Siren's Pull Application | Shuji Ikutsuki | Persona 3
Player Information
Name: Tash
Age: 17
AIM SN: lythdanmegend
email: lythdan[at]gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes!
Bonus: How did you hear about Siren's Pull? I play here; originally app_this_plz
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (FES)
Canon Format: Video Game.
Character's Name: Shuji Ikutsuki
Character's Age: Never explicitly stated in canon, but judging on appearance, associates and work-related achievements, late thirties to early forties.
What form will your character's NV take?
A modern smartphone, but capable of voice, video, text and holograms!
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: None, apart from his ability to remain conscious during the Dark Hour, the special hidden hour that exists between 12:00 AM and 12:01 AM, whereas most people without the ability or potential to use Personas are transmogrified into coffins, but yeah, considering the Dark Hour doesn’t exist in Siren’s Port - absolutely nothing.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? I would like for Ikutsuki to eventually be able to utilise the power of Persona on his own; that is, he will be able to be able to summon the manifestation of his inner psyche as a mythological figure that is capable of attack, one or two basic elemental skills (the available ones being fire (agi), ice (bufu), electricity (zio) and wind (garu)). It stands to reason that his Persona would be weak at first because it hasn't been trained and nor is Ikutsuki really any good at fighting.
The drawback to this is that although the Pull is what brought about this change in Ikutsuki's capability to manifest a Persona, he won't be aware of this occurrence, so even though the ability is lying dormant within him, unless he starts to suspect that there's something different about him (a process which may take several months), or he finds himself in a life-threatening situation, he won't know that can he do it. Once he does, however, if he wants to summon his Persona, he will have to do it the way the other natural Persona users do in canon: by using an Evoker (a gun shaped implement meant to recreate the feeling that one has before they die). While in canon, it is likely that Ikutsuki helped develop the Evokers, he might not have the facilities or the materials to create one in Siren's Pull.
Weapons: Just one normal handgun; loaded.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:
Shuji Ikutsuki was a talented scientific researcher; due to his skills, he was invited onto the Kirijo Group's research team around 1995, fourteen years before the events of the main Persona 3 game. The Kirijo Group, then headed by a man named Koetsu Kirijo, initially intended to create a time manipulation device by harnessing the power of these monsters called Shadows, using the reasoning that if a business could manipulate time and space to their will, it would give them an unstoppable advantage over all their competition. However, during their continued experimentation and examination of the true nature of Shadows, the research team discovered a prophecy called 'The Fall', which exposed what these Shadows were truly capable of - if enough of them were amassed, they would form the Death arcana, that, acting as a harbinger, would summon Nyx, the series's anthropomorphic representation of Death, down to Earth to put an end to all humanity. The Kirijo group's research team shifted their focus from creating the time manipulation device and instead, actively desired to bring about The Fall - a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way, because Nyx was only to be summoned if it was indicated that humanity had lost the will to survive, which the research team showed due to their embrace of the ideology that 'death is deliverance'; that the only way humanity could be saved was if it was destroyed.
Ikutsuki especially embraced this philosophy and paid particular attention to the details of the prophecy of The Fall; the prophecy mentioned that The Fall would be orchestrated by a character called 'The Prince', and that once The Fall had occurred, he would rule the new world as King; this was the role that Koetsu Kirijo was trying to fulfil in his attempts to bring about The Fall.
However, not all of the research team's scientists fully embraced these nihilistic attitudes: one man in particular, Eiichiro Takeba, objected to his team's belief so strongly that he felt that the plan had to be interrupted - he disrupted the experiment so that the Shadows the Kirijo Group had amassed would disperse into twelve separate Shadows; while it was too late to prevent the creation of the Dark Hour, a twenty-fifth hour between 12:00 AM and 12:01 AM and Tartarus, the tall tower that appears during the Dark Hour where the experiments had taken place, both tools that were intended to be utilised to summon Nyx to Earth, Eiichiro's dispersion of the Shadows dissolved the creation of the Death Arcana, which was necessary for the summoning; while the Dark Hour and Tartarus would remain, the summoning of Nyx would be halted unless the twelve separated Shadows were united once more.
However, for almost everyone at the laboratory that day, Eiichiro's plan would have fatal consequences for them - the Shadows, as they were dispersed, went on a rampage, destroying the facilities where the research group had conducted their experiments, and killing almost everyone in attendance to that day's experiments. Before his death, Eiichiro managed to leave a recorded message to warn everyone that the Shadows were not to be reunited under any circumstances, as doing so would recreate the Death Arcana and thus induce the summoning of Nyx and the End of the World.
Ikutsuki, however, had either escaped early from the destruction of that day, or had simply not been in attendance to its experiments, and managed to be the first to collect the recording that Eiichiro had left at the expense of his life; this recording would become useful for Ikutsuki over the course of the next decade as he attempted to continue the work of the now deceased Koetsu Kirijo; Ikutsuki still intended fully on bringing about The Fall. There was a problem his ambitions, of course; the major Shadows that had dispersed were impossible to find, and even if he could locate them, he did not have the means to amass them himself, as now the Shadows would only appear during the Dark Hour, and while Ikutsuki was one of the few capable of retaining consciousness during this twenty-fifth hour, he was unable of using the power of Persona, the manifestation of a person's psyche that could do battle and damage the Shadows, which would cause them to recombine again.
He would not give up on his ambitions, of course, and managed to gain the trust of Koetsu's successor, Takeharu Kirijo, and Ikutsuki continued to research the subject of Shadows when he had the time - the Kirijo Group owned the high school where the experiments had taken place, and Takeharu used his power to get Ikutsuki a job on the school board there.
Ikutsuki's inability to wield the power of Persona was a hindrance to his plans because it meant that he was unable to achieve his goals; because he could not produce a Persona himself, he decided to see if they could be induced in other people; these experiments were often preformed on orphans or street-children, in other words, people no-one would notice if they went missing or dead as a result of the experimentation. It resulted that Persona users could be artificially induced, but at the risk of their Personas breaking free from their control and killing them; artificially created Persona users would be required to take drugs called suppressants, which Ikutsuki supplied them with, but these drugs also came with a lethal side-affect - the suppressants were slowly causing the deaths of those who used them. This experiment had not quite gone to plan.
Natural Persona users, however, showed to be far more promising: their Personas were far more reliably controlled, but the downside was that that they were far harder to come by, as one would have to first have the Potential, that is, the ability to retain their sense of self within the Dark Hour, as well as have some sort of catalyst for their first appearance of the Persona. The first 'natural' Persona user the Kirijo Group became aware of was in fact Mitsuru Kirijo, Takeharu's only daughter. (While it is implied that she was 'forced' to learn to use a Persona, the fact that her Persona arose during the Dark Hour when she already had the Potential spared her from the fate that met the artificial Persona users.) Several years later, two more natural Persona users would be discovered - they, together with Mitsuru would form SEES, the Specialised Extracurricular Execution Squad - they masqueraded as a school club so they could live in the same dorm together, and Ikutsuki kept a watchful eye over them both as their correspondent with the school as well as advising them about what to do with their newfound abilities.
Some tragic events occur over the years, but for Ikutsuki, these events were secondary to the fact that the major Shadows that dispersed when Death was separated were still nowhere to be found. He continued to bide his time, hoping that one day, his goals would be realised: and then, ten years after the initial dispersal of the amassed shadows, they are, as a boy called Minato Arisato transfers to Gekkoukan High School. Once Ikutsuki realised that he has the Potential, he has him moved to the co-ed dorm, alongside the rest of SEES, which had recently acquired a new member in Yukari Takeba, so he can be monitored - and the results are most pleasing. He'd adapted well to the Dark Hour which means that there was a high likelihood that he would be able to develop the power of Persona; but a more pleasing result for Ikutsuki - although he didn't realise it as anything more than coincidence - was that after a few days of Minato's stay at the dorm, one of the missing major Shadows attacked a SEES member, chasing him all the way back to the dorm. Minato discovered his power of Persona - with the curious side-effect of being able to change personas (most people only get one) - but more importantly, for Ikutsuki, the major Shadows had started appearing again; his research indicated that defeating them will cause them to recombine.
He soon determined a pattern to the major Shadows' appearances (one or two appear without fail every full moon), and he manipulated SEES to meet his own ends of combining the Shadows and bringing about The Fall. As he suspected that Mitsuru and the others might not agree with his ideologies, he instead convinced SEES that destroying all the Shadows would put an end to the Dark Hour and destroy Tartarus - as ever since the appearance of the major Shadows, the Shadows themselves had become more aggressive, preying on unprotected minds during the Dark Hour and causing an incurable condition called Apathy Syndrome, removing a person's ability to think or feel. Mitsuru, especially, felt guilty for this as she knew her father's company's research was at fault for the creation of the Dark Hour. Ikutsuki abused this guilt she felt to help further himself towards his goals - he manipulated the other members of SEES in similar ways; remember that video recording he found at the site of the experimental explosion from his co-researcher, Eiichiro Takeba? Well, his daughter was also a member of SEES by this point in time; he knew she admired her father greatly, but of course, the words on the recording were not to his liking - because Eiichiro had warned that the Shadows were no to be reunited at any cost. So, he corrected doctored it so instead, Eiichiro's final warning was that the Shadows had to be destroyed to save the world: Which in Ikutsuki's frame of mind, was the truth, because he was a firm believer that 'the only hope of salvation lies in ruin.'
Most of the other SEES members had their own reasons for continuing in the fight against the Shadows, apart from a general desire to put a stop to Apathy Syndrome; Ikutsuki encouraged this by taking the role of the gentle advisor, who made these high-school kids believe that they were helping to save the world (well, again, in Ikutsuki's eyes they were.) He placed his faith in them - not only did he have no other options, really, he also became well aware of their capabilities, and eventually all twelve of the major Shadows were defeated, thus able to recombine - recreating the re-emergence of the Death Arcana, meaning that once again, Nyx would be able to be summoned to the Earth.
Believing that he had achieved his goals of finally bringing about The Fall, he planned to sacrifice the members of SEES to Nyx as an offering the night after the defeat of the final major Shadows; Ikutsuki thought that he would, at long last, be able to 'save the world' and in the process, become its King.
Point in Canon: The morning after the defeat of the final major Shadow (November 4th) ; thus his plans of world salvation domination are somewhat thwarted by 'Suddenly, Canada!'
Character Personality:
From an external perspective, Shuji Ikutsuki depicts himself as a well-mannered, gentle man; in fact, in the eyes of the teenagers he interacts with most frequently, he could even be considered somewhat stuffy. Boring. He does … research stuff with science and is chairman of the school board, after all. Not to mention that his jokes (especially the puns!) are really, really lame. This, however, is absolutely not the extent of his personality, and it is revealed throughout the canon that taking a person like Ikutsuki at face-value is a really bad idea.
While his general demeanour is not necessarily a purposefully constructed facade (he is shown to enjoy and plan his god-awful jokes even when there's no-one around to inflict them on), there's a lot more thinking and ambition that lingers underneath the surface of his polite personality. His main goal is to bring about the End of the World, otherwise referred to as The Fall, as he truly believes in the ideology of 'death by deliverance', that only humanity's death can save it . While it's not clear as to how he developed this personal belief, it is the main motivator behind everything that he does - and so caught up in his goals is he that he truly thinks that the end of all humanity on Earth is what will save it, and he will be crowned its savior. He cannot perceive why anyone else would be opposed to such a resolution, showing that his perception is warped to the extent that he truly believes that The Fall is the necessary end of humankind and that anyone who cannot accept this vision is simply ignorant.
He will use anyone to achieve this goal, as he believes it to be more important than anything else in his life. He has no loyalty to any other than himself and the prophecy of the Fall. He's quite skilled at manipulation, and if anyone is hurt along the way, then it was only a necessary sacrifice. … In a way, they're all going to be sacrifices in the end, so what does it matter? Throughout his manipulations, however, he remains the mostly gentle, helpful man he portrays himself to be - as stated previously, this isn't simply a manoeuvre to garner trust and support; he truly believes what he is doing has to be done, and that if convinced correctly, others will see matters the same way he does. To that end, there is no need for him to be outwardly forceful, as he can achieve his goals by acting in the same vein he has his whole life. He also feels no regret over his actions, an emotion which can usually result in rising tensions and guilt, thus, he is acting calmly towards his goals. In his own words: 'It was for the sake of the world...so how could it be wrong?'
He only begins to show signs of forcefulness, a departure from his gentle demeanour, when others disagree with his philosophies and he is backed into a precarious position. While he'd much prefer to be quietly manipulative, if necessary to achieve his ultimate goal, he will use force.
Character Plans:
The particulars of Ikutsuki's canon point mean that he is being taken from a point of time where he is expecting to be able to bring about The Fall, but finding himself in Canada instead will be quite a surprise - his research didn't indicate this, after all! His years of background knowledge and study of the nature of Shadows (which were thought to be able to manipulate time and space, remember), will mean that upon finding himself in an alternate reality, he is going to try and figure out how the hell he got there, and try to reconcile it with what he knows of the nature of time and space disruption. He will undoubtedly be fascinated by everyone's stories of coming from different times and universes and try to unravel the mystery on his own - well, he probably wouldn't be against aligning himself with SERO (it's not like he hasn't done experiments on people to examine superpowers before, so he has no moral objections to it or anything like that) if he thinks it will lead him towards the fulfilment of his main goal - oh yes, he'll still want to save the world by bringing about its destruction. Not that I imagine this would be a very successful endeavour, but a man can dream, right?
But yeah, he'll probably be kept adequately busy by the mysteries of the place and the existence of alternate realities anyway.
Appearance/PB:
The members of SEES think he's unfashionable.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[The sound comes on with a small click, and there isn't too long before Ikutsuki starts to speak, his tone fascinated:]
Siren's Port, Canada. The year is 2010. We have all been brought from different places and different times, by methods unknown. One might wonder what to make of it all. Personally, I find this occurrence fascinating and one that requires much further extended research! However, I've heard that some of the others here do not share these views. [Pause.] A pity. Where could one go to receive further information on the subject? The man who greeted me upon my arrival - well, he seemed rather distracted.
Well, that's - ah, actually, I have another question; has anyone seen any shops that have begun to sell warm winter coats? Preferably one without too many unnecessary adornments; you see, I get cold easily and it wouldn't do to be too chill. [A chuckle.]
Third Person Sample
Ikutsuki had made it inside just before the sirens had rung for the evening onset of the Darkness; it'd been tempting to stay out later and later, to see and examine the monsters that came with the nighttime hours in their natural habitat, but with no means to defend himself and no inclination to die just yet, he had scrambled back to his apartment with hardly minutes to spare, falling off his bicycle as he had pulled up to his front door in his rush to reach home.
There was dirt on the knees of his pants, and he sighed; those sort of stains were a complete pain to remove in the light-colored clothing that he preferred, but at least they weren't blood stains, which were what could have happened if he'd stayed out there just a bit longer, like he had wanted to. These monsters, from what he had deduced so far, were just as tricky as the Shadows had been back home: keeping the Shadows contained back on Port Island had required some expensive scientific equipment, equipment that Ikutsuki had yet to see here in Siren's Port. That, of course, did not mean it didn't exist - he would simply have to keep searching, make connections, get to know the right type of people.
The issue with the monsters here, he mused while searching the cupboards of his bathroom to see if he had had the foresight to purchase stain remover, was that they would disappear with the siren's call in the morning, as though they had never been captured in the first place. Did they have the same properties as the Shadows back home? If enough of them were brought together, compressed - if it were even possible - could the Fall be brought about here as well? Or was the reality he had found himself so alternate that the prophecy had never existed at all?
Frowning, he realised there was nothing in his cupboards even remotely related to cleaning clothes; he must have used the last of his powder the last time he'd been to the laundromat. And he couldn't even go anywhere now until morning's sirens, and the stains would most likely set by then. How inconvenient.
He would have to find some way of safely traversing the Darkness; not only would he be able to avoid petty inconveniences such as this, the prospect of studying the monsters in their natural environment fascinated him still.
Name: Tash
Age: 17
AIM SN: lythdanmegend
email: lythdan[at]gmail.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Yes!
Bonus: How did you hear about Siren's Pull? I play here; originally app_this_plz
Character Information
General
Canon Source: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (FES)
Canon Format: Video Game.
Character's Name: Shuji Ikutsuki
Character's Age: Never explicitly stated in canon, but judging on appearance, associates and work-related achievements, late thirties to early forties.
What form will your character's NV take?
A modern smartphone, but capable of voice, video, text and holograms!
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities: None, apart from his ability to remain conscious during the Dark Hour, the special hidden hour that exists between 12:00 AM and 12:01 AM, whereas most people without the ability or potential to use Personas are transmogrified into coffins, but yeah, considering the Dark Hour doesn’t exist in Siren’s Port - absolutely nothing.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them? I would like for Ikutsuki to eventually be able to utilise the power of Persona on his own; that is, he will be able to be able to summon the manifestation of his inner psyche as a mythological figure that is capable of attack, one or two basic elemental skills (the available ones being fire (agi), ice (bufu), electricity (zio) and wind (garu)). It stands to reason that his Persona would be weak at first because it hasn't been trained and nor is Ikutsuki really any good at fighting.
The drawback to this is that although the Pull is what brought about this change in Ikutsuki's capability to manifest a Persona, he won't be aware of this occurrence, so even though the ability is lying dormant within him, unless he starts to suspect that there's something different about him (a process which may take several months), or he finds himself in a life-threatening situation, he won't know that can he do it. Once he does, however, if he wants to summon his Persona, he will have to do it the way the other natural Persona users do in canon: by using an Evoker (a gun shaped implement meant to recreate the feeling that one has before they die). While in canon, it is likely that Ikutsuki helped develop the Evokers, he might not have the facilities or the materials to create one in Siren's Pull.
Weapons: Just one normal handgun; loaded.
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:
Shuji Ikutsuki was a talented scientific researcher; due to his skills, he was invited onto the Kirijo Group's research team around 1995, fourteen years before the events of the main Persona 3 game. The Kirijo Group, then headed by a man named Koetsu Kirijo, initially intended to create a time manipulation device by harnessing the power of these monsters called Shadows, using the reasoning that if a business could manipulate time and space to their will, it would give them an unstoppable advantage over all their competition. However, during their continued experimentation and examination of the true nature of Shadows, the research team discovered a prophecy called 'The Fall', which exposed what these Shadows were truly capable of - if enough of them were amassed, they would form the Death arcana, that, acting as a harbinger, would summon Nyx, the series's anthropomorphic representation of Death, down to Earth to put an end to all humanity. The Kirijo group's research team shifted their focus from creating the time manipulation device and instead, actively desired to bring about The Fall - a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way, because Nyx was only to be summoned if it was indicated that humanity had lost the will to survive, which the research team showed due to their embrace of the ideology that 'death is deliverance'; that the only way humanity could be saved was if it was destroyed.
Ikutsuki especially embraced this philosophy and paid particular attention to the details of the prophecy of The Fall; the prophecy mentioned that The Fall would be orchestrated by a character called 'The Prince', and that once The Fall had occurred, he would rule the new world as King; this was the role that Koetsu Kirijo was trying to fulfil in his attempts to bring about The Fall.
However, not all of the research team's scientists fully embraced these nihilistic attitudes: one man in particular, Eiichiro Takeba, objected to his team's belief so strongly that he felt that the plan had to be interrupted - he disrupted the experiment so that the Shadows the Kirijo Group had amassed would disperse into twelve separate Shadows; while it was too late to prevent the creation of the Dark Hour, a twenty-fifth hour between 12:00 AM and 12:01 AM and Tartarus, the tall tower that appears during the Dark Hour where the experiments had taken place, both tools that were intended to be utilised to summon Nyx to Earth, Eiichiro's dispersion of the Shadows dissolved the creation of the Death Arcana, which was necessary for the summoning; while the Dark Hour and Tartarus would remain, the summoning of Nyx would be halted unless the twelve separated Shadows were united once more.
However, for almost everyone at the laboratory that day, Eiichiro's plan would have fatal consequences for them - the Shadows, as they were dispersed, went on a rampage, destroying the facilities where the research group had conducted their experiments, and killing almost everyone in attendance to that day's experiments. Before his death, Eiichiro managed to leave a recorded message to warn everyone that the Shadows were not to be reunited under any circumstances, as doing so would recreate the Death Arcana and thus induce the summoning of Nyx and the End of the World.
Ikutsuki, however, had either escaped early from the destruction of that day, or had simply not been in attendance to its experiments, and managed to be the first to collect the recording that Eiichiro had left at the expense of his life; this recording would become useful for Ikutsuki over the course of the next decade as he attempted to continue the work of the now deceased Koetsu Kirijo; Ikutsuki still intended fully on bringing about The Fall. There was a problem his ambitions, of course; the major Shadows that had dispersed were impossible to find, and even if he could locate them, he did not have the means to amass them himself, as now the Shadows would only appear during the Dark Hour, and while Ikutsuki was one of the few capable of retaining consciousness during this twenty-fifth hour, he was unable of using the power of Persona, the manifestation of a person's psyche that could do battle and damage the Shadows, which would cause them to recombine again.
He would not give up on his ambitions, of course, and managed to gain the trust of Koetsu's successor, Takeharu Kirijo, and Ikutsuki continued to research the subject of Shadows when he had the time - the Kirijo Group owned the high school where the experiments had taken place, and Takeharu used his power to get Ikutsuki a job on the school board there.
Ikutsuki's inability to wield the power of Persona was a hindrance to his plans because it meant that he was unable to achieve his goals; because he could not produce a Persona himself, he decided to see if they could be induced in other people; these experiments were often preformed on orphans or street-children, in other words, people no-one would notice if they went missing or dead as a result of the experimentation. It resulted that Persona users could be artificially induced, but at the risk of their Personas breaking free from their control and killing them; artificially created Persona users would be required to take drugs called suppressants, which Ikutsuki supplied them with, but these drugs also came with a lethal side-affect - the suppressants were slowly causing the deaths of those who used them. This experiment had not quite gone to plan.
Natural Persona users, however, showed to be far more promising: their Personas were far more reliably controlled, but the downside was that that they were far harder to come by, as one would have to first have the Potential, that is, the ability to retain their sense of self within the Dark Hour, as well as have some sort of catalyst for their first appearance of the Persona. The first 'natural' Persona user the Kirijo Group became aware of was in fact Mitsuru Kirijo, Takeharu's only daughter. (While it is implied that she was 'forced' to learn to use a Persona, the fact that her Persona arose during the Dark Hour when she already had the Potential spared her from the fate that met the artificial Persona users.) Several years later, two more natural Persona users would be discovered - they, together with Mitsuru would form SEES, the Specialised Extracurricular Execution Squad - they masqueraded as a school club so they could live in the same dorm together, and Ikutsuki kept a watchful eye over them both as their correspondent with the school as well as advising them about what to do with their newfound abilities.
Some tragic events occur over the years, but for Ikutsuki, these events were secondary to the fact that the major Shadows that dispersed when Death was separated were still nowhere to be found. He continued to bide his time, hoping that one day, his goals would be realised: and then, ten years after the initial dispersal of the amassed shadows, they are, as a boy called Minato Arisato transfers to Gekkoukan High School. Once Ikutsuki realised that he has the Potential, he has him moved to the co-ed dorm, alongside the rest of SEES, which had recently acquired a new member in Yukari Takeba, so he can be monitored - and the results are most pleasing. He'd adapted well to the Dark Hour which means that there was a high likelihood that he would be able to develop the power of Persona; but a more pleasing result for Ikutsuki - although he didn't realise it as anything more than coincidence - was that after a few days of Minato's stay at the dorm, one of the missing major Shadows attacked a SEES member, chasing him all the way back to the dorm. Minato discovered his power of Persona - with the curious side-effect of being able to change personas (most people only get one) - but more importantly, for Ikutsuki, the major Shadows had started appearing again; his research indicated that defeating them will cause them to recombine.
He soon determined a pattern to the major Shadows' appearances (one or two appear without fail every full moon), and he manipulated SEES to meet his own ends of combining the Shadows and bringing about The Fall. As he suspected that Mitsuru and the others might not agree with his ideologies, he instead convinced SEES that destroying all the Shadows would put an end to the Dark Hour and destroy Tartarus - as ever since the appearance of the major Shadows, the Shadows themselves had become more aggressive, preying on unprotected minds during the Dark Hour and causing an incurable condition called Apathy Syndrome, removing a person's ability to think or feel. Mitsuru, especially, felt guilty for this as she knew her father's company's research was at fault for the creation of the Dark Hour. Ikutsuki abused this guilt she felt to help further himself towards his goals - he manipulated the other members of SEES in similar ways; remember that video recording he found at the site of the experimental explosion from his co-researcher, Eiichiro Takeba? Well, his daughter was also a member of SEES by this point in time; he knew she admired her father greatly, but of course, the words on the recording were not to his liking - because Eiichiro had warned that the Shadows were no to be reunited at any cost. So, he corrected doctored it so instead, Eiichiro's final warning was that the Shadows had to be destroyed to save the world: Which in Ikutsuki's frame of mind, was the truth, because he was a firm believer that 'the only hope of salvation lies in ruin.'
Most of the other SEES members had their own reasons for continuing in the fight against the Shadows, apart from a general desire to put a stop to Apathy Syndrome; Ikutsuki encouraged this by taking the role of the gentle advisor, who made these high-school kids believe that they were helping to save the world (well, again, in Ikutsuki's eyes they were.) He placed his faith in them - not only did he have no other options, really, he also became well aware of their capabilities, and eventually all twelve of the major Shadows were defeated, thus able to recombine - recreating the re-emergence of the Death Arcana, meaning that once again, Nyx would be able to be summoned to the Earth.
Believing that he had achieved his goals of finally bringing about The Fall, he planned to sacrifice the members of SEES to Nyx as an offering the night after the defeat of the final major Shadows; Ikutsuki thought that he would, at long last, be able to 'save the world' and in the process, become its King.
Point in Canon: The morning after the defeat of the final major Shadow (November 4th) ; thus his plans of world salvation domination are somewhat thwarted by 'Suddenly, Canada!'
Character Personality:
From an external perspective, Shuji Ikutsuki depicts himself as a well-mannered, gentle man; in fact, in the eyes of the teenagers he interacts with most frequently, he could even be considered somewhat stuffy. Boring. He does … research stuff with science and is chairman of the school board, after all. Not to mention that his jokes (especially the puns!) are really, really lame. This, however, is absolutely not the extent of his personality, and it is revealed throughout the canon that taking a person like Ikutsuki at face-value is a really bad idea.
While his general demeanour is not necessarily a purposefully constructed facade (he is shown to enjoy and plan his god-awful jokes even when there's no-one around to inflict them on), there's a lot more thinking and ambition that lingers underneath the surface of his polite personality. His main goal is to bring about the End of the World, otherwise referred to as The Fall, as he truly believes in the ideology of 'death by deliverance', that only humanity's death can save it . While it's not clear as to how he developed this personal belief, it is the main motivator behind everything that he does - and so caught up in his goals is he that he truly thinks that the end of all humanity on Earth is what will save it, and he will be crowned its savior. He cannot perceive why anyone else would be opposed to such a resolution, showing that his perception is warped to the extent that he truly believes that The Fall is the necessary end of humankind and that anyone who cannot accept this vision is simply ignorant.
He will use anyone to achieve this goal, as he believes it to be more important than anything else in his life. He has no loyalty to any other than himself and the prophecy of the Fall. He's quite skilled at manipulation, and if anyone is hurt along the way, then it was only a necessary sacrifice. … In a way, they're all going to be sacrifices in the end, so what does it matter? Throughout his manipulations, however, he remains the mostly gentle, helpful man he portrays himself to be - as stated previously, this isn't simply a manoeuvre to garner trust and support; he truly believes what he is doing has to be done, and that if convinced correctly, others will see matters the same way he does. To that end, there is no need for him to be outwardly forceful, as he can achieve his goals by acting in the same vein he has his whole life. He also feels no regret over his actions, an emotion which can usually result in rising tensions and guilt, thus, he is acting calmly towards his goals. In his own words: 'It was for the sake of the world...so how could it be wrong?'
He only begins to show signs of forcefulness, a departure from his gentle demeanour, when others disagree with his philosophies and he is backed into a precarious position. While he'd much prefer to be quietly manipulative, if necessary to achieve his ultimate goal, he will use force.
Character Plans:
The particulars of Ikutsuki's canon point mean that he is being taken from a point of time where he is expecting to be able to bring about The Fall, but finding himself in Canada instead will be quite a surprise - his research didn't indicate this, after all! His years of background knowledge and study of the nature of Shadows (which were thought to be able to manipulate time and space, remember), will mean that upon finding himself in an alternate reality, he is going to try and figure out how the hell he got there, and try to reconcile it with what he knows of the nature of time and space disruption. He will undoubtedly be fascinated by everyone's stories of coming from different times and universes and try to unravel the mystery on his own - well, he probably wouldn't be against aligning himself with SERO (it's not like he hasn't done experiments on people to examine superpowers before, so he has no moral objections to it or anything like that) if he thinks it will lead him towards the fulfilment of his main goal - oh yes, he'll still want to save the world by bringing about its destruction. Not that I imagine this would be a very successful endeavour, but a man can dream, right?
But yeah, he'll probably be kept adequately busy by the mysteries of the place and the existence of alternate realities anyway.
Appearance/PB:
The members of SEES think he's unfashionable.
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[The sound comes on with a small click, and there isn't too long before Ikutsuki starts to speak, his tone fascinated:]
Siren's Port, Canada. The year is 2010. We have all been brought from different places and different times, by methods unknown. One might wonder what to make of it all. Personally, I find this occurrence fascinating and one that requires much further extended research! However, I've heard that some of the others here do not share these views. [Pause.] A pity. Where could one go to receive further information on the subject? The man who greeted me upon my arrival - well, he seemed rather distracted.
Well, that's - ah, actually, I have another question; has anyone seen any shops that have begun to sell warm winter coats? Preferably one without too many unnecessary adornments; you see, I get cold easily and it wouldn't do to be too chill. [A chuckle.]
Third Person Sample
Ikutsuki had made it inside just before the sirens had rung for the evening onset of the Darkness; it'd been tempting to stay out later and later, to see and examine the monsters that came with the nighttime hours in their natural habitat, but with no means to defend himself and no inclination to die just yet, he had scrambled back to his apartment with hardly minutes to spare, falling off his bicycle as he had pulled up to his front door in his rush to reach home.
There was dirt on the knees of his pants, and he sighed; those sort of stains were a complete pain to remove in the light-colored clothing that he preferred, but at least they weren't blood stains, which were what could have happened if he'd stayed out there just a bit longer, like he had wanted to. These monsters, from what he had deduced so far, were just as tricky as the Shadows had been back home: keeping the Shadows contained back on Port Island had required some expensive scientific equipment, equipment that Ikutsuki had yet to see here in Siren's Port. That, of course, did not mean it didn't exist - he would simply have to keep searching, make connections, get to know the right type of people.
The issue with the monsters here, he mused while searching the cupboards of his bathroom to see if he had had the foresight to purchase stain remover, was that they would disappear with the siren's call in the morning, as though they had never been captured in the first place. Did they have the same properties as the Shadows back home? If enough of them were brought together, compressed - if it were even possible - could the Fall be brought about here as well? Or was the reality he had found himself so alternate that the prophecy had never existed at all?
Frowning, he realised there was nothing in his cupboards even remotely related to cleaning clothes; he must have used the last of his powder the last time he'd been to the laundromat. And he couldn't even go anywhere now until morning's sirens, and the stains would most likely set by then. How inconvenient.
He would have to find some way of safely traversing the Darkness; not only would he be able to avoid petty inconveniences such as this, the prospect of studying the monsters in their natural environment fascinated him still.