[ intro: 11 / 21 / 2012 ] HAVEN APP

[errandry]

Name: Thorn!
Contact Info: obliviomancy @ GMAIL
Other Characters Played: Not applicable!
Preferred Apartment: No preferences.

Character Name: Kazuma Mikura
Canon: Air Gear ( manga )
Canon Point: Chapter 278, when Aeon finds him kidnapped by penguins.
Background/History: The Very Secret Backstory of an inevitable side-character.
Previous Game History:

In July 2011, Kazu was thrown out of his own dimension and into a punch to the face—into a world governed by whim, bureaucratic deities, and a bizarre carnival theme (carousels and ticking clocks and curses which broke at midnight, oh my).

Welcome to the City.

Fortunately for Kazu's team-dependent sensibilities, his most vicious teammate Akito/Agito arrived a few weeks after him, followed by the queen of mechanics Kururu. Whatever else came, Kazu wasn't on his own—and that made everything easier to handle. Between days when Akito turned into a vampire, Kururu exploded microwaves in an effort to reassemble parts, and the City transformed into Las Vegas, however, Kazu developed a sort of casual acceptance about the inevitability of it all. What happened during curses stayed relevant to those curses alone and had no bearing on one's character or the rest of the world. In the course of those months, he met a wide host of people, including Roxas (his first humanesque alien!), Kazuo Kiriyama (his first sociopath), Carla (dangerous, smart-mouthed, and unpredictable), Mae Crawford (nice girl, scarily toppy) and Yuri Lowell—the last for whom he would form a mild respect. People from his world came and went—in particular Spitfire, the man who'd passed his title and legacy to Kazu, and who'd died for him with hardly a word exchanged. As a result, Kazu grew almost morbidly attached to the City: as a second chance of sorts, with more time to train, because he could never be sure that he'd be strong enough to handle everything at home.

Then, in December 2011, Kogarasumaru's leader arrived— wheelchair-bound, and three months behind everybody else in the timeline.

As time passed, Agito and Kazu formed an understanding that Ikki, who'd been such a relentless godmode in his own world, was nowhere near so highly-leveled in this one. That he might, in fact, have to be their leader in truth: the person they'd sacrifice anything to guard because their dependence on him could no longer be trusted. This became critical in February, when the City began to fall apart. As it split into two dimensions, the bulk of its denizens were left in a world disintengrating into sand, with monsters and mindcontrolling slugs crawling out of the abyss. All of Kogarasumaru was infected at least once, and out of the chaos, Kazu's certainty—that curses would always break and needed to have no bearing afterwards—started to crumble.

This culminated in a total disintegration when Akito and Ikki were caught and killed in a streak of serial murders across the City. While they resurrected as undead afterwards, the incident completely devastated Kazu, particularly given Ikki's refusal to let any of his teammates trade the deities for his goddamn life back. Desperate as always for outside reassurance, Kazu began to depend more on the cheer and confidence of Elmer C. Albatross and Yuri Lowell, to take interest in Jast, a quirky and powerful entity with sky / natural ties, as well as to look for answers regarding the City's underlying nature. Most importantly, after exhaustive conversations with Yuri, Kazu traded for Ikki's life—giving up, to some extent, on the idea of his leader as infallible and capable of saving himself alone.

He readjusted to a life of minor chaos as time passed and more familiar faces arrived. Spitfire returned in June and Kazu trained with him a little, falling into a quick and easy pattern of wanting his approval. Over successive months, he befriended Merlin, Setsuna Mudou and Dave Strider in the course of a tumultous curse which turned his team against one another under the wing of an imaginary future—and he regained the Regalia courtesy of a trade from Spitfire, which lost the latter his ability to walk for a month. In short, Kazu became increasingly determined to retain all his training and memories when he inevitably left the City for home. But things had eased: he wasn't alone, the curses had lightened, and he had every second chance he wanted. Even as the friends he'd made in the City vanished one by one, Kazu carried on.

The end of September, however, saw both Ikki and Spitfire sent home.

Their disappearances plunged Kazu into a gloom fit to do Hamlet proud. But this wasn't to last: mid-month, he began to behave normally again, keeping company with Akito and Agito, hanging out with friends, setting Ikki's possessions on fire, and coping with the curses at large. This, of course, had no healthy root: ambushed by Vincent Nightray and Leo Baskerville, Kazu had unknowingly been contracted to a monster which erased all his most upsetting memories as they arose—and which would also behead everything around him whenever he felt endangered. He had forgotten being left behind. The realisation that this wasn't a prolonged curse only occurred after he decapitated Dave Strider—who, upon resurrection, dragged Kazu sideways into one of the City's secret dimensions... where the contracted monster slumbered between summons. Their pursuit of this mystery took the rest of the month, though the culprit was never discovered.

Personality:

There's a trick question they tell along the lines of: "How do you put a giraffe in a refrigerator?"

The "real" answer is, of course, that you can't. (Well, maybe if you chopped the giraffe up, you sicko, but that's not his solution.) The "right" answer is simple: open the refrigerator, put the giraffe in, and close the door.

Kazu's one of those guys who knows both the real answer and the right one. The problem is—surrounded as he is by geniuses who stuff metaphorical giraffes into refrigerators all the time—he gets caught between answers. Too afraid to make the jump but too aware of how thin the rules are to stay down, his resulting confusion makes him hesitate at critical moments. Realism comes to resemble cowardice; becomes it, given the slightest prompt. That Kazu's his team's best speedster, heir to the Flame Road and Regalia, has gained him a little confidence, but it hasn't changed his intrinsic beliefs. He's always known himself to be least remarkable: the errand-runner, the ordinary guy—and just a little bit of a coward. Failure, expectation, responsibility, pressure—they shake him as much as they ever did. Even now, his self-judgment lingers, holding him fast in second place.

First impressions of Kazu do present nothing special: the formulaic teenage punk with a heart of gold. Despite an extensive resume of property damage and brawling and gang membership since middle school, he maintains an idealism that borders on naivety, defending justice, mercy and respect for the ladies (though he's not opposed to the occasional peek of dishabille—shut up, teenage boys have needs). It doesn't stop him from pranking, boasting and roughhousing with the best of them, however—and if he doesn't often initiate plans, that only makes him a better lieutenant. What trust he doesn't put in himself, he's more than willing to place in his friends—and even when Kazu should falter, his loyalty can be trusted to eventually pull through.

When it comes to team roles, Kazu plays the straight man, foil to the leader's jokes—and dispenser of beatings as warranted via the former. (Because what the hell, even a guy ranking Ordinary Errand Service #5 of Ikki's Empire deserves some dignity. Especially when it's him.) He's reactive as a result, quick to flail and lash back in turns. While part of his flustering can be attributed to the utter weirdness of the company he keeps—well, there's, frankly, a little too much to excuse. Kazu's only ever cool by accident—in moments when he doesn't consider impressions or dignity or naming his attacks, but simply acts to realign the world to the way it should be.

All his fumbling belies a sharp mind. With his firm grip on reality, Kazu's often first to spot downsides to his illustrious leader's plans, and he isn't afraid to call Ikki out on them. He has a disturbingly keen eye for detail, limited only by his occasional lack of vision. Anything that his sense of normalcy can't process—like the fact that a girl in his class is head-over-heels for him—simply slips under his radar. It's not a weakness that extends to A-Ts; in those competitions, Kazu's nothing if not effective.

Even that wouldn't be as much a skill if it weren't backed up by solid experience and a staggering drive. It's a given that hard work can't beat raw talent. With the right foundation, though, it sure can give a goddamn run for its money—and that's what Kazu bets on. He drills himself harder than anyone else on Kogarasumaru, pushing himself 'til breakdown. Since childhood, this energy has been directed towards keeping up with his best friend. Reason for it is, as far as Kazu's concerned, self-evident: air's for breathing, storm are for chasing, and Minami Itsuki's the best fucking leader for following. It's such an encompassing belief that he's all but forgotten years when he wasn't Ikki's second in every respect. Only under the preceding Flame King Spitfire's mentorship—and some shounen headpunching—does Kazu realise that backing his leader doesn't necessitate living in his shadow. Despite their common goals, mindlessly dogging Ikki's steps isn't a road—and Kazu's competitive enough, after all, to want to win in his own right.

That Kazu has risen to rival his best friend, however, doesn't change his role. That's what friendship means: loyalty transcends the need to be the (singular) best. If there's a limit to Kazu's particular brand of faith, it has yet to be reached. He's there when needed, glad to enact vengeance on behalf of the fallen—or to die for the sake of the team's victory. Just give the order.

A year's experience in a strange world has, in some ways, strengthened Kazu: he's more willing to take things in stride—to bitch and freak less in favor of focusing upon the problem at hand. His temper's a little sharper, his inclination to blame skybound omnipotence and fate for bad luck has been well-honed, and he's somewhat more guarded around strangers. (Did you know? Murderous sociopaths can look just like normal people.) Under pressure, however, Kazu handles disasters with a kind of desperate energy, and does so while relying only on people who've been tested and shown to be true; he's turned less likely to seek outside authority on controlling personal emergencies.

This has evolved into a certain ruthless streak. Where Kazu once found himself friends with a self-admitted murderer who'd butchered a number of his classmates, and spent weeks after this admission unsure about how to deal with him, time's burned that uncertainty away. In the wake of all his disasters, Kazu's no longer willing to take chances with his friends' lives. This is, perhaps, his critical weakness. Kazu will go to any end, use any means in order to see to a friend's safety. If the choice comes to it, no matter any hesitation or fear, he'll sacrifice himself first every time. Because the truth is that a year was never long enough, and Kazu recognises that he's still hardly as strong as he needs to be. Time in a world run by mysterious and mad gods has done nothing for his inferiority complex—rather, it's soldered that tendency with a determined sacrificial streak. For all his experiences learned and distances crossed, Kazu knows that he's still no king at all—just a pawn stranded halfway across the board: the easiest to cast down.

Abilities/Powers:

For well-practiced riders, Air Trecks (souped-up rollerblades with engines and fancy programming) allow them to roll everywhere: scaling buildings, running atop fences and taking leaps greater than usually possible for human legs via acceleration. On his trecks, Kazu can get up to speeds fit to break the sound barrier and "vanish" from sight, seeming to stop time for himself as a result of his superspeeding. Using friction + Air Gear logic, he can generate heat to transform into drafts of flame and manipulate them via wheels and air currents. Those drafts can be used to generate brief illusory clones of Kazu through the afterimages he leaves via speeding and heat mirages. He's also a decent copyist, analysing the tricks of opponents and learning to mimic them on the fly.

... Look, it's shounen manga magic. Just go with it. There's a complete list of his tricks here!

Sample Entry: A post from his previous game! More's available under his character tag.
Sample Entry Two:

His lungs ache.

His lungs ache, and his body aches from calves to shoulders, and nothing's looming yet out of this hidden shadow of a place, this city behind the City, which means they can stop running. For now, for the next five minutes—for some time, which has to be good enough.

The sky's hollowed dark above their heads, the street a stretch of warped lights and greying buildings, and when he rolls a little forward, the pavement grates differently underneath his wheels. Strange and not-strange, the familiar twisted away, and he's balling a fist at the sight even as his breathing slows again. More secrets, more goddamn monsters and, above it all, the deities sitting pretty on their paperwork thrones, surrounded by eyeballs in jars and jewelry and traded memories wreathing their offices like smoke. And maybe it'll go back to normal—maybe this was just meant to be a scare like any other curse, breakable like any other curse, but he's sick and goddamn tired of this. Not for the first time in the year, all Mikura Kazu wants—craves, for a moment, sharp in every vein—is something to burn.

(And maybe that's just a defense still against the memory of blood in a sharp scatter through the air, the head severed and the body falling, but—)

He jerks away from that thought—glances over at his companion instead. His friend, who—in addition to flying and being a master of time—apparently shakes off decapitation like it's no damn thing. It's a thing to be grateful for, and maybe he will be in another minute or two, but at the moment all Kazu can feel is his hand still flexed tight and his throat full of scorch and the blood heavy and blackening on his hoodie.

After a beat, he lets his fingers slacken after all. This isn't fair, he thinks—and if there's a little hollowness in that, the idea that somebody like him could ever tip the status quo—well, that doesn't matter. One thing at a time. They're at three minutes and counting, and a scene free of mysteriously decapitated bodies. At least they're safe here.

"Oi," he says, and jams his hands into his pockets as he nudges the guy's side, and tries not to sound uncertain because neither of them need that. "You're okay, right?" Doubtfully, he side-eyes the open ends of the deserted street. "What's with this place anyway?"

Note:

At his current point in Polychromatic, Kazu has yet to be uncontracted from the chain Humpty Dumpty! I understand that this will be left behind, but that still leaves the memories Humpty Dumpty erased: basically, everything involving Ikki and Spitfire. Given their influence, while I'd prefer that Humpty Dumpty's block remain for now with an option to remove it later if any characters in Haven have the powers for mental muckery, I am also cool with having those memories restored to him for gameplay in Haven. Just let me know either way!