✟ application ( thevelvetkey )
"Very well. Then I must thank this young man."
The priest called Kotomine slowly turns to me.
…Without realizing, I step back.
…He's not scary at all.
…I don't feel any hostility from him.
But this priest still has a presence that makes the air around him feel heavy.
"I am Kotomine Kirei, the one entrusted with this church.
What is your name, seventh Master?"
"Emiya Shirou. But I haven't agreed to this 'Master' thing yet."
I glare back at the priest, trying not to lose against his presence.
Player Info:
Nickname: Dana
Age: 15
Personal LJ: lovexamination
Method of Contact: AIM: love examination, plurk: lastend
Characters Played: n/a
Character Info:
Name: Kirei Kotomine
Age: Late thirties
Canon: Fate/Stay Night
Pull Point: Heaven's Feel, day 15; after rescuing Ilya
Background Info:
History: Background @ Type-Moon wiki and Heaven's Feel route.
Personality: Kirei Kotomine is quick to make a strong first impression. A man possessing an overwhelming presence, tall to the point of easily towering over everyone, combined with an incredibly deep, astringent voice, he is quick to make one feel uneasy and tense, even without showing the slightest trace of hostility of any other emotion, his silence when you're speaking to him alone able to make one feel uneasy even over the phone. Stern and stoic yet often carrying a smile on his face, he's calm, composed, confident, impossible to phase not through words nor through actions. However, his speech is formal and he maintains a degree of politeness, and there is no clear way to tell why he makes one feel the way he does. He's seemingly just a strict old priest when one takes away the presence and air he gives off, and in addition to the fact that he's often incredibly difficult to read and one can never tell what he's really thinking, this makes him somewhat enigmatic. Although, despite how he acts-he seems to have a teasing streak and as one will eventually discover, a surprisingly razor-sharp tongue, combined with a tendency to really enjoy talking for long periods of time without getting tired. Long speeches, endless amount of exposition, random philosophical contemplation, and frequently, a mix of them all at the same time would be his specialty.
The original concept for his character was "the guy that you just knew the first time you met him to be the one pulling all the strings"; and it's not hard to start wondering after meeting him if he's having fun messing with you and the truth is, he is. Messing with people, playing mind games and teasing, in incredibly subtle yet clear ways is his other specialty. And it's clear that he takes a great amount of enjoyment in it. Kirei really isn't the kind of man you expect a priest to be, and he is called "fake priest" by Rin for a reason. But that's only the tip of the iceberg. Still, one is rarely surprised to find out that Kirei is a cruel, immoral man, as close as you can get to the classic cartoony villain (but in a way that is not the least bit comical) in his habit of taking pleasure in others' suffering and doing incredibly malicious things without showing an ounce of regret-from ordering his own Servant to commit suicide using a spell that makes the order impossible to refuse, to keeping orphans underneath his basement for ten years for his other Servant to slowly suck the life energy out of while they are entirely conscious. He may be an unpleasant person in subtle ways before he exposes himself as the villain of the story, but once he does, and once it's time to ruin someone's day completely before killing them, he will go all out and without hesitation, making sure to mock them throughout it all.
Clever and manipulative, Kirei is a man who loves mindgames and loves messing with and just getting to people, the kind of guy who says things to rile you up on purpose as much as possible-- and he knows exactly how to do it. He's a strategist, and could be easily likened to a puppeteer or a chessmaster, remaining in the shadows completley unnoticed while pulling the strings from above and being the one truly responsible for the events, acting as a supervisor while truly being a Master with not one but two Servants. He doesn't need your full trust to manipulate you-- just a little bit is enough for him. He's good with words and at remaining eternally calm and composed at all times; this means he never outright lies, but twists and distorts the truth with his words to trick people.
However, Kirei truly isn't nearly as simple as he looks. After all, why does his voice sound so genuinely cheerful when cruelly mocking you and taking pleasure in your suffering? Why are these moments the only time when he strangely, actually sounds really happy and not just enjoying the schadenfreude, letting out laughter that's so genuine and lacking in any malice in it that it seems completely out of place? Why does he always sound completely disinterested in everything otherwise? He's so calm and composed, so difficult it is to get a real emotion reaction out of him, that even with his constantly present smirk he seems simply not to truly care about anything.
The answer itself is simple. Kotomine is a broken man, born from the start of his life with a defect. A void of a man who had nothing and who could feel nothing but emptiness and apathy, and unable to find happiness and joy from anything, Kirei spent nearly all his life searching for a meaning and a worth, going from progression to profession, studying and learning everything to the point of almost reaching absolute mastery and then throwing it away. An executor with extensive assassin training, a priest and a man working for the church, a magus studying a huge variety of magic- he even tried love and had a wife and child. Nothing was fulfilling, nothing was anything other than as empty as the previous. He felt no love for his wife, nor did he grieve for her when she died, and didn't care for his own child. A man with no cravings, desires or wishes, because he couldn't bring himself to feel it towards anything. The only thing that could make him feel happiness is the suffering of others; the pain of humanity. He was born from the start as a man who could only go down the path of evil if he wanted to be happy.
Of course, it isn't as though Kirei isn't aware that such a life is wrong; it isn't that he has no morals, but rather that he abandoned them. A sociopath who never wanted to be a sociopath and doesn't want to be, having been born to a morally good and very religious Christian family, raised to be selfless and good, and fully believing in and desiring this way of life. Kirei is, by all means, a completely normal and even okay person- or at least, should have been. Even his personality used to be completely different-- a serious, stoic but dutiful, faithful, polite young man who would only become angered at the idea of having to indulge in sin. He just happened to have been born with a special sort of defect, and it was once he was made aware of it that his personality changed into the man he is now; it was with this realization that he abandoned his morals in favor of a life that isn't as fulfilling as he would like it to be, but it is the only thing that makes him happy. It is the fact that it makes him happy in itself that still haunts him and stands in the way of true fulfillment. A question to which he constantly seeks the answer to, from God himself-- why was someone like him allowed to be born?
At this moment, Kotomine Kirei finally understood the true form of his own soul. The collapse of everything was so beautiful. People who were tormented were so lovable. Tortured screams by his ears were so satisfying. Burnt corpses were so laughable.
"... Haha.”
Unable to control the emotion that had reached boiling point, Kirei laughed hopelessly. What kind of sin was this? What a cruel demon he was. A world like this, cast aside by God, could actually be filled with vivid joy.
"What am I? Hahaha, what am I?!” Even the feeling of hopelessness that tugged at his heart was so sweet. Kirei’s body trembled from his manic laughter. He could feel everything from his fingertips to the top of his head, clearly and distinctly.
Ahah, now I am alive - I truly exist, right here -
For the first time he was aware of, and for the first time he truly felt, the fetters between him and the world.
"Why so twisted? Why so filthy? Am I really the descendant of Kotomine Risei? Hahahaha, impossible! Impossible! What is this?! Could my father really have sired a dog?!”
Game Specific:
Arcana: The Hierophant
Justification: The Hierophant card is, first of all, heavily association with religion and it is one of the many things it represents. Kirei being a priest, it is a card that suits him very easily; however, there are many other meanings to it that suit him as well. Knowledge, education, experience- these are all often associated with the card, and suit him just as well, as Kirei is nothing if not an intelligent, clever man, as well as very thoughtful and contemplative and philosophical, with a great deal of experience in many areas. Wise advice is appropriate as Kirei because he tends to talk (a lot) and not only be very, very informative when he gives his endless speeches on exposition, but he never misses out a chance to give Shirou advice, and a great deal of the time it's actually really good and true advice, even when he is deliberately cruel about it. Paradoxically, misleading advice is just as appropriate, combined with distortion of the truth, with his habit of twisting the truth into giving someone the wrong impression and thus effectively manipulating them. Unconventionality sums up Kirei in a nutshell, given that everything about him can be considered different and thus unconventional and out of the ordinary< Tradition, and rejection of tradition could describe the process of change in Kirei's life; he is Christian due to family tradition after all, having been raised as such, and having held on tightly to this belief and lifestyle all his life until he lost true faith in his religion when he finally accepted himself and his own "defect"- his inability to find joy in anything that isn't the suffering of others.
Samples:
First Person Sample: d_m post get
Third Person Sample: It certainly was the strangest of experiences-- though it's not that strange experiences were anything new to a man who was constantly involved with the world of magic. Still, it's not every day one simply found themselves pulled into another world, and all the way into the United States at that. One would normally be both surprised and confused, but Kirei could only feel an idle annoyance. How terribly inconvenient this was, for them to choose this time to "spirit him away", the thought came into his mind in a deadpan, sarcastic tone, any worry that the average person would feel in his place completley lacking. No matter what he thought of it, his feelings regarding what was happening to the boy he left behind remained completley apathetic. All he hopes is that he didn't just drop Ilyasviel while running with her in his arms-- that would have been pretty terrible for her indeed.
Kirei remained quite frankly apathetic to his apparent new home as well. The town and the island had next to nothing of that which could be considered interesting in any way, shape or form. Of course, Kirei was a man who found over ninety percent of life and the world in general to be completley dull, so that wasn't saying much. Boredom was nothing new to him. Kirei walked down the street in his usual calm, composed manner, his hands together behind his back, posture the same as always; his face betrayed nothing of what he was thinking or feeling, calm and expressionless as always. He knew how he must have looked to others; this huge adult man in a priest's robes walking in silence, his presence and approach quick to make one feel uneasy, and he knew how his eyes had a constantly empty look to them, the way it would contribute to the aura he gave. He always used it to his advantage too. That expression about the eyes being the window to the soul was appropriate. After all, it's the sort of window that, if one were to look through it, then one would see nothing but void, a deep, empty darkness. It applied quite perfectly in this case.
And it was with those very eyes that the man, as he walked with his heavy footsteps, observed everything he saw carefully. Simply because his new environment was uninteresting didn't mean he didn't have to get to know it as much as he can. It striked him as perfectly natural and logical to survey it and make sure to know everything he can both about the place he'll be staying in and to know the place itself. Kirei was nothing if not at the very least careful and a decent strategist. Getting to know the potential battlefield is merely the first step. Who knows what might happen here that will require knowledge of the place?
Besides, it isn't as though there was much for him to do otherwise.