Post by Shiki Kanzaki on Jan 2, 2013 2:21:54 GMT -5
-Opening-
Password 1: Blubbering Bunny Radical
Password 2: Big Vroom
Type: Soldier
Squad: Squad 6
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-Basic Information-
Name: Shiki Kanzaki
Title/Alias: Blood Reaper
Age of Death: 18
Real Age/Age of Appearance: 72/20
Birthday (Month/Day): 1/1 (New Years)
Blood Type: O+
RP Sample:
[spoiler=District 15 - Morning][spoiler=Certis Baliano wrote:]Zawa Arudo
Location: Timeless Tome
Time: 9:00 - Morning
Date: July 16th
Timeless Tome - that was the name of a medium sized bookshop which was located in Academy City's biggest shopping district. It was owned and and managed single-handedly by a magician named Zawa Arudo, the man who had gone through a lot of trouble just to get through all the necessary paperwork required for opening a shop in such a busy place. Not to mention acquiring the funds for it.
He had eventually managed to get a big enough loan from the bank to start this place up, but the interest they demanded was big. While the business was not exactly going great, it was going well enough for him to live, order more books and even slightly increase his savings. Since he doesn't mind people reading the books he has on for sale, Timeless Tome has become a "library where you can't take the books home" of sorts in the eyes of students.
At first, this book store was mainly geared towards the older generation, rather than the young, the business had been extremely bad. Eventually, he realized that if he opens a shop in a place that's filled with young people, he better sell things that they would like. After that, he began stocking up more on popular light novels. Thanks to his friendly attitude and suggestions, some amateur writers even began selling their books in his store; also asking for his input when writing the stories.
That was just the "public side" of his shop though. It was well known for other magicians that Timeless Tome sold various books about the nature of magic and spells. For some reason, Arudo himself seemed to be more interested in fiction, instead of magic books. Because of that, his selection of magic books was rather limited. But since he knew that they would probably be worth quite a bit to other magicians, he slowly worked on increasing his selection of those books.
His store had two floors and a basement. The first floor looked like some shop selling antique things. In short, everything looked very old. He didn't even have a computer in there to keep an index of the books in his store; he didn't need to. Besides the shelves full of books, it also had a bathroom and a restroom, as a proper store should have. The second floor, simply put, was Arudo's bedroom. As for the basement, which most of his customers did not even know about; it contained books and scrolls for a bit more 'magical' people.
Nine o'clock in the morning - that was the time when Timeless Tome was opened every day, including weekends. But today's opening was different from the others; after opening the store like he always did, he put a sign on his front window with the following message, "Looking for an assistant. Salary is negotiable."
With that out of the way, Arudo grabbed the 4th volume of a light novel called Fate/Zero, sat behind the counter and continued reading from where he last left off.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Shiki Kanzaki wrote:]Alice Kim
Location: District 15 / Timeless Tome
Time: 9:01 - Morning
Date: July 16th
A young and beautiful Korean girl just happened to be wandering around the Academy City’s largest shopping district. She wasn’t any ordinary high school girl. She was a major otaku and was in fact looking for any new Manga, more specifically the next volume of Mirai Nikki, Ouran High School Host Club, and Seven Days. She was really looking forward to reading since she finally found enough money to buy new books. Well, technically, the money wasn’t exactly “found”, but rather stolen. Due to amnesia, she didn’t remember how she got her hands on this money. She just seemed to have it, so might as well spend this excess cash on something worthwhile.
Then a certain bookstore caught her eye, Timeless Tome. She didn’t remember this store here the last time she was at District 15. But then again, what was expected from a girl whose memory is so poor that she can only remember 25% of that of an average person? Memory loss seemed to be a big problem for her. Alice tilted her head as she read the sign, "Looking for an assistant. Salary is negotiable."
She wondered what it was like to be a bookstore assistant. She somehow imagined herself cosplaying as a librarian with glasses, carrying books back and forth across the store. That sounded like a lot of fun. She immediately walked into the store without a second thought. She just couldn’t wait to get started and start wearing glasses. She glanced over at the store manager, Zawa Arudo, a handsome young man who appeared to be reading something. She was way too shy to talk to him so she remained quiet and looked over at the books instead.
She wondered if there was any manga around here. As she checked out a few books, her urge to become a bookstore assistant became stronger. Sadly, she only wanted to be a bookstore assistant just to cosplay as a librarian which sounded a bit silly but she thought it was cute. She then stopped and turned her attention back to Arudo. She wanted to say something but her anti-social behavior prevented her from speaking. All she could do was give the manager an innocent look.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Certis Baliano wrote:]Zawa Arudo
Location: Timeless Tome
Time: 9:01 - Morning
Date: July 16th
Barely a minute had passed after the magician had opened his store, yet he had already heard the the familiar sound of a bell tingling. That bell was there just for show; in reality, Arudo didn't need such a thing to know about people entering or leaving his store. After all, it was natural for a magician to know about the things happening inside his workshop.
Seeing a customer that early in the morning didn't happen often, but it was not big enough of a reason for Arudo to stop reading his novel. Or so he thought. After flipping through a few pages, he realized something. Oh, right... I forgot to greet the customer. After all, who would want to visit a place with an indifferent and gloomy looking shopkeeper?
He set a bookmark between the currently open pages and shut the book, while raising his head to take a look at his early customer. His first impression - she's like a cute little white rabbit who's at a loss of what to do. The man put his cheek on his fist, supporting his head by doing so and asked with a warm smile, "Hello and welcome to Timeless Tome. How may I help you?"[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Shiki Kanzaki wrote:]Alice Kim
Location: District 15 / Timeless Tome
Time: 9:01 - Morning
Date: July 16th
"Hello and welcome to Timeless Tome. How may I help you?"
Alice didn’t know how to respond to him so she just looked at him and nodded. Now that she thought about it, it wasn’t really a yes/no question. Well, that was embarrassing. She had no idea what to say at this point. She was too shy to speak. She had to think of something quick so she just awkwardly pointed towards the sign in front of his shop, hoping that he got the message. She blushed in embarrassment but she looked as if she was trying to hold it in. She hoped she didn't give him a bad impression. She had already completely forgot about buying manga that she set her mind to earlier.[/spoiler][/spoiler]
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-Appearance-
Height/Weight: 5’9 / 141 lbs.
Physical Description:
[spoiler=Appearance]Shiki is a very handsome young man that possesses a very mature, calm and reserved expression. Although he appears to be only the age of eighteen, his natural expression gives off the vibe of a college graduate, as if he has experienced and learned many things earlier in life. Despite his good looks, his emotionless face has the tendency to portray the silent type that communicates better with actions than words. There is always this determined look on his face as if he always knows what he is doing. Because of his unique natural expression, he is often depicted as the one you really don’t want to piss off or he will seriously bring you bad luck. If a normal person were to give his first impression on Shiki, he would say that he looks like he is ready to kill someone without any signs of remorse.
Shiki has straight and naturally spiky black hair with a dark navy blue streak on the left side. In fact, his natural hair looks like it was straightened and carefully gelled even though he pays no attention to his hair or how he looks like. His bangs go down to his eyes and his sideburns only go down to his earlobes. The hair in the back naturally sticks up perfectly as if each and every individual hair strand was organized carefully and especially designed for him to look like a popular Japanese singer. Even if someone were to mess up his hair, he would still look good and fairly attractive. The most distinguishable feature about his hair is that it shines beautifully under the sun but looks very dull in the dark. In the dark, his hair completely blends in with the night.
Shiki’s eyes are one of the most powerful aspects of his physical appearance, possessing a pair of emotionless crystal black eyes. This is his most intimidating feature because he has eyes of a murderer. It is said that the eyes show the strength of one’s soul. If that were the really case, then his soul would be completely overwhelming. In fact, discretely overpowering. Some say that he has eyes of a psychopath, while other believes that he has the eyes of a demon. Either explanation seems plausible since his eyes are acutely penetrating and invoke fear into those around him, causing him to give off an extremely dark vibe. When he is in a good mood, his eyes will soften up a little and essentially make it easier to approach him. However, when he is angry, his frightening stare becomes extremely malevolent and vengeful despite the emotionless facial expressions.
As for his complexion, he has very moderate pale skin. His skin isn’t too rough but isn’t too soft either. It is soft enough that his hands don’t dry up during the winter and hard enough so that he doesn’t get paper cuts all the time. The most distinguishing feature about his skin is that he has a blood red pentagram inscribed within a circle on his right shoulder. This birthmark is so intricate and perfectly composed that it looks like a very well done tattoo. Being born with such a mark caused the people around him to think he was the devil’s child since a pentagram inscribed within a circle represented the symbol for Satanism. Hence, adding another sense of darkness and despair to his appearance. Despite the unusual birthmark on his skin, he ironically does not have any pimples or moles. Other than that, he occasionally has bruises on his body from his training.
Although he appears to be very lean with clothes on, Shiki actually has a conditioned and well trained physique. Due to his healthy diet, his body fat percentage seems to be lower than 4.6% and his muscles are fairly proportional in size to one another since he works out all the muscles. Due to countless pushups and bench pressing, his pectoral muscles are large enough for him to support a pencil vertically at the sternum without using his hands when flexed. Because of his constant cardiovascular exercise, his abdominal muscles are so well defined that he has a six pack, nearly eight, with a V-shape at the bottom, since he is relatively skinny compared to most bodybuilders. As for his calf muscles, his gastrocnemius and soleius are well built and very physically attractive.
His quadriceps and hamstrings are about average in size and not as distinguishable as the other muscles since most of his muscle mass came from practicing many different kicks and jumps. His latissimus dorsi and trapezius are also fairly sexy but still not as attractive as the other muscles. The latissimus dorsi is located below the shoulder blades and they give dimension to his back. The trapezius is located above the shoulder blades and adds a decent buff to his neck and shoulders. Naturally, Shiki also has pretty jacked biceps and triceps. If one were to see him topless, one would definitely tell him that he has nice guns. His bicep and tricep muscle groups bulge out pretty nicely when flexed but not as well as his deltoids. Ironically, Shiki’s deltoid muscles are the sexiest of the three on his upper arms and his lower arms are most distinguishable by popping veins whenever he works out.
As for the end of his limbs, Shiki has rather crafty and dexterous hands. One can easily tell that he is adept with guns by just simply looking at his hands. He has calluses on the top of his palm from performing so many pull-ups during his work out. Shiki’s life line, which begins on the edge of the palm, between the index finger and the thumb, stretches all the way down to his wrist on his right hand, but only half-way on his left. Lastly, his knuckles are somewhat large and tough from practicing the iron fist which is normally done by consistently slamming one’s fist into a metal wall.
As an unorthodox shinigami, Shiki doesn’t like to wear the shihakusho but wears it anyways because he has to. The most unique modification he has to his shihakusho is that he wears black leather gloves, a soft black scarf, black socks, and black shoes. Patched on his right glove is the yin symbol and on the left glove is the yang symbol. There is also a yin and yang symbol with a red aura around it written on the very end of his scarf. These modifications are mainly things that Shiki had when he was a human before he died.
When he was still a human, he dressed like a typical assassin, always wearing the color black to blend himself with the night. As a human, he wore a black skinny T-shirt with black skinny jeans. On special occasions, he would sometimes dress formally with a black dress shirt and pants, wearing a black tie instead of a black scarf. Attached to his belt would be a holster for a semi-automatic gun, a pouch for his assassin daggers, and containers for many other devices such as grenades, bombs, and electronics. The most distinguishable aspect of his dress code was the giant leather jacket he wore over all the other clothing. It was a black cloak with the Chinese character for death written on back in crimson red.
Another unique aspect of Shiki’s appearance is his voice. Believe it or not, he actually has more than one voice, three to be exact. There is actually a reason for why he has more than one voice but that will be discussed into greater detail in the personality section. His first and normal voice is very dull, low, and cold. It is slightly dry and it always gives people the impression that he is the quiet type. His second voice is ironically very soft and tender, absolutely perfect for a female singer. His third voice is the screeching and shrieking voice of a maniac, always unpredictably changing pitches and mostly laughter between his words that resembles that of a serial killer.
Faceclaim: (Modification: black hair and black eyes)
[spoiler=Faceclaim][/spoiler]
[spoiler=Shiki Kanzaki][/spoiler]
[spoiler=Blood Reaper][/spoiler][/spoiler]
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-Personality-
Dislikes:
[spoiler=Dislikes]
- Arrogance – Not only does Shiki dislike arrogant people, but he despises them. Because he fairly cocky himself, he hates arrogant assholes who think they are better than everyone else, especially those who look down on him. He won’t hesitate to beat down and even kill an arrogant fool who even dares to pick a fight with him.
- Assailants – Well obviously, Shiki has the tendency to despise anyone who dares to assault him. It doesn’t matter if he or she is a civilian, criminal, shinigami, hollow, quincy, or arancar. Unless his assailant is sparring with him, one better have a damn good reason to attack Shiki.
- Politics – Politics was what Shiki hated most in the human world. He thinks that these are just one gigantic group of hypocrites who really have too much time on their hands and don’t know what to do with their lives. He thinks politics are just a bunch of bullshit, especially ones who keep changing the evidence in their favor. He would be glad to assassinate one anytime.
- Junk food – Shiki is almost nearly obsessive-compulsive about healthy food. He absolutely dislikes empty calories and fat foods such as burgers and fries. He will reject almost anything that causes him to grow fat.
- Shihakusho – Shiki doesn’t really hate the Shihakusho all that much. It is just not his style. He wasn’t very fond of wearing ancient Japanese styled clothing and prefers more modern clothes.
- Drugs – Even though Shiki sometimes dealt drugs in high school, he actually really doesn’t like drugs, especially marijuana. He only became a drug dealer because it made him big money and it was also his façade in school. He thinks that people who rely on drugs to feel good are pathetic, which is why he never takes the medications that the psychiatrists give him.
- Psychologists – These people were literally one of Shiki’s worst enemies in high school. Always psychoanalyzing him, diagnosing him, judging him, and prescribing medications for him. He believes they are people who pretend to be friendly in order to earn his money and control his life. He believes them to be dangerous people because know how the mind works, possessing the ability to manipulate others even though Shiki is sort of a manipulator himself.
- Authority – Shiki is not very fond of authoritative powers, especially superiors. As an assassin, he usually just followed orders without complain. But deep down, Shiki has a rebellious spirit and desires to be his own boss. For him, authority and arrogance are very closely tied to together. Most authorities are tolerable as long as they don’t misuse their power or brag about their position.
- Being called arrogant – There is nothing more annoying than being called arrogant by another person, especially if the one who said it wasn’t any better himself. Calling him arrogant during or before a fight is like asking to be killed.
- Losing – There is nothing Shiki despises more than being a loser to another individual. He trains very hard everyday and the thought of even losing to someone in a fight is detestable. Although he might not outwardly show it, he will keep it buried under his subconscious and begin training harder in hopes of settling the score with that specific opponent.
- Liars – It is okay to tell a small lie once and a while but Shiki sort of dislikes those who consistently tell lie about themselves or others. It’s not like he cares all that much but he certainly lacks respect for liars even though he tells lies himself.
- Posers – Posers or wannabes are pretty annoying. Shiki lacks respect for people who try to be someone they are not. Most things, such as posing off as a drug dealer, are pretty tolerable but posing as Shiki himself is just despicable. He really dislikes people who try so hard to be him that they exaggerate and belittle others.
- Selfish People – People who are egocentric and think the world revolves around them. Even though Shiki is pretty selfish himself, that doesn’t stop him from disliking selfish people.
- Luck/Fate – Like most people, Shiki hates things that are outside of his control, such as accidents and tragedies. The two concepts he despises most is luck and fate. He believes in survival of the fittest and that skill is the only thing that a person can depend on in life.
- Himself – After knowing about the things he dislikes, it is kind of easy to tell that he doesn’t like himself very much. Most of the things he dislikes are mostly human flaws and quirks that he has himself. He is never satisfied with who he is and sometimes sees himself as a killing machine that must be eliminated one way or the other. His lack of respect for himself shows more of the soft and kinder side of Shiki. He also hates how he always feels empty and dead most of the time.
Likes:
[spoiler=Likes]
- Freedom – There is nothing better than freedom to an assassin, especially in Shiki’s realm. An assassin is nothing more than a mere tool that eliminates others under orders of an authority. As an assassin, Shiki hates being told what to do.
- Knives – Shiki is a huge fan of all sharp-edged objects, especially daggers and knives. Knives are probably his favorite weapon because they are portable and quick. They are very useful in assassination, especially silent ones. Swords are cool too but they are too slow for his tastes. If he had a choice between the two, he would go for the knife.
- Killing – This is one of the reasons why Shiki was feared back in the human world. He was one of the only assassins who enjoyed killing his victims. Because of how many people he murdered, he was dubbed as “The Blood Reaper”.
- Blood – Shiki likes the color and the sight of blood, also another reason for his nickname. This is also reveals a more sadist side of him. He has a form of Hematolagnia where he has subconscious sexual interest for blood, especially blood spilled from the opposite gender. He hides this fetish pretty well, except when he is killing his victims.
- Mapo Tofu – As for food, Shiki’s favorite food is Mapo Tofu, which is a Chinese dish of extremely spicy tofu. First off, Tofu has a lot of protein and very healthy. Secondly, the taste is almost amazing. Shiki could eat this food everyday without getting bored of it.
- Cats – Shiki has a soft spot for cats, especially cute little kittens. One reason why he likes them is because they represent his desire to become free. He has always thought that cats were a symbol of freedom. They could do whatever they pleased and sleep whenever they pleased. If Shiki could be an animal, he would choose a cat, a black cat.
- Yin and Yang – Shiki is very fond of the concept of the yin and yang. It is probably his favorite symbol and philosophy of all time. With everything good comes with everything bad. The concept that opposite exist in a relation to each other is basically Shiki’s personality in a nutshell. For example, without day there can be no night. Without God there can be no Satan. This is one of Shiki’s main components in his personal philosophy in explaining how the world works.
- Break Dancing – As a hobby, Shiki likes to practice and study break dancing from time to time. He has always been interested in street dancing and B-boying, especially in the power moves like windmill, swipe, head spin and air flares. Shiki knows the basic freezes and the 6-step but is completely fascinated by the break dancing professionals and their sick moves.
- Martial Arts – Martial arts seems to be one of Shiki’s greatest passions, especially the Qi Gong and the tricking. He first got into martial arts when he saw a video of a monk getting kicked in the balls and not taking any damage from it. Ever since then, he began trying different styles and practicing hours everyday. Later on, he got into tricking, which are impractical attacks such as the 540 kick, jackknife, flip kick, and 720 triple.
- Torture – Shiki is a hardcore sadist. He is sexually turned on by torturing others, especially those of the opposite gender. He hides this very well since he is an assassin and he just simply kills his victims than making them suffer. He really loves screams of pain, begging, crying, and moans from the tortured victims. It is a major turn on.
- Bondage – This fetish also goes very well with his sadism. He is also sexually aroused by tying people up, especially females. He likes to see girls effectively restrained and completely helpless. He is usually too embarrassed to even think or talk about it in the presence of others. It is something that he keeps to himself. But because of this, he also likes people who are into this kind of stuff as well.
- Engineering – Shiki is into the field of applied science, engineering and technology. He is completely absorbed into building, inventing, and creating new technology. His favorite discipline would probably be electrical engineering, followed by computer and mechanical engineering. He once had a dream of going to college and becoming an engineer when he was little but his job as an assassin made it pretty much impractical. He usually does research and learn how to build things on his own.
- Abnormality – Anything that isn’t normal is considered interesting to Shiki. He likes everything that is new and different. He is really into irrational concepts and psychotic people. Anyone who is as fucked up as he is has a good chance of becoming his friend.
- Girls – Although Shiki doesn’t know it himself, he is actually straight. He usually has no interest in girls and rarely thinks about intimacy but subconsciously he finds them very interesting and sometimes even cute. Even though he does like them, he sees them to be a waste of time and a burden so it is very difficult for him to open up to someone. A girl should consider herself extremely lucky if he ever does take a liking to her.
- Alice – Now this one is the last and most interesting thing that he loves. Alice is an entity that is spawned from his unique form of schizophrenia. Alice is fact nothing more than kind and good-natured side of Shiki’s personality but, of course, Shiki is unaware of that. Shiki perceives Alice as an angel or a holy spirit that comforts him when he is lonely and helps him when he is depressed. In Shiki’s perception, she seems to take many forms such as a little girl, a flame, and even the sign of the cross.
Flaws:
[spoiler=Flaws]
- Schizophrenia – Shiki has a very unique version of schizophrenia that is characterized not only by delusions and hallucinations but the ability to differentiate between thought processes and perceiving different thought patterns as separate entities. This complex mental disorder makes it difficult for Shiki to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences. He might appear to be calm on the outside but the inside is complete chaos. Some people who know Shiki don’t even know he has schizophrenia.
- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder – Shiki has an obsessive-compulsive disorder which manifests itself in the form of balance. He has thoughts of anxiety and apprehension when the yin and yang is unbalanced. With everything good must comes with anything bad. When there is too much of one side, Shiki would perform certain rituals to compensate for the other half. For example, if he kills someone, he will be compelled do help another person to maintain the karmic balance.
- Irrational Cognition – Although Shiki normally has logical thinking, Shiki has the tendency to overthink into irrational thought processing. It is like trying to create a new color without relating to the other colors. When considering the possible outcomes of flipping a coin, a normal person would say “heads and tails”. However, Shiki would consider heads, tails, none, both, both and none simultaneously, and even neither both nor none. This is just a small example of Shiki’s insanity when he thinks too hard. He also uses this concept to explain how world works. This is why most people don’t understand him.
- Psychopathic – As a mass murder, Shiki is slightly psychopathic. He isn’t a complete psychopath because he can care for someone or something, such as Alice. However, he doesn’t have any qualms killing people. He could pull the trigger on his own ally and feel almost nothing.
- Homocidal – Due to being an assassin for most of his life, Shiki has the tendency to be slightly homicidal. This flaw couples very well with his psychopathic flaw. He wouldn’t mind starting a massacre just to accomplish his goals or finish a mission. Normally, Shiki only kills when there is a reason to. However, there is another side of him that doesn’t need a reason to kill and that will be explained later on in the personality overview.
- Arrogant – Although he might not show it on the outside, Shiki is actually an arrogant ass. He has the tendency to have supercilious attitude and always underestimating the ability of his opponents. He subconsciously sees himself as a “chosen one” who was handpicked by God, Satan, or which ever it may be.
- Manipulation – Shiki sees everyone around his as mere tools to accomplish his own goals. It doesn’t matter how strong they are; as long as they are his allies, they are considered tools. He won’t hesitate to dispose of any tools that are no longer useful to him. In fact, he sees the whole soul society as one immense tool. He doesn’t consider himself a true member of the soul society and believes that he is using them to accomplish his own goals. Shiki’s manipulation is very subtle and he uses every tiny psychological influence to his advantage. Shiki preys on the fact that the mind is always constantly getting influenced by external forces and learns how to use the psychological cues to his advantage.
- Skeptical - After all the shit that has happened in his life, Shiki cannot trust anyone. This kind of goes with the manipulation flaw in the aspect that he only relies on himself for his own survival. Although he might appear to have opened up to someone, he always has doubts and second thoughts about people. People cannot be trusted.
Habits:
[spoiler=Habits]
- Shiki has the tendency to exaggerate his Schizophrenia, claiming that he has the “Third Eye of Illuminati”. The third eye of illuminati is not really a physical eye but the eye of the mind and soul. It is said to be the eye of Lucifer, the eye that sees and controls all. In reality, it is nothing more than a euphemism for his disorder.
- Shiki has the tendency to overthink. He always overanalyzes what people say and the events that go on in his life. It always somehow links to superstition, such as karma. When something unique or noticeable happens, he will think that it symbolizes an omen and overthink possibilities of the future from there. This can also take many forms. For example, instead of just using a simple heuristic to solve a problem, Shiki would generate a number of algorithms and try all of them until the problem is solved. Overthinking everything, especially philosophy, is the key to the irrational realm.
- Shiki has the tendency to psychoanalyze others. He will generalize and jump to conclusions based on people’s words and actions. Generalizations are completely different from judging. He usually has neutral opinions towards most people because he thinks everything is normal. When he generalizes, he basically creates assumptions of what they are thinking or what kind of behavior they are exhibiting. Shiki’s psychoanalysis seems to be predictions or readings of people’s subconscious motives and he does it so often that it has now become a habit.
- Shiki has a habit of lying to others. He lies in order to cover up things and hide himself away from others. Shiki is a very good liar and he is able to make false remarks without exhibiting any emotion or signs. He lies in order to mask his identity and use others to his advantage. The only time when he will speak the truth is when he considers someone as a close friend. Other than that, he will lie for his own survival and benefit. He lies so often that it has become a habit, creating a false identity for himself. It has gotten to the point that Shiki’s existence himself is just one huge lie.
- In combination with lying, Shiki has the tendency to mask his personality and put on different facades. It is as if his behaviors changes according to his environment despite whether he really likes it or not. He has the habit of adapting to different social groups and change into a completely different person solely for "social survival" purposes. For example, he would start talking shit and acting cool around stoners in order for him to make some money off of them. But around hardworking students, he would pretend to be a kind and nice person. He assimilates himself into so many different social groups that people don't even know who he really is anymore.
- When Shiki is irritated, he has the tendency of reacting in two ways, depending on the situation. If he is in a serious fight or tense situation, he would remain quiet and stare down his opponent, giving an deadly glare as if he was going to kill someone. When he is around people that he is close to and comfortable with, he will start talking like an aggressive driver and might even curse to a degree. Because he doesn't take things very seriously in a relaxed situation, he tends to just curse around and make fun of the person annoying him at the moment. For example, if someone steals his kill. He would sometimes put on a sarcastic smile and say something like "YOU FUCK... Son of a bitch...". Another example would be, "He spelled 'aquarium' wrong, what the fuck man". However, he must be REALLY close to a person in order for him to joke around and curse like that. This doesn't happen often since he doesn't trust anyone.
Fears:
[spoiler=Fears]
- Mentioned earlier, Shiki is afraid of anything that he cannot control. Everything that is beyond his grasp is considered frightening. This is why he cannot stand concepts just as luck and fortune, because those are things that cannot control. This fear was fundamentally built from the feeling of helplessness. The reason why he isn’t afraid of death as much as natural disasters is that he believes he has some type of influence over death. His reasoning is that he kills people all the time anyways so all he has to do is simply kill his adversary before the enemy kills him. (This fear foreshadows how damn scared he will be of his own hollow when he is unable to control it, scared to the point that he even thinks of suicide.)
- Shiki is afraid of the unknown. This essentially means that Shiki is afraid of anything that he cannot anticipate or understand. He is more afraid of what happens after death than death itself. Anything unpredictable would be a great example of one of Shiki’s fears. Another example would be the concept of eternity in both directions, before the beginning of time and after the end of time. It is very difficult for Shiki to make sense out of both of them even with his irrational thinking.
- Tied to his obsessive-compulsive disorder, Shiki is obviously very much afraid of any sort of imbalance. This is based off of Shiki’s belief that the world must be balanced in order to keep working. This ridiculous fear has a major influence on Shiki’s behavior, like explained in the flaws section. Any type of exposure to imbalance can cause Shiki to go into an uneasy state and will do anything to fix it. Forms of balance that Shiki is afraid to screw up include homeostasis, asymmetry, nutritional balance, karma, equilibrium, equal distribution, you name it. As long as Shiki perceives a difference in balance, he will try to fix it to get rid of the fear.
- Shiki's worst and least suppressible fear would be his own inner hollow, or at least it WILL be his greatest fear when he realizes of the inner hollow's existence. He is scared because the inner hollow can outsmart him in many ways and will eventually devour him one way or the other. First off, his inner hollow will trigger off all his other fears because Shiki is afraid of the unknown and the uncontrollable. Secondly, the thought of being devoured makes him sick to his stomach, which will cause him to hold back in a fight when the inner hollow becomes powerful.
Goals:
[spoiler=Goals]
- When he was still a human, Shiki was always the best. After death as a human, Shiki realized how many people were stronger than him. These people were called shinigami, a superior race. Because of this, he became one himself. His goal as a shinigami is to get stronger and become the best, reclaim the title that he once to had.
- This is more of a subconscious goal. This means that he isn’t even aware of this goal but subconsciously trying to accomplish it. He is actually looking for a girl that most closely resembles Alice. Trying to find the “real” version of Alice is basically the same as trying to find a soul partner. Love is the hidden desire that needs to be fulfilled for him to be complete. He has been living a life of hatred and that has brought him nothing more but suffering, a living hell.
- I know this sounds weird but Shiki’s most hidden and unconscious goal is to be killed. Not just any ordinary death but an epic one. He believes that he will eventually become a menace that must be eliminated in some way. This is not considered suicidal because he has the will to live and survive. Furthermore, not only does he want to be killed but he wants his death to be so significant that it creates change. He thinks that planning out his death is cool will subconsciously do it from time to time.
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (Formerly Chaotic Evil)
Overall Personality:
[spoiler=Nature Side]Shiki has an extremely complex and intricate personality that is very difficult for others to even understand despite what he shows on the surface. The apathetic, indifferent, and calm figure is nothing more than a mere surface of who he really is. Not only does he have many internal conflicts, but his thinking goes far into the irrational realm. These internal conflicts are spawned from his schizophrenic thinking patterns, causing a separation of consciousness, behavior, cognition, emotion, and even perception. One must be able to think like him to truly understand him.
There are a lot of different and irregular patterns to the way he works and a lot of them are very intricate and irrational, therefore I will start with one of the simplest patterns. Because of his schizophrenia, he possesses more than one single consciousness. He seems to have the innate ability to differentiate between the internal thoughts of his ego, superego, and id. You can say that the superego symbolizes the angel and the id symbolizes the devil. With everything good comes with everything bad. This is where the concept of balance originates from. The three components of Shiki’s personality are considered to be separate entities, similar to concept of the holy trinity. Three thought processes in one mind, three spirits in one soul.
In addition to the three components, there are three levels or three layers of insanity at which they work at: the conscious level, the subconscious level, and the unconscious level. Each of the three components is fundamentally different at each level. The most fascinating part of these three thought processes is that they can communicate with each other, argue with each other, and even influence one another. At the conscious level, his ego is an entity known as Shiki, his normal thought process. Shiki’s normal thought process is the usually what he surfaces on the outside, hence he calls himself the king of his inner world. Shiki comes off as a merciless and very cold on the outside like his appearance shows but he also has his soft spots. These soft spots are usually influenced by his superego, which I will discuss later.
Normally, Shiki is an apathetic person who only talks when necessary. It is quite difficult to read what he is thinking because he shows very little emotion or at least exhibits very low valence emotions. Shiki is usually calm, carefree and relaxed while he is in his passive state. Although highly unbelievable, he has his own set of morals. He desires to protect those who are important to him but his methods are slightly more violent. For example, if someone that he actually cares about, which is very rare, is hurt, he will most likely get revenge that resolves in form of assassination. This conscious thought process known as Shiki is very perceptive, observant and capable of making rational judgment.
Now moving on to the superego side of the conscious level, his superego is an entity that he calls Alice. Alice is normally seen as a spirit or an angel that guides Shiki and acts as a second parent. She tells him what is right and what is wrong. To Shiki, she is a real guardian angel but she nothing more than a part of Shiki. This is Shiki’s female personality. She is a very good-natured and kind-hearted girl. This female personality rarely ever surfaces on the outside. She always stays on the inside and guides Shiki as he remains the king of the inner world. She is also the one who installed all the morals into Shiki. Her main moral is that happiness comes from helping others. In her perspective, helping others is the very fundamentals of the everlasting happiness, similar to that of heaven.
Alice is seen to be very fragile entity, a very soft spot of Shiki’s personality. Alice seems to very amicable and easy to get along with. She loves to act all cute around people, especially to Shiki, and sometimes can be even shy. She usually manifests in the form of a spirit in order to communicate with Shiki and always tells Shiki about how much she wishes she could interact with the real world. She seems to have very high hopes about making friends and has very helpful heart. She is a very forgiving entity and usually forgets about the bad things that people do to Shiki. She is one of the main influences on Shiki and comforts him when he is depressed. But she does have a serious side. When she is serious, she gives Shiki wisdom and speaks very philosophically.
As for the id side of his conscious level, his id is an entity known as Pride. Pride is normally seen as an arrogant demon that is always trying to take the upper hand and become the king of the inner world. He usually takes the form of a spirit that looks exactly like Shiki except with hair and eyes as red as blood and devil horns. Like his name suggests, he possesses a lot of pride and drives the ambitions inside Shiki to seek power. It is very difficult to explain the insanity he induces. Pride is basically the very instinctual side of Shiki’s personality that is psychopathic, irrational, malevolent, and nothing more than a mass of hatred. Whenever Shiki talks to Pride inside his mind, Pride is always laughing and speaks with a condescending tone. Pride usually takes the upperhand whenever Shiki’s pride or ego is hurt and unable to function as king of inner world. Pride also reveals to Shiki that his real name is “Immortal Sin”.
When Pride surfaces on the outside, Shiki becomes a homicidal maniac with no restraint. He becomes completely psychopathic and fills the air with maniacal laughter. Pride is nothing more than a bloodthirsty killing machine that relies purely on instinct and less on observation and rational judgment. When Pride temporarily takes the position of king, he tends to invoke fear and has a sadistic tone. When Pride is being suppressed by the ego or Shiki’s normal personality, Pride usually shows himself through smirks and facial expressions of insanity. As Shiki goes down the path of hollowification, Shiki’s inner hollow will represent Pride in many ways later on. This will be a huge struggle for Shiki especially because Pride is already hard enough to control and the ability to control an inner hollow is harder by a hundred folds.
Now moving down the subconscious level, there are only two entities that seems to be at work in this area, the superego and the id. The ego doesn’t exist in the subconscious level of Shiki’s personality. The ego must always surface on the outside in order to maintain mental stability. In the subconscious area, these are very subtle and hidden forces that serves as the main influence on Alice and Pride. Yes, you can say that the processes in the subconscious area are a more extreme version of the superego and the id. Shiki is unaware of the influences of these subconscious forces which can get dangerous when one of them surfaces.
On the superego side of the subconscious level exists a very joyful entity known as Eve, the angel of love. Within a heaven there is always another heaven. This concept applies very well here. This is basically an “Alice” within an Alice. Yes, now do you get it? Shiki’s mind is gigantic loop of irrationality. This is how far his schizophrenia takes him. Eve exists in the subconscious as a happy little cupid that loves to make others happy. Her main influence on Shiki gives him the incentive to look for a soul partner. Eve has very deep and mature philosophy about love and completely ignores shallow reasons such as appearances.
On the id side of the subconscious level exists a very dark entity known as Chaos, the demon of hatred. Yes, you guessed it; this is basically a “Pride” within a Pride, a demon within another demon. Chaos is very dark, sly, scary, and silent creature that is highly manipulative and nothing more than a mass of insanity. Chaos usually never takes the upper hand but when he does, Shiki is unaware of it. That is how scary it is. Chaos can only take the upper hand when Pride is surfaced. Pride seems to be Chaos’s medium to surface and when he does surface, Shiki is not a pretty sight. Looking straight into Shiki’s eyes in Chaos mode is like fear-inducing hypnosis. In Chaos mode, Shiki gets to the point where he loses all his common sense and begins killing everything on sight with no remorse. Chaos’s real name is “Eternal Sin”.
The very last and bottom level of Shiki’s personality is the unconscious. Only one entity exists here. This entity is known as Noone or Knowon, depending on preference of spelling but they both are pronounced the same. Knowon is basically nothing more than a mass of empty psychic void that carries most of the most irrational philosophy with the biggest contradictions. This philosophy states that everything in this world is both right and wrong at the same time. The entity of Knowon is basically origin of where all the schizophrenia came from and what spawned all of this personality nonsense. Knowon is nothing more than just a concept that brings Shiki’s mind in a never ending loop. This is probably the reason why Shiki’s inner world is so screwed up.
Knowon’s philosophy is probably what you might consider a universal truth or a universal lie, depending on how you see it. Because of the contradictions he creates, people either really like it or really hate it because he creates loops and riddles that is very difficult to comprehend. Knowon states that everything in this universe is right and wrong at the same time. His philosophy creates such a contradiction that all philosophies are simultaneously true and false. Now ultimate question is: What is Knowon? Who is he exactly? Knowon is no one but at the same time he is someone. He is not an angel, nor is a demon. He is both. To him, everything is nothing and nothing is everything. He plays around with words and concepts to such an extent that he can trap people in an endless loop of thought. No one has the answers and the answers are nothing. This is the root of all Shiki’s amorphous philosophy that constantly changes over time.
It’s about time I give you a recap on Shiki’s confusing personality. On conscious level is basically Shiki, Alice and Pride working together to keep the mind stable. On the subconscious level is basically just Eve and Chaos keeping the balance beneath Shiki’s awareness but still show themselves it forms of spirits from time to time. And on the unconscious level is just Knowon, which is the origin of all of Shiki’s personality. It is very difficult to understand Shiki’s mind. And if you reading this and you’re all like “LOLWTF”, I don’t blame you. This is basically Shiki’s mind in a nutshell.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Nurture Side]So far, I have only talked about the nature side of Shiki’s personality. The elements of the nature side are traits that are innate and unlearned such as instinct. Because Shiki was born with Schizophrenia, his extremely complex personality of multiple consciousness and thought processes, in which I have explained in terms of Freudian psychology, were acquired naturally. It is time I move on and explain the nurture side of Shiki’s personality. The nurture side, on the other hand, is the influence of the environment on Shiki’s behavior. In other words, the nurture side stands on the opposite end of the spectrum, the complimentary of nature. Like I have said before, without Yin, there could be no Yang. Therefore, the nurture side is extremely essential to Shiki’s personality and behavior.
Starting from Shiki’s childhood, Shiki was a very quiet and indifferent individual to begin with. However, as time passed, Shiki mind began to submerge into insanity and the environment that he was placed in caused him to seep further into madness. In the beginning, Shiki’s main influence was Alice. Under influence of Alice, he gained very philosophical ideals and displayed very developed moral understanding. Even with schizophrenia, he began slightly good-natured. However, after the death of his father and a close friend, Shiki began to sink into insanity as if he was getting dragged into a pit of hell. He began turning towards Pride and replacing his old ideals with darker ones. Under Pride’s influence, he began developing a sense of superiority to others and became more apathetic, indifferent, and empty.
As time passed through Shiki’s teenage years, Shiki’s indifference got to the point that good and evil was nothing more than a classification of actions and behavior. It mattered not whether his actions were good or bad. The only thing that mattered to him was whether or not his goal was accomplished and would use anything to his advantage to accomplish them. After going through a living hell for all of his life, Shiki had finally come to the conclusion that life is nothing but one cruel game. Shiki’s sense of superiority further develops into arrogance as he kills more and more people. It got to the point that he develops an absolute concept of internal locus of control, which is the perception that one controls one’s own fate. He also begins developing some form of hatred towards the world after he was unable to protect the people that were important to him.
As Shiki’s hatred and insanity grew and further corruption by Pride and Chaos, Shiki became a very cruel and ruthless being as the remaining morality installed by Alice begins to fade away. He became so indifferent that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who stood in his way, be it ally or enemy. Forming the concept that he could trust no one else but himself, he has no qualms about sacrificing his own friends and even killing them for being useless to him. He develops overwhelming hatred towards humans and views them as selfish and disgusting creatures. Due to his apathy, Shiki displays no sense of guilty, shame, nor remorse from killing, developing a very psychopathic behavior.
Under subconscious influence from Chaos, Shiki’s insanity reaches a peak and develops to the point of egocentrism. Not just the inability to feel empathy and sympathy for others, but the subconscious view that the universe revolves around him. He begins to have the concept that death is completely natural and that murder is not even considered a bad thing, even enjoying murdering others to a degree. Chaos influences him in such a way that he views that everything in this world is like an illusion from a never-ending nightmare and that once he dies, everything will disappear. To him, ceasing to exist in this universe is the same as the universe ceasing to function. This psychopathic view of the universe causes Shiki to become a mass-murderer.
Shiki’s obsessive-compulsive disorder which manifests in the form of balance is also spawned from the nurture side. Mainly influenced by his philosophy and his view of the universe, he developed the concept that the universe functions in forms of Yin and Yang. In order to satisfy both Alice and Pride, he will subconsciously do what he can to fix any sort of imbalance. For example, if he kills a person in cold blood, he will help another person to maintain the balance. Due to Pride’s overwhelming influence, Shiki’s OCD remains very weak during his human life, doing more bad things than good. However after Shiki’s death, he gains the concept that karma had came back to punish him for all the people he killed. He becomes so overwhelmed by this that he begins trying to balance out his bad deeds with good ones. As a result, Shiki becomes less consumed by hatred and more neutral in alignment.[/spoiler]