✂ - - bound to sing for us - -

[compressed]

OOC Information;

Name; Haki
Personal Journal; (DREAMWIDTH) creper
Contact; (AIM) witchrapunzel, (PLURK) factious
Other Characters; N/A

IC Information;

Character Name; Damien Aurelius
Age; 13
Appearance; Damien has short, gray hair and green eyes usually with glasses over them. He stands at a height of 5 feet (~152 cm). His usual attire consists of a gakuran with a (white) scarf around his neck at all times unless the weather complicates that.

PB is Hiroshi from Ao Oni. Most art done by Emiya.

House; Odin
Power; Ice Magic

World Info;

Damien's world is pretty much like the world that we live in now except that there's a third party that messes up lots of things. We'll call this magic. He'll actually be from the year 2030 and there is really is nothing different than what it is now: technology has been on a slow, but stable rise such as laser keyboards being compatible with most computers and are even sold with them as a package. Televisions still exist, the Internet is still fairly common, people still ride bikes if they want to, etc. In exchange for the slow technological improvement, medical progress has been going quite smoothly, including the inventions of new drugs that one might see in science fiction today. Crime has been steadily on the rise in most countries with the bystander effect taking in place even more and more... There has been an upward spike on petty thefts, robbery, murders... the streets at night are generally unsafe due to streetlamps being far from each other. People usually stay in their homes unless they are doing something job-related. However, the world has had an increase in obtaining jobs online and more people had been working from home and everything can be obtained by ordering things online and such--this decreased the need for social activity and only increased the number of shut-ins. Needless to say, the world seems to have morally regressed.

And another factor that deviates this world from ours is the existence of a certain species called the Ashinru. The Ashinru are considered demigods and they generally have to keep their powers hidden from the average human, but it was because they started breaking this rule that outsiders have been affected and started taking notice of the higher beings that set foot on Earth. They are quite old and a majority of them could probably look at a history book and say, "Oh! I remember when that happened! Good times... Sorry that your faction lost though." which also implies that some Ashinru hid under the guise as humans that led wars under a different identity. They appear to be human, at least but there are so many differences between them and a human that you might as well just call them a humanoid instead.

They appear to be human, which is a factor into blending in to society. And because their level of adaptation is so high, they partook in events that impacted the world greatly in separate countries, but not all of them were good. More than often, they caused problems that pretty much nobody wanted. One of the biggest examples is that the Ashinru had separated themselves into factions and had a war amongst each other.

The reason as to why the Ashinru fought in the war was pretty much because they were dragged into it, whether they liked it or not. The Ashinru, as a species, had trio that outranked them all: Tsutou (1st), Aiden (2nd), and Flere (3rd). Aiden had originally waged war on Tsutou because Tsutou was messing around with his descendents (or ruining their lives if you want to call it that), which he was not pleased about. So he devised a plan that during the war, Tsutou would have to fight against her own creations that she considered her children, not to mention that some of the Ashinru were already unsure of Tsutou's "rule" and her unjust punishments, so to say. So it's basically, "wow creator you're horrible let us be on our own". So the Ashinru that had those kinds of thoughts sided with Aiden, those who were still loyal to Tsutou sided with her, and Flere did not side with either of them, remaining neutral until his thoughts were invaded by the idea that he’ll benefit from having his own faction against the two, creating his own faction. Even though the three beings hold very strong powers and whatnot, their decisions of making Good Life Decisions are usually overwhelmed by whims and whatever seemed like a good idea at the time--but mostly Tsutou and Aiden. In short, this war can be likened to a child throwing his fit and rallying up a bunch of other kids who didn't disagree with his mom and setting them against her.

Not really a good idea.

When you have an all-out fight with species that have special powers that are difficult to kill, you would expect the world to suffer some sort of damage--only that one of the Ashinru had spread rumors about that specific day (January 17, 2030) signified the end of the world. It was more or less true, due to the fact that most Ashinru did not care who was caught up in between their whole mess and most of the human population was done away with only as a byproduct of their war. As cliche as it is, the apocalypse--World's End--had finally come into being. People died, the world was filled with rubble, and the world was void of most life. However, the creator of the Ashinru had found a way to restore everything back to its original state before the war without actually rewinding time itself after the war was over. The end result was that the beings who actively participated in the war as one of the factions (or considered neutral) remembered the event while the others (the average human who were caught up in the war) did not. January 17, 2030 was known to be the day that nobody remembers and the war participants are more than reluctant to talk about it anyway, most likely to keep it under wraps.

The world, as a whole, progressed without much change after that.

Background;

The thing about Damien is that, he used to be another person. Damien, as he is now, is the result of sealing the Big Bad and giving him a "clean slate" of sorts, which I will explain here.

He was originally born as Shinuto Yuuzaki as the middle child of his four other siblings. However, he was taken away from his family due to the Corruption building up inside him. Shinuto was mostly human, but what little Ashinru heritage that was mixed in took over and a higher being decided to raise the Corruption for kicks. The Corruption is a trait among the Ashinru that in exchange for mental stability, they would temporarily be stronger than usual. However, Shinuto had no powers, let alone barely move because he started showing signs when he was around two years old. His existence was hushed to the point that his younger sisters did not even realize that he existed as they grew up (because he was kidnapped before they were even born).

The higher being mentioned in the background only spiked Shinuto's Corruption up for kicks. We will call this being "Kanoe". He watches these things from another dimension and has some sort of antagonism with Tsutou and so forth he is basically set on ruining whatever Tsutou has. He does things because he can and wants--but mostly to relieve his boredom and he gets a kick out of everyone’s suffering. If one person suffers, the people who care for that person suffer, and so on. Kanoe, like Tsutou and Aiden, does things on whim; there is really no good reason as to why he does these terrible things except maybe to see the look of anguish on people's faces. If Tsutou has reign over creation, Kanoe has control over destruction. To tamper with Corruption, all Kanoe needs to do is break the limiter that is hidden within the Ashinru (no matter how small their connection is to the particular species) and then he just watches things unfold.

Shinuto was kept in a separate dimension called the "Quarantine Room" to keep his Corruption from spiking even more because the Ashinru, at that stage, did not have a method to decrease it, so they could only suppress it for now. Because Shinuto was a young child that retained his appearance as an eight-year-old, Shinuto still retained the same childlike qualities because he is technically a shut-in inside the Quarantine Room and interaction is necessary for children. As if to offer condolences, they sent him an Ashinru named Janus who would reside in the same room as he is to fulfill the interaction quota and that Shinuto would not have to be alone in the dim room.

Aside from interacting with Janus, there is also a screen that is comfortably positioned in front of a chair that Shinuto usually sits in and it captures the moments where his siblings are the main focus. The screen showed Shinuto about his siblings was due to a small wish he had, which was granted by Kanoe (knowing that it would further his suffering)--

"Did I have siblings?"

"How are they doing?"

"Are they better off without me?"

Obviously--be careful what you wish for because the screen isn't going away now. Because of this, Shinuto is always reminded of how he's not with his siblings and that he'd been forcibly torn apart from them, making him feel lonely, even though Janus is there with him. Not to mention that in addition to seeing his siblings, he can also hear their thoughts as if the screen was connected with the siblings themselves, blasting them in surround sound and whatnot. While he didn't understand more than half of the things they were thinking about, their emotions were expressed very clearly across the screen. When they were in trouble, crying for help, experiencing bitterness and jealousy due to misunderstandings--for Shinuto, it's really like the audience screaming at the television to advise the characters to not do a certain action, but they wouldn't hear it anyway. Most of Shinuto's life was like that: desperately screaming at the screen in an attempt to reach his siblings, because he knew everything that was going on like an observer, yet he couldn't do anything. Then he kind of... watched their deaths on screen. It was not pleasant at all to say the very least. Even though Shinuto would have been nearly in his mid-thirties by the time his siblings pass away, his mentality is still stuck on being eight-years-old. An eight year old watching his siblings die once he realizes what death is the hard way can't really be good for the soul... after witnessing horrid scenes on the screen, the Quarantine Room has been quiet from then on. Additionally, Janus isn't doing anything to stop Shinuto from watching, because Janus (unknowingly to the three top beings) is under Kanoe’s control for some part which is why he doesn't stop Shinuto from watching his siblings' suffering on screen. However, he does console him afterwards when he needs it. It's August 2, 2010.

From then on to the year 2029, the Quarantine Room had been showing signs of failure as Shinuto's Corruption Rate only started to increase, although slowly, as time passed. However, one day... Shinuto and Janus had "mysteriously vanished from the Quarantine Room" and nobody knew why. Remember when Kanoe spiked up Shinuto's Corruption Rate in the first place? Yeah. He came back only years later to screw things up again. Only this time, he forcibly raises Shinuto's Corruption Rate up to 100% and fuses his existence with Janus, giving him an older body that's physically around 19 and holds all of Janus's ridiculous powers. This is the birth of the Catalyst with no formal name.

Why is he called the Catalyst? He's the one that speeds up the war to the finish line in January 18, 2030. When the Catalyst came into being, he lost most of his memories of what he had seen and experienced and generally becomes a cluster of negativity within himself. Not to mention that if he does remember things from when he was a child, they were all primarily bad things such as his siblings getting killed in a very vivid manner in his mind. In the war, he pretty much indiscriminately killed everything (most of the humans and a good percentage of the Ashinru were done in by him). Things don't end well if you give reality bending powers to a person that is harboring too much negativity. However, the Catalyst only came in near the end of the war when over half of the participants of the war had been annihilated and the only impact he had on the war was to kill all the remaining participants by literally shutting down all the Ashinru's minds.

However, one of the higher ranking Ashinru stepped in and sealed the Catalyst before it could cause even more destruction, compressing, converting and modifying his existence into a more harmless form. With all the modifications, the higher ranking Ashinru sealed the Catalyst's memories, powers and reduced him to a mere normal young boy. Damien is the result of the Catalyst being under lock and key with a clean slate. If the key unlocks his "potential", he might as well wake up to being the Catalyst again, so it really is like "putting a band-aid on a really big problem". Damien is treated as a normal boy and was implanted fake memories of his "earlier life" of a quite normal lifestyle. Then he's sent to one of the war participants that wasn't an Ashinru and asks him to take care of him. Damien calls this particular person "Caretaker" even though said caretaker is... only 16 years old. Damien gets along with his caretaker though. They're on decent terms.

Personality;

These three factors are the primary influences that shape Damien into what he is today: what he had "experienced" in his fake memories, the unconscious link to what he was (Shinuto and the Catalyst) as an unconscious influence, and the people that he usually hangs around with (mostly his caretaker).

Damien is reserved and has the traits that would point to him being an introvert. He is more of an observational type of person who has something to say every now and then, but he mostly keeps his mouth shut to look at others to see how they react and cautiously thinks accordingly before he blurts out anything. This part of his personality stems from his fake memories when he was told that he must be a good kid, but not too good so that people would take advantage of him, don't be vague and state what he wants, don't let your emotions carry you away and more. These memories were implanted in his mind so that he doesn't find it strange that he would actually act this way because of the unconscious influence from Shinuto and the Catalyst. Even though Damien is not aware of the lives he once had as Shinuto Yuuzaki and the Catalyst, he still feels some kind of connection with them and shares similarities. This unconscious influence is what makes Damien feel that magic is a normal part of everyday life, even if he "has never seen it before or used it" because the Catalyst was a proficient magic user and Shinuto had witnessed magic quite often on the screen. Basically, the fake memories that were implanted within Damien's mind are there to avoid any suspicions that Damien is anything from the norm and that he can keep carrying on with his everyday life with his caretaker.

Despite how Damien is thirteen, he doesn't go to school. He had been "tutored" in his fake memories enough to have basic knowledge, but he just doesn't get sent to school. This is mostly to limit the possible stress and peer pressure so that Damien does not venture on to the "bad path". It would only make others worry that he may somehow become the Catalyst again in case the seal breaks. Since he doesn't go to school, Damien stays in his caretaker's house, usually alone, since his caretaker and the caretaker's mother are out fulfilling their roles in society (working, schooling, etc). Due to this, Damien's social skills are not exactly the best and usually keeps himself busy without having to trouble others for his needs (or tries not to at least), but knows when it is necessary to--such as asking his caretaker to cook food for him because Damien doesn't know how. He knows better than to touch the stove when he doesn't know how to use it correctly. This is another trait of Damien's--and it's weighing out the pros and the cons in his head. He usually does this when he feels calm, but just like any other person when he's mostly driven by emotions and curiosity, he fails to make rational decisions and goes against what is supposedly safe, such as sneaking out the house at night to visit somebody. However, he is still cautious most of the time to avoid getting caught up into things that would get him punished by his caretaker.

In an additional note, since Damien is not going to school and all the tutoring stopped, his curiosity only grows and then he starts wanting to know many, many things that he has no knowledge of. This is why he usually carries a dictionary around with him in case he doesn't understand a word that a person said so that he can look it up and follow through the conversation accordingly. It may seem a little awkward to the other person since they have to stand there and wait until Damien looks up the word, but Damien fails to realize this because of the lack of knowledge in social cues and the like.

He is intelligent in the academic area somewhat, but he doesn't quite understand why people sometimes do what they do. Well, of course this is him being a kid and all so he doesn't understand. Also, Damien doesn't like being looked down on and therefore, he attempts to be mature, which he figures is a calm person that can follow through in almost any situation without getting caught off-guard and offer solid advice. This in itself, reflects how childish his thinking is because of that whole "nobody will listen to me seriously if I'm like a kid, so to get them to listen to me, I have to be mature". Due to this, he adapts to his situations without much of a fuss, believing that he has to be the calm one. However, his kid-like qualities show themselves once in a while, which includes naivety, calling another names (but it's mostly his caretaker that gets the brunt of this), and being mildly passive aggressive when he's irritated.

Damien tends to be this quiet little kid who reads a lot, and that's really not so far from the truth. When he's left all by himself in the house, he usually gets out his Kindle and starts reading stories. He's usually alone most of the time too, so this is what shaped his personality somewhat. His caretaker gives him allowance every now and then to buy whatever book he wants to read off the Kindle market. However, his caretaker doesn't really... watch over to see which books Damien chooses to read on Kindle and it usually ends up being stories like the original fairy tales (sadly the only version of Sleeping Beauty he knows is the version when she woke up due to the pain of childbirth instead of the prince's kiss) and other stories that kids would not... normally read. Despite the material, Damien reads them all with a straight face. If he hears about something from other people (rumors), watches the horrific news in television, or reads about immoral things, he tends to shrug it off and move on. This could be another influence of the unconscious link, but the world that he lives in is also to blame since he was always told that people are not always good people that they seem to come off as (in his fake memories, but the point is still there). Reading is kind of like Damien's only comfort when he's alone in the house, actually. He doesn't like being cooped up in the house, regardless of the weather outside. This is likely due to the days when Shinuto was constantly kept in the Quarantine Room and the general dislike of being inside cramped spaces. Even though it was a fake memory--the moment when he was trapped in the elevator proved to be quite traumatizing.

A noteworthy relationship Damien has is with his caretaker. His caretaker is around 16 years old and Damien is 13--there's somewhat of an age gap, but Damien talks to his caretaker as if they're more like friends than anything else. Damien is also more open to his caretaker than anybody else and feels that he can relax around him despite how it's only been several months since his caretaker took him in. He feels so relaxed that Damien even does impressions of other people sometimes--mostly to get a good laugh out of his caretaker because his caretaker doesn't really... laugh a lot. The boy just feels that he can trust his caretaker because he's... well, his caretaker. Even though Damien does spit out some mean comments to him every now and then, he does genuinely care for him. He loves his caretaker a lot.

When Damien meets a stranger, he first feels a little wary from what he has been told, but if the stranger shows genuine good intentions from what he thinks are good intentions, he'll slowly become less wary. Of course, he knows when talking to strangers is necessary--such as answering the door when the pizza is here, asking a stranger for directions to a certain place in case if he ever gets lost and more. Damien is not really a shy person, but cautious of others.

The first and foremost thing that Damien does not like are orange eyes. Not red, gold, silver, or whatever other color that seems abnormal--but orange. It could be said as an irrational fear of some sort, but it makes him be on guard the instant he sees it. This is mostly due to the unconscious influence of the Catalyst (again) because when the Catalyst was being sealed by the higher being, said being had orange eyes. It somehow creates the connection of restricting his freedom and Damien really, really hates that. Sometimes he feels that he has to sneak out of the house to feel that remind himself that he's not really as trapped as he feels, much to his caretaker's dismay. Because of this, climbing fences and jumping over them became something he could do with little trouble. Of course it would take time do it on his own, but he would climb over it successfully.

In short, Damien is a curious little boy that hates being cooped up in a single location that has been influenced by what he was, even though he doesn't realize it himself.