Application - Empatheias

[snowheretogo]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Yamadori
Contact: Yamadori
Age: 24
Current Characters: Makoto Naegi


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Kyouka Izumi
Age: 14
Canon: Bungou Stray Dogs
Canon Point: Towards the end of chapter 36, when she teleports away from the ship using Demon Snow

Background: Here!

Personality: At first glance, Kyouka’s personality can be something that isn’t the easiest to pin down, primarily because she speaks with few words and doesn’t show much emotion. But this is less a lack of her feeling anything than a mask that’s been forced into place by the things she has been made to see and do. Her early life is one that was fraught with hardship and heartbreak, and enough trauma to rip any semblance of growing up “normally” right out of her grasp. In all of her fourteen years, she has been exposed to more death than others her age should ever have to bear witness to - and a good portion of it has been caused by her own hand. The persona of a pretty but emotionless doll is as much of a reaction as it is a way to cope - for a long time, her life was not one of her own choosing, but something she had to do if she wanted any chance to survive.

The world of Bungou Stray Dogs is one where certain people are blessed - or sometimes cursed, as some consider it - with special abilities that grant them certain powers. Kyouka is one of these special ability users - and hers, “Demon Snow”, is one that’s been more of a curse than not. At a young age, right in front of her very eyes, Kyouka’s parents were killed by this power she possesses. Traumatized and orphaned by that event, Kyouka was on her own, wandering the darkness of the streets, until an organization called the Port Mafia took her in. They made her a part of their group, but it was not with benevolent intentions - the Mafia sought to use Kyouka’s powers to assassinate people. Thus, since Kyouka was forced into a situation where she would risk her own death if she attempted to escape, it left her with no other option than to become a weapon for the Mafia. This lifestyle of having to murder over and over is what has left her with the dead and distant expression that is one of the first things people ever notice about her. But while initially it appears that Kyouka feels nothing about what she does and behaves as nothing more than a killing machine that obeys any orders she is given, this is the very mask that she has been forced into - because underneath lies the young girl that she truly is, the one that desperately wants to leave that life of killing behind, and the despair she feels over not being able to. As time went on, Kyouka came to believe that this was simply her way of life, and that being a blade for the Port Mafia was the only thing she could be good at. But when she encountered Atsushi, the newest agent of the Armed Detective Agency, that meeting would set her down a whole new path entirely.

After Atsushi saves her life and the Agency takes her in, the most important thing to Kyouka becomes living out her new life and making a real identity for herself. One of the Mafia’s strongest agents, Akutagawa, had told her that she “can’t do anything but kill”, and Kyouka admits herself that this “may be true.” But with her fresh start at the Armed Detective Agency, Kyouka wants to do whatever she can to prove him - and perhaps even herself - wrong. She is aware that it doesn’t erase the things she’s done, but being among this new group of people allows her to have the free will that she had been longing for. On her own and away from the constrictions of the Port Mafia, Kyouka is finally allowed to be her own person and make choices for herself - and the most important choice of all is her decision to stop taking people’s lives. Even during her first meeting with Atsushi, when she nearly died to prevent bombs attached to her from killing a train full of passengers, Kyouka was willing to lose her own life if it meant that she wouldn’t kill anymore. The weight of the 35 people she has killed is a heavy burden to bear, and she considers it an “unforgivable sin” that she had been fully prepared to receive punishment for. But even if it’s something that she still hasn’t forgiven herself for, Kyouka still wants to try and be someone whose sole purpose in life is more than just being a sword for someone else to wield. For her, the path to living out a new and better life is one that is filled with doubts and difficulties, but it’s what Kyouka wants more than anything, and she is willing to do whatever it takes to stay with Atsushi and the others. Being around them and being influenced by them has left Kyouka with a light in her eyes that is not easily extinguished, and determination to see this new path through. As Kyouka later tells the Mafia agent coming to collect her, the Agency has shown her a bright world, and she can no longer go back to a time when she didn’t know it existed.

But that new path is not one that comes without trials and problems. Having spent so long in the service of the Mafia as an assassin, those are still the first instincts that come to Kyouka. Responses and behaviors that others would deem as “normal” are concepts that aren’t easy for her to grasp or execute. For example, when she is given a simple delivery job by the agency, Kyouka ends up treating it like an infiltration mission wrought with subterfuge, going so far as to stun the recipient of her package with a stun gun as if he was the target of a mission that is a lot less benign than what the Agency asked her to do. In a way, it seems that the instincts adopted from her time with the Port Mafia have become Kyouka’s “new normal”. Although she still harshly rejects the idea of going so far as to use her ability, Kyouka still doesn’t recognize that there’s anything wrong with the way she behaved throughout the mission, even stating that “things had been going well” up until a certain point.

How difficult it is for Kyouka to change, and when it is shown that hopeful light in her eyes can in fact be extinguished, is fully displayed when her former “mentor”, Kouyou, comes to bring her back to the Mafia. In spite of how she fights against Kouyou and tells her about the world of light the Agency has shown her, all of the old fighting instincts and reflexes come back without a second thought, and Kouyou reiterates over and over that Kyouka is “a flower of darkness… and the darkness is the only place she will ever be at ease.” Kouyou also says that Kyouka is willing to kill anyone in her way or if it suits her goals, and while Kyouka denies it, there is still truth to it. Even if it’s not what she truly wants, it’s still the first reaction that comes to her, most notably later on when Kyouka nearly kills a policeman to get herself and Atsushi out of a risky situation. Even if she wants to change, the natural reaction when in danger is for Kyouka to strike out against her foes with the intent to gravely injure or kill, something that is simply ingrained on her due to her past. Repeatedly she continues to fight against it, but there are two instances when she gives up, and both times are because of the words her opponents use that cut away at the hope she’s been holding onto. The first is Kouyou, when she reveals in front of Atsushi that Demon Snow was the one who took the lives of Kyouka’s parents, and it’s after Kouyou hammers in that he won’t be able to understand that Kyouka loses her resolve. Kyouka does try again, but the second time is when an organization called the Guild comes for Atsushi and she attempts to fight them. Ultimately she fails, and the leader’s parting words to her are what finally break her: that she isn’t cutting out for saving people, but he assumes that she understands what she is cut out for - which is to say, in not as many words, that killing is what Kyouka is good at, and she should never try to change it. At this point is when Kyouka gives up entirely. She no longer has the will to fight against the words imparted by Koyou and the Guild’s leader, Fitzgerald, and she does not defend herself when police come to claim her. She wants nothing more to do with the light, and even though Atsushi has been taken away and is too far to possibly hear her, she asks him to “please [not] give her anymore light.”

For a long while, not much is heard or seen of Kyouka. She is taken prisoner by the police and eventually ends up on a quarantine plane used for ability users that are particularly dangerous. During this time she is despondent, having completely given up on the idea of trying anymore, and makes no attempts to break herself free. Even when Dazai starts speaking to her via radio connection, she still has no desire to save herself. It isn’t until he starts to chip away at the despair she’d been wrapped up in and convincing her otherwise that Kyouka starts to snap out of the stupor she’d been in since her capture. Dazai shows her what she had been either unwilling or unable to see - Kyouka is not the only one in the Agency that hurt people in the past, and she isn’t the only one that suffers over it. Telling her how she should live is something he was unable to do, but what he does impart is that all she has the right to waiver; Kyouka is the only one who can decide how she should live.

Again, she is presented with choice - and once more she chooses the light. The plane that she was aboard was the only thing able to stop a larger aircraft from colliding with Yokohama and killing thousands of people. Making the decision to stop that from happening would surely result in her own death, but Kyouka chose the lives of thousands over her own. Though she did not know at the time that she would survive, regardless of whether she would be alive afterwards or not, making the decision to save so many people would allow Kyouka to pass the Agency’s test for becoming a member. And finally, she could have no regrets. Even though Kyouka lives in the end, finally given control over Demon Snow as a member of the Agency and able to use that ability to escape in time, Kyouka had still made the decision knowing that it might have been her last. Her skills as an assassin are undoubtable and easily recognizable, but as a member of the Agency, killing isn’t something that is necessary anymore. As Dazai tell her, Kyouka is full of the potential to discover the unknown about herself - to grow into the person who is given chances and choices rather than one who was forced to obey whatever orders came through her phone. As a new, official member of the Agency, Kyouka can become someone who helps rather than hurts. She still has a lot of growing and learning to do, but she’s earned the freedom of being Kyouka Izumi - not the assassin who kills when cornered, but the young girl who gets to discover what it means to help and save others as a member of the Armed Detective Agency.

Abilities: Demon Snow - A sword-wielding phantom that appears whenever someone else summons it through Kyouka's cell phone, and only follows the orders of that person and not Kyouka herself. Demon Snow is shown to possess a lot of speed and power, which makes it a dangerous and lethal foe if encountered. However, after officially passing the test of the Armed Detective Agency, Kyouka seems to be given full control over Demon Snow, and is able to use it as she pleases. In addition to Demon Snow's fighting capabilities, it is also able to use some form of teleportation, since Kyouka was able to use it to escape from the plane she'd been imprisoned on before it crashed.

Other - In addition to Kyouka being an Ability User, she also has a lot of skill with the small Japanese sword she keeps on her person. She is also shown to have infiltration skills that she picked up from the Port Mafia - Kyouka is good at sneaking around undetected, is able to pick locks, and is capable of catching someone unaware with an attack due to being able to hide her killing intent.

Alignment: Peromei. Kyouka has had experience both the hope and despair sides of this alignment. During her time with the Port Mafia, Kyouka experienced much despair over killing so many people and being unable to escape from being under the Mafia's thumb. After she joins the Armed Detective Agency and is shown that life doesn't have to be filled with death, Kyouka is filled with hope to be a better person, and not one constantly surrounded by death.

Other: N/A

⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉

Sample: February Test Drive

If this is not sufficient for either the general or emotion sample, I would also be willing to link some meme threads and/or write out an additional sample.

Questions: In the case of Demon Snow, in a later chapter of the manga than the canon point I'm pulling her from, it's shown that she mostly has control over her ability but not full. Would it be alright for her to retain this in Empatheias?