✗ ooc :: c o n t a c t . c r i t
» SUMERAGI SUBARU
» Tokyo Babylon ][ X/1999
Hiiiiiiiii! If you ever have any suggestions, feedback, questions, or comments on my characterization, or the character himself, I'd be really happy to hear from you! It would only help me, so thank you in advance!
ANON COMMENTS: allowed.
IP LOGGING: off.
LAYOUT: premade_ljs
SEPT. 11 eta; I'll be trying to make a couple of changes in his portrayal, especially his manner of speech, so please let me know whether that inconveniences you / if you have opinions on how it's going. Thank you very much!
AIM: CAKIESAMA
[series]: Tokyo Babylon and X/1999
[character]: Sumerai Subaru
[character history / background]: wiki!
[character abilities]: the strongest onmyouji of the Sumeragi clan to date, and their head of house. His shikigami is a three-headed white crow (an oddly predatory manifestation for the bird of a servant under Amaterasu; thankfully, it’s also a symbol of enlightenment, so all is forgiven). He deals mostly in the exorcism of corrupted specters, handling purification, seals, or dismissal rites, but he’s also been known to do battle with ofuda, enchantments, to raise the spirits of the dead, and to go “Within” - a so-called “secret spell of the Sumeragi” (aka: Heart & Consciousness Invasion 101). The latter act seems to exhaust him and goes seldom used at Deus ex Machina o’clock. His grandmother practices fire readings, and there are clairvoyants within the clan, but there’s been no indication that he’s inherited the talent. As a Dragon of Heaven, he can cast pentagram-shaped energy shields (kekkai), but he loses this ability with the death of Sakurazuka Seishirou, and his succession as the Sakurazukamori de iure. Although the mystical tree of Pink Doom seems to accept his assumption of the title, it’s unclear whether Subaru also inherited the duties and abilities attendant on it. The fact that Seishirou’s marks disappeared off his hands, in a magical system that allows spells to survive their caster, suggests that the tree no longer recognizes him as due prey. It’s doubtful he inherited any new abilities as a Dragon of Earth, but likely that he currently lacks the spiritual purity to practice a substantial part of his onmyoudo.
[character personality]: long story short: the Sumeragi clan built a highly efficient weapon of spiritual warfare, his twin sister Hokuto gave it a heart, Sakurazuka Seishirou trampled on it, Shirou Kamui put that damage into perspective, and Monou Fuuma got to deal with the consequences.
For his entire life, Subaru’s been somewhat stuck in the rules of ‘consideration’ that his sister concocted so that they might get along, taking care in respecting her as her own individual. By early adolescence, he’d grown into the habit of apologizing excessively and taking unto himself blame he shouldn’t really shoulder, a strong adept of the notion that no one can truly suffer in the way that the one hurting right now does - that we can never really know how someone else feels. After Hokuto’s murder, he became significantly more guarded, even slightly cold, but never callous. Following Seishirou’s death, he discards… coddling entirely. He never goes out of his to be rude, more often than not stays unfailingly polite - but he’s no stranger to exposing hard truths, as if he no longer bothers with self-censorship. It’s unclear whether he no longer cares, whether he’s further imitating Seishirou’s mien, or whether it’s belatedly occurred to him that, yes, this is an Apocalypse, and it’s maybe about time that both Kamuis should hear what they should have had the sense to realize a long time ago. (Alternatively, he could just be working part time as CLAMP’s mouth piece.) Regardless, he is one of the few people who doesn’t seem to much care what he says around Fuuma, which could be owed to the fact that he doesn’t care about anything these days.
In general, Subaru is fairly mild-tempered, utterly respectful, overly patient, and even a little lot little, well, boring. He has always been very sensitive to the feelings of other people, but oblivious to his own (to such an extent that his sister suggests maybe knowing his heart was her purpose in life); it took him many, many moons to realize the true nature of his feelings for Seishirou and for his Wish respectively, but he instantly identified the core of Kamui’s problems (possibly because he understood that their situations mirror each other quite directly). Nevertheless, this martyrdom once used to constitute a flaw: in liking everyone without discrimination, he therefore rewarded no one by loving him or her in particular. His kindness, while sincere, was cheap, because it went unearned. This would be why, glorious legion of slash fangirls aside, he categorizes Seishirou as “special” - someone by whom he most definitely does not want to be hated. With time, he distances himself more and more from his default benevolence, ultimately claiming that he doesn’t care about the stake of fate of the world during the Apocalypse (doubtful, as he’s quick to run in without kind of back up to avoid the destruction of an area of Tokyo), and that he accepts that there is no such thing as universal benevolence, with his Wish possibly harming others. He nonetheless remains sympathetic, carrying a tight bond with Kamui (the only person whom he seems to have trusted completely since Hokuto), and frequently empathizing with his fellow Dragons.
In a sense, maybe his calm love for all things in general was preferable, because his love for individuals runs unhealthily obsessive: he is so deeply lost without Hokuto that he not only abandons his dreams to become a veterinarian in order to settle scores with her killer, but he feels too guilty for her passing to allow himself much of a life. Likewise, he started cultivating his powers out of… spite. Not because he truly wanted to take down Seishirou, but because he interpreted the latter’s refusal to kill him as a show of his own insignificance. If Subaru became strong enough to be a nuisance, he would be worth eliminating, and wouldn’t go ignored. The boy’s ideal for the longest while is to suffer as much as his loved ones: he’s dead to the world, as Hokuto is dead in flesh, and he Wishes to lose the eye that Seishirou lost for his sake. Oh, and he’s so unable to let go, he takes up smoking Seishirou’s brand of cigarettes, won’t remove his clothing for a while, because it has the Sakurazukamori’s blood, and substitutes his eye with that of a corpse. Can that ever be italicized enough? The boy just doesn’t do the ‘love’ thing well.
Subaru’s mental balance in general is… an oddity. He’s emotionally vulnerable, which affects his magic, leading to the ultimate ruin of his kekkai. More to the point, he has a… weird… shoujo… response to trauma, withdrawing within his own consciousness (basically entering a semi-comatose state for creepy periods of time >_> ). That’s however not to say that he’s a crying uke weak, only that, as said above, once he’s emotionally invested in something, his internal wiring can’t handle any kind of errors. (Interestingly, he doesn’t withdraw within himself after Seishirou’s death, but it’s arguable that he might as well have, given his general following detachment from the world at large - his conversations with Fuuma find him uninterested, slightly flippant and overall apathetic). If anything, emo kid or not… Subaru is someone who’s been through a lot, who lost his two most important people basically to each other, and who nonetheless still remembered his duty and friends long enough to pull it together and do what needed doing.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: X/1999 vol. 19 / past his assumption of the Sakurazukamori title.
[journal post]:
[a brief clip of a soaked young man, staring dumbly at the fountain, just… blinking. And blinking. And blinking. The video setting is turned off, and resumes in its text function.]
Wet mulberry paper, a piece of cloth, charcoal, lotus leaves or the flower, a candle, and salt - please. I’ve brought nothing to make amends.
Forgive me, I’ve sullied your water.
[third person / log sample]:
By the twelfth day, the reinforced curse deflector had ground Subaru’s fingers to long strips of flesh, welts, ash and splinters. It brought itches, young infections, and the sullen attention of curious, if defenseless spirits. It seeped through his shields, making a mockery of his magical signature, until finally the wards of the garden - his new, but own home - discreetly gave way, denying him entrance. It kept him awake, inert and aware, the rites of its constant summon leeching off what few personal resources time, poor health and malnutrition still allowed him. It hurt, it reeked, it drained, and it endured.
It did nothing to cut the marks back on his hands.
He still couldn’t bring himself to dismiss it.
It made him ill now, diseased to the core and stomach and heart of him, and if this were thespian, if it were remotely salvageable as a piece of literary art, he would be taking sick, emptying his stomach as he stabbed the sides of broken fingers in tightly knuckled fists, and making an absolute mess of the borrowed shrine of the Sakurazukamori. If this were a theater stage, his one good eye, the other too sacred, would have long been blighted by the endless downpour of his tears. He’d have run himself mute, between dry heaves and screaming, cradling his limbs on the floor and swearing himself a damned creature that could only exist to give penitence for Hokuto’s suffering.
As things stood, life was remarkably plainer. His voice was well, his eye complacent and serving within reason, and if he happened to have utterly butchered his hands with every hint of prodigal intention, then, well. Accidents happened.
In the supremely gifted Sumeragi clan, where not a single member could be bothered to assist the magically inept sister of one of their own so that she need not cast her single spell with her life’s blood… regrettable accidents happened often. He caught himself before the bitterness could, settling on an abandoned bench with the stillborn awkwardness that he’d resigned himself would never mature into the expected poise of a true - of a once leader. Too restless, too quiet, too indefinite, too… yin, water-prone, sinking, layering rare decisions with regrets and excuses. Hokuto had shared his horoscope, but there practice had long deviated from theory. Hokuto, who would bow her head low now, mutter and mumble and break the hold of his clasped hands, sink kisses on each wound, then wrap the fingers. (Subaru brought them to his cheek.) Hokuto, who would glance around them at the pretty flowers, and the pretty sky, and the pretty tree, and say it’s a terrible afternoon to mourn the loss of love, life, family, when very obviously, he’d chanced on another anniversary: the birth of the new Sakurazukamori.
A part of him had thought of calling his grandmother, because adult affection had triumphed over adolescent worship, because her magic was old, wary and old, and rinsed closely in ceremony oils, and because he could kill her, kill everyone in their family, had something of a clever right and a duty - and because he wanted to ask whether now he was supposed to hide his real birthday from prying minds, or this new one. Which defined him? Which determined the last line, the eventful end of his calends? She could read his fortune, he supposed. She could read it, and he could ask, and they could speak of his sister, finally as kin, not as reluctant subjects. Their play had ended. (But I love you, grandmother, and that might well undo you, or me, or us both.) Subaru’s new rank afforded him more obligations than he cared to consider, a license to torment, to murder and forfeit lives to an old god in the burrow; it also finally enabled him to chat, and Kyoto wasn’t far, not really, not with an Apocalypse looming by, so chat he might.
As soon as the regrettable matter of his marks was seen to, perhaps. His hands weren’t right, now, not his and not ever, and he supposed maybe part of his current vexation was an homage to something simpler than lack of creativity (because he could take on Seishirou-san’s magic, he could, he could and he would, and somewhere Hokuto will laugh at his rekindled resolve). Hunger, maybe. For days, he had taken no meat, purified under iced water with the rising sun, cleansed his eyes under the running falls of the Kegon; when it hadn’t sufficed, and maybe nothing ever could, but attempts were never empty, he’d resorted to fasting. What’s a tad bit of starvation, to get a point across?
It hadn’t bothered Kamui - hadn’t bothered either Kamui, though the incarnations of divinity were known to defy biochemistry. Not enough energy to function? Cause the sudden explosion of a universe. Problem stated, solution found. The Kamui of the Dragons of Heaven never understood his ability, less so than his own heart, and so much of Subaru yearned to explain: the matters of Twin Stars, of war and casualty, of Kamui’s own losses. Yearned to sit the boy down, perhaps with a bit of tea, and maybe now, decades later, sakura brews would finally be a possibility. Yearned to tell him slowly, surely, calmly, that the world would not end, not because its physicality rejected extinction, but because every person, every feeling could be reduced to Wish and Equivalence, and neither ever died. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. It was no longer his place. Perhaps he was still worthy, but perhaps he was also incredibly, despairingly… late. There was nothing to do, not with everything ordained, but to consider technicalities (Dinner tonight? Am I really expected to… kill for this tree? It’s only biology. Only a plant. It can’t ask --- are you asking now? And we can’t have dinner yet.)
The other Kamui, the Usurper, death with Monou Fuuma’s face, had given him that pittance. He should thank him, Subaru reckoned, thank him with clear words, and maybe kindness, because something in this Kamui too called for reasons. Subaru should thank him, yes. He wouldn’t.
More petals on him, more flowers, more… anniversary. So wrong, with him as their epicenter. So very wrong that they shouldn’t mourn the other, that they should accept Subaru so easily, corrupt and conquert him, never thinking of --- marks. Prior claims. The marks.
It had occurred to him, in those first few days after the fall of - after he - after - after, that if Seishirou-san’s single, earliest, and parting tokens had taken leave of him so unexpectedly, then they, like their master, were playing a game. That they waited on him earnestly, with a hunter’s grace, waited for him to submit entirely to his reservations and forget what they were, how they’d come to be, and the many fine intricacies that had dictated the endless precautions to which he’d subjected himself every day of long years to exile their influence. Then, they’d return in one paralyzing strike, because the Sakurazukamori was every part furtive competence, and obviously even Seishirou-san’s magic must share a taste for irony. The inevitable problem wasn’t that Subaru couldn’t rely on a corpse’s predictability, or that his careful expectations bore the signs of naive, but amateur divination. It was that his marks - more his than they’d ever belonged to Sakurazuka Seishirou, regardless of the source - weren’t returning fast enough.
The curse deflector had been his final, ugliest suggestion, but the reasoning wasn’t entirely unpleasant, nor grasping at too many straws: if the marks delayed, it was because, again respecting the whimsicality of their first master, they required incentive. Something strangely different, selfish, Subaru supposed, in how closely they took his sown likening now, withdrawn tightly within themselves and impervious until an overwhelming external force obliged them to live once more. A part of him almost cared to give them their due of silence, to let the matter continue its natural course, whereupon they existed individually, the vestiges of Sakurazukamori spell craft and he. But he couldn’t. He hadn’t. There’d been an idea, then words, then binding sutras, then the curse deflector, to which any kind of mark would normally quickly show the allergic reaction of an animal in jealous defense of its territory.
It had all gone wrong, somewhere, somehow, inexplicably, and the reality - crude, cruel, considered -was, as always, that, although he held the upper hand of a man still flesh-made, entirely living - that although he had time, inclination, access and ability - that much as he’d cast aside the instinctive Sumeragi provisions that forbade self-mutilation as an acceptable measure of onmyoudo… the game was still underway, and he had lost.
He could give up Seishirou-san’s marks, or he could give up his hands. Were this body his, the choice would be surprisingly undemanding, quick in his mind and quicker on his sacrifice knife, which hadn’t seen ritual suicide in many generations, but could nonetheless abide to a quick bout of sterile amputation. But this was flesh won with Hokuto’s coin, and to waste it now would call on disrespect, ruin.
He had to remove the deflector, admit defeat, let Sakurazuka Seishirou have the final say of extricating himself from Subaru’s life in former part and now begrudging sum. So be it, “On… Sanma--- Sanmaji - handsome ---“
His eyes settled on barren skin, “On…sanmaji…”
Barren, barren, barren. “On…”
Barren.
He’d do it tomorrow.