Aoyagi Seimei

Out of Character Information
Name: Erry
Contact: DW: cupiditas; Plurk: cupiditas
Current Characters: Kariya Masaki (netting_nettles)
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In-Character Information
Name: Aoyagi Seimei
Series: Loveless (manga, OU)
Canon-Point: Post-Volume 8, following his raid on the Seven Moons.

History:
Loveless presents Seimei’s backstory almost exclusively from the perspectives of other characters, and, as a result, there are several gaps in what is known about his past. In particular, the details of his early life are unknown. The family he was born to in Japan was relatively average and middle-class, and he was raised in reasonable comfort. When Seimei was five, his younger brother Ritsuka was born, and he immediately formed a close bond with his sibling. (And an uncomfortably possessive bond – in his own words, his mother bore Ritsuka “so that she could give the boy to me.”)

Seimei would eventually be drawn into a form of magical combat, practiced secretly between pairs in the world of Loveless. Exactly how Seimei became involved has not been revealed. Likely, he was recruited into this small group of spell-casters by already established practitioners when his “true name” – a name that appears on the body of (almost) everyone capable of participating in spell battles in Loveless - manifested itself. Given that Ritsuka and his mother show no awareness of Seimei’s participation in such combat, however, it is unlikely that he attended the academy in which many Fighters and Sacrifices (the two types of magical combatants) in Japan train, the Shichisei Gakuen. He appears to have honed his skills in secret, instead, carefully manipulating his family and friends so that his domestic acquaintances knew nothing about his other life.

Despite this, he had become an especially talented Sacrifice by the age of fourteen, so much so that he was inducted into the organization known as the Seven Moons, a mysterious group of Sacrifices with some of the most far-reaching connections among the magically aware slice of society. That power and influence also allowed him to procure a highly gifted Fighter unit, a young man named Agatsuma Soubi, who had been specially (and abusively) trained by the head of the Gakuen, Minami Ritsu. Soubi was a “blank” Fighter – someone without a “true name,” who could be adopted by any Sacrifice who chose to write his name on their skin. As it happened, Seimei had also become quite the sadist, by that age – he chose to etch his true name, “Beloved,” across Soubi’s neck with the blade of a knife.

His relationship with his new Fighter proved strictly one-sided. Seimei insisted on dominating Soubi’s life completely, treating him as his personal plaything and slave – though, in truth, Soubi seems to have largely welcomed this dynamic, having been prepared for it by his prior training. In the years that followed, Seimei and Soubi became the most renowned fighting pair in (at least) Japan. Precisely whom they fought and what goals (if any) Seimei was pursuing in this time aren’t known, but the two went undefeated for the next three years.

At the age of 10 – when Seimei was 15, roughly one year after he teamed up with Soubi – Seimei’s brother Ritsuka suddenly underwent a bout of memory loss and a dramatic change in personality. The cause of this shift has not been revealed, but Seimei seems to have been the only member of the Aoyagi family unaffected by the change. Whereas the vast alteration in Ritsuka’s personality was enough to drive his mother to mental instability and abuse of the boy, the brothers’ relationship only became closer, with Seimei protecting Ritsuka from their mother’s attacks. Whether this signals that the young Sacrifice was somehow involved in (or at least aware of) the cause of these changes isn’t clear. Regardless, during this period, Seimei committed a number of acts of violence, possibly as some sort of plan within the Seven Moons or perhaps merely for the sake of his own amusement. The ill reputation these earned him finally boiled over when he committed at least one straightforward murder – for which the other Seven Moons decreed that he should die.

This sentence against him was worrisome enough to drive Seimei into hiding. At the age of seventeen, he faked his own death as visibly and convincingly as he could. After writing a brief will in which he ordered Soubi to become his brother’s Fighter, Seimei murdered another man and somehow rigged the body to appear as his own, right down to the teeth inside his skull. The charred corpse was then left inside an elementary school building…specifically, in the classroom seat assigned to Ritsuka. From that night, Seimei disappeared from public life, presumed dead by virtually everyone.

For all that work, the Sacrifice didn’t keep his low profile for long. Though separated from Soubi, he was able to find a Fighter who shared the true name of “Beloved” by birth, adopting this young man, Akame Nisei, as his newest tool. Unable to leave the safe-house he had set up, he used Nisei to keep tabs on his brother, whom the remaining Seven Moons were attempting to capture. Slowly but surely, Ritsuka and Soubi were led to the Shichisei Gakuen on the same night that Seimei and Nisei attempted to infiltrate it. While Nisei delayed his brother and former Fighter, Seimei found Minami Ritsu (another of the Seven Moons), gouged out his eyes, wrote a message to Ritsuka in his blood, and then fled deeper into the school. A brief battle with a pair of genetically-enhanced fighters serving the Seven Moons was interrupted when Ritsuka and Soubi burst into the room.

This confrontation gave Seimei the chance he needed to escape – Soubi's strength was needed to break out of the compound, and the Fighter was unable to keep himself from obeying an order to help his former master get away. Before Seimei could be taken to task for his violent actions or explain his motives to Ritsuka, he vanished through a window. In the aftermath of his disappearance, another member of the Moons was found missing…this abduction probably having been his original intention in infiltrating the Gakuen.

Personality:

Aoyagi Seimei is a sociopath. In the world as he sees it, there exist (at most) two people, himself and his younger brother Ritsuka. Anyone else, whatever role they may play in his life, is to be counted as something lesser. In the absolute best cases, Seimei views others as valuable or even precious animals worth keeping around -- say, a pretty bird to be held in a cage or a well-trained dog to be kept so that it can serve at his beck and call. But even the most impressive creature of this sort is still less than truly human in Seimei's eyes and so can always be dispensed with as suits his purposes. In the past, he has done grievous harm to those who thought themselves his allies for no better reason than a whim.

Of course, Seimei is also aware that he wouldn't get far in the world if this attitude of his were common knowledge. As such, it's an important and constant endeavor of his to control others' impressions. He presents drastically different versions of himself to different people: pleasant and charismatic to those he needs to trust him, self-assured and dominant to those he feels confident that he can overpower. His handling of the fronts he presents is so meticulous that it can leave the 'Seimei' that one person knows unrecognizable to another. He is almost inhumanly careful and thoughtful about making sure people see just what he wants them to.

It probably goes without saying, given all of the above, that Seimei has some serious control issues. At times, these border on deep neurosis: He can't abide being touched by other people without permission or even eating in others' presence at times. He also displays extreme paranoia and possessiveness towards those he thinks of as his own, and his first response to a perceived threat is generally violent, either physically or psychologically. (This is a young man who used to kill his beloved little brother's pets lest they become rivals for his affection. The kid's messed up.) When his control over his personal environment is threatened, Seimei’s otherwise so-cool appearance can break down to flash the dangerous, unstable mind underneath.

Nonetheless, Seimei isn't wildly impulsive. In his canon, no one outside the confines of the magically-aware world appears to know of his darker side, let alone of his capacity for violence. He has a surprising gift for managing long-term goals and plans for someone otherwise so unrestrained. He's also capable of affection, having a doting and protective bond with his brother Ritsuka. But both that self-control and those more positive emotions are inevitably filtered through Seimei's skewed world-view into something that most sane individuals wouldn't recognize.

Powers: Seimei's magical abilities are left highly vague in canon, but he appears to be capable of exerting powerful, empathic pressure on others through the use of his voice. (For instance, he pushes two of his opponents into a state of hopelessness and despair just by speaking to them.) This works similarly to drawing the targets into a trance: Seimei's listeners are captivated by his words and overwhelmed by the intended emotion but can resist or shake off the effects by managing to draw their attention onto something else.

In-game, Seimei will still be capable of using this ability but will be limited to more subtle effects. Instead of being able to overwhelm others with emotion, he will only be able to exert mild influence -- e.g. leaving a target unnerved, instead of sending them into a state of despair, or lightening their mood instead of rendering them delirious with joy. In addition, Seimei's abilities will only be fully effective in this limited way with other Trainers. Against Pokémon, his powers will work only haltingly and with uncertain effect.

Starter Pokemon: Cubone

Writing Samples
First-Person Sample:

[Seimei sits carefully back from the camera as the video feed clicks to life, his Cubone perched on the arm of the chair to his side. His feline ears perk up as he smiles politely.]

Excuse me. I don't know anyone here yet, but I've been told this network is public, and I need to ask a question. It's about caring for the Pokémon I was given after arriving.

[He turns to pat one hand gently across the skull the Cubone wears. It glances between him and the Xtranceiver, uncertain.]

From what I've heard, all Pokémon like this one are still young. They don't gain the skull they keep as a mask until after their mother's death. So -- is it safe to use a Pokémon like that in battle? Or for catching others?

I wouldn't want to do it harm out of ignorance.

Third-Person Sample:

Seimei stared down at the Pokéball clasped in his hand, eyes cool and stern. He hadn't let the creature resting inside out but once since receiving it. He didn't have time for that yet, strange and sad and fascinating as the little mammal was. He needed to think -- and to restrain his temper.

He had been abducted. By accident, they told him, thanks to some malfunction in their 'Entralink.' Whether that was a magical thing or some highly advanced technology, Seimei hadn't learned yet. But the short version was that there was no perpetrator of the act that anyone could point him to, to remedy the situation or to properly vent his frustration. That fact had been grinding away at his nerves since he’d woken in this baffling world.
Cats ears pressed down against his dark hair, he restrained a hiss. Slowly, on digit traced across the ball he held to the button at its very front.

“Cubone, come out.”

It did. The small, skull-capped creature stood up before him, with its eyes turned upwards towards its new master. It looked distressed and so unsure of what to make of its new owner.

“Good,” Seimei nodded. His voice forced its way into a purr, his lips into a smile.

“We’re going to have to do something about this, Cubone.”