a daemon, going so far as to lure him out with a mystery and try to get the jump on him in the brief instant that Neuro was devouring his latest meal - this only led to a fight which Neuro easily won, but it also made Neuro come to realise something that horrified both Sai and Yako, while it meant little to him; gradually, he was succumbing to the logic of the human world, and his daemon body was turning human. While Sai was forced to back off and rethink his plans after their battle, the fact that Neuro, the monster, was turning more and more human while he, the human, was turning into more and more of a monster only strengthened his resolved and desperation to kill Neuro quickly, which would reappear as a problem later.
In the mean time, Yako and Neuro came up against one of their most difficult and testing cases in their time as detectives, and one in which they would save the entire world - the HAL incident.
Long story short (because it is a long arc, considering most cases only take two or three chapters, and a lot happened), Professor Harukawa wanted to bring back to life an ex-patient of his, a young woman named Setsuna, but the only way he could think it possible was to make her from zero - to use all of his knowledge and equations and all the technology he could find. He created Electronic Person HAL for this, a program that was a replica of him in mind and image, but HAL killed his creator and decided to go down a different path; while Harukawa had been hoping to get the world's cooperation in his attempts, HAL took them by force using fear tactics and criminal methods.
Neuro wanted to eat the mystery behind all of this - as no one knew at the time what HAL's motives were; all they knew was that he was brainwashing people with his "electronic drug", making them act on criminal desires - and, by association, put a stop to the chaos and destruction that was being created. He battled HAL a number of times, both in the virtual world and in the real world through HAL's brainwashed slaves, and managed to destroy almost all of his protection. However, the last barrier he could not penetrate was a password-encoded shield, which only Yako, with her understanding of human emotions and psychology, could figure out.
Naturally, she did, and with HAL defeated and Neuro having consumed the puzzle, bumping him back up into his full-power daemon state instead of the near-human level he had dropped to, Yako's fame sky-rocketed again, becoming known as the girl who saved Japan. Her and Neuro took on more cases, slipping back into their old routines, Neuro still hungering for a more satisfying, "ultimate" mystery.
This normalcy didn't last nearly long enough. Sai managed to get his hands on HAL's electronic drug, and transferred it right into his own brain, making him able to brainwash someone with it just through his eye, marked appropriately with HAL's symbol. He set up a trap that Neuro and Yako fell right into, in a secluded little village four hours away from the city - but instead of trying in vain to just beat down Neuro, he took a different approach. He separated the two partners, and while Neuro was distracted with a fight of his own, his watchful eye drawn away from his possessions, Sai swooped in and kidnapped Yako.
He brainwashed her with the electronic drug, and when Neuro came to retrieve her, Sai took on the physical form of Yako. In the time that it took for Neuro to locate them, Yako had been trained to be in perfect synchronisation with Sai, and Sai had learnt to imitate Yako perfectly, so it was impossible to tell the two apart. After the two of them sliced Neuro up a bit, he out-witted Sai, figured out which was his Yako, and ripped the other one to shreds.
Sai tried to escape in his half-dead state, but on the rooftop of the building, he instead encountered something much worse - a terror like nothing before, calling himself Sicks. Sai's partner Ai was shot in her waiting helicopter, and Sicks revealed Sai as his "child", or more accurately his "clone"; Sai had originally been a girl used as an experiment throughout her development. Everyone could only watch in absolute horror as Sai, the terrifying monster, the Phantom Thief himself, was kidnapped by Sicks like a mere child being abducted.
Sicks became the first enemy Neuro had ever had. His goal, along with that of his comrades, the "New Bloodline", was to decrease the number of humans to make way for their evolved breed. They possessed abilities and "evil intent" that normal people couldn't comprehend, and looked down on humans like animals to be slaughtered freely. This meant they were killing off those that created Neuro's source of food, and so Neuro and Sicks were placed in opposing positions, without humans even having a chance of joining the fight.
There are seventy more chapters after that that I don't feel like writing and I'm sure you don't feel like reading, and since that's distant, distant canon, it isn't really that important or vital. Neuro and Sicks fight a lot in big and dramatic ways that kill a lot of people, at one point Neuro tries to get rid of Yako to protect her but it doesn't work very well because she's stubborn and somehow developed a fondness for an abusive daemon, and in the end, once it's all over, they realise that Neuro is in danger because he's been in the Human World for too long, and he needs to return to Hell to restore his daemonic energy and body. Yako calls him an idiot and demands that he go back home immediately, and he does. Three years later, Yako is on a plane and working as a detective on her own; Neuro finally decides to return to the Human World, and immediately tracks her down to find him mysteries again. She looks out the window, and there he is - standing on the side of the plane, waiting for her.
Personality:
Yako is, at a first glance, nothing outstanding or interesting. She's friendly and kind, a little on the lazy side to the point that it makes her seem unintelligent, and most of the time a chipper and optimistic character. She doesn't have many interests, but the main one that she's shown to have - food - she's extremely energetic and enthusiastic about. Around her friends, it seems like she's the weird and overzealous one, but when it comes to her life beside Neuro, she usually plays the straight-man in most situations.
As the series goes on, more and more of Yako's traits are shown that just weren't drawn out by her average and boring lifestyle before. She's very strong and independent, especially considering her young age, probably because she grew up without relying on her parents; even when it comes to detective work and the various troubles Neuro's daemonic nature stirs up, she still hates the idea of having to rely on Neuro, despite being well out of her realm of experience.
She constantly strives to impress Neuro and "evolve" in his eyes so that she can prove of some use to him. This independence, combined with her occasionally headstrong nature, means she can be sort of reckless at times, as is evidenced by the fact that she doesn't have much of a problem at all with investigating an obvious murder suspect on her own in his house, and also by the way that she constantly stands up to Neuro without considering what the consequences of her actions will be. She realises pretty quickly afterwards that she is going to have Hell to pay, thankfully.
She's become jaded to a lot of things thanks to her experience with Neuro, too (although she's still appropriately terrified by him, considering how much he abuses and tortures her daily). She can remain extremely calm under almost any situation, even being sold, having a gun pointed to her head, or being kidnapped; this is a mix of her cool-headedness in stressful situations, her ability to adapt quickly and easily to the situation, and her courage. Murder is still a horrible thing to her, but she's able to completely put that aside now in order to focus on the case at hand. Things that would scare, gross out or shock a normal girl are things she doesn't even bat an eyelash at, and she's completely adjusted to living a life bedside a daemon - and her kindness and tendency to care for and worry for everyone extends even to him; she cares about his true nature so little that he even becomes the closest and one of the most important people to her.
Another of Yako's biggest traits is that she's extremely understanding and she can easily make sense of a person's emotions and motivations, to the point that she can solve a case without much evidence as long as she knows how the culprit feels. It's one of her most prominent strengths; while Neuro is a master of cold logic, Yako is the only one who can figure out a person's motive behind the crime, which occasionally helps Neuro figure out the criminal or the "trick" that allowed the crime to be pulled off. She has an extremely good eye for small details, too; another good detective trait.
It's a trait that makes her extremely likeable, and memorable to the criminals she foils - after Aya Asia is arrested, she actually says to Yako that she loves her (although she ruins the moment by saying "if you make me like you any more, I'll have to kill you"). As Yako understands more cases and gets closer to more criminals, she continues to learn and becomes able to understand more and more complex culprits. She even manages to understand Neuro and his various inhuman needs and quirks in her own ways - for example, she understands his willingness to forgo the daemon equivalent of oxygen for the sake of finding mysteries to eat by comparing it to when she went diving for oysters.
She remains ever-obsessed with food, though. This is the girl who can clear out an all-you-can-eat buffet and still go across the street to another restaurant.
Other: If accepted, I'll start her off immediately pre-canon, right before her father's death; after she's made some connections on the community, I'll put her through the first two chapters, and then I'll continue her through arcs at my own pace (since every now and then she can just hang in "being-horribly-abused-by-Neuro-and-solving-random-cases" limbo).
First Person (entry type):
Mou, I'm not really interested in things like this, but Kanae said I should give it a try, and she really seems to like it... Ah, the ones she goes on are all for dating, though. I guess it might be nice to be able to put my thoughts somewhere without Neuro someone digging them up and reading them out-loud to everyone accidentally coming across them. Strangers might be nice to talk to, too, since everyone I know is so strange.
... But I don't really know what this community is about. I only clicked on it because it had the word "duck" in it, but now I'm really hungry... And I don't think I could sneak out of the office without Neuro suddenly showing up and slamming my face into the wall have the time to get anything right now, there's so much work... This is torture! H-having a word like that in the title, I can't help but picture all sorts of delicious dishes, and I can't even eat anything!
--Oh, that's not really the fault of anyone here, though. Sorry. Um, anyway, am I supposed to introduce myself? That's what it looks like, so - hello, I'm Yako Katsuragi. Please don't have heard of me, I have too many cases already! At this rate, he won't let me sleep for a week!
... Oooh, I'm really hungry! Why did that horrible monster throw all of my snacks away?!
Third Person:
"Neuro! Neuro, do you have any idea where my wallet went?!"
"What are you complaining about now, dishrag?"
Yako pulled her head out of the couch cushions and looked up at the daemon reclining so casually at his desk, surrounded by newspaper clippings, magazine articles and print-offs from various websites, his eyes scanning over all of them with a speed that would be unreasonable for any human; he didn't even bother to glance up when he spoke to her. Yako gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to hurl one of the throw-pillows right into the bastard's face. It wasn't worry about him choosing not to help her if she did it that stopped her, it was the crippling fear of what he would do to her if she ever dared to do something that bold.
After all, he'd installed hooks onto the ceiling last week, and she really didn't want to find out what they were for. Ever.
"I said," she huffed, pulling everything off the lounge in her search, "have you seen my wallet? I lost it somehow, and I really need it - it has all my money for lunch today in it, without that I'm gonna starve!" She straightened up and paused, still holding some of the pillows in her hands. "... Oh, it has my train pass and my ID in it, too. But the point is--" She threw the pillows down and stamped her foot angrily. "I need that money! Without that, I'll only be able to buy take-away with the money I have on me, and that's..."
Quickly, she rummaged through the pocket in her skirt, and withdrew a fistful of yen. She counted it silently and stared at it in horror. "... W-with this, I can only afford six boxes of sushi! I'm going to die! If I want some for Mr. Godai, too, then I need at least twelve...!"
Neuro didn't look like he'd been paying any attention throughout her entire rant. And, if she was honest, she really hadn't expected him too.
But, still, she shoved the money back into her pocket and snapped, "Neuro! It doesn't matter if you won't help me, because I get the feeling you would just make things worse for me, but could you just answer my question?"
In a sudden and smooth movement, he stood, ripping down one of the newspaper articles sticky-taped to the window behind him, and he walked towards her, the footsteps a heavy, imposing death march in her mind; she hid a flinch and tried to run quickly, or at least jump over the lounge, maybe if she could get just out of his reach she'd be spared for this one time and he wouldn't bother today - it was a vain hope, yes, but maybe, maybe--
Before she could leap into action, his hand clamped down on her skull (seriously, she could feel his claws digging into her head, did he always have to do that?) and he started dragging her, apparently completely unaware of the way her heels were screeching across the floor as she tried frantically to anchor herself.
"This case has the scent of a mystery, Yako," he drawled, lips stretching into a grin as he spoke, "and we are going to investigate it." It sounded like the usual situation, and Yako was about to resign herself to another day of being thrown around like a ragdoll, but after a beat he added, "Perhaps, if you cooperate as a good slave should, I will consider finding your wallet for you; think of it as a reward for a lowly pet behaving itself while its master takes care of business."
That surprised her. Neuro would really help her for something that didn't benefit him at all? That sounded more than a little suspicious... Although, she supposed, she did have to "earn" it first - and as soon as he'd found it, things would be back to normal, so she'd probably only get to eat at least half of the food she bought before he dumped the rest of it down the back of her shirt or something...
The fact that she was resorting to asking Neuro for help stung a little, but she'd been searching all day, everywhere, and she couldn't find it anywhere; she couldn't think of anything else. It just bugged her, because she was only turning out to be more and more useless, even in simple situations like this that she should be able to handle - and she was about to go through an entire demonstration of just how little significance she had to Neuro, and how little help she was. Another case where he'd solve the mystery with blinding brilliance and speed, and she'd just be dragged around behind him...
Her hands balled into fists. No. Today might be that day - the day where she could finally show her worth again, like she had in the Aya Asia case. Where she could work out the mystery on her own and prove she was just as good as Neuro - no, maybe she would work it out before him, and prove she was better! Yeah, that was the spirit! Today would definitely be that day! She'd understand the criminal for sure and she'd work it out without Neuro's stupid daemon tricks, and Neuro would be totally awe-struck by her deductive abilities!
Today would definitely be the day that she evolved in Neuro's eyes!
"... Okay, okay, but," she grabbed his hand and pried it off her head, probably only because he was surprised by her sudden agreement, "could you stop carrying me everywhere? I can walk on my own, you know!" Before he could retaliate and give her some cruel punishment for talking back to him, she stormed ahead and threw open the door, marching out with a fury and determination in her step.
Behind her, Neuro watched her go and smirked, holding her wallet between his fingers.
He slipped it back into his pocket and followed her out of the office building.
Player LJ: unspeakingly
Way to contact you:
Email: ezzigreenie@hotmail.com
AIM: kowareta ichi
Other: unspeakingly @ Plurk
Are you at least 15?: Y.
Current Characters: Haruhi F., Nill, Miharu, Xion, Romano, Belarus, Minatsuki, Elizabeth. FUCK MY FUCKING LIFE, MAN.
Character: Yako Katsuragi
Fandom: Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro (manga)
Character Notes:
History:
Yako grew up in a pretty normal, happy family; she was an only child, and she was close to both of her parents. Her father was a workaholic, her mother was a dangerous cook who could make things like explosive bricks for dinner and still think they were normal and Yako was a strange girl that only ever thought about food and could eat someone out of house and home, but there were no problems within the family, and all three of them loved each other very much.
And then, when Yako was 16, her father was brutally murdered. Despite the fact that the man's body had been stabbed with a large number of knives, because it was a closed-room case with no criminal evidence and no apparent way for a culprit to have entered or exited the room, it was ruled as a suicide.
Yako didn't believe it for one second, but there was nothing she could do to make the case move any faster, and the police had assured her that they would delve deeper into the case and solve it soon. Overwhelmed with grief and the chaos in her mind, she went to sit at her father's shrine, and as she cried, she suddenly heard a strange voice - "Why are you crying? That's ridiculous. You should be laughing right now, bitch." And when she turned around there was a strange man leering right at her, feet planted on her father's sacred shrine, standing sideways, his arm going through the picture of her beloved father, his very presence striking her with fear.
Shocked, Yako managed to form just a few words, and the man caught on to her terrified stammering - Me? Oh, I see! You want me to introduce myself! I am called Neuro. Brain-eater Neuro. He announced himself as a puzzle-eating daemon; a resident of Hell. Yako could do little but stare in horror and try desperately to make some sense of the situation, and of the strange daemon desecrating her late father's shrine - and out of nowhere, sensing a "mystery" somewhere nearby, the daemon Neuro abruptly told her that she would serve as his assistant; a human front so that he didn't come off as too suspicious.
Half out of fear of consequences if she didn't, and half out of a morbid curiosity and confusion that was left after his strange explanation, Yako went with him to a restaurant; they had barely been sitting there for a minute when Neuro told her that very soon, someone in the room would be killed. Just on cue, a man began violently spewing blood, and keeled over, dead. It was the first of many "mysteries" to come for Yako and Neuro. It was also the beginning of a career for Yako; the two officers who were in charge of her father's case recognised Yako at the scene of the crime, and as Yako frantically tried to explain that Neuro was some sort of crazy monster, the daemon shoved his hand into her mouth and happily introduced himself as an "assistant" - the assistant to the "Great Detective Yako Katsuragi", in fact, saying that he had recently discovered her amazing deductive abilities.
Threatened by Neuro into terrified silence, Yako watched as Neuro cleared the name of an obvious suspect and pointed out the real criminal, explaining her method in detail - using Yako as a front the entire time, right up to the point that he used his daemonic powers to make her point to the culprit. She saw him use his strange daemon tools for the first time, and she saw him devour his first mystery from the human world once the case was over.
Without even having a chance to take all of this in, she took Neuro back to her house at his demand so that he could solve the mystery of her father's death. It was over quickly, with the officer in charge being the real culprit behind the murder thanks to some cheap, easy trick he employed; as was to be the usual, Neuro used Yako as a front, giving her credit for everything he said and revealed - "this is Miss Yako's theory!" - and having her point out the criminal, and he ate the negative energy that was released when the "puzzle" was solved. After that, he announced himself satisfied and said that the place had no more use to him; he left, and Yako thought that was the end of it.
Unfortunately, when she woke the next morning and opening her blinds, he was there, waiting. He no longer had any use for her house, but Yako was still going to be his slave, whether she liked it or not - and so began Yako's career. They solved a number of cases after that, in which Yako saw more and more sides of humanity that she didn't know about before Neuro's interference in her life; she also adjusted to Neuro, to the point that she was willing (sometimes) to work with him, and she wanted to prove herself to him as something worth more than a "dishrag". In the Aya Asia case, she began to do just that, and Neuro truly took an interest in humanity around that time - he decided that Yako was of use to him as more of a front. While he could unravel a method, he didn't understand the motives or the human emotions behind the crimes, which he realised could be a weakness in future cases; Yako had a natural talent for just that, solving the Aya Asia case in her own mind without any of the evidence Neuro had procured, simply with the facts she had heard and her own understanding of Aya's feelings.
After that, not only was Yako stuck in her job, it also began to grow into something much bigger than what she had wanted; soon, she was known all over Japan, the Great High School Detective, Yako Katsuragi (and her bizarre yet innocent assistant, Neuro). She and Neuro got themselves an office from a group of gangsters after solving the case of their boss' death, and began to form a real detective agency with two more employees - the gangster Godai from the group they had taken the office from, and Akane, a corpse trapped in the office walls whose braid of hair had been brought to life thanks to Neuro's daemonic energies.
Their cases didn't really seem to anywhere bigger, or some ultimate plan; it was all just to keep Neuro happy and satisfied. And then they ran into something that, while put on hold throughout their next big case, would continue to develop into the biggest problem they would ever deal with. It all started with the Phantom Thief Sai. He was a human that had a bizarre and horrific condition; his DNA was unstable and his cells constantly mutated and morphed, giving him the ability to change his form to whoever he wanted, making him impossible to catch. Neuro and Yako encountered him after following a crazed fan of his who had been trying to replicate his Red Box technique - grinding a person into an unrecognisable mess and putting it all into a glass box - in which he and Neuro both called each other out on their inhuman abilities. Sai realised that Neuro was a monster of some sort and decided he wanted to put him in a Red Box and observe his cells, hoping that it would give him some clue as to who he really was. Neuro, however, merely saw Sai as a pest hiding a potentially tasty meal.
Sai made a few attempts on Neuro's life after that, even knowing that he was a daemon, going so far as to lure him out with a mystery and try to get the jump on him in the brief instant that Neuro was devouring his latest meal - this only led to a fight which Neuro easily won, but it also made Neuro come to realise something that horrified both Sai and Yako, while it meant little to him; gradually, he was succumbing to the logic of the human world, and his daemon body was turning human. While Sai was forced to back off and rethink his plans after their battle, the fact that Neuro, the monster, was turning more and more human while he, the human, was turning into more and more of a monster only strengthened his resolved and desperation to kill Neuro quickly, which would reappear as a problem later.
In the mean time, Yako and Neuro came up against one of their most difficult and testing cases in their time as detectives, and one in which they would save the entire world - the HAL incident.
Long story short (because it is a long arc, considering most cases only take two or three chapters, and a lot happened), Professor Harukawa wanted to bring back to life an ex-patient of his, a young woman named Setsuna, but the only way he could think it possible was to make her from zero - to use all of his knowledge and equations and all the technology he could find. He created Electronic Person HAL for this, a program that was a replica of him in mind and image, but HAL killed his creator and decided to go down a different path; while Harukawa had been hoping to get the world's cooperation in his attempts, HAL took them by force using fear tactics and criminal methods.
Neuro wanted to eat the mystery behind all of this - as no one knew at the time what HAL's motives were; all they knew was that he was brainwashing people with his "electronic drug", making them act on criminal desires - and, by association, put a stop to the chaos and destruction that was being created. He battled HAL a number of times, both in the virtual world and in the real world through HAL's brainwashed slaves, and managed to destroy almost all of his protection. However, the last barrier he could not penetrate was a password-encoded shield, which only Yako, with her understanding of human emotions and psychology, could figure out.
Naturally, she did, and with HAL defeated and Neuro having consumed the puzzle, bumping him back up into his full-power daemon state instead of the near-human level he had dropped to, Yako's fame sky-rocketed again, becoming known as the girl who saved Japan. Her and Neuro took on more cases, slipping back into their old routines, Neuro still hungering for a more satisfying, "ultimate" mystery.
This normalcy didn't last nearly long enough. Sai managed to get his hands on HAL's electronic drug, and transferred it right into his own brain, making him able to brainwash someone with it just through his eye, marked appropriately with HAL's symbol. He set up a trap that Neuro and Yako fell right into, in a secluded little village four hours away from the city - but instead of trying in vain to just beat down Neuro, he took a different approach. He separated the two partners, and while Neuro was distracted with a fight of his own, his watchful eye drawn away from his possessions, Sai swooped in and kidnapped Yako.
He brainwashed her with the electronic drug, and when Neuro came to retrieve her, Sai took on the physical form of Yako. In the time that it took for Neuro to locate them, Yako had been trained to be in perfect synchronisation with Sai, and Sai had learnt to imitate Yako perfectly, so it was impossible to tell the two apart. After the two of them sliced Neuro up a bit, he out-witted Sai, figured out which was his Yako, and ripped the other one to shreds.
Sai tried to escape in his half-dead state, but on the rooftop of the building, he instead encountered something much worse - a terror like nothing before, calling himself Sicks. Sai's partner Ai was shot in her waiting helicopter, and Sicks revealed Sai as his "child", or more accurately his "clone"; Sai had originally been a girl used as an experiment throughout her development. Everyone could only watch in absolute horror as Sai, the terrifying monster, the Phantom Thief himself, was kidnapped by Sicks like a mere child being abducted.
Sicks became the first enemy Neuro had ever had. His goal, along with that of his comrades, the "New Bloodline", was to decrease the number of humans to make way for their evolved breed. They possessed abilities and "evil intent" that normal people couldn't comprehend, and looked down on humans like animals to be slaughtered freely. This meant they were killing off those that created Neuro's source of food, and so Neuro and Sicks were placed in opposing positions, without humans even having a chance of joining the fight.
There are seventy more chapters after that that I don't feel like writing and I'm sure you don't feel like reading, and since that's distant, distant canon, it isn't really that important or vital. Neuro and Sicks fight a lot in big and dramatic ways that kill a lot of people, at one point Neuro tries to get rid of Yako to protect her but it doesn't work very well because she's stubborn and somehow developed a fondness for an abusive daemon, and in the end, once it's all over, they realise that Neuro is in danger because he's been in the Human World for too long, and he needs to return to Hell to restore his daemonic energy and body. Yako calls him an idiot and demands that he go back home immediately, and he does. Three years later, Yako is on a plane and working as a detective on her own; Neuro finally decides to return to the Human World, and immediately tracks her down to find him mysteries again. She looks out the window, and there he is - standing on the side of the plane, waiting for her.
Personality:
Yako is, at a first glance, nothing outstanding or interesting. She's friendly and kind, a little on the lazy side to the point that it makes her seem unintelligent, and most of the time a chipper and optimistic character. She doesn't have many interests, but the main one that she's shown to have - food - she's extremely energetic and enthusiastic about. Around her friends, it seems like she's the weird and overzealous one, but when it comes to her life beside Neuro, she usually plays the straight-man in most situations.
As the series goes on, more and more of Yako's traits are shown that just weren't drawn out by her average and boring lifestyle before. She's very strong and independent, especially considering her young age, probably because she grew up without relying on her parents; even when it comes to detective work and the various troubles Neuro's daemonic nature stirs up, she still hates the idea of having to rely on Neuro, despite being well out of her realm of experience.
She constantly strives to impress Neuro and "evolve" in his eyes so that she can prove of some use to him. This independence, combined with her occasionally headstrong nature, means she can be sort of reckless at times, as is evidenced by the fact that she doesn't have much of a problem at all with investigating an obvious murder suspect on her own in his house, and also by the way that she constantly stands up to Neuro without considering what the consequences of her actions will be. She realises pretty quickly afterwards that she is going to have Hell to pay, thankfully.
She's become jaded to a lot of things thanks to her experience with Neuro, too (although she's still appropriately terrified by him, considering how much he abuses and tortures her daily). She can remain extremely calm under almost any situation, even being sold, having a gun pointed to her head, or being kidnapped; this is a mix of her cool-headedness in stressful situations, her ability to adapt quickly and easily to the situation, and her courage. Murder is still a horrible thing to her, but she's able to completely put that aside now in order to focus on the case at hand. Things that would scare, gross out or shock a normal girl are things she doesn't even bat an eyelash at, and she's completely adjusted to living a life bedside a daemon - and her kindness and tendency to care for and worry for everyone extends even to him; she cares about his true nature so little that he even becomes the closest and one of the most important people to her.
Another of Yako's biggest traits is that she's extremely understanding and she can easily make sense of a person's emotions and motivations, to the point that she can solve a case without much evidence as long as she knows how the culprit feels. It's one of her most prominent strengths; while Neuro is a master of cold logic, Yako is the only one who can figure out a person's motive behind the crime, which occasionally helps Neuro figure out the criminal or the "trick" that allowed the crime to be pulled off. She has an extremely good eye for small details, too; another good detective trait.
It's a trait that makes her extremely likeable, and memorable to the criminals she foils - after Aya Asia is arrested, she actually says to Yako that she loves her (although she ruins the moment by saying "if you make me like you any more, I'll have to kill you"). As Yako understands more cases and gets closer to more criminals, she continues to learn and becomes able to understand more and more complex culprits. She even manages to understand Neuro and his various inhuman needs and quirks in her own ways - for example, she understands his willingness to forgo the daemon equivalent of oxygen for the sake of finding mysteries to eat by comparing it to when she went diving for oysters.
She remains ever-obsessed with food, though. This is the girl who can clear out an all-you-can-eat buffet and still go across the street to another restaurant.
Other: If accepted, I'll start her off immediately pre-canon, right before her father's death; after she's made some connections on the community, I'll put her through the first two chapters, and then I'll continue her through arcs at my own pace (since every now and then she can just hang in "being-horribly-abused-by-Neuro-and-solving-random-cases" limbo).
First Person (entry type):
Mou, I'm not really interested in things like this, but Kanae said I should give it a try, and she really seems to like it... Ah, the ones she goes on are all for dating, though. I guess it might be nice to be able to put my thoughts somewhere without Neuro someone digging them up and reading them out-loud to everyone accidentally coming across them. Strangers might be nice to talk to, too, since everyone I know is so strange.
... But I don't really know what this community is about. I only clicked on it because it had the word "duck" in it, but now I'm really hungry... And I don't think I could sneak out of the office without Neuro suddenly showing up and slamming my face into the wall have the time to get anything right now, there's so much work... This is torture! H-having a word like that in the title, I can't help but picture all sorts of delicious dishes, and I can't even eat anything!
--Oh, that's not really the fault of anyone here, though. Sorry. Um, anyway, am I supposed to introduce myself? That's what it looks like, so - hello, I'm Yako Katsuragi. Please don't have heard of me, I have too many cases already! At this rate, he won't let me sleep for a week!
... Oooh, I'm really hungry! Why did that horrible monster throw all of my snacks away?!
Third Person:
"Neuro! Neuro, do you have any idea where my wallet went?!"
"What are you complaining about now, dishrag?"
Yako pulled her head out of the couch cushions and looked up at the daemon reclining so casually at his desk, surrounded by newspaper clippings, magazine articles and print-offs from various websites, his eyes scanning over all of them with a speed that would be unreasonable for any human; he didn't even bother to glance up when he spoke to her. Yako gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to hurl one of the throw-pillows right into the bastard's face. It wasn't worry about him choosing not to help her if she did it that stopped her, it was the crippling fear of what he would do to her if she ever dared to do something that bold.
After all, he'd installed hooks onto the ceiling last week, and she really didn't want to find out what they were for. Ever.
"I said," she huffed, pulling everything off the lounge in her search, "have you seen my wallet? I lost it somehow, and I really need it - it has all my money for lunch today in it, without that I'm gonna starve!" She straightened up and paused, still holding some of the pillows in her hands. "... Oh, it has my train pass and my ID in it, too. But the point is--" She threw the pillows down and stamped her foot angrily. "I need that money! Without that, I'll only be able to buy take-away with the money I have on me, and that's..."
Quickly, she rummaged through the pocket in her skirt, and withdrew a fistful of yen. She counted it silently and stared at it in horror. "... W-with this, I can only afford six boxes of sushi! I'm going to die! If I want some for Mr. Godai, too, then I need at least twelve...!"
Neuro didn't look like he'd been paying any attention throughout her entire rant. And, if she was honest, she really hadn't expected him too.
But, still, she shoved the money back into her pocket and snapped, "Neuro! It doesn't matter if you won't help me, because I get the feeling you would just make things worse for me, but could you just answer my question?"
In a sudden and smooth movement, he stood, ripping down one of the newspaper articles sticky-taped to the window behind him, and he walked towards her, the footsteps a heavy, imposing death march in her mind; she hid a flinch and tried to run quickly, or at least jump over the lounge, maybe if she could get just out of his reach she'd be spared for this one time and he wouldn't bother today - it was a vain hope, yes, but maybe, maybe--
Before she could leap into action, his hand clamped down on her skull (seriously, she could feel his claws digging into her head, did he always have to do that?) and he started dragging her, apparently completely unaware of the way her heels were screeching across the floor as she tried frantically to anchor herself.
"This case has the scent of a mystery, Yako," he drawled, lips stretching into a grin as he spoke, "and we are going to investigate it." It sounded like the usual situation, and Yako was about to resign herself to another day of being thrown around like a ragdoll, but after a beat he added, "Perhaps, if you cooperate as a good slave should, I will consider finding your wallet for you; think of it as a reward for a lowly pet behaving itself while its master takes care of business."
That surprised her. Neuro would really help her for something that didn't benefit him at all? That sounded more than a little suspicious... Although, she supposed, she did have to "earn" it first - and as soon as he'd found it, things would be back to normal, so she'd probably only get to eat at least half of the food she bought before he dumped the rest of it down the back of her shirt or something...
The fact that she was resorting to asking Neuro for help stung a little, but she'd been searching all day, everywhere, and she couldn't find it anywhere; she couldn't think of anything else. It just bugged her, because she was only turning out to be more and more useless, even in simple situations like this that she should be able to handle - and she was about to go through an entire demonstration of just how little significance she had to Neuro, and how little help she was. Another case where he'd solve the mystery with blinding brilliance and speed, and she'd just be dragged around behind him...
Her hands balled into fists. No. Today might be that day - the day where she could finally show her worth again, like she had in the Aya Asia case. Where she could work out the mystery on her own and prove she was just as good as Neuro - no, maybe she would work it out before him, and prove she was better! Yeah, that was the spirit! Today would definitely be that day! She'd understand the criminal for sure and she'd work it out without Neuro's stupid daemon tricks, and Neuro would be totally awe-struck by her deductive abilities!
Today would definitely be the day that she evolved in Neuro's eyes!
"... Okay, okay, but," she grabbed his hand and pried it off her head, probably only because he was surprised by her sudden agreement, "could you stop carrying me everywhere? I can walk on my own, you know!" Before he could retaliate and give her some cruel punishment for talking back to him, she stormed ahead and threw open the door, marching out with a fury and determination in her step.
Behind her, Neuro watched her go and smirked, holding her wallet between his fingers.
He slipped it back into his pocket and followed her out of the office building.